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HARPER'S 


MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


VOLUME  CXXXL 


JUNE  TO  NOVEMBER,  1915 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
HARPER  y  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

1915 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  CXXXI 

JUNE  TO  NOVEMBER,  1915 


Afternoon  in  Pont-Croix,  An 

Herbert  Adams  Gibbons  690 
Illustrations  in  Tint  by  Lester  G.  Hornby. 

Alan  of  Lesley.    A  Story 

Brian  Hooker  681 
Illustrations  by  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green. 

American  Aphorisms 

Brander  Matthews  864 

American  Historical  Liars 

Albert  Bushnell  Hart  726 

At  Twilight.    A  Story 

Gwendolen  Overton  790 
Illustration  by  T.  K.  Hanna. 

Aunt  Mary,  Preferred.    A  Story 

Howard  Brubaker  763 
Illustrations  by  F.  Strothmann. 

Bagdad,  City  of  the  Kalifs 

William  Warfield  905 
Illustrated  with  Photographs. 

Battle  of  Frogtown  Harbor,  The.    A  Story 

Howard  Brubaker  220 
Illustrations  by  F.  Strothmann. 

Blasphemer,  The.    A  Story 

Olivia  Howard  Dunbar  59 

City  Summers 

Harrison  Rhodes  3 
Illustrations  in  Tint  by  Howard  Giles. 

Close  of  John  Hay's  Career,  The 

Compiled  and  Edited  by  William 

Roscoe  Thayer   362 

From  his  Unpublished  Letters  and  Diaries. 

Colleges  and  Mediocrity,  The 

Henry  Seidel  Canby  423 

Company  Dinner,  The.    A  Story 
Margaret  Cameron  and  Jessie  Leach 

Rector  719 
Illustrations  by  Edward  L.  Chase. 

Compensation  and  Business  Ethics 

Robert  W.  Bruere  210 

Constance  the  Parasite.    A  Story 

Alice  Cowdery  782 

Current  Literature  and  the  Colleges 

Henry  Seidel  Canby  230 

Customs  of  an  Irish  County,  The 

Maude  Radford  Warren  248 
Illustrated  with  Photographs. 


Day  at  Douarnenez,  A 

Herbert  Adams  Gibbons  340 
Illustrations  in  Tint  by  Lester  G.  Hornby. 

Do  Insects  Migrate  Like  Birds? 

Howard  J.  Shannon  609 
Illustrated  with  Drawings  by  the  Author. 

Editor's  Drawer.  .  155,  317,  479,  641,  803,  965 

INTRODUCTORY  STORIES 

"Mumping  the  Mumps,"  by  Howard 
Brubaker  (illustrations  by  T.  D.  Skid- 
more),  155;  "The  Tale  of  a  Daghestan 
Rug,"  by  Arthur  Guiterman  (illustra- 
tions by  Vida  Lindo  Guiterman),  317; 
"A  Dumb-waiter  Destiny,"  by  Dana 
Burnet  (illustrations  by  Arthur  William 
Brown),  479;  "Uncle  Joe's  Romance," 
by  Lee  Shippey  (illustrations  by  C. 
Clyde  Squires),  641;  "Mr.  'Possum's 
Sick  Spell,"  by  Albert  Bigelow  Paine 
(illustrations  by  Conde),  803; 
"L'Homme  Propose  et  Femme  Dis- 
pose," by  van  Tassel  Sutphen  (illus- 
trations by  Monte  Crews),  965. 

Editor's  Easy  Chair  W.  D.  Howells 

148,  310,  473,  634,  796,  957 

Editor's  Study  Henry  Mills  Alden 

152,  314,  477,  638,  800,  961 

"  Every  Summer."    A  Story 

Keene  Abbott  95 
111  ustrations  by  Denman  Fink. 

Experience,  An.    A  Story 

W.  D.  Howells  940 

Eyes  of  the  Blind,  The.    A  Story 

Mary  Heaton  Vorse  16 
Illustrations  by  F.  Walter  Taylor. 

Friendly  Chickadee,  The 

Walter  Prichard  Eaton  772 
Illustrations  by  Walter  King  Stone. 

Herdsmen  of  the  Deep 

William  Harnden  Foster  83 
Illustrations  by  William  Harnden  Foster 

Heritage.    A  Story 

Wilbur  Daniel  Steele  298 
Illustrations  by  F.  E.  Schoonover. 

Honor  Bright.    A  Story 

Meredith  Nicholson  351 
Illustrations  by  Worth  Brehm, 

Horatio.    A  Story 

Kate  Langley  Bosher  736 
Illustrations  by  John  Alonzo  Williams. 


CONTENTS  iii 

Hypothetical  Case,  A.    A  Story  Miss    Donnithorne's    Arabian  Night. 

Norman  Duncan  118  A  Story  Marie  Manning  139 

Illustrations  by  Walter  Biggs. 

In  Charleston  W.    D.    Howells  747 

Illustrations  by  Alice  R.  Huger-Smith.  Mr.  Uurgan   Rides   Down  Cupid.  A 

Story.  .  .  .Maude  Radford  Warren  465 

In  Search  of  a  New  Land  Illustrations  by  Walter  Biggs. 

Donald  B.  MacMillan  651,  921  A/r     c   .f ,    D                *  o 

Illustrated  with  Photographs  and  Map.  Mr'  Swift  s  Romance.    A  Story 

Mane  Manning  869 

In  Shakespeare's  America  Illustrations  by  John  Alonzo  Williams. 

William  Aspenwall  Bradley  436  New  England  Pippa,  A.    A  Story 

Illustrations  by  W.  J.  Duncan.  Mary  Esther  Mitchell  948 

Interview  with  Napoleon's  Brother,  An  Illustrations  by  W.  H.  D.  Koerner. 

James  K.  Paulding  813  Obstacle,  The.    A  Story 

Illustrated  with  Photographs.  Leila  Burton  Wells  600 

In  the  Fifties  E.  S.  Martin  594  Illustrations  by  T.  K.  Hanna. 

Islands  of  Shetland,  The  One  and  the  Other,  The.    A  Story 

Maude  Radford  Warren  105  #  * 

V.  H.  Cornell  839 

Illustrated  with  Photographs.  Illustrations  by  Hermann  C.  Wall. 

John  Hay  and  the  Panama  Republic  One  Hundred  Years  Hence 

Compiled  and  Edited  by  William  Alan  Sullivan  943 

Roscoe  Thayer                              165  One  of  Those  Nice  Little  Evenings.  A 

From  the  Unpublished  Letters  of  John  Hay.  Story  Stephen    Whitman  38 1 

Illustrated  with  Photographs.  Illustrations  in  Tint  by  May  Wilson  Preston. 

John  Hay's  Statesmanship  Party  of  the  Third  Part,  The 

Compiled  and  Edited  by  William  Walter  E.  Weyl  675 

Roscoe  Thayer                                25  n     ..      .      ,      T            .  0 

From  his  Unpublished  Letters.    Illustrated  Fatn«a>  Angel-at-Large.    A  Story  in 

with  Photographs.  1  hree  rarts 

t  1     Tj    »    y  •  1   t)  u  Margaret  Cameron  36,  257,  369 

John  Hay  s  Years  with  Roosevelt 

Compiled  and  Edited  by  William  Pirates!    Pirates!    Louise  Closser  Hale  266 

Roscoe  Thayer                                577  Illustrations  in  Tint  by  Walter  Hale. 

From  the  Unpublished  Letters  and  Diaries  point  of  Honor,  A.    A  Story 

of  John  Hay.  Norman  Duncan  914 

"Landscape:  Pan  and  the  Wolf  "    By  J.  Recent  Experiments  with  Homing  Birds 

Alden    Weir.    Comment    by    W.  John  g   ^atSQn  ^ 

btanton  Howard        ....                246  Illustrated  with  Photographs  and  a  Diagram. 
Engraved  on  Wood  by  Henry  Wolr  from  the 

Original  Painting.  Red  Men  of  the  Guianan  Forests,  The 

t         1      t t     -\t    np            -p,  Charles  Wellington  Furlong  C27 

Lane  that  Has  No  Turning,  The  Illustrated  with  Photographs. 

bimeon  btrunsky  489 

Illustrations  by  W.  J.  Duncan.  Return  of  Martha,  The.    A  Story 

t       c      jrinj       j    tl.  Alice  Brown  429 

Last  Stand  of  the  Redwoods,  ihe  Illustrations  by  C.  E.  Chambers. 
Henry  Seidel  Canby  46 

Illustrated  with  Photographs.  Return  to  Favor,  The.    A  Story 

•          1     ao  W.  D.  Howells  278 
Lost  and  round.    A  btory 

Elizabeth  Robins  500  Roscoe  the  Invincible.    A  Story 

r>                            .  Alice  Cowdery  446 

Manager  of  Crystal  Sulphur  Springs,  Illustrations  by  John  Alonzo  Williams. 

The.    A  Story  Susan  Glaspell  176  „,  _ 

Illustrations  by  Worth  Brehm.  RoYal  WaY>  The-    A  Story 

.      .   „  Mrs.  Henry  Dudeney  237 

Man's  Right,  A.    A  Story  y             y  J/ 

Helen  R.  Hull    73  Sad-Glad  Lady,  The.    A  Story 

Illustrations  by  Howard  Giles.  Rebecca  Hooper  Eastman  567 

,  ,         .    .        .       .   n  Illustrations  by  Denman  Fink. 
May  Flitting,  A.    A  Story 

Grace  A.  Croff  124  Saint,  The.    A  Story ..  Harrison  Rhodes  619 

Illustrations  by  C.  E.  Chambers.  o     1     •     a  1                 r  o-  on 

sardonic  Adventure  or  bimeon  Small, 

Militant  Moment  of  Lou  Grey,  The.  The.    A  Story 

A  Story  Madge  Jenison  895  Clarence  Budington  Kelland  538 

Illustrations  by  May  Wilson  Prestom   Illustrations  by  May  Wilson  Preston. 


IV 

Sea-Green 


CONTENTS 


A  Story 

Katharine  Fullerton  Gerould  327 
Illustrations  by  N.  C.  Wyeth. 

Show-down,  The.    A  Story 

Holworthy  Hall  197 
Illustrations  by  T.  K.  Hanna. 

Side  of  the  Angels,  The.    A  Novel 

Basil  King   395,  549,  700,  879 

Illustrations  by  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green. 


umeon 


Small- 


Peacemaker.    A  Story 
Clarence  B.  Kelland  666 
Illustrations  by  May  Wilson  Preston. 

Somebody's  Mother.    A  Story 

W.  D.  Howells  523 

Sophie  So-and-So.    A  Story 

Marjory  Morten  416 
Illustrations  by  Howard  Giles. 

Southward  from  the  Golden  Gate 

Alice  Cowdery  129 
Illustrations  by  Walter  Hale. 

Steamboating  Through  Dixie 

W.  J.  Aylward  512 
Illustrations  in  Tint  by  the  Author. 

Sweet-flowering  Perennial.    A  Story 

Mary  E.  Wilkins  Freeman  287 
Illustrations  by  Howard  E.  Smith. 


To  the  Home  of  Pierre 

Howard  E.  Smith  829 
Illustrations  by  Howard  E.  Smith. 

Unemployment  and  Business 

Elbert  H.  Gary  70 

Visitor,  The.    A  Story.  .G.  P.  Helm  67 

Wake,  The.    A  Story ....  Donn  Byrne  758 

Waterway  to  Dixie,  The 

W.  J.  Aylward  185 
Illustrations  by  W.  J.  Aylward. 

Way  of  the  Reformer,  The.    A  Story 

Howard  Brubaker  586 
Illustrations  by  F.  Strothmann. 

Ways  of  the  Woodchuck,  The 

Walter  Prichard  Eaton  853 
Illustrations  in  Tint  by  Walter  King  Stone. 

Wedding-gifts.    A  Story.  .Alice  Brown  822 
Illustrations  -by  Hawthorne  Howland. 

White  Elephant,  The.    A  Story 
Margaret  Cameron   and  Jessie 

Leach   Rector  626 

Illustrations  by  Edward  L.  Chase. 

Whose  is  this  Image?    A  Story 

Olivia  Howard  Dunbar  931 
Illustrations  by  Edward  L.  Chase. 

Wire,   The.  ...  Robert  Welles  Ritchie  281 


Aspiration  ;  Dana  Burnet  695 

Cloud,  The  Sara  Teasdale  184 

Dedication  Dana  Burnet  196 

Frost  Song  Katharine  Warren  771 

Guest,  The  Mary  Samuel  Daniel  599 

Haunted  Hildegarde    Hawthorne  175 

Herb  of  Grace.  .Amelia  Josephine  Burr  236 

Heretic,  The  William  Rose  Benet  828 

Hidden  Love.  ..  .Margaret  Widdemer  128 

Flow  Strange  It  Seems! 

Ellen  M.  H.  Gates  350 

"I  Shall  Not  Cry  Return" 

Ellen  M.  H.  Gates  219 

Mysteries  Charles  Hanson  Towne  138 

"Oh,  Tell  Me  How  My  Garden  Grows!" 

Mildred  Howells  394 

Open  Door,  The.  .Mary  Samuel  Daniel  229 

"O  Restless  Leaf!".  .Edith  M.  Thomas  942 


POEMS 

Plea,  The  Louis  Dodge  757 

Renunciation  Ameen  Rihani  339 

Return,  The  Arthur  Guiterman  838 

Revelation..  John  Masefield  593 


Road  to  Tartary,  The 

Bernard  Freeman  Trotter  94 


Stars  Before  the  Dawn,  The 

Frances  Dorr  Swift  Tatnall 


45 


Spring  in  War-time  E.  Nesbit  82 

To  the  Gardener 

Ruth  Wright  KaufFman  939 

Uncharted  Virginia  Watson  947 

When  I  Go  Walking  in  the  Woods 

Richard  Le  Gallienne  147 

When  I  Grow  Old  Ethel  R.  Peyser  69 

When  Life  Comes  Knocking  at  Thy 

Door  Lucine   Finch  456 

World  Voice,  The  Bliss  Carman  920 


Painting  by  Howard  Giles  Illustration  for  "City  Summers" 


THE    HANGING    GARDENS    OF    BABYLON    HAVE    THEIR    COUNTERPARTS  TO-DAY 


Harpers  Magazine 


City  Summers 


BY  HARRISON  RHODES 


HE  dreadful  truth  about 
the  summer  is  that  most 
of  it  is,  by  most  of  us, 
spent  in  work  rather 
than  in  play.  The  sum- 
mer blazes  through 
three  splendid  months, 
the  average  vacation  lasts  through  three 
weeks  at  best,  and  is  gone.  The  holiday 
season,  paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  is 
spent  at  the  desk  or  in  the  workshop, 
and  the  so-called  empty  town  swarms 
with  people  as  the  country  never  does. 

Copyright,  191 5,  by  Harper  & 


The  city  summer  is  indeed  the  general 
fate  of  humankind. 

All  of  us  have  read,  doubtless  many 
of  us  have  written,  the  articles  which 
appear  regularly  in  the  newspapers  upon 
our  great  cities  as  summer  resorts — they 
are  indeed  the  classics  of  journalism,  and 
much  of  their  philosophy  must  unavoid- 
ably be  repeated  here.  But  some  of 
their  strongest  arguments  have  become 
weakened  with  time.  Chief  among  them 
was  the  statement  that  only  in  your  flat 
in  town  could  you  enjoy  the  real  luxury 

Brothers.    All  Rights  Reserved. 


4 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  the  bath.  Plumbing  is  now  all- 
pervasive;  Mr.  Punch,  commenting 
upon  us  from  his  tin-tubbed  England, 
says  that  now,  of  course,  no  simple  sum- 
mer hotel  in  America  dreams  of  having 
less  than  two  bath-rooms  for  each  bed- 
room! So  luxurious  have  we  become, 
too,  that  fresh  country  eggs,  milk,  and 
vegetables  are  now  supplied  to  the  in- 
habitants of  the  remotest  rural  districts. 
And  disappearing  is  that  lovely  tradi- 
tional woman  who,  refusing  to  leave 
the  town,  entertained  so  pleasantly  at  a 
ridiculously  inexpensive  dinner  her  hus- 
band and  all  his  male  friends — she  her- 
self, so  the  articles  always  specifically 


THE  CITY  SUMMER  IS  THE  GENERAL  FATE  OF  HUMANKIND 


stated,  "fresh  from  a  hot  tub"  and 
"delightfully "  attired  in  "something 
crisp  and  cool." 

It  is  perhaps  the  automobile  which  is 
changing  all  this.  The  delightful  male 
friends  who  ply  her  with  their  pleasant 
and  honorable  attentions  can  now  easily 
motor  to  the  near-by  country  where  she 
lives,  from  which  she  comes  to  town 
often  to  dine  at  some  summer  restaurant 
and  to  do  a  "show"  at  some  roof-garden 
theater.  In  the  quaint  days  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  it  was  eccentric — almost 
dishonorable — to  be  seen  in  town  in  mid- 
summer. Do  you  remember  the  legends 
about  those  families  who,  pretending 
they  had  gone  to  Long 
Branch  or  Saratoga, 
really  lived  in  the  back 
of  the  house  and  only 
went  out,  furtively, 
by  night?  Nowadays 
it  is  astonishing  how 
many  things  seem  to 
bring  people  up  from 
the  country  for  a  night 
or  two,  and  how  fash- 
ionable and  gay  such 
expeditions  are.  It  is 
smart,  too,  to  be  pass- 
ing through  from  Long 
Island  to  Newport,  or 
from  Bar  Harbor  to 
Lenox,  and  to  pause 
upon  the  wing.  The 
people  whom  you  see 
in  town  in  August  are 
nowadays  extremely 
pleased  with  them- 
selves, rather  proud 
of  being  there.  Their 
eyes  are  clear,  and 
they  bring  to  city 
pleasures  an  unbound- 
ed enthusiasm.  The 
great  truth  is  being 
constantly  rediscov- 
ered that  nothing  gives 
one  such  a  zest  for 
the  town  as  a  little 
time  in  the  country. 

And  the  town — the 
great  working  town 
which  knows  little  of 
fashion  and  motors 
and  the  country — feels 
the  arrival  of  the  holi- 


"  SUNDAES  "  AND  "  COLLEGE  ICES  "  MARK  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  MODERN  SODA-WATER  FOUNTAIN 


day  spirit,  even  while  it  toils.  There 
are,  after  all,  half-holidays  and  early 
closings.  There  are  twilights  prolong- 
ing the  day  and  warm  nights  crowd- 
ing the  pleasure-parks  and  suburban 
beaches.  It  is  tacitly  understood  that 
labor  is  to  take  things  a  little  easily. 
Mortality  among  the  grandmothers  of 
office-boys  is  expected  to  run  high  dur- 
ing the  baseball  season,  and  no  one  be- 
grudges the  lads  an  extra  bereavement  or 
two  when  the  championship  is  at  stake. 
The  town  in  summer  is  not  merely  hot — 
it  is  genial.  And  with  each  succeeding 
year  it  becomes  pleasanter  as  a  habita- 
tion. 

The  time  was — it  is  not  yet  so  very 
distant — when  the  chief,  almost  the  only, 
possible  recreation  during  the  heated 
spells  in  town  was  drinking  soda-water. 
And  this  is  still,  perhaps,  the  king  of 


city  summer  sports.  There  are,  of 
course,  adepts  of  the  fountain  who  keep 
up  their  favorite  recreation  all  winter. 
Who  of  us  has  not  seen,  on  some  bleak 
January  day,  half-frozen  district  messen- 
ger-boys take  refuge  in  a  drug-store  and 
there  fortify  themselves  against  the  bit- 
ter cold  by  huge  mugs  of  ice-cream  soda  ? 
But  the  taste,  though  preserved  in  win- 
ter, is  formed  in  summer.  It  is  then 
that  doors  are  flung  wide  open  to  the 
street,  while  glittering  fountains,  tower- 
ing like  fairy  castles,  cast  their  magic 
spell  upon  those  who  pass  along  the 
burning  pavements.  In  certain  fortu- 
nate regions,  where  the  tide  of  national 
civilization  must  be  admitted  to  be  ris- 
ing very  high,  the  drug-store  serves  its 
soda  to  the  music  of  a  string-quartet, 
and,  in  one  happy  Southern  city,  to  the 
accompaniment  of  a  " cabaret  show." 


6 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Let  those  who  are  approaching  middle 
age  remember  the  corner  drug-store  of 
their  childhood,  with  its  modest  white- 
marble  fountain  dispensing  six  simple 
syrups.  Nothing  better  marks  the  tri- 
umphant progress  of  the  country,  the 


A  CONEY  ISLAND  FAIRYLAND 


richening  and  deepening  of  its  life,  than 
these  gorgeous  modern  sources  of  a  thou- 
sand strange  concoctions  of  exotic  names 
and  irresistible  allure. 

There  is  a  vast  science  of  drinking  at 
drug-stores — there  should  be  treatises 
on  "sundaes"  (why  "sundaes"?)  and 
text-books  on  the  art  of  choosing  "col- 
lege ices."  Yet  they  would  become  al- 
most immediately  obsolete,  so  constant 


is  the  flow  of  new  drinks  and  fantastic 
nomenclature  from  the  exuberant  fount 
of  our  national  imagination. 

Drinking,  to  the  refreshment  of  both 
body  and  soul,  is  important  in  the  city 
summer.  So  is  eating,  but  paradoxically 
it  is  almost  more  important 
not  to  eat  than  to  eat — 
that  is  to  say,  it  is  the 
fashion  to  eat  very  little. 
American  hot  weather  is 
really  hot,  and  American 
light  eating  really  light. 
Those  who  have  ever  hap- 
pened to  be  in  London  dur- 
ing one  of  those  British  heat- 
waves which  drive  the 
thermometer  up  beyond 
sixty-five,  are  familiar  with 
the  elaborate  advice  given 
by  the  newspapers ,  as  to 
diet  necessary  in  such  trop- 
ical moments.  Monsieur 
Adolphe  of  the  Savoy,  or 
Monsieur  Jacques  of  the 
Ritz,  is  always  inter- 
viewed; he  always  advises 
fruit,  cold  food,  little  meat, 
and  little  alcohol.  He  then 
submits  to  the  reporter  a 
characteristic  light  menu 
for  lunch,  the  sort  of  thing 
he  is  apparently  suggesting 
to  apoplectic  noblemen  and 
gentlemen.  It  is  usually 
something  like  this: 

Melon  cantaloup 
Consomme  froid  en  tasse 
Filet  de  sole  a  la  Normandie 
Chaudfroid  de  poulet  a  la 
neige 
Jambon  froid 
Salade  de  laitue 
Glace  aux  framboises 
Patisserie 

If  you  eat  no  more  than 
this,  says  the  great  authority,  and  drink 
only  perhaps  a  light  Mosel  cup  with  coffee 
and  liqueurs  to  follow,  you  will  not  over- 
heat the  blood  and  willbe'able,ifyou  man- 
age to  make  a  decent  tea,  to  last  comforta- 
bly till  dinner.  This  "  snack,"  if  one  may 
so  term  it,  can  be  secured,  so  it  appears, 
for  not  more  than  three  or  four  dollars 
a  head.  In  America  most  of  us  would 
be  in  luck  if  we  got  such  a  meal  in  mid- 


BAND    CONCERTS    ARE    THE    FIRST    TRAINING    OF    OUR    MUSIC-LOVING  PUBLIC 


SUNDAY  MORNING  WITH  THE  NEWSPAPERS 


winter.  The  problem  really  does  face 
our  matt  res  d' hotels  and  head-waiters  how 
to  make  small  meals  and  large  bills 
synonymous,  but  the  problem  does  not 
daunt  them.  There  are  plenty  of  ways, 
besides  spending  it  on  food,  of  making 
the  money  fly. 

Foreign  cities  merely  provide  charm- 
ing summer  restaurants  in  their  parks 
and  boulevards;  we  in  America  perform 
complete  Aladdin-like  transformations 
of  our  winter  haunts,  and  upon  our  dull 
flat  roofs  raise  magic  kiosques  of  pleas- 
ure. Rooms  heavy  with  brocade  and 
gold  are  lavishly  redecorated  with  green- 
latticed  walls,  garden  furniture,  and 
flowers  and  vines  swaying  in  the  cool 
current  from  countless  electric  fans.  As 
for  roof  gardens,  since  Babylon  hung 
them  above  the  dusky  splendors  of  her 
ancient  Broadway,  no  miracle  so  lovely 
has  been  wrought  in  the  hot  city  night. 
Trellises  of  flowering  creepers,  hedges 
and  arbors  of  box  and  bay,  parterres 


ever  freshly  blossoming,  pools  where  noc- 
turnal gold-fish  flash,  fountains  plashing 
and  cascades  coming  gaily  down  small, 
green-clad  precipices,  pergolas  and  cano- 
pies of  multicolored  lights,  and  the  high 
view  over  the  hot  brilliant  streets  and 
the  town  itself  flaunting  its  thousand 
electric  signs  against  the  paler  illumina- 
tion of  the  stars  and  moon — such  is  the 
fantastic  setting  which  the  twentieth 
century  provides  for  even  such  simple 
pleasures  as  a  lemonade.  Not,  indeed, 
that  roof-garden  beverages  are  neces- 
sarily of  this  simple  character — the  Ori- 
ent and  the  tropics  are  searched  for 
strangely  insidious,  wildly  named  drinks 
— and  the  introduction  of  one  of  them 
almost  always  merits  at  least  a  paragraph 
next  day  in  the  local  papers.  Such  things 
are  of  public  interest,  for  we  all,  when 
summer  comes,  do  to  some  extent  what 
Voltaire's  Candide  was  advised  to  do — 
we  cultivate  our  roof  garden. 

There  is  no  need  for  the  city-lover  to 


CITY  SUMMERS 


9 


disparage  the  country — it  is  well  enough, 
even  when  one  is  dining  in  town,  to  think 
of  moonlit  lawns,  or  the  long  swash  of 
the  surf,  or  the  lapping  of  some  little 
lake  upon  its  pebbly  shore.  But  the 
summer  town  is  for  some  moods  pleas- 
anter  than  the  pleasant  country.  Then 
the  fashionable  restaurant  is  perhaps  the 
best  place  to  catch  the  especial  note,  in- 
formal, gay,  and  elegant,  of  urban  hot 
weather. 

At  the  entrance,  guarded  by  a  chef's 
assistant  in  white  linen,  is  usually  the 
buffet  froidy  a  cool  expanse  (topped  with 
ice  sculpture  by  the  greatest  kitchen 
artists)  upon  which  lie  plates  of  strange 
eggs,  of  exotic  fish,  and  of  flesh  and  fowl 
masquerading  in  all  kinds  of  jellied  and 
truffled  disguises  (it  is  an  international 
affair,  this  cold  table— a  week  after  the 
grouse-shooting  opens 
on  the  British  moors, 
these  admirable  birds 
lie  waiting  your  pat- 
ronage at  the  restau- 
rant's door).  Near  by 
stand  the  suave  head- 
waiters,  always  sev- 
eral degrees  cooler 
than  the  thermometer, 
ready  to  exchange  the 
polite  compliments  of 
the  season  as  they 
show  you  your  table. 
There  is  no  question 
but  that  it  is  pleas- 
ant to  sit  under  a 
great  green-and-white 
striped  tent,  within 
an  inclosing  hedge  of 
clipped  box  and  flow- 
ers that  grow  as  they 
never  do  in  rural  airs, 
and  have  friendly 
aliens  bring  to  you, 
exquisitely  cooked,  the 
fresh  eggs  and  fish  and 
fruit  and  chickens — 
all  that  spoil  of  the 
country  which  can 
never  be  easily  secured 
except  in  town.  It  is 
pleasant  to  realize 
that  by  half-past  eight 
or  nine  all  the  fair 
fashionable  women, 
and  all  the  brave  rich 


men  left  in  the  desolate  town  will  have 
drifted  in  for  dinner.  It  is  pleasant  to  be 
in  a  short  coat,  if  indeed  you  are  not  in 
flannels.  It  is  agreeable  to  notice  that 
young  foreign  noblemen  and  other 
strangers  of  distinction  who  are  passing 
through  sometimes  appear  in  tropical 
costumes  of  pongee.  It  is  delightful  to 
find  what  pretty  frocks  women  find  it 
worth  while  to  wear,  and  certainly  not 
unpleasant  philosophically  to  contem- 
plate the  diaphanous  version  of  costume 
which  the  August  heats  make  possible, 
though  perhaps  not  exactly  necessary. 
It  is  soothing  to  realize  that  entertain- 
ments in  roof  gardens  and  musical  come- 
dies in  artificially  refrigerated  theaters 
can  be  as  well  visited  at  half-past  nine 
as  at  any  earlier  hour — perhaps  better. 
It  is  encouraging  to  remember  that 


PERPETUAL  DISPUTATIONS  ENGROSS  THE  BENCHES 


DANCING  HAS  BECOME  OUR  ONE  GREAT  NATIONAL  INTEREST 


motor-cars  and  taxicabs  exist,  and  that 
there  are  long  roads  through  shadowy 
parks,  and  in  all  the  surrounding  coun- 
try wayside  restaurants  upon  whose 
breezy  verandas  cooling  drinks  again 
may  flow.  Last,  and  perhaps  best  of 
all,  it  is  amazingly  heartening  to  know 
that  if  you  like  you  can  merely  go  home 
early  enough  to  get  a  good  night's  sleep. 

Of  summer  theaters  and  "shows"  in 
the  great  cities  there  is  perhaps  not  much 


to  be  said;  they  are  chiefly  notable,  and 
indeed  to  be  recommended,  according  to 
the  measure  in  which  they  lack  mental 
stimulus  and  supply  girls.  That  famous 
"tired  business  man"  comes  wholly  into 
his  own  in  the  hot  weather.  In  the 
smaller  places  he  is  subjected  to  a  more 
strenuous  discipline,  for  it  is  the  season 
of  stock  companies  which  plunge  head- 
long through  the  whole  dramatic  reper- 
tory and  give  many  of  our  leading  actors 


CITY  SUMMERS 


11 


and  actresses  some  slight  opportunity  to 
learn  to  act — a  chance  denied  them  dur- 
ing the  forty  successful  weeks  of  the 
winter,  all  spent  in  one  play.  Here  are 
— at  least  here  should  be,  according  to 
the  serious  dramatic  critics — the  The- 
atres Franqais  of  our  stage. 

Music,  heavenly  maid,  should  be  the 
chief  and  loveliest  ornament  of  the  town 
in  summer.  Perhaps  the  best  thing  to  be 
said  for  the  alarmists  who  wish  to  in- 
crease our  American  army  is  that  if  they 
succeeded  we  should  have  more  military 
bands,  more  concerts  in  the  parks,  and 
more  musical  evenings  gratis.  The  mat- 
ter might  suitably  be  subject  for  con- 
sideration at  The  Hague.  But  even  on 
a  peace  footing  the  flow  of  park  melody 
is  increasing — in  most  of  our  larger  cities 
there  are  many  band  concerts,  often  one 
somewhere  every  evening.  Sometimes 
they  are  good  concerts,  and  in  our  great 
metropolitan  centers  of  population  it  is 
on  such  occasions  that  you  get  a  sense 
of  the  artistic  sensibilities  and  traditions 
which  our  foreign-born  citizens  pack  in 
their  flimsy,  rope-bound  trunks  when 
they  make  the  great  migration  to  the 
West.  To  sit  under  the  park  trees  some 
August  night  (in  a  heat  that  might  in- 
deed at  once  melt  and  fuse  these  alien 
races)  and  watch  queer,  eager,  dark  faces 
light  up  all  around  you,  is  to  believe  that 
we  have  here  in  America,  from  one  source 
and  another,  all  the  materials  for  that 
"musical  public"  of  which  we  have  all 
so  long  talked  and  dreamed.  But  noth- 
ing so  unimportant  as  music — or  the 
drama — must  delay  the  majestic  and  in- 
evitable flow  of  our  thoughts  toward 
something  greater — the  dance. 

It  was  only  a  short  while  ago  that 
America  became  definitely  enmeshed  in 
the  tango,  tripped  up  by  the  turkey-trot. 
During  the  past  few  years  dancing  has 
been  almost  our  one  great  national  inter- 
est, as  indeed  it  appears  to  be  becoming 
the  chief  interest  of  every  other  great 
nation.  At  intervals  during  the  long, 
dim  history  of  our  ancient  world,  danc- 
ing manias  have  seized  upon  it.  Gen- 
erally the  frenzy  has  been  for  religion 
instead  of,  as  now,  for  hygiene  and  pleas- 
ure; but,  fantastic  though  it  may  ap- 
pear, the  present  craze  for  "rag-time" 
dancing  has  to  the  imaginative  observer 
something  of  the  same  barbaric  and  epic 

Vol.  CXXXI— No.  781.— 2 


quality.  When  Cleveland  opens  a  mu- 
nicipal dance-hall  in  one  of  her  parks,  it 
is  as  if  Rome  threw  open  the  Colosseum 
for  the  Saturnalia.  It  is  interesting  to 
see  the  mayors  of  cities,  who  in  modern 
American  life  have  replaced  the  church 
as  the  guardians  of  our  morals,  endeav- 
oring to  regulate  the  dance — why  do 
mayors  not  visit  Niagara  Falls  of  a  Sun- 
day and  try  to  stop  the  cataract  by 
throwing  a  little  sand  in  front  of  it?  The 
dance  regulates  itself,  and  the  action  of 
the  national  good  sense  and  taste  has 
already  worked  wonders  with  it.  The 
questionable  features  with  which  it  ar- 
rived— straight  from  San  Francisco's 
late  lamented  Barbary  Coast,  so  it  was 
alleged — have  already  subsided.  The 
"turkey-trot"  has  become  a  simple 
"one-step,"  and  since  we  are  naturally, 
as  dancers,  a  lithe  and  graceful  race, 
beauty  has  already  begun  to  emerge 
from  its  grotesqueness.  We  still  like 
rough  and  coarse  words  in  America,  and 
lovely  and  refined  young  girls  still  say 
that  they  do  the  "kitchen  sink"  or  hope 
to  learn  the  "hang-over"  (both  sweetly 
named),  but  the  dance  itself  has  grown 
charming.  Incidentally,  there  is  perhaps 
too  much  talk  of  its  "Americanism"  and 
its  "modernity."  The  "one-step"  as  it 
is  most  prettily  executed  by  us  is  exactly 
what  you  may  see  the  Spanish  peasants 
dance  upon  the  greensward  in  little  coun- 
try fiestas  of  a  Sunday  afternoon — little 
festivals  which  have  not  changed  their 
character  for  a  century. 

For  many  years  there  has  been  no 
dancing  in  towns  during  the  summer. 
There  was  an  early,  pleasant  period  of 
it  in  our  grandfathers'  and  great-grand- 
fathers' days,  when  our  great  cities  were 
still  almost  like  villages;  it  is  quaint  and 
agreeable  for  the  New-Yorker  to  read 
that  in  the  warm  weather  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century  they  had  "hop 
night"  at  the  old  Astor  House.  At  last 
we  are  again  able  to  dance  in  the  city — 
every  summer  night  is  "hop  night"  now. 
Th  ere  is  dancing  on  the  roofs,,  in  the 
moonlight,  on  the  verandas  of  suburban 
road-houses,  and  even  in  the  hot  dining- 
rooms  of  restaurants.  It  flourishes  in 
winter,  too,  but  in  the  city's  summer  it 
seems  somehow  more  spontaneous.  And 
the  pleasantest  feature  of  it  is  that  in 
th  ese  free,  wholesome  breezes  of  ours  the 


12 


HARPERS  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


dance-hall,  though  often  called  a  "Jar- 
din  "  or  a  "Palais  de  Danse,"  loses  what 
in  our  parlance  may  be  termed  its 
Parisian  quality.  It  is  the  respectable 
haunt,  if  not  exactly  of  families,  at  least 
of  young  men  and  young  women  who  in 
the  best  possible  way  cling  to  our  good 
old  tradition  that  the  American  girl 
needs  no  chaperon.  There  are  certain 
of  these  new  dancing-places  where,  so  it 
is  said,  an  official  introducer  will,  upon 
urgent  application  and  with  the  consent 
of  both  parties,  allow  the  forming  of  an 
acquaintance,  but  it  must  be  for  one 
dance  only!  In  the  intervals  of  per- 
formances by  the  general  and  amateur 
public,  professional  practitioners  appear 
upon  the  floor  in  "whirlwind  waltzes," 
or  stately  "tangoes"  from  the  Argen- 
tine, which  at  least  serve  the  pur- 
pose of  letting  the  public  get  its  breath 
for  the  next  round.  The  dance  is,  to 
sum  it  all  up,  the  one  new  great  feature 
of  our  American  summers.  It  must  ulti- 
mately have  some  considerable  effect  in 
diminishing  the  tide  of  travel  to  Europe, 
for  they  say  the  "  trotting  "  is  still  very 
bad  abroad. 

But  we  are  perhaps  keeping  too  long 
away  from  the  bathing-beaches;  the 
cooling-off  processes  of  the  summer  are, 
after  all,  more  permanently  important 
than  the  warming-up  ones.  A  beach, 
near  a  city,  is  wherever  water  of  any 
description  meets  land.  A  delightful  ex- 
ample is  a  resort  near  the  metropolis 
advertising  "surf-bathing,"  the  waves 
for  which  are  mechanically  produced  in 
a  large  fresh-water  tank  which  stands  on 
a  high  cliff  overlooking  a  river! 

The  cities  themselves  have  at  last 
come  to  see  that  they  must  begin  to  pro- 
vide their  citizens  with  chances  for  im- 
mersion. New  York  floats  baths  in  her 
great  salt  rivers,  Chicago  and  the  other 
lakeside  towns  utilize  the  parks  that  lie 
by  their  blue  inland  seas,  and  Boston  has 
constructed  a  palatial  establishment  on 
her  chief  beach.  But  more  interesting, 
fuller  of  the  piquant  contrasts  that  make 
our  latter-day  America  romantic,  is  the 
bathing-place  in  the  New  England  cap- 
ital which  lies  at  the  very  tip  of  the 
ancient  town,  under  the  shadow  of  Copp's 
Hill  and  that  lovely  steeple  of  the  Old 
North  Church  where  they  hung  the  lan- 
tern for  Paul  Revere.    There,  in  the 


grime  of  the  commercial  quarter,  by  the 
clatter  of  the  elevated  trains,  there  is  a 
small  cove  and  a  little  sandy  beach. 
(Near  by,  just  to  remind  us  that  Boston 
does  not  forget  her  slums,  at  morning  and 
night  floats  the  hospital-ship  which  daily 
carries  ailing  children  out  to  the  healing 
airs  of  the  great  bay  of  Massachusetts.) 
And  in  these  historic  waters  swim  and 
frolic  the  small  Irish  and  Italian  and 
Hebrew  progeny  of  Boston's  three  great 
alien  races.  There  is  a  swimming-mas- 
ter; there  are  races  under  his  direction 
and  that  of  local  committees  of  aquatic 
sportsmen.  There  is,  in  short,  under 
almost  impossible  conditions,  an  amaz- 
ing atmosphere  of  that  remoter  seaside 
where  the  rich  can  go,  and  it  is  brought 
to  the  very  door  of  the  tenements. 

Bathing  at  the  great  beaches  on  a 
Saturday  or  Sunday  or  a  hot  holiday  is 
on  a  gigantic,  almost  a  monstrous,  scale. 
The  capacity  of  sea  and  sands  becomes 
almost  a  matter  of  mathematical  compu- 
tation. Land  and  water  are  just  barely 
visible — the  human  body  and  bathing- 
suit  completely  fill  the  eye.  In  the 
waves  certain  restricted  arm  move- 
ments and  short  kicks  are  possible;  on 
the  beach  the  packing  literally  forces 
upon  the  observer  the  allusion  to  the  sar- 
dine. Coney  Island  may  stand  as  the 
type  and  symbol  of  such  beaches.  It 
is  the  arch  bathing-place  of  the  whole 
world — nowhere  else  do  so  many  hu- 
man beings  simultaneously  touch  water. 
There  the  tide  of  bathers  overflows  even 
beyond  the  sands.  Groups  may  be  dis- 
covered, still  in  swimming  costume,  sit- 
ting peacefully  down  to  eat  lunch  or  to 
imbibe  soda,  even  to  play  cards.  It  is 
regretted  by  many  that  dancing  in 
bathing-suits  is  forbidden  at  the  best 
pavilions.  The  ideal  of  a  large  part  of 
our  population  unquestionably  would  be 
to  spend  the  whole  day  in  a  bathing-suit; 
the  supremely  elegant  might  possibly, 
when  the  suit  was  dry,  pull  on  a  pair  of 
ordinary  trousers.  Such  a  life  permits 
of  the  burning  and  tanning  processes 
being  carried  on  to  perfection.  The  or- 
dinary American  young  man  realizes 
that  he  is  enjoying  himself  at  the  seaside 
only  when  his  skin  begins  to  peel.  And 
at  the  city  beaches,  the  bathers,  who  are 
all  snatching  a  mere  occasional  afternoon 
from  work,  can  afford  to  lose  no  time  at 


CITY  SUMMERS 


13 


the  serious  work  of  broiling  and  brown- 
ing- 

And  yet  it  is  difficult  even  for  them 
to  bathe  all  day,  for  a  myriad  other  de- 
lightful experiences  beckon,  so  tantaliz- 
ingly  rich  does  life  seem  at  our  pleasure- 
parks.  When  you  have  cooled  your 
blood  in  the  water  you  may  curdle  it  on 
land  by  risking  your  life  upon  roller- 
coasters,  or  in  the  loops,  or,  even  more 
satisfactorily,  by  seeing  others  risk  theirs 
in  various  foolhardy  exhibitions.  There 
is  a  melodramatic  richness  and  abandon 
in  the  language  used  to  advertise  such 
"  shows."  Automobile  races  are  pleas- 
antly described  as  "neck  to  neck  with 
Death,"  but  they  seem  mild  compared 
with  "auto  polo,"  which  is  alleged  to  be 
nothing  less  than  "Hell's  Pastime."  The 
appeal  to  primitive  emotion  is  indeed 
made  whenever  possible.  Most  of  the 
innumerable  "mirth  -  provoking"  de- 
vices reduced  to  their  essentials  are 
really  only  variants  of  the  funniest  thing 
in  the  world — the  man  who  slips  upon  a 
banana-peel.  The  philosopher  will  find 
food  for  his  meditations  everywhere — in 
fact  those  who  purvey  pleasure  to  the 
multitude  are  often  themselves  con- 
sciously philosophers.  For  example,  the 
manager  of  a  recent  successful  novelty 
which  displayed  a  wealth  of  cheap  crock- 
ery and  allowed  you  to  throw  a  ball  and 
smash  as  much  of  it  as  your  skill  per- 
mitted appealed  very  felicitously  to  the 
domestically  inclined  in  these  terms: 
"If  you  can't  do  it  at  home,  boys,  do  it 
here !" 

There  is  no  need  for  description  of  the 
various  amusements  of  the  summer  car- 
nival grounds;  almost  every  city  in  the 
country  has  its  Luna  Park,  modeled  on 
the  one  at  Coney  which  made  the  moon 
famous.  Comment  alone  is  possible. 
One  may  note,  for  example,  the  eternal 
appeal  of  gambling — how  for  almost 
twenty  years  now  the  Japanese  have 
flourished  on  the  rolling  ball,  the  dullest 
of  all  games.  One  may  call  attention  to 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  various  amusements 
in  the  public  favor — of  the  rifle-range,  for 
example,  which  after  long  years  seems  to 
enjoy  fresh  vogue.  One  may  felicitate 
the  nation  on  its  sentimental  loyalty 
through  the  years  to  "scenic"  represen- 
tations of  Niagara  Falls.  And  one  may 
marvel  at  the  millions  upon  millions  of 


money  invested  in  our  summer  pleas- 
ures, and  the  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  people  engaged  in  serving  them  up  to 
us,  hot  as  the  "dogs"  from  their  grill, 
or  the  lobsters  and  chickens  and  green 
corn  from  the  daily  clam-bake.  There 
is  a  huge  permanent  population  at  the 
beaches,  filling  hotels,  boarding-houses, 
furnished  rooms,  and  odd  shacks  tucked 
away  in  odder  corners.  It  must  be  an 
agreeable  and  strange  world  which  gath- 
ers together  at  the  close  of  the  day,  if, 
indeed,  the  day  ever  closes — a  world 
which  rouses  a  curious  man's  social  am- 
bitions. 

The  city  Sunday  brings  the  height  of 
the  gaiety  of  beaches.  The  morning  has 
been  spent  at  home  in  the  flat.  Even  in 
the  winter  here  the  gentlemen  of  the 
household  are  in  shirt-sleeves  (our  na- 
tional sign  of  intimate  domesticity);  in 
the  summer  they  are  often  merely  in 
undershirts.  The  minimum  of  costume 
and  the  maximum  of  newspapers  make 
time  pass  pleasantly.  The  newspapers 
will,  unluckily,  not  be  finished  before  the 
visit  to  the  beach.  They  will  be  carried 
there  ultimately  to  litter  and  degrade 
the  sands.  The  cheapness  and  the 
monstrous  size  of  our  newspapers  are 
indeed  the  chief  cause  of  our  national 
untidiness  in  public  places.  We  open 
great,  green,  flowery  parks  in  the  middle 
of  our  streets  and  we  build  great  white 
pleasure  cities  by  our  suburban  waters, 
only  to  cover  them  each  day  with  a 
tattered  and  wind-blown  profusion  of 
dirty  paper.  It  must,  perhaps,  be  taken 
as  part  and  parcel  of  the  inextinguish- 
able careless  gaiety  of  the  race;  of 
our  unflagging,  cheerful  vulgarity.  The 
pleasure-resort  of  Sunday  afternoon  has 
indeed  all  the  qualities  of  the  comic  sup- 
plement of  Sunday  morning.  Buttons 
and  hat-bands  with  mottoes,  donned  by 
bands  of  larkish  young  men  (the  Apaches 
of  our  cities)  are  all  evidence  of  the  deep 
influence  newspaper  humor  has  had  upon 
our  national  life. 

Amid  such  tumults  and  pleasures,  lin- 
guistic and  otherwise,  Sunday  passes  on. 
Toward  the  day's  end  there  are  usually 
a  few  drownings  or  rescues  from  drown- 
ing by  the  life-guards.  This  is  invigorat- 
ing to  the  crowds — it  supplies,  indeed, 
the  sensation  which  they  are  accustomed 
to  get  from  their  evening  paper,  which 


14 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


is  lacking  on  Sundays.  As  the  light  fades 
over  the  waters,  lights  more  brilliant 
begin  to  flash  upon  the  land.  One  of  the 
inevitable  failures  of  language  lies  in  any 
attempt  to  describe  American  electric 
lights — English  cannot  be  made  to  spar- 
kle like  ten  million  incandescents.  It  is 
safer  to  pass  from  these  coruscating  eve- 
ning hours  to  the  crowded  trains  and 
street-cars  homeward  bound  to  the  tired 
end  of  the  happy  day,  and  to  those  few 
hours  of  sleep  grudgingly  devoted  to 
making  ready  for  Monday  morning. 

In  town,  too,  there  have  been  life  and 
crowds.  Zoos  and  aquariums  claim  at- 
tention. And  the  parks  themselves,  with 
their  simple  beauty  of  grove  and  lawn, 
never  pall  upon  the  city  population. 
There  is,  indeed,  something  about  park 
nature  very  different  from  what  one 
might  call  native  nature.  The  constant 
streaming  of  humanity  through  it,  the 
perpetual  disputations  upon  benches, 
the  eternal  courtships  in  shady  corners, 
seem  to  change  the  aspect  of  flowers  and 
shrubs,  lakes  and  dells.  At  night,  espe- 
cially, under  the  dusky  trees,  the  air 
seems,  to  the  real  park-lover,  to  be  filled 
with  a  kind  of  golden  star-dust  of  hu- 
man happiness  and  sorrow;  the  beauty 
of  the  town's  bit  of  country  is  more 
poignant  to  him  than  ever  that  of  the 
simple  countryside  itself. 

Year  by  year  we  learn  more  how  to 
utilize  our  parks.  They  come  to  have 
their  festivals.  May-day — with  white 
muslin  and  a  May-pole — is  celebrated  all 
the  length  of  May  and  June.  Public- 
school  children,  who  have  been  taught 
folk-dances  and  revels  as  well  as  gym- 
nastics, disport  themselves  upon  the 
greensward.  We  play  tennis  and  base- 
ball, too,  in  the  parks.  And  we  are  at 
last  learning  to  eat  lunch  there,  and  to 
put  the  waste  paper  and  egg-shells  in 
the  proper  receptacles. 

We  watch  others  play  tennis,  and, 
chiefly,  we  watch  them  play  baseball. 
Here  again  the  subject  grows  out  of 
hand,  becomes  epic.  To  sing  of  bats  and 
the  men  who  toss  the  nation's  heart  to 
and  fro  might  perhaps  be  the  greatest 
American  literary  achievement.  It  must 
suffice  here  to  say  that  for  hundreds 
and  hundreds  of  thousands,  profession- 
al baseball  makes  the  city,  with  all  its 
withering  heat,  infinitely  preferable  to 


the  country  with  its  fourth-rate  amateur 
games. 

*  Amateur  games,  however,  flourish  and 
give  great  joy  to  those  engaged  in  them. 
They  are  part  of  what  might  be  called 
the  amateur  country  life  which  city- 
dwellers  somehow  manage  in  the  sum- 
mer. Besides  parks  there  are  vacant  lots 
— no  one's  boyhood  is  so  remote  that  he 
does  not  thrill  at  the  possibilities  of  a 
vacant  lot.  With  a  little  courage  and 
imagination  even  children  of  a  larger 
growth  can  somehow  believe  that  the 
trackless  wilderness  exists  wherever  there 
is  space  to  pitch  a  tent.  Camp  colonies 
within  the  city  limits  are  among  the 
latest  and  most  winning  manifestations 
of  the  beneficent  paternalism  of  our  mu- 
nicipal governments.  New  York,  to 
take  perhaps  the  most  striking  exam- 
ple, assigns  to  respectable  citizens  who 
make  application  in  due  form  the  fight 
to  pitch  tents  in  one  of  its  loveliest 
unspoiled  country  parks,  by  the  edge 
of  one  of  the  prettiest  reaches  of  the 
Sound.  Nothing  more  unpretentious, 
more  charming,  more  characteristically 
American,  can  be  imagined  than  such  a 
white  city  for  the  populace;  nowhere 
else  could  the  return  to  nature  be  so 
naturally  accomplished.  The  oldest 
(and  fewest)  of  old  clothes  do  for  the 
inhabitants.  Life  in  such  a  camp  is 
frankly,  but  decently,  free  from  shackles. 
Here  in  six  or  seven  hundred  tents  you 
find  the  really  simple  life  led  by  families 
whose  men  come  out  from  the  town  at 
night,  or  by  parties  of  young  people  who 
thus  at  a  minimum  of  expense  obtain 
from  their  vacations  a  maximum  of  joy. 
To  plunge  in  the  sea,  to  cook  one's  own 
food,  and  to  dance  in  the  moonlight  to 
the  music  of  a  concertina — what  more 
could  one  ask  before  one  retires  to  sleep 
like  a  top  beneath  snowy  canvas?  Rus 
in  urbe  becomes  no  impossible  poet's 
dream. 

So  far  we  have  treated  mostly  of  the 
devices  by  which  those  who  must  stay 
in  town  contrive  to  solace  themselves. 
But  we  must  not  forget  that  these  pleas- 
ures can  draw  people  to  the  towns  who 
might  easily  be  healthy  and  dull  at 
home  in  the  country.  There  is  a  definite 
summer  season  for  city  hotels  and  a 
regular  demand  for  furnished  flats — at 
reduced  rates,  naturally,  and  for  the 


CITY  SUMMERS 


15 


lightest  of  light  housekeeping.  People 
from  the  West  come  East,  people  from 
the  South  come  North.  They  swarm  in 
the  museums  and  galleries  till  you  might 
almost  think  yourself  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum or  the  Louvre.  They  crowd  the 
sight-seeing  automobiles  till  you  almost 
believe  there  really  are  sights  to  see. 
And  they  fill  the  restaurants  and  thea- 
ters till  you  doubt  whether  there  is  any 
one  in  town  except  people  from  out  of 
town. 

Boston  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest  tour- 
ist center,  in  the  regulation  European 
red  guide-book  manner.  It  is  at  once 
the  cradle  of  our  liberties  and  the  inven- 
tor of  the  sight-seeing  trolley-car.  Here 
education  bears  fruit  and  the  Daughters 
of  the  American  Revolution  come  into 
their  own.  The  intelligence  of  Boston  is 
amazing,  but  it  is  as  nothing  compared 
with  the  intelligence  of  other  cities  about 
Boston.  If  you  will  sit  peacefully  some 
summer  morning  in  a  quiet  corner  of 
that  beautiful  old  Faneuil  Hall  you  will 
see  all  America  go  by — in  samples — and 
you  will  be  forced  to  admit  that  your 
chair  compares  favorably  with  those 
somewhat  more  famous  ones  of  the  Cafe 
de  la  Paix  in  Paris,  from  which,  if  you 
sit  long  enough,  you  see  every  one  in  the 
world  pass.  The  realization  is  gradually 
coming  to  us  as  a  nation  that  the  land  is 
growing  old,  and  that  our  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  century  relics  have  as 
much  the  romantic  and  picturesque 
quality  as  buildings  of  that  same  period 
in  Europe,  where  we  have  long  and 
affectionately  recognized  them  as  "an- 
tiques." There  is  something  stirring  in 
the  little  troops  of  city  sight-seers;  they 
mark  our  national  coming  of  age,  they 
are  witness  of  the  finer  bloom  which, 


while  most  of  us  are  unaware  of  it,  is 
stealing  over  the  surface  of  our  old  civili- 
zation. 

It  is  not  altogether  fantastic  to  sup- 
pose that  we  are  upon  the  point  of  be- 
coming the  playground  of  Europe — 
which  has  so  long  been  ours.  Once,  to 
take  but  one  example,  it  was  sufficient 
for  a  connoisseur  of  painting  to  know 
the  European  galleries;  now  he  must  at 
least  know  New  York,  Boston,  Chicago, 
Pittsburg,  and  our  private  collections. 
The  city  summer  may  yet  undergo 
stranger  transformations.  We  may  soon 
hang  our  "  IcionparleFranqais" — "Man 
spricht  Deutsch"  and  all  the  signs  that 
correspond  to  that  pleasantly  ingratiating 
"English  spoken  "  which  one  sees  every- 
where abroad.  The  red-capped  negro 
porters  at  the  railway  stations  may  be- 
gin taking  courses  at  the  school  for 
languages.  And  the  foreign  waiters, 
whose  inadequate  English  we  now  so 
loudly  curse,  may  be  found  admirably 
suited  to  cater  to  our  tourist  trade. 

One  way  and  another,  is  not  the  sum- 
mer city  a  pleasant  place? — and  the  city 
summer,  if  your  heart  is  gay,  as  happy 
as  any  other  period  ?  The  town-dweller 
is  never  really  town-bound;  if  he  has  a 
half-day  only,  he  can  escape  by  boat  or 
rail  for  what  the  advertising  folders  so 
prettily  call  a  "  vacationette."  And 
aren't  many  " vacationettes"  pleasanter 
than  one  long  sentence  to  the  country? 
The  year-round  country-dweller  is  the 
man  who  can  tell  you  the  truth.  For 
him  the  summer  town  is  one  round  of 
pleasure.  Aren't  there  even  "movies" 
that  begin  at  nine  in  the  morning, 
when  in  the  country  there  is  nothing 
better  than  the  futile  dew  upon  the 
grass  ? 


The  Eyes  of  the  Blind 


BY  MARY  H EATON  VORSE 


WAS  not  the  only 
one  of  Alison  Deming's 
friends  to  whom  her 
marriage  with  Scarboro 
seemed  menacing.  I 
was  one  of  those  near- 
est to  her  when  the 
calamity  of  blindness  befell  her.  I  saw 
her  go  through  with  this  crucifixion  with 
incredible  gallantry.  As  far  as  she  let  me 
or  any  one  else  see,  she  accepted  blind- 
ness as  another  woman  might  have  ac- 
cepted old  age — I  mean  that  blindness 
might  have  been  the  inevitable  lot  of  all 
mankind,  for  all  the  outward  signs  she 
gave.  She  had  the  intense  spiritual  mod- 
esty that  keeps  the  wounds  of  the  spirit 
concealed.  She  only  showed  what  it 
must  have  meant  to  her  by  achieving  in 
the  end  the  hard-won  and  beautiful 
serenity  of  spirit  that  is  sometimes  given 
to  the  blind.  She  showed  it,  too,  by  her 
altered  attitude  toward  the  men  she 
knew.  She  seemed  to  be  somehow  be- 
yond any  one's  reach — twice  born,  un- 
approachable, as  if  she  had  returned  to 
us  from  the  holy  places  of  the  earth.  I 
suppose  it  was  sentimental  on  my  part 
to  feel  that  this  marriage  with  Scarboro 
had  an  element  of  the  sacrilegious,  like 
some  ordinary  person  aspiring  to  the 
hand  of  a  haloed  saint. 

Perhaps  it  was  this  unapproachable 
quality  of  hers  that  made  us  dubious 
as  to  Godfrey  Scarboro.  One  could  un- 
derstand her  loving  him;  it  wasn't  that. 
Any  woman  might  have  loved  Godfrey 
Scarboro.  Indeed,  it  might  well  have 
frightened  us,  considering  what  he  was — 
one  of  those  peccable,  lovable  creatures 
perpetually  being  forgiven  for  every- 
thing. 

One  felt  that  Alison  should  have  mar- 
ried some  one  having  her  own  other- 
world,  unattainable  quality,  instead  of  a 
man  who  smiled  in  the  eyes  of  the  world, 
as  sure  of  his  welcome  as  an  unusually 
attractive  child,  and  who  had  denied 
himself  as  little  as  a  child.   In  marrying 


Alison  there  had  to  be  a  certain  conse- 
cration. A  man  had  necessarily  to  be 
sure  of  his  own  temperament  before  he 
had  the  right  to  join  his  life  with  hers. 
No  man  had  the  right  to  make  her  risk 
anything.  The  thing  which  I  felt  most 
keenly  about  Scarboro  was  that  he 
lacked  the  unshakable  quality  that  a 
man  should  have  for  such  a  marriage. 
There  are  only  a  few  men  and  a  few 
women  who  have  that  quality — who 
make  you  feel  of  them  that  they  will  go 
on  caring  from  the  other  side  of  the 
grave.  Godfrey  was  not  one  of  these. 
He  had  everything  except  this  one  thing 
which  he  should  have  had.  That  was 
how  it  seemed  to  those  of  us  who  loved 
Alison  the  most. 

After  five  years  we  had  to  admit  that 
our  forebodings  had  come  to  nothing* 
Indeed,  it  seemed  as  if  all  Godfrey  asked 
of  life  was  to  devote  himself  to  her  ser- 
vice. Under  his  love  Alison  bloomed 
into  a  creature  of  extraordinary  perfec- 
tion. It  seemed  as  if  life  had  taken  her 
sight  from  her  so  that  she  might  special- 
ize in  love,  taste  more  deeply  of  love, 
than  would  otherwise  have  been  possible 
to  her.  For  once  it  seemed  as  if  life  had 
miraculously  compensated  for  an  ap- 
parently irreparable  disaster.  Godfrey 
was  an  artist  in  life,  and  he  set  himself 
to  making  the  relation  with  Alison  a 
perfect  thing.  He  loved  her  with  greater 
delicacy,  with  more  imagination,  with 
a  higher  degree  of  completeness  than 
any  one  else  could  have  done. 

Such  unions  have  an  element  of  fatal- 
ity to  me.  One  is  then  so  at  the  mercy 
of  life;  any  alienation  means  such  a  ter- 
rible and  mortal  rending  of  the  fibers  of 
the  spirit. 

I  had  often  visited  them,  and  Alison's 
letter  asking  me  to  come  to  them  roused 
in  me  happy  anticipation.  It  was  a 
warmer  letter  and  more  urgent  than 
usual,  and  conveyed  to  me  a  flattering 
impression  of  their  being  eager  to  see  me. 
Their  greeting,  when  I  arrived,  bore  out 


THE  EYES  OF  THE  BLIND 


17 


the  note  which  Alison's  letter  had 
struck. 

The  first  afternoon  with  them  was 
more  delightful  than  usual.  Godfrey 
had  never  been  more  charming.  Our 
supper  on  the  porch  was  of  a  piece  with 
the  afternoon,  so  what  happened  then 
was  to  me  entirely  unexpected,  unac- 
countable, and  yet  it  was  made  of  so 
slight  a  fabric  that  it  is  hard  for  me  to 
attempt  to  convey  the  extraordinarily 
shocking  impression  that  I  had  of  them. 

I  had  drawn  my  chair  away  from  the 
supper-table  that  I  might  look  down  the 
long,  sloping  lawn  to  the  hills  and  the 
sunset  beyond.  After  a  few  moments  I 
turned  to  them,  about  to  make  some 
idle  remark,  but  the  words  that  I  would 
have  uttered  died  on  my  lips,  so  deeply 
absorbed  were  the  two  in  their  own 
thoughts.  The  light,  shining  through 
the  leaves,  made  fantastic  green  shad- 
dows  on  Alison's  white  dress,  on  her  pale 
hair,  and  on  the  white  of  her  neck. 

Godfrey  was  not  watching  her.  He 
sat  inert,  brooding,  incredibly  relaxed, 
his  eyes  on  the  distance.  He  had  the  air 
of  a  man  who  sits  alone  in  his  room, 
secure  from  all  observation.  It  was  his 
unconscious  and  terrible  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  fact  that  Alison  was  blind. 
He  had  forgotten  me. 

As  minute  after  minute  drifted  past, 
they  both  sat  motionless.  Once  Alison 
stretched  out  her  hand  to  the  dying  sun- 
light with  a  curious  little  heartrending 
gesture,  as  though  she  were  seeking  to 
know  if  the  sun  had  yet  set.  Silence 
crowded  in  on  them,  surrounding  them, 
cutting  them  off*  in  the  midst  of  life, 
isolating  them  from  the  world  and  from 
each  other — the  complete  silence  of  the 
spirit  that  is  as  lonely  as  the  soundless 
dark;  a  silence  so  deep  and  cold  that  it 
froze  the  words  on  my  lips. 

After  a  long  time,  out  of  this  darkness 
of  the  spirit  came  Alison's  voice.  She 
spoke  without  knowing  that  her  lips 
were  voicing  the  thought  that  must  have 
been  at  the  very  center  of  her  life.  The 
words  came  low — almost  a  whisper,  a 
little  wandering  wind  of  sound: 

"If  only  we  had  children!" 

There  was  such  an  undercurrent  of 
passion  in  this  whisper  that  it  seemed  as 
if,  through  the  white-hot  intensity  of 
Alison's  longing,  the  wish  of  her  heart 


must  somehow  miraculously  be  fulfilled. 
The  whisper  pierced  Godfrey's  con- 
sciousness slowly.  He  was  long  in  an- 
swering, and  then  he  replied,  as  though 
to  save  them  both  from  a  moment  of 
too  great  poignancy,  "What's  that  you 
said,  Alison?" 

Crimson  mounted  to  Alison's  cheeks. 
Her  hand  went  to  her  heart.  "Oh — " 
she  murmured,  "I'd  forgotten  you  were 
there — I'd  forgotten — "  Amazement 
engulfed  everything  else. 

She  stared  toward  him  as  the  blind 
stare  when  they  try  to  transcend  their 
infirmity,  as  though  she  must  learn  how 
he  looked,  as  though  it  were  her  soul's 
most  vital  necessity  to  know  with  her  eyes 
how  he  looked,  since  he  had  sat  so  still 
and  since  his  spirit  had  drifted  so  far 
away  that  she  had  incredibly  forgotten 
he  was  there. 

At  sight  of  her  tense,  peering  face  that 
was  so  beautiful  in  its  blindness  I  saw 
a  look  almost  of  horror  pass  over  God- 
frey's face,  as  though  he  feared  that,  in 
another  moment,  she  would  miraculous- 
ly pass  the  limits  of  blindness  and  with 
blind  eyes  stare  implacably  into  the 
depths  of  his  spirit,  and  see.  He  seemed 
conscious,  not  of  her  heartrending  whis- 
per only,  but  of  a  certain  uncanny  qual- 
ity in  her,  as  though  it  gave  him  "the 
creeps"  to  see  her  looking  for  the  other 
road  to  sight — the  road  that  makes  the 
human  spirit  so  sensitive  that  it  becomes 
clairvoyant,  until  it  finally  sees  with  the 
eyes  of  the  spirit. 

Indeed,  when  you  come  down  to  it, 
that  was  what  Alison  had  done  when  she 
spoke  aloud  into  the  silence  and  solitude. 
She  had  thought  he  wasn't  there.  Well, 
he  wasn't!  He  was  off  without  her;  she 
had  known  he  was,  as  she  never  could 
have  known  had  she  been  able  to  see 
him.  She  had  grasped  the  essential  and 
significant  fact  in  that  prolonged  silence 
as  he  would  not  have  permitted  himself 
to  grasp  it. 

That  was  all.  It  was  over  so  quickly 
that  I  should  have  thought  my  imagina- 
tion had  played  me  tricks  except  for 
what  came  later. 

From  the  distance  came  the  noise  of 
horse's  hoofs,  and  a  woman's  voice  sing- 
ing rose  clear  and  silver  above  the 
rhythm  of  the  galloping  horse.  It  was  a 
snatch  of  song  which  she  sang,  a  handful 


18  HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  clear  and  happy  notes  flung  into  the 
air.  Godfrey  threw  a  quick  glance  at 
Alison. 

"It's  Gloria!"  she  said,  half  to  herself. 
Her  face  had  regained  its  lovely  calm, 
and  with  the  reflection  of  the  dying  day 
on  it  she  looked  like  some  humanly 
sweet  and  lovely  saint. 

Godfrey  strolled  quietly  out  on  to  the 
piazza,  smoking,  went  down  the  steps, 
thrust  at  a  branch  of  rambler  rose,  and 
came  back  again.  Unconsciously  he 
went  through  a  dozen  small  manoeuvers 
that  would  make  it  appear,  when  he 
finally  strolled  away,  that  he  was  about 
to  return  immediately.  He  stayed  a  mo- 
ment at  the  foot  of  the  steps,  but,  as 
he  started  to  stroll  away  again,  Alison 
called  to  him. 

"If  you're  going  to  Gloria's,  why  don't 
you  bring  her  back  to  sing  for  us?" 

Godfrey  hesitated.  "  I  hadn't  thought 
of  going  to  Gloria's,  but  if  you'd  like  to 
hear  her  sing — ?" 

"I  love  to  hear  Gloria  sing,"  Alison 
gave  back  sweetly. 

While  Godfrey  was  gone  we  chatted 
like  old  friends.  I  had  been  big  boy  to 
Alison's  little  girl.  But  underneath  the 
easy  flow  of  our  talk  I  had  the  sense  that 
she  was  waiting  for  Godfrey's  return 
with  the  strained  attention  of  an  anxious 
wife.  And  she  had  never  had  a  string 
to  him — she  was  divinely  undemanding. 
They  came  in,  bringing  with  them  the 
elusive  smell  of  wet  pine-leaves. 

We  all  talked  of  indifferent  things  un- 
til Alison  took  Gloria  affectionately  by 
the  hand  and  led  her  to  the  piano. 

When  Gloria  sang  she  threw  out  into 
the  air  all  the  shimmering  things  of  life, 
all  the  glad  things.  Her  voice  sounded 
like  the  song  of  a  lovely  rebellious  child. 
She  stopped  and  received  our  heartfelt 
applause — and  pulled  a  scarf  over  her 
head,  saying,  "I  must  run  home!" 

"Godfrey  must  go  with  you,"  Alison 
suggested. 

"No,  Godfrey  mustn't!"  she  said. 
There  was  a  fluttering  note  of  finality 
in  her  voice. 

"But  Godfrey  always  goes  with  you," 
Alison  objected. 

"It's  the  sort  of  night,"  Gloria  ex- 
plained, "when  one  feels  as  if  one  had 
found  some  new  way  of  moving — neither 
swimming  nor  flying,  but  like  both;  a 


night  so  full  of  moonlight  that  it  is  as  if 
the  world  were  flooded  with  some  new 
ether.  I  always  feel  as  if  I  had  found  the 
way  to  move  in  it,  and  you  can  only  feel 
that  alone,  you  know — that  sort  of  swift, 
glad,  disembodied  feeling."  Her  voice 
had  a  little  throb  in  it. 

Her  passion  for  the  night  had  moved 
her  deeply.  She  stood  there,  extraordi- 
narily lovely  looking,  as  she  had  looked 
when  she  was  a  very  young  girl — look- 
ing like  a  very  spirit  of  the  night.  She 
paused  a  moment,  and  then  flitted  off 
swiftly  and  softly,  as  if  she  had  indeed 
found  her  own  perfect  element  in  which 
to  move. 

That  was  all  that  happened.  To  even 
so  close  a  friend  as  I  was  to  them  all, 
there  was  apparent  not  the  slightest 
effort  on  the  part  of  any  one. 

Next  day  Godfrey  motored  to  town, 
and  I  was  strolling  about  looking  for 
Alison,  when  I  chanced  on  her,  sitting 
under  the  pergola.  You  may  imagine 
how  absorbed  in  her  thoughts  she  must 
have  been,  for  she  didn't  hear  me.  It 
was  the  first  time  in  all  my  life  that  I 
had  ever  seen  her  off  her  guard,  and  what 
I  saw  would  have  made  me  creep  away 
had  it  been  possible.  But  she  had  heard 
me  now,  and  from  that  terrible  blind 
mask  of  suffering  came  her  voice  speak- 
ing my  name;  there  was  no  pretense 
that  any  one  could  make.  I  sat  down 
beside  her  and  took  her  hand  without 
speaking.  We  sat  in  silence  for  a  while; 
then,  as  though  speaking  to  herself, 

"If  I  tell,  it  may  help,"  she  said. 

"Tell  me  what  has  happened,"  I 
begged  her,  gently. 

She  gave  back  a  little  despairing  cry. 
"Oh,  nothing's  happened!  Nothing  on 
God's  earth  has  happened,  except  that 
since  yesterday  I've  been  living  in  hell, 
and  I  know  it's  my  fault.  I  thought  I'd 
won — triumphed!"  She  made  an  elo- 
quent gesture  toward  her  sightless  eyes. 
"When  I  wrote  to  you  to  come,  I'd  been 
feeling  lonely;  I  thought  you'd  chase 
away  my  little  ghost;  it  was  nothing 
more  than  a  morbid  streak — then.  First, 
it  came  like  a  faint,  chill,  poisonous,  cold 
wind;  then  the  shadows  pressed  in  on 
me.  I  would  go  shivering  up  to  Godfrey 
and  find  him  just  as  he  always  is — fault- 
less. There  hasn't  been  one  single  little 
thing  that  any  human  being  could  put 


Drawn  by  F.  Walter  Taylor 

"OH—"    SHE    MURMURED,    "  I'D    FORGOTTEN    YOU    WERE  THERE" 


THE  EYES  OF  THE  BLIND 


19 


a  hand  on.  I  went  searching  round  and 
round  for  a  reason,  and  just  as  I  put  my 
hand  on  it  it  was  gone."  She  paused. 
Then,  as  if  what  she  had  to  say  was  in- 
credibly difficult:  "I  found  my  reason 
last  night;  when  I  put  my  hand  on 
Godfrey's  sleeve  and  felt  it  was  damp 
from  the  woods  at  night,  I  almost  said, 
'The  woods  must  be  lovely,'  but  I 
checked  myself.  Then,  as  Gloria  was 
singing,  it  was  as  if  the  curtain  went  up. 
Everything  became  clear.  I  knew  the 
meaning  of  my  loneliness  and  why  I  had 
not  spoken  of  their  going  through  the 
woods,  nor  why  he  had  chosen  that  way 
back."  She  leaned  to  me.  "Do  you 
know  the  reason?  It  was  that  he  might 
keep  out  of  the  paths — "  and  then  she 
gave  out  the  unbelievable  thing — "It  is 
that  they  might  keep  out  of  the  paths  in 
which  Godfrey  and  I  have  walked!  It's 
Godfrey's  protest — a  protest  so  deep  I 
don't  believe  he's  conscious  of  it — 
against  the  close-woven  fabric  of  our 
lives.  He  wanted  to  take  her  to  a  place 
where  I  couldn't  go;  and  I  knew,  when 
she  was  singing,  that  she  was  singing  to 
Godfrey,  and  that  they  were  looking  at 
each  other  with  the  understanding  that 
is  possible  only  to  those  who  can  look 
into  each  other's  eyes." 

I  cannot  express  with  what  concen- 
trated and  bitter  accusation  she  gave 
this  out,  and  yet  the  accusation  was  not 
for  Godfrey,  but  for  herself;  nor,  unless 
you  knew  Alison,  could  I  make  you  un- 
derstand the  violence  she  did  herself  in 
talking  to  me.  She  wanted  no  assurance 
from  me.  She  had  nothing  in  common 
with  the  overwrought  human  being  who 
seeks  relief  in  speech.  She  dragged  all 
this  to  the  surface,  spread  it  out  naked 
in  the  light,  as  if  it  was  some  venomous 
thing  that  could  only  live  in  the  shadows. 
In  telling  me,  she  was  doing — as  she  al- 
ways had  done — the  extraordinarily  gal- 
lant thing.  She  didn't  ask  for  anything 
from  me,  not  one  little  thing — neither 
sympathy  nor  understanding.  I  said 
nothing;  she  didn't  want  my  assurances, 
still  less  did  she  want  sympathy.  She 
let  me  plumb  the  full  measure  of  her  re- 
volt against  herself  by  saying: 

"This  is  my  love — it  seems." 

She  left  me  in  silence  for  a  while  to 
confront  the  difficulty.  There  seemed 
no  end  to  it.    Alison  faced  the  bitter 

Vol.  CXXXI— No.  781.— 3 


choice  of  losing  all  faith  in  herself  or 
faith  in  Godfrey;  of  being  infinitely 
soiled  in  her  own  eyes,  or  having  her 
whole  life  torn  asunder.  As  I  thought 
this,  some  warning  voice  told  me  that 
Alison  had  not  been  wrong;  that,  word- 
less and  insistent,  instinct  had  pressed 
its  awful,  voiceless  certainty  upon  her; 
and  yet,  there  was  Godfrey,  whose  every 
gesture  and  glance  was  a  living  denial, 
and  there  was  Gloria,  Alison's  friend. 
How  believe  a  thing  like  this?  It  was 
just  one  of  those  things  that  decent  peo- 
ple didn't  do.  But  whether  she  was 
right  or  wrong,  there  seemed  no  way  out 
for  Alison.  I  felt  the  same  sickening 
sensation  that  I  had  when  I  first  learned 
that  she  had  to  be  blind. 

She  spoke  again,  as  though  addressing 
some  dark  presence. 

"Not  one  single  little  thing  has  hap- 
pened," she  repeated,  as  if  arguing,  and 
I  knew  it  was  as  if  she  had  hurled  herself 
against  some  unrelenting  fact.  I  had  to 
find  out  where  she  really  stood,  and  so 
I  asked: 

"Alison,  would  you  rather  I  went 
away?"  I  knew  that  if  she  really  be- 
lieved her  instinct,  she  would  not  have 
me  stay  to  see  Godfrey  betray  himself 
before  me,  and  the  way  she  answered  in- 
stantly, "No;  stay  if  you  will,"  made  me 
know  that  even  in  her  innermost  heart 
it  was  herself  whom  she  believed  at 
fault,  and  not  Godfrey;  and  that,  far 
above  the  darkness  into  which  she  had 
been  plunged,  his  love  seemed  to  her 
clear  and  undimmed,  but  of  a  sudden 
become  far-ofT  and  unattainable  —  a 
beautiful  star  which  could  shed  no 
warmth  on  her.  I  knew,  too,  that  the 
mute,  watchful  instinct  within  her  would 
continue  to  bring  her  proof,  so  that  she 
would  believe  in  Godfrey  and  yet  know 
that  her  belief  was  unfounded;  so  that 
she  would  continue  to  have  her  heart 
filled  with  suspicion,  and  yet  know 
that  suspicion  had  never  entered,  only 
fact. 

For  the  next  few  days  Gloria  did  not 
come  to  the  house,  nor  did  Godfrey  pro- 
pose that  we  should  find  her;  neither 
did  Alison  again  speak  to  me  of  the  bat- 
tle which  I  knew  went  on,  without 
mercy  and  without  rest,  within  her 
heart.  On  the  surface  of  our  lives  all  was 
fair  and  sweet.    We  read  together,  and 


20 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Godfrey  held  Alison's  hand  while  we 
read.  But  there  was  one  thing  that  im- 
pressed me  as  it  had  the  first  night — 
Godfrey's  attitudes,  the  way  he  sat,  the 
slouch  of  his  shoulders,  his  postures. 
They  were  of  a  man  off  his  guard;  yet 
his  voice  was  that  of  a  man  eternally 
watchful.  He  would  sit,  as  I  had  seen 
him  that  night,  slouched  into  himself,  as 
a  man  deeply  weary;  and  his  voice,  as 
he  spoke  to  Alison,  would  ring  out  tender 
and  reassuring.  And  I  knew  this  tender- 
ness maddened  Alison.  I  knew  she  was 
longing  to  cry  out  to  Godfrey:  "Go  and 
find  Gloria!  Don't  you  suppose  I  can 
feel  you  listening  for  the  sound  of  her 
horse's  hoofs?  I  hear  them  three  sec- 
onds before  you  can  hear  them.  I  hear 
them  in  my  sleep,  the  sound  of  her 
horse's  hoofs,  as  I  hear  your  restless 
thoughts  walking  about,  as  I  can  see  you 
with  my  blind  eyes,  straining  away  from 
me  to  her." 

The  third  day,  when  we  were  sitting 
together,  reading,  Alison  said,  "Let's  go 
and  meet  Gloria;  we  haven't  walked  to- 
day." 

Godfrey  turned  his  head  sharply.  Far 
off  Gloria  was  coming  toward  us,  and  it 
seemed  a  miracle  that  the  sound  of  her 
footsteps  at  such  a  distance  should  have 
reached  even  Alison's  ears. 

As  they  met,  Alison  kissed  Gloria  on 
her  forehead,  put  her  arm  around  her 
and  slipped  the  other  through  Godfrey's, 
and  so  they  walked  back  together,  Ali- 
son, sweet  and  fair,  dividing  them  im- 
placably. 

Instinct  told  her  when  Gloria  was 
expected,  and  she  went  to  meet  her. 
Instinct  told  her  when  Godfrey  wished 
to  leave  her — perhaps  to  find  Gloria — 
and  she  kept  him,  so  smoothly,  so  plau- 
sibly, that  her  very  plausibility  must 
have  sickened  her.  Again,  she  would  ask 
Gloria  to  sit  with  her  for  an  afternoon 
and  send  Godfrey  away  on  some  pretext. 
I  knew  that  after  each  manceuver  of  hers 
she  felt  infinitely  soiled,  infinitely  de- 
graded. She  listened — listened  for  the 
sound  of  Godfrey's  voice  and  Gloria's 
together,  listened  for  the  far-ofF  rustle  of 
Gloria's  dress.  I  knew  that,  whether 
Alison's  instinct  was  right  or  wrong, 
Gloria  and  Godfrey  must  have  felt  it, 
and  that  for  them  the  tension  must  at 
times  have  been  almost  unbearable. 


As  the  days  went  on,  Alison  surpassed 
herself.  She  made  use,  it  seemed  to  me, 
of  other  senses  than  those  of  which  we 
know — she  seemed  to  feel  it  in  the  air 
when  they  thought  of  each  other,  and 
more  and  more  she  subtly  divided  her 
husband  from  her  friend.  There  was  no 
end  to  the  excuses  she  knew  how  to 
make  so  that  she  might  be  always  with 
them. 

I  realized  at  last  why  at  times  she  was 
so  clairvoyantly  sure.  It  was  because 
she  was  for  ever  on  the  alert.  For  once 
that  she  was  right,  twenty  times  she 
groped  her  way  down  the  stairs  to  listen 
for  the  sound  of  Gloria's  footsteps.  A 
hundred  times  she  thought  she  heard 
low  sounds  of  talking,  of  voices  where  no 
voices  were.  And  yet,  for  everything 
she  did  there  was  nothing  tangible  of 
which  Godfrey  or  any  one  could  .have 
accused  her,  any  more  than  there  was 
anything  of  which  she  might  have  ac- 
cused him.  Neither  one,  in  their  hideous 
game  of  blindman's-bufF,  had  one  actual 
fact  to  bring  into  the  sanity  of  broad 
daylight. 

Whichever  way  Godfrey  turned  he 
seemed  bound  by  invisible  chains;  in- 
visible barriers  presented  themselves  in 
his  path.  Alison  had  always  some  plan 
which  involved  him;  her  infirmity  held 
him  as  inexorably  as  it  limited  her. 

When  he  came  back  from  town  it 
seemed  to  me  that  Godfrey  was  for  ever 
manceuvering  to  leave  Alison  to  me,  and 
was  for  ever  being  out-manceuvered. 
Yet  so  gentle  was  he,  so  faultless,  that 
never  once  could  one  have  been  sure  that 
what  he  was  trying  to  do  was  more  than 
merely  a  gentle,  almost  unconscious 
effort  on  his  part  to  preserve  his  neces- 
sary independence.  There  wasn't  a  flaw 
or  a  break  in  the  conduct  of  any  of  the 
four  of  us.  Even  I,  who  had  been 
warned,  could  never  tell  which  of  Ali- 
son's two  certainties  were  right  — 
whether  in  very  fact  she  was  poisoning 
the  life  about  her,  or  whether  her  clair- 
voyant instinct  had  perceived  what  no 
eyes  could  see.  But  one  thing  I  knew: 
that  if,  under  our  unnatural  tranquil- 
lity, we  all  suffered — each  in  his  own 
way,,  even  though  Godfrey  suffered  in- 
nocently— it  was  Alison  whose  very  life 
was  torn  in  two. 

Grief  can  kill  and  betrayal  can  put  out 


THE  EYES  OF  THE  BLIND 


21 


the  light  of  the  spirit,  but  it  is  in  conflict 
that  the  soul  can  find  its  most  nameless 
torture.  When  the  soul  says  "Yes"  and 
"No"  at  once,  then  there  is  no  rest,  no 
peace,  no  end  to  torment. 

So  torn  and  ravaged  was  she  that  it 
seemed  to  me  that  beneath  the  unruffled 
surface  of  life  waited  death.  I  could  see 
Alison's  face  become  transparent;  I 
could  see  her  very  heart  beat  through 
her  frail  body. 

"Can  they  guess?"  I  asked  myself. 
"Do  they  know,  and  can  they  still  go 
on  with  their  relentless  torture,  or  are 
they  innocent  and  themselves  on  the 
rack,  not  dreaming  what  is  wrong  or 
why  they  suffer?" 

I  do  not  know  how  they  felt,  but  it 
seemed  to  me  that  any  catastrophe — the 
whole  fabric  of  life  pulled  to  pieces  about 
us — would  be  better  than  this  smooth 
and  smiling  surface  of  life  whereon  we 
lived.  The  only  hint  they  gave  one  an- 
other of  what  they  really  felt  was  the 
way  they  clung  to  me  when  I  suggested 
that  my  visit  must  come  to  an  end.  I 
do  not  know  what  the  others  felt,  but  I 
waited  with  every  nerve  frozen  for  relief 
— waited  day  and  night  for  something  to 
happen  which  should  put  an  end  to  the 
horror  in  which  we  lived. 

Then  it  came.  Not,  as  I  had  imag- 
ined, in  one  thunderclap;  it  stole  on  me  so 
quietly  and  stealthily  that  I  might  have 
denied  that  anything  had  happened. 

We  had  finished  breakfast  a  half-hour, 
and  I  had  sat  down  outside  on  the  ve- 
randa which  ran  past  Godfrey's  study. 
I  started  to  go  into  the  library  through 
the  long  French  window  just  as  Godfrey 
came  in  at  the  door.  He  paused  at  the 
door,  staring  at  a  corner  of  the  room  as 
if  he  would  not  credit  his  eyes.  I  fol- 
lowed his  gaze,  and  there,  at  the  end  of 
the  long,  book-lined  room,  sat  Gloria. 

She  sat  in  the  shadow,  her  face  glow- 
ing like  some  exotic  flower,  divided  from 
him  by  three  golden  barriers  of  sunshine 
which  streamed  in  through  the  open 
windows.  At  sight  of  him  she  did  not 
speak,  but  flung  out  her  hand  in  a  little 
gesture  of  poignant  welcome.  Godfrey's 
mouth  framed  her  name,  but  without 
sound.  In  those  few,  brimming,  silent 
moments  they  compressed  an  eternity  of 
words,  all  the  things  they  had  not  said. 

Then,  before  they  could  seek  relief  in 


speech,  Alison's  soft,  groping,  uncertain 
footstep  came  down  the  hall.  At  once 
Godfrey  stripped  from  them  both  the 
possibility  of  decent  pretense,  if  pretense 
there  had  been,  and  at  the  same  time 
made  Gloria  his  accomplice,  for,  as  he 
walked  to  the  door  to  meet  Alison  he 
turned,  and  with  a  gesture  at  once  vague 
and  passionate — a  gesture  which  was  as 
instinctive  a  reaction  as  that  of  a  falling 
man  who  clutches  at  some  support — he 
imposed  silence  on  Gloria. 

Alison  stood  in  the  doorway,  and  God- 
frey took  her  hand  with  a  "Were  you 
looking  for  me,  dear?"  The  very  natu- 
ralness of  his  voice  jangled  horribly 
through  the  silent  room. 

Alison  did  not  answer;  she  turned  her 
sightless  face  toward  Gloria.  "I  thought 
I  heard  some  one  talking,"  she  said, 
faintly,  and  the  lying  truthfulness  of 
Godfrey's  cheerful  "You  didn't  hear  a 
soul!"  made  me  see  his  heart  naked. 

Still  Alison  turned  her  face  toward 
Gloria;  still  her  blind,  gentle,  question- 
ing look  was  on  Gloria's  face.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  there  was  no  air  left  to 
breathe  in  the  world.  I  expected  to  hear 
her  cry  aloud: 

"  I  know  Gloria  is  here !  I  can  hear  the 
faint  rustle  of  her  dress;  I  can  hear  her 
breathe,  and  the  wild  beating  of  her 
heart.  I  feel  your  hand  tense  in  mine, 
Godfrey.  The  air  about  me  clamors 
with  the  words  you  have  not  needed  to 
speak.  Don't  lie  to  me — for  I  know,  as 
I  have  always  known,  but  I  must  now 
have  the  certainty  of  your  assurance.  I 
can  no  longer  live  in  the  night  with  my 
certainties  only.  Give  me  light!  The 
truth  from  your  lips,  though  it  kill  me!" 

Into  this  desperate  silence  again  came 
Godfrey's  voice:  "Shall  we  go  out, 
dear?"  He  took  her  arm  in  his.  "Aren't 
you  well  this  morning,  Alison  dear?"  he 
asked,  his  voice  all  solicitude. 

"A  little  tired,  that's  all.  I  didn't 
sleep  well,"  Alison  answered,  her  tran- 
quil voice  in  discordant  contrast  to  her 
pale,  questioning  face. 

I  stared  at  Gloria.  She  did  not  move; 
she  was  waiting  for  Godfrey  to  come 
back;  and  I  sat  down  on  a  chair  outside 
the  window,  appalled  and  curiously  re- 
lieved to  see  truth  at  last. 

It  was  impossible  to  tell  if  they 
had  met  thus  before,  or  if,  up  to  the 


22 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


very  moment  of  his  gesture  of  silence, 
neither  of  them  had  faced  the  truth. 
Perhaps  Love  had  stolen  on  them  un- 
awares and  enmeshed  them  before  they 
recognized  him.  Or  they  may  have 
known  and  excused  themselves  by  the 
world  -  old  sophistries  and  self  -  decep- 
tions of  the  faithless.  It  would  have 
been  so  easy  for  Godfrey  to  say  that  he 
gave  Gloria  nothing  that  was  Alison's, 
and  that  they  could  have  their  love 
without  hurting  her. 

I  could  not  tell.  We  had  all  played 
our  parts  so  well  that  anything  might  be 
true.  I  only  know  that  in  the  glimpse  I 
had  had  of  Gloria's  face  I  saw  that  a 
dark  happiness  bloomed  there.  She  had 
the  look  of  one  who  no  longer  struggles, 
but  who  knows  the  infinite  rest  of  being 
borne  along  on  Love's  mighty  bosom. 

There  was  a  profound  silence,  as 
though  enchantment  lay  upon  the  quiet 
library;  and  on  the  vine-shaded  porch 
the  only  sound  was  the  droning  of  bees; 
and,  scarcely  louder  than  the  bees,  from 
the  other  side  of  the  house,  where  he 
was  making  her  comfortable,  came  the 
murmur  of  Godfrey's  voice  and  Alison's. 

I  without  and  Gloria  within,  both 
waited  for  Godfrey's  return,  for  that  he 
would  return  he  had  shown  when  he  had 
bade  her  be  quiet;  and  I  knew  that,  with 
her  strained  attention,  she  must  inev- 
itably hear  me  should  I  now  move.  God- 
frey once  back,  I  could  slip  away  un- 
perceived. 

The  moments  lengthened,  and  I  waited 
until  I  felt  that  something  must  give  way 
within  me.  I  waited  until  I  marveled 
at  Gloria's  resistance,  and  I  measured 
her  need  of  talking  with  Godfrey  by 
this  endurement  of  prolonged  suspense. 
While  I  waited,  my  thoughts,  night- 
mare-like, rioted  through  my  brain.  God 
knows,  I  had  expected  tragedy  of  some 
sort,  and  I  sat  waiting  for  it  to  come, 
but  this  turning  of  Alison's  blindness 
to  account  was  a  detail  for  which  I 
had  not  been  prepared.  I  realized  now 
that  while  I  had  looked  for  a  tragedy, 
I  had  been  searching  this  way  and  that 
for  some  escape.  Now  all  roads  seemed 
blocked.  There  was  nothing  to  be  done, 
it  seemed  to  me,  but  sit  still  and  see 
Alison's  life  wrecked. 

At  last  I  heard  Godfrey's  swiftly  re- 
turning footsteps.  I  heard  the  low  sound 


of  their  voices  come  to  me  for  a  moment, 
and  then  they  stopped,  as  though  their 
words  had  been  clipped  from  them  with 
a  sword.  From  far  off  came  Alison's 
blind  and  groping  step  again.  She  had 
followed  Godfrey  closely.  I  heard  the 
sliding  touch  of  her  all-seeing  hands  over 
the  open  front  door.  I  waited,  with 
bated  breath  and  beating  heart,  for 
them  to  begin  some  ordinary  conversa- 
tion, but  none  came.  The  soft,  groping 
steps  came  nearer.  I  heard  them  pause 
in  front  of  the  open  library  door,  and 
then,  with  an  infinite  relief  which  must 
have  been  echoed  from  within  the  room, 
I  heard  her  pass  on,  and  then  her  more 
assured  footfall  upon  the  stairs. 

It  was  as  though  Death  paused  and 
then  passed  by.  And  yet  I  knew  that 
Alison  always  called  out  to  Godfrey  when 
she  passed  his  door,  and  I  wondered, 
as  I  knew  they  must  be  wondering: 
"What  has  she  heard?  Can  she  know?" 

I  made  my  escape  noiselessly.  Later, 
Godfrey  came  to  look  for  me. 

"Alison  doesn't  feel  well,"  he  told  me. 
"It's  nothing  much— just  one  of  her 
headaches.  I  told  Gloria  I'd  motor  her 
up  to  the  village,  but  I  don't  like  to  leave 
Alison  alone.    Will  you  tell  Gloria?" 

At  lunch  Alison  didn't  come  down, 
nor  through  the  afternoon,  nor  the  next 
day,  and  under  his  calm  surface  I  could 
see  Godfrey's  anxiety  grow.  Gloria 
came  only  once,  and  Godfrey  walked 
down  to  meet  her;  for  some  time  they 
stood  talking  earnestly  together. 

During  the  afternoon  Godfrey  went 
up  and  down  the  stairs  a  dozen  times. 
At  last  he  said  to  me:  "I  wish  you'd  see 
Alison.  I  wish  you'd  make  her  have  a 
doctor." 

"Can't  you  make  her?"  I  asked  him. 

"  She  won't  have  one.  She  won't  hear 
of  it,"  he  gave  back;  "she  says  there's 
nothing  the  matter  with  her  except  the 
aftermath  of  a  headache." 

"Well,  what  do  you  think?"  I  asked 
him. 

"What  do  I  think?  I'll  tell  you  what 
I  think — she's  suffering  horribly.  She's 
like  some  one  living  in  torment,  I  tell 
you.  She's  in  awful  distress — mental 
or  physical;  she  won't  tell  me  which. 
She  won't  tell  me  anything.  Some- 
thing's got  to  be  done.  It  isn't  right 
that  she  should  suffer  this  way." 


THE  EYES  OF  THE  BLIND 


23 


It  was  his  way  of  putting  it  aloud  to 
himself.  I  took  it  that  he  had  been  so 
perfectly  on  his  guard,  that  his  conduct 
had  been  so  flawless,  that  he  would  not 
believe  that  it  was  on  his  account  that 
Alison  was  suffering. 

"She's  suffering  so,"  he  went  on, 
"that  she  isn't  herself." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  I  asked  him 
again. 

"Why,  she's  queer  in  the  way  she 
speaks  to  me."  He  choked  a  little  over 
it.  "Apologetic — as  if  she  were  begging 
my  pardon  for  something  or  other.  Go 
up  and  see  her.  See  what  you  can  do 
with  her." 

He  might  have  spared  himself  the 
pain  of  telling  me  she  was  suffering.  No 
one  could  have  lived  in  that  house  with- 
out knowing  it.  There  are  times  when 
people  live  in  such  mortal  agony  that  it 
darkens  the  sky  for  those  about  them. 
Had  Alison  been  screaming  aloud  in 
anguish  so  that  our  ears  were  deafened 
with  it,  we  could  not  have  been  more 
conscious  of  it.  No  one  could  have  lived 
in  that  silent  house  without  knowing 
that  some  obscure  and  terrible  battle 
of  the  spirit  was  going  on  within  its 
walls. 

I  went  to  Alison,  as  Godfrey  wished, 
but  my  mission  was  useless.  As  soon 
expect  one  bleeding  to  death  on  a  battle- 
field to  listen  to  some  alien  chatter  of 
philosophy  as  expect  Alison  to  call  a 
physician.  She  made  polite,  stereo- 
typed answers  to  my  inquiries,  but  from 
her  face  looked  pain  and  madness  and 
something  like  despair.  I  felt  as  though 
she  were  near  the  breaking-point.  There 
is  a  limit,  after  all,  to  what  a  human 
being  will  endure  of  suffering.  One  thing 
came  to  me  as  definite — it  had  been 
forming  itself  in  my  mind  from  the  be- 
ginning— and  that  was  that  without 
Godfrey  and  his  love,  radiant  and  com- 
plete, she  could  not  live.  As  far  as  Ali- 
son was  concerned,  he  was  life  itself; 
and  for  her  to  continue  to  live,  he  had 
to  be  something  that,  for  the  moment, 
at  any  rate,  he  was  not. 

Evidently  Godfrey  was  still  sure  that, 
in  Alison's  words,  she  had  "not  one  lit- 
tle thing  to  go  upon,"  unless,  indeed, 
there  had  been  a  monstrous  miracle  and 
she  had  seen  his  gesture  to  Gloria,  and  in 
spite  of  it  had  suffered  herself  to  be  led 


away;  had  even  known,  when  Godfrey 
left  her,  that  he  was  going  to  find  Gloria 
again;  and  on  her  way  back  had  heard 
her  voice,  and  so,  stabbed  to  the  heart, 
had  gone  up-stairs  to  die. 

I  do  not  know  what  I  had  expected 
that  night.  I  threw  myself  on  the  bed 
half-dressed  and  dozed  fitfully,  as  one 
who  expects  to  be  called  by  illness.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  the  house  was  full 
of  strange  and  awful  whisperings;  the 
very  walls  seemed  full  of  the  suspense 
and  waiting  that  one  feels  where  a  spirit 
is  struggling  to  take  flight  and  the  body 
is  struggling  to  retain  it.  Toward  morn- 
ing I  slept,  but  roused  very  early  and 
dressed.  Godfrey  met  me  in  the  hall, 
and  to  my  questioning  glance: 

"She's  different,"  he  hesitated.  "She's 
very  weak  and  very  gentle.  It's — 
it's — "  he  choked  a  moment.  "It's  as 
if  she  had  given  up." 

And  so  it  seemed. 

"I'll  wait  till  noon  and  then  I'll  send 
for  Carter,"  he  told  me.  "It's  absurd," 
he  added,  as  if  arguing  with  himself 
fiercely,  "unless  she's  been  brooding 
over  something  about  her  blindness. 
She's  been  feeling  a  little  tired  for  a 
few  days  on  coming  down  to  breakfast, 
but  nothing  has  happened  that  could 
disturb  her.  I  must  see  her  then,  watch 
her  drifting  out  as  a  boat  drifts  out  to 
sea  before  my  eyes.  I'll  wait  till  noon," 
he  repeated.  "She's  resting  now,  and  at 
noon  I'll  go  up." 

We  took  books,  both  of  us,  and  made 
a  pretense  at  reading.  Later  Gloria 
joined  us.  Then  suddenly  we  looked  at 
one  another  with  questioning  eyes  and 
waited,  listening  tensely  as  we  three  had 
listened  to  the  same  sound  before — Ali- 
son's soft  and  careful  step  descending 
the  stairs. 

I  do  not  know  what  it  was  I  expected 
during  those  seconds  of  suspense,  but  I 
waited,  and  I  know  Godfrey  and  Gloria 
waited,  for  some  verdict  of  life  or  death. 
We  all  rose  to  our  feet  as  Alison  came 
out  of  the  front  door,  facing  us. 

She  seemed  infinitely  spent,  as  one 
who  has  traveled  back  from  the  other 
side  of  death,  spent  as  one  must  be  who 
has  only  that  moment  triumphed  over 
death  and  pain.  For  that  was  what  she 
was — triumphant — her  head  up,  gallant, 
as  she  had  been  when  she  had  overcome 


24 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


her  infirmity  of  the  flesh,  but  now  she 
had  won  a  greater  victory. 

The  conflict  was  over  with  her;  and, 
as  I  looked  from  Godfrey  to  Gloria,  I 
knew,  too,  that  the  conflict  was  over  for 
them,  for  the  love  and  radiance  that 
shone  from  Alison's  face  put  out  their 
little  flicker  of  passion  as  the  glory  of  the 
sun  puts  out  the  light  of  a  penny  candle. 

She  had  fought  with  death  for  her 
belief  in  Godfrey  and  had  won,  and 
now  she  came  to  him  with  this  shining 
vision  of  his  spirit;  in  a  flash  of  under- 
standing I  realized — and  I  know  God- 
frey understood  as  well — that  she  had 
won  a  supreme  victory  of  the  spirit, 
which  made  the  rewinning  of  his  heart 
a  mere  incident  in  the  greater  victory. 

It  has  taken  me  months  of  turning  the 
thing  over  this  way  and  that  to  under- 
stand what  happened  in  Alison's  heart 
through  the  days  of  mortal  conflict,  and 
in  what  her  victory  consisted,  and  what 
it  was  that  happened  to  Godfrey  and 
Gloria  when  they  looked  on  Alison's  face, 
which,  for  that  brief  moment,  reflected 
the  streaming  light  of  heaven. 

I  have  found  my  answer  to  it.  I  know 
that  we  three  surely  saw  a  miracle  that 
morning  as  great  as  any  of  which  we  read. 
But  to  explain  this  to  the  literal-minded 
I  would  have  to  answer  the  Sphinx's  rid- 
dle, "Who  am  I?"  and,  "What  is 
Truth?"  and  I  am  not  psychologist  or 
philosopher  enough  to  go  very  far  on 
the  devious  and  mysterious  paths  by 
which  one  discovers  the  complex  nature 


of  the  personality — nor  can  I  take  any 
one  deep  into  the  mysteries  that  form 
the  nature  of  truth.  I  know  only  that 
Alison  made  all  of  us  stand  for  a  mo- 
ment face  to  face  with  that  shining 
thing. 

During  those  long  days  of  struggle  she 
had  denied  her  inner  warning  instinct. 
She  had  denied  the  very  evidence  of  her 
senses.  She  had  thrown  aside,  like  use- 
less rubbish,  all  the  things  we  call  truth, 
and  had  thereby  attained  a  higher 
truth.  She  had  denied  her  senses'  evi- 
dence until  at  last  she  had  seen  Godfrey 
and  all  of  life  with  the  eyes  of  the  spirit 
which  from  all  time  have  been  the  eyes 
of  the  blind. 

She  had  found  the  other  road  to  sight, 
and  what  she  had  seen  had  made  the 
evidence  of  her  senses  of  no  value.  And 
at  that  moment  of  insight  the  evidence 
of  my  senses,  too,  became  as  nothing. 
I  had  seen  Godfrey  betray  Alison,  yet 
when  I  saw  Alison's  face  I  knew  this  had 
never  been  so,  or  rather  that  this  be- 
trayal was  as  trivial  and  unimportant 
as  the  opening  and  shutting  of  a  window, 
and  that  the  flaming  passion  of  Godfrey 
and  Gloria,  which,  for  a  time,  threat- 
tened  to  destroy  the  lives  of  all  of  us,  in 
the  face  of  this  ultimate  truth  was  but 
the  flicker  of  a  moment. 

This  is  all  that  I  can  tell  of  what  hap- 
pened. I  only  know  that  since  then,  in 
our  different  ways,  Godfrey,  Gloria,  and 
I  have  believed.  For  we  saw  a  spirit 
rise,  as  though  from  the  dead. 


John  Hay's  Statesmanship 


From  His  UNPUBLISHED  LETTERS 


Compiled  and  Edited  by  William  Roscoe  Thayer 


R.  HAY'S  health  did 
not  permit  him  to  re- 
turn to  Washington  un- 
til October,  1900.  He 
watched  the  progress  of 
the  Presidential  cam- 
paign somewhat  anx- 
iously, because  he  believed  that  the 
position  of  the  State  Department  on 
international  questions  might  influence 
voters  against  Mr.  McKinley.  The  pub- 
lic knew  the  rebuffs  that  had  been  re- 
ceived, the  failure  of  the  Alaska  negotia- 
tions and  of  the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty; 
it  did  not  know  of  all  its  successes, 
and,  as  Hay  said,  it  would  not  be  becom- 
ing in  him  to  boast  of  them,  much  less 
to  publish  them  prematurely. 

The  enemies  of  the  administration 
made  Anglophobia  one  of  their  trump 
cards. 

No  sane  man  [Hay  wrote  to  a  friend 
abroad]  can  appreciate  the  stupid  and  mad 
malignancy  of  our  Anglophobia.  It  is  not 
merely  the  Yellows,  the  Irish,  and  the  Tam- 
many people — they  are  a  matter  of  course — 
but  by  far  the  worst  of  the  lot  is  the  New 
York  Sun,  which  claims  to  be  supporting 
McKinley,  and  whose  furious  attacks  on  the 
State  Department  from  time  to  time  scare 
our  own  managers  out  of  their  five  wits.  Just 
now  they  are  having  all  colors  of  fits  over  our 
modus  vivendi  in  Alaska.  That  was,  as  you 
know,  one  of  the  best  bargains  for  us  ever 
made.  I  cannot  even  defend  myself  by  say- 
ing how  good  the  bargain  was.  I  do  not 
want  to  publish  to  the  world  the  details  of  an 
engagement  some  of  whose  features  are  as 
yet  incomplete,  and  it  is  abominable  form 
for  a  Government  to  brag  of  its  diplomatic 
success.  So  I  must  let  the  tempest  of  dust 
and  foul  air  blow  itself  out. 

Mr.  Hay  was  in  the  condition  where 
everything  hostile,  however  slight, 
rasped  his  always  sensitive  nature. 

The  newspapers  have  been  unusually  busy 
inventing  lies  [he  informed  his  brother-in- 
law].    They  said  I  was  dying;  that  I  was 


perfectly  well  but  sulking  because  the  Presi- 
dent had  turned  me  down;  that  I  was  in  a 
deadly  quarrel  with  Root;  that  I  had  at  last 
come  back,  after  extorting  from  the  President 
a  promise  not  to  meddle  again  with  foreign 
affairs.  What  can  be  the  use  or  the  motive 
for  such  ingenious  falsehoods?  I  do  not 
believe  they  can  influence  a  vote  for  Bryan. 
[To  Samuel  Mather,  October  2,  1900.] 

I  think  the  canvass  is  going  on  very  satis- 
factorily [the  Secretary  wrote  Ambassador 
Porter  on  October  2d].  Hanna  got  con- 
siderable of  a  panic  early  in  the  canvass,  but 
I  imagine  it  was  nothing  but  a  money  panic, 
and  if,  after  Bryan's  letter  of  acceptance,  the 
men  who  have  money  refuse  to  do  anything 
in  their  own  defense,  they  will  deserve  to  be 
robbed  to  the  enamel  of  their  teeth. 

As  the  campaign  drew  to  a  close,  signs 
of  McKinley's  re-election  became  unmis- 
takable. Among  the  anti  -  imperialists 
there  was  an  ominous  lack  of  harmony, 
as  appeared  in  the  public  utterances  of 
two  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  their 
number.  Hay  summed  up  their  con- 
tradictory attitudes  in  this  brief  para- 
graph to  the  President: 

Did  you  ever  hear  of  anything  so  ridiculous 
as  that  [Charles  Francis]  Adams  and  [Carl] 
Schurz  correspondence?  Schurz  thinks  that 
it  will  be  best  to  elect  a  lunatic  President,  and 
trust  to  a  sane  Congress  to  keep  him  in  order. 
Adams  thinks  that  the  best  way  would  be 
to  elect  a  sane  man  President,  and  have  a 
lunatic  Congress  for  him  to  control;  and 
neither  of  them  seems  to  realize  that  it  makes 
not  the  slightest  difference  what  both  of  them 
think.   [November  1,  1900.] 

To  another  correspondent  Hay  com- 
mented with  equal  freedom: 

Why  should  anybody  want  to  vote  for 
Bryan  this  year?  I  can  perfectly  understand 
a  man  refusing  Mr.  McKinley  on  well-known 
principles  of  human  conduct — but  I  cannot — 
never  could — comprehend  that  polarization 
of  hatred  that  induces  a  man,  because  he 
hated  Blaine  or  McKinley  or  Gladstone,  to 
adore  Cleveland  or  Bryan  or  Disraeli.  What 


26 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


a  spectacle  the  Schurzes  and  Godkins  pre- 
sent! Asking  people  to  vote  for  Bryan  be- 
cause the  Republicans  can  tie  him  up  and 
prevent  him  from  raising  Cain  when  he  gets 
in. 

The  election  soon  put  an  end  to  all 
doubt.  Hay  wrote  to  his  son  Adelbert, 
who  was  American  consul  at  Johannes- 
burg, that  it 

went  off  magnificently.  It  was,  in  almost 
every  State  of  the  Union,  better  than  we 
expected.  ...  It  is  the  most  overwhelming 
victory  in  this  generation. 

At  the  Cabinet  meeting  yesterday  the 
President  made  a  little  speech,  saying  the 
victory  was  as  much  ours  as  his,  saying  that 
he  could  not  afford  to  part  company  with  us, 
and  asked  us  all  to  remain  with  him  for  the 
next  four  years.  It  was  one  of  the  most 
touching  and  dignified  things  I  have  ever 
known  him  to  do.  I  do  not  know  how  many 
of  us  can  manage  to  stay,  but  we  are  all 
greatly  touched  by  what  he  said.  [Novem- 
ber 14,  1900.] 

Meanwhile  Secretary  Hay  was  busy 
with  foreign  affairs,  among  which  those 
relating  to  China  stood  foremost.  After 
the  Japanese  defeated  the  Chinese  in 
1894,  China  lay  like  a  stranded  whale, 
apparently  dead  or  dying,  and  the  chief 
Powers  of  Europe  came,  like  fishermen 
after  blubber,  and  took  here  a  province 
and  there  a  harbor,  and  were  callous  to 
the  fact  that  their  victim  was  still  alive. 
They  not  only  seized  territory,  but 
forced  from  the  Chinese  concessions  for 
mines,  railways,  commercial  privileges, 
and  spheres  of  influence.  From  the  time 
that  Hay  became  Secretary,  he  strove 
to  preserve  the  political  integrity  of 
China,  and  to  persuade  all  the  Powers 
to  maintain  there  the  policy  of  the  Open 
Door. 

As  early  as  March  16,  1899,  Hay 
wrote  confidentially  to  a  New  York 
editor  who  was  anxious  for  the  protec- 
tion of  American  interests: 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  formulate  with  any 
exactness  the  view  of  the  Government  in 
regard  to  the  present  condition  of  things  in 
China.  In  brief,  we  are  of  course  opposed  to 
the  dismemberment  of  that  Empire,  and  we 
do  not  think  that  the  public  opinion  of  the 
United  States  would  justify  this  Govern- 
ment in  taking  part  in  the  great  game  of 
spoliation  now  going  on.  At  the  same  time 
we  are  keenly  alive  to  the  importance  of  safe- 
guarding our  great  commercial  interests  in 


that  Empire,  and  our  representatives  there 
have  orders  to  watch  closely  everything  that 
may  seem  calculated  to  injure  us,  and  to  pre- 
vent it  by  energetic  and  timely  representa- 
tion. We  declined  to  support  the  demand  of 
Italy  for  a  lodgment  there,  and  at  the  same 
time  we  were  not  prepared  to  assure  China 
that  we  would  join  her  in  repelling  that  de- 
mand by  armed  force.  We  do  not  consider 
our  hands  tied  for  future  eventualities,  but 
for  the  present  we  think  our  best  policy  is 
one  of  vigilant  protection  of  our  commercial 
interests  without  formal  alliances  with  other 
powers  interested. 

During  the  summer  the  Secretary's 
instructions  to  Mr.  Conger,  the  Amer- 
ican minister  at  Peking,  bore  the  same 
burden.  But  as  the  European  Powers 
continued  to  make  mutual  bargains  for 
the  partition  of  the  Empire,  Mr.  Hay 
in  September,  1899,  finally  addressed  to 
London,  Berlin,  and  St.  Petersburg'  his 
famous  note  on  the  Open  Door.  He  did 
not  originate  the  phrase,  and  the  fact 
of  free  commercial  intercourse  with  all 
nations  had  existed  here  and  there  in 
Europe  during  many  centuries.  But  in 
applying  the  word  to  China  Hay  defined 
a  policy  which  would  affect  the  political 
not  less  than  the  commercial  status  of 
four  hundred  millions  of  Chinese,  and  of 
the  rest  of  the  world  which  had  relations 
with  them. 

The  American  circular  requested  each 
of  the  European  governments  to  respect 
the  existing  treaty  ports  and  the  vested 
interests;  to  allow  the  Chinese  tariff  to 
be  maintained  and  collected  in  the  re- 
spective spheres  of  influence;  and  not 
to  discriminate  against  other  foreigners 
in  port  and  railroad  rates.  The  Powers 
addressed  did  not  reply  promptly.  Eng- 
land was  the  first  to  accede;  the  others, 
while  stating  that  they  sympathized  with 
the  principle,  refrained  from  formally  in- 
dorsing it.  Mr.  Hay,  after  sufficient  de- 
lay, sent  word  to  each  that  in  view  of 
the  favorable  replies  from  the  others, 
he  regarded  that  Power's  acceptance  as 
"final  and  definitive."  And  subsequent- 
ly he  addressed  France,  Italy,  and  Japan. 

From  a  letter  to  Mr.  Choate,  on  No- 
vember 13,  1899,  we  have  an  inkling  of 
the  slowness  of  the  proceedings: 

I  should  be  glad  if  you  could  get  as  early 
an  answer  as  possible  from  the  British  Gov- 
ernment in  regard  to  our  suggestions  as  to 


JOHN  HAY'S  STATESMANSHIP 


27 


the  Open  Door  in  China.  .  .  .  We  are  mak- 
ing the  same  approaches  to  the  Japanese 
Government  which  we  have  made  to  the 
others,  and,  judging  by  what  the  Japanese 
minister  here  says,  I  think  we  will  run  no 
difficulty  in  that  quarter.    The  Chinese  min- 
ister called  the  other  day  in  some  trouble  of 
mind  on  account  of  the  definite  statement  in 
the  American  news- 
papers   that  we 
were  considering  a 
proposition  of  the 
European  Powers 
for  the  dismember- 
ment of  China.  I 
assured  him  that  no 
suggestion  had  been 
made  to  me  in  that 
direction  and  that 
we  should  not  re- 
gard it  favorably  if 
made.    He  then 
asked  me  if  I  would 
be  so  kind  as  to  put 
that  in  writing,  as 
it  would  be  very 
reassuring  to  his 
Government  to  hear 
it.  I  have  done  this, 
adding  that   if  at 
any  future  time, 
which  I  did  not  now 
anticipate,  we 
should   desire  any 
conveniences  or  ac- 
commodations   o  n 
the  coast  of  China, 
we  should  approach 
the  Chinese  Govern- 
ment directly  upon 
the  subject.    I  also 
expressed  the  hope 
that  his  Govern- 
ment would  co-operate  with  us  in  gaining  the 
assurances  we  desired  from  the  European 
Powers  of  an  equal  and  impartial  participa- 
tion in  the  trade  of  China. 

Next  to  England,  Hay  regarded  Rus- 
sia as  the  most  important  party  to  the 
agreement.  Russia,  however,  would 
sign  no  paper,  but  her  minister,  Count 
Mouravieff,  gave  an  oral  promise  to 
do  what  France  did.  Later,  he  "flew 
into  a  passion"  and  insisted  upon  it  that 
Russia  would  never  bind  herself  in  that 
way;  that  whatever  she  did  she  would 
do  alone  and  without  the  concurrence  of 
France.    Still,  Hay  adds: 

He  did  say  it,  he  did  promise,  and  he  did 
enter  into  just  that  engagement.    It  is  pos- 
sible that  he  did  so  thinking  that  France 
Vol.  CXXXT.— No.  781— 4 


E. H. CONGER 
American  Minister  to  China  during  the  Boxer  Rebellion 


would  not  come  in,  and  that  other  Powers 
would  not.  If  now  they  choose  to  take  a 
stand  in  opposition  to  the  entire  civilized 
world,  we  shall  then  make  up  our  minds  what 
to  do  about  it.  At  present  I  am  not  bother- 
ing much.    [To  Henry  White,  April  2,  1900.] 

By  what  was  one  of  the  most  adroit 

strokes  of  modern 
diplomacy  Hay 
thus  accustomed 
the  world  to  ac- 
cept the  Open 
Door  as  the  only 
decent  policy  for 
it  to  adopt  toward 
China.  Not  one 
of  the  Govern- 
ments concerned 
wished  to  agree 
to  it;  each  saw 
more  profit  to  it- 
self in  exploiting 
what  it  had  al- 
ready grabbed  and 
in  joining  in  the 
scramble  for 
more;  but  not 
one  of  them,  after 
Hay  declared  for 
the  Open  Door, 
ventured  openly 
to  oppose  the  doc- 
trine. It  was  as 
if,  in  a  meeting,  he 
had  asked  all  those 
who  believed  in 
telling  the  truth 
to  stand  up;  the 
liars  would  have  risen  with  the  rest. 

Hardly,  however,  had  the  Powers  be- 
gun to  look  somewhat  kindly  on  the  ideal 
of  the  Open  Door,  when  the  Boxer 
rising  intervened,  and  before  this  was 
put  down  demands  for  vengeance  on  the 
Chinese  rose  from  many  quarters.  The 
German  Emperor,  whose  minister,  Ket- 
teler,  had  been  shot  in  Peking,  sent  out 
a  punitive  expedition  under  Count  Wal- 
dersee,  bidding  his  soldiers  to  comport 
themselves  so  like  Huns  that  for  a 
thousand  years  to  come  no  Chinese 
would  dare  to  look  a  German  in  the 
face.  Other  Powers  uttered  their  wrath 
more  guardedly;  hut  they  all  surmised 
that  the  new  situation  would  justify 
them  in  dismembering  China. 


28 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


To  prevent  this  Hay  worked  inde- 
fatigably.  He  sent  to  China  Mr.  W.  W. 
Rockhill,  whom  he  regarded,  next  to  Mr. 
Henry  White,  as  the  best  diplomat  in 
the  service.  He  made  his  note  of  July 
3d  the  basis  of  American  action,  and,  as 
Russia  occupied  New  Chwang,  he  sent 
to  her  a  serious  inquiry,  to  which  he 

received  a  reply,  most  positive  and  satisfac- 
tory, that  their  occupation  was  military  and 
temporary,  and  that  our  commercial  inter- 
ests should  not  in  any  case  be  limited  or  in- 
jured. Russia  [he  adds]  has  been  more  out- 
spoken than  before  in  her  adhesion  to  the 
Open  Door.    [September  8,  1900.] 

The  approach  of  the  much-prepared  Wal- 
dersee  [wrote  one  of  Hay's  correspondents] 
seemed  a  peril.  There  was  the  danger  that 
after  all  the  Emperor's  windy  eloquence  he 
might  feel  the  necessity  of  kicking  up  a  row 
to  justify  the  appointment  of  Waldersee.  I 
was  very  glad,  therefore,  that  the  Russians 
gave  us  an  opportunity  to  say  that  we  would 
stay  under  a  definite  understanding  and  not 
otherwise.  It  begins  to  look  as  if  there  was 
some  chance  for  the  Open  Door,  after  all. 

This  was  Hay's  view  also.  He  wished 
to  hold  the  other.  Powers  to  their  ad- 
herence to  the  Open  Door,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  avoid  the  semblance  of  or- 
ganizing an  anti-Russian  coalition.  To 
exact  from  the  Chinese  indemnities  and 
the  punishment  of  the  chief  culprits 
appeared  to  him  the  best  sort  of  retribu- 
tion; but  the  Germans  went  much  far- 
ther. Indeed,  Count  Waldersee's  army 
appears  to  have  obeyed  the  Kaiser's 
command  and  played  the  congenial  role 
of  Huns  in  several  districts. 

Everything  seemed  to  be  going  well  until 
this  promenade  of  Waldersee's  to  Tai-ping 
[Hay  writes  on  October  16th],  which  I  fear 
will  have  very  unfavorable  results  upon  the 
rest  of  China.  The  Great  Viceroys,  to  secure 
whose  assistance  was  our  first  effort  and  our 
success,  have  been  standing  by  us  splendidly 
for  the  last  four  months.  How  much  longer 
they  can  hold  their  turbulent  populations 
quiet  in  the  face  of  the  constant  incitements 
to  disturbance  which  Germany  and  Russia 
are  giving  is  hard  to  conjecture.  .  .  . 

The  success  we  had  in  stopping  that  first 
preposterous  German  movement  when  the 
whole  world  seemed  likely  to  join  in  it,  when 
the  entire  press  of  the  Continent  and  a  great 
many  on  this  side  were  in  favor  of  it,  will 
always  be  a  source  of  gratification  [he  con- 
fides in  the  same  letter  to  an  intimate  friend]. 


The  moment  we  acted,  the  rest  of  the  world 
paused,  and  finally  came  over  to  our  ground; 
and  the  German  Government,  which  is  gen- 
erally brutal  but  seldom  silly,  recovered  its 
senses,  climbed  down  off  its  perch  and  pre- 
sented another  proposition  which  was  ex- 
actly in  line  with  our  position.  [October  16, 
1900.] 

In  spite  of  his  having  warded  off  the 
worst  danger,  the  Secretary  was  both 
puzzled  and  somewhat  troubled  by  the 
drawing  together  of  England  and  Ger- 
many, because  he  feared  that  they  in- 
tended, at  the  critical  moment,  to  wring 
other  exactions  from  China.  It  ap- 
peared later,  however,  that  their  mutual 
purpose  was  to  check  Russian  aggression 
in  Manchuria,  and  that  Germany  wished 
to  prevent  England  from  enjoying  a 
monopoly  of  the  Yangtse  Valley  trade. 
Before  the  end  of  the  year  the  Powers 
were  sufficiently  agreed  among  them- 
selves to  join  in  drawing  up  a  note  in 
which  they  laid  their  demands  before  the 
Emperor  of  China,  who  perforce  yielded 
to  them. 

The  negotiations  went  on  for  a  long 
time  thereafter,  but  this  was  the  cul- 
mination of  the  diplomatic  battle,  in 
which  Secretary  Hay  won  the  most  brill- 
iant triumph  of  his  career. 

The  failure  to  come  to  an  agreement 
with  England  over  the  isthmian  canal 
weighed  upon  Hay's  conscience.  Eng- 
land, having  rejected  the  amendments 
to  the  first  treaty,  and  being  impeded  by 
the  Canadian  negotiations,  seemed  to  be 
in  an  unpropitious  mood.  But  Hay 
would  not  be  balked.  After  waiting  a 
year,  he  instructed  Mr.  Henry  White  to 
see  what  could  be  done.  While  spending 
a  week-end  at  Hatfield,  Mr.  White  unoffi- 
cially asked  Lord  Salisbury  whether  it 
would  not  be  well,  in  the  interest  of 
both  countries,  to  renew  negotiations  for 
canceling  the  Clayton-Bulwer  conven- 
tion, in  order  that  a  canal  might  be  built. 
The  Prime  Minister  replied  at  once, 
"Certainly,"  and  he  made  no  other 
stipulation  in  regard  to  the  canal,  except 
that  the  tolls  on  vessels  passing  through 
it  should  be  absolutely  equal  for  all 
nations.  He  added  that,  as  he  had  per- 
fect confidence  in  Lord  Pauncefote,  who 
knew  the  subject  thoroughly,  the  busi- 
ness might  well  be  conducted  in  Wash- 


JOHN  HAY'S  STATESMANSHIP 


29 


ington.  As  soon  as  Secretary  Hay  had 
this  assurance  from  Mr.  White,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  negotiate  through  the  regular 
channels,  and  by  the  end  of  April,  1901, 
he  sent  the  project  of  the  new  treaty  to 
Mr.  Choate,  to  whom  he  explained  that 
the  most  important  change  involved  the 
question  of  fortifying  the  canal. 

This  point,  over 
which  there  had 
been  the  hottest 
debate  the  year 
before,  was  now 
passed  b  y  in  si- 
lence. 

I  hope  it  will  not 
be  considered  im- 
portant enough  for 
the  British  Govern- 
ment to  take  ex- 
ceptions to  this 
omission  [Hay 
wrote].  The  fact  is 
that  no  Govern- 
ment, not  absolutely 
imbecile,  would  ever 
think  of  fortifying 
the  Canal,  and  yet 
there  are  members 
of  the  Senate  so 
morbidly  sensitive 
on  the  subject  that 
it  might  seriously 
injure  the  passage 
of  the  treaty 
through  the  Senate 
if  this  provision  were 
retained  after  the 
omission  of  the  Da- 
vis amendment. 

In  August,  Sec- 
retary Hay  wrote 
Senator  Morgan 
of  Alabama,  the 
m  e  m  be  r  of  the 
Committee  o  n 
Foreign  Relations 
who  had  made  the 

special  province,  that  the  new  treaty 
would  probably  come  up  at  the  next 
session,  and  that,  as  it  contained  virtu- 
ally the  amendments  suggested  by  the 
Senate,  and  especially  those  which  Mor- 
gan himself  had  kindly  suggested,  he 
hoped  it  would  go  through.  "The  Brit- 
ish Government,"  he  remarked,  "have 
shown  a  very  fair  and  reasonable  spirit." 

There  was  still  work  to  be  done  in  ex- 
plaining the  provision  to  hesitant  Sena- 


COUNT  VON  WALDERSEE 
Leader  of  the  German  Punitive  Expedition  in  China,  1900 


canal  question  his 


tors  and  in  enlightening  the  press.  On 
November  18th,  Secretary  Hay  and 
Lord  Pauncefote  signed  the  treaty, 
which  the  Senate  ratified  on  December 
1 6th  by  a  vote  of  seventy- two  ayes  to 
six  nays.  The  British  government  con- 
curred without  long  delay. 

Hay  was  naturally  elated,  because,  al- 
though this  treaty 
differed  widely 
from  that  which 
he  first  drew,  it 
contained  two 
provisions  which 
he  deemed  essen- 
tial— the  abroga- 
tion of  the  Clay- 
ton  -  Bulwer 
convention  and 
the  acknowledg- 
ment that  the 
United  States 
should  control  un- 
disturbed  the 
building  and  ope- 
ration of  the  isth- 
mian canal. 

You  will  have 
seen  by  the  news- 
papers of  the  rapid 
and  prosperous 
journey  of  our 
treaty  through  the 
Senate  [he  wrote  to 
his  loyal  assistant, 
Mr.  White].  Cabot 
[Senator  Lodge], 
who  felt  himself  par- 
ticularly responsible 
for  the  wreck  of  the 
last  one,  put  his 
whole  back  into 
promoting  this  one. 
The  President  like- 
wise was  extremely 
zealous  in  rounding 
up  the  bunch  of 
doubtful  Senators,  and  the  treaty  [at  last 
went  through  with  no  opposition  except 
from  the  irreclaimable  cranks.  Seventy-two 
to  six  was  near  enough  unanimity.  [Decem- 
ber 26,  1901.] 

My  purpose  in  these  papers  is  not  to 
analyze  Mr.  Hay's  opinions  and  acts, 
but  to  state  them  as  far  as  possible  in  his 
own  words,  so  that  readers  may  know 
the  basis  and  the  aim  of  his  work  as  a 
statesman.  For  this  reason  I  have 
quoted  freely  his  views  of  the  public  men 


30 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


whom  he  had  to  deal  with — for  men  are 
the  statesman's  tools.  We  have  seen 
that,  almost  from  the  first,  he  held  the 
Senate  as  his  antagonist.  It  killed  or 
mutilated  his  treaties — an  exercise  of 
power  which,  he  believed,  the  framers  of 
the  Constitution  ought  not  to  have 
given  it.  He  was  convinced  of  its  igno- 
rance, and  upon 
occasion  he  sus- 
pected the  disin- 
terestedness and 
even  the  honesty 
of  some  of  the 
Senators.  That  a 
few  men,  whose 
business  was  not 
diplomacy,  should 
have  the  right  to 
shatter  a  delicate 
piece  of  diplomat- 
ic mosaic  seemed 
to  him  as  mon- 
strous as  if  a  clod- 
hopper should  be 
privileged  to 
trample  on  a  vio- 
lin. The  artist  in 
him  revolted;  his 
reason  revolted; 
his  conscience  re- 
volted. 

He  strove  to 
accept  the  condi- 
tion and  to  make 
the  best  of  it.  He 
wrote  letters  t  o 
the  dominant  Sen- 
ators as  propitiat- 
ing, as  bland,  as  a  duke  of  the  old  regime 
might  have  written  to  his  favorite  mar- 
quise. But  in  his  talk  and  in  his  letters 
to  his  intimates  he  gave  free  rein  to 
sarcasm. 

Two  or  three  extracts  will  suffice  to 
show  how  seriously  Senatorial  opposi- 
tion grated  on  Hay's  nerves.  The  first 
is  from  a  private  letter  to  Ambassador 
Choate  on  March  7,  1900: 

We  have  a  clear  majority,  I  think,  in  favor 
of  all  of  them  [the  pending  treaties],  but  as 
the  Fathers,  in  their  wisdom,  saw  fit  to  ordain 
that  the  kickers  should  rule  for  ever,  the 
chances  are  always  two  to  one  against  any 
government  measure  passing. 

It  is  a  curious  state  of  things:  the  howling 
lunatics  like  Mason  and  Allen  and  Petti- 


W.  W.  ROCKHILL 
United  States  Plenipotentiary  to  Congress  of  Peking 


grew  are  always  on  hand,  while  our  friends 
are  cumbered  with  other  cares  and  most  of 
the  time  away.  X  has  been  divorcing  his 
wife;  Morgan  is  fighting  for  his  life  in  Ala- 
bama; Cullom  ditto  in  Illinois;  even  when 
Providence  takes  a  hand  in  the  game,  our 
folks  are  restrained  by  a  Senatorial  courtesy 
"from  accepting  His  favors."  Last  week 
Z  had  delirium  tremens;   Bacon  broke  his 

ribs;  Pettigrew  had 
the  grip,  and  Hall 
ran  off  to  New  York 
on  private  business; 
and  the  whole  Sen- 
ate stopped  work 
until  they  got 
around  again.  I 
have  never  struck  a 
subject  so  full  of 
psychological  inter- 
est as  the  official 
mind  of  a  Senator. 

After  the  failure 
of  the  first  canal 
bill  he  wrote  to 
another  corre- 
spondent: 

I  long  ago  made 
up  my  mind  that 
no  treaty  on  which 
discussion  was  pos- 
sible, no  treaty  that 
gave  room  for  a 
difference  of  opin- 
ion, could  ever  pass 
the  Senate.  When 
I  sent  in  the  Canal 
Convention,  I  felt 
sure  no  one  out  of 
a  madhouse  could 
fail  to  see  that  the 
advantages  were  all 
on  our  side.  But  I  underrated  the  power  of 
ignorance  and  spite,  acting  upon  cowardice. 
April  22,  1900.] 

During  his  illness  he  confided  to  Mr. 
Henry  Adams: 

I  need  you  no  end,  but,  alas,  the  inevitable 
has  happened  and  I  have  become  a  bore. 
I  cannot  tell  when  the  malady  attained  its 
present  proportions — its  progress  is  always 
insidious.  I  can  think  of  nothing  but  the 
Senate,  and  talk  of  little  else.  Even  when 
I  get  out  of  office,  which  will  be,  D.  V.,  next 
March,  I  have  a  grisly  suspicion  that  it  will 
be  no  better.  The  poison  is  immanent.  I 
shall  begin  every  phrase  with,  "When  I 
was  .  .  . 

The  sarcasms  which  Hay  wrote  to  his 


JOHN  HAY'S  STATESMANSHIP 


31 


intimates,  or  flashed  out  in  conversation, 
sometimes  got  back  to  the  Senators,  who 
would  have  been  more  than  human  if 
they  had  not  been  stung  by  them.  This 
is  not  the  place  in  which  to  discuss  the 
question  of  the  unwisdom  of  the  Fathers 
in  assigning  to  the  Senate  a  share  in 
making  treaties;  nor  have  I  space  to 
indicate  how  much 
several  of  Hay's 
treaties  gained 
through  revision 
by  the  Senators 
whom  he  criti- 
cized. I  wish  mere- 
ly to  hint  at  the 
difficulties  against 
which  he  felt  he 
had  to  work.  As 
usually  happens 
wi  t  h  a  man  of 
poetic  cast  —  and 
Hay's  nature  was 
primarily  that  of 
a  poet — the  mood 
of  the  day  colored 
h  i  s  expressions. 
Thus  on  April  24, 
1900,  he  writes  to 
Richard  Watson 
Gilder: 

Many  thanks  for 
your  kind  letter 
from  Berlin.  I  need 
all  the  help  and 
comfort  I  can  get 
from  the  apostles 
of  sweetness  and 
light,  for  verily  I  am  in  deep  waters  these 
days.  Matters  have  come  to  such  a  pass 
with  the  Senate  that  it  seems  absolutely  im- 
possible to  do  business.  .  .  .  The  fact  that  a 
treaty  gives  to  this  country  a  great,  lasting 
advantage  seems  to  weigh  nothing  what- 
ever in  the  minds  of  about  half  the  Senators. 
Personal  interests,  personal  spites,  and  a  con- 
tingent chance  of  a  petty  political  advantage 
are  the  only  motives  that  cut  any  ice  at  pres- 
ent. 

And  yet,  only  two  months  later,  he 
wrote  again  to  Gilder: 

I  am  afraid  you  read  too  many  newspapers 
while  you  are  away.  I  am  an  old  man,  and 
have  had  opportunities  of  observation  most 
of  my  days,  and  I  give  it  to  you  straight  that 
there  never  has  been  less  corruption  in  Amer- 
ican affairs  than  there  is  to-day,  nor,  as  I 


{Copyright,  1902,  by  J.  E.  Purdy,  Boston,  Mass.) 

HENRY  WHITE 

First  Secretary  of  the  American 
Embassy   at    London,  1897-1905 


devoutly  believe,  in  the  affairs  of  any  other 
people. 

Into  the  intricacies  of  the  efforts  to 
preserve  China  from  being  vivisected 
after  the  Boxer  troubles,  I  will  not  enter. 
Hay's  part  in  saving  that  Empire  alive 
was  greater  than  that  of  any  other 
statesman.     He   made   a  magnificent 

bluff — which  the 
United  States 
could  not  have 
backed  up  if  it  had 
been  called — and 
he  won.  Two 
quotations  will 
bring  before  the 
reader  the  Sec- 
retary's state  of 
mind  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1900. 
First,  as  to  the 
policy  he  upheld: 

About  China,  it 
is  the  devil's  own 
mess.  We  cannot 
possibly  publish  all 
the  facts  without 
breaking  off  re- 
lations with  several 
Powers.  We  shall 
have  to  do  the  best 
we  can,  and  take 
the  consequences, 
which  will  be  pretty 
serious,  I  do  not 
doubt.  "Give  and 
take"  —  the  axiom 
of  diplomacy  to  the 
rest  of  the  world — 
is  positively  forbidden  to  us  by  both  the 
Senate  and  public  opinion.  We  must  take 
what  we  can  and  give  nothing — which  greatly 
narrows  our  possibilities. 

I  take  it,  you  agree  with  us  that  we  are  to 
limit  as  far  as  possible  our  military  operations 
in  China,  to  withdraw  our  troops  at  the  earli- 
est day  consistent  with  our  obligations,  and 
in  the  final  adjustment  to  do  everything  we 
can  for  the  integrity  and  reform  of  China, 
and  to  hold  on  like  grim  death  to  the  Open 
Door.  .  .  .    [September  20,  1900. 1 

From  the  next  most  confidential  out- 
pouring to  Mr.  Adams  we  have  Hay's 
private  opinion  of  the  other  nations  with 
which  he  had  to  deal  in  the  Chinese 
imbroglio: 

1900.  November  21. — What  a  business  this 
has  been  in  China!    So  far  we  have  got  on 


32 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


by  being  honest  and  naif — I  do  not  clearly 
see  where  we  are  to  come  the  delayed  crop- 
per. But  it  will  come.  At  least  we  are 
spared  the  infamy  of  an  alliance  with  Ger- 
many. I  would  rather,  I  think,  be  the  dupe 
of  China  than  the  chum  of  the  Kaiser. 
Have  you  noticed  how  the  world  will  take 
anything  nowadays  from  a  German  ?  Buelow 
said  yesterday  in  substance:  "We  have  de- 
manded of  China  everything  we  can  think 
of.  If  we  think  of  anything  else  we  will  de- 
mand that,  and  be  damned  to  you" — and 
not  a  man  in  the  world  kicks. 

My  heart  is  heavy  about  John  Bull.  Do 
you  twig  his  attitude  to  Germany.  When 
the  Anglo-German  pact  came  out,  I  took  a 
day  or  two  to  find  out  what  it  meant.  I  soon 
learned  from  Berlin  that  it  meant  a  horrible 
practical  joke  on  England.  From  London  I 
found  out  what  I  had  suspected,  but  what  it 
astounded  me,  after  all,  to  be  assured  of — 
that  they  did  not  know!  Germany  pro- 
posed it;  they  saw  no  harm  in  it,  and  signed. 
When  Japan  joined  the  pact,  I  asked  them 
why.  They  said,  "We  don't  know,  only  if 
there  is  any  fun  going  on,  we  want  to  be  in." 
Cassini  is  furious — which  may  be  because  he 
has  not  been  let  in  to  the  joke. 

Outwardly,  needless  to  say,  and  in  his 
official  dealings,  Hay's  conduct  toward 
Germany  was  impeccably  correct.  His 
constant  desire  was  to  secure  friendly 
relations  with  Germany,  and  above  all 
to  see  the  Germans  in  America  become 
loyal  Americans.  He  writes  to  the  editor 
of  the  American  and  German  Review, 
which  he  calls  "your  admirable  maga- 
zine  : 

Your  purpose  to  improve  the  political  and 
business  relations  between  Germany  and 
America  is  a  most  laudable  one  and  has  my 
cordial  sympathy.  It  must  commend  itself 
to  all  who  wish  well  to  both  countries  and 
especially  to  those  who,  like  myself,  have 
German  blood  in  their  veins.    [March  28, 

I899-] 

But  as  he  had  been  one  of  the  first  to 
perceive  the  purpose  behind  German 
naval  expansion,  so  he  watched  closely 
the  beginnings  of  the  policy  to  unite  the 
German-Americans  into  a  political  unit 
which  should,  when  the  time  was  ripe, 
try  to  use  the  United  States  to  forward 
the  ambition  of  the  German  Emperor. 
Hay's  references,  in  his  private  letters, 
to  William  II.  are  nearly  always  amus- 
ing. He  was  not  deceived  into  mistak- 
ing the  Emperor's  bustle  in  politics,  art, 
literature,   and   religion  for  greatness. 


But  although  he  smiled,  he  recognized 
that  such  a  monarch,  working  upon  such 
a  people  as  the  German,  might  become 
a  danger  to  civilization. 

Hay  had  plenty  of  reason  to  know  that 
"German  diplomacy,"  as  he  expressed 
it,  "is  generally  brutal."  During  his 
ambassadorship  in  London  he  saw  the 
Germans  conniving  to  form  a  league 
against  the  United  States;  he  suspected 
their  purpose  to  seize  the  Philippines; 
and  throughout  the  long  negotiations 
over  China  he  had  to  resist  the  exorbi- 
tance of  German  demands.  In  Holle- 
ben,  the  ambassador  whom  the  Kaiser 
sent  over  to  represent  his  imperial  plans, 
Hay  had  daily  before  his  eyes  an  embodi- 
ment of  Prussian  diplomacy. 

Hay's  letters  mention  various  matters 
which  may  be  described  in  detail  only 
when  the  official  documents  are  released. 
Thus  as  early  as  1898  he  inquires 
whether  "Germany  has  an  eye  on 
Liberia,"  and  in  May,  1901,  he  receives 
information  that  German  warships  have 
been  surreptitiously  inspecting  the  Santa 
Margarita  Islands,  off  the  coast  of  Vene- 
zuela, with  a  view  to  occupying  them  as 
a  naval  base.  The  story  cannot  yet  be 
written  of  Germany's  attempt  to  re- 
cover by  force  claims  of  German  in- 
vestors against  Venezuela.  It  is  known, 
however,  that  our  administration  gave 
Germany  ten  days  in  which  to  agree  to 
arbitration;  that  Holleben  replied  that 
arbitration  was  impossible,  as  the  Kaiser 
had  commanded  the  other  course;  that 
the  administration  secretly  ordered  our 
fleet  to  proceed  to  Caracas;  and  that  on 
the  afternoon  before  this  ten-day  limit 
expired  Holleben  came  in  haste  to  an- 
nounce that  the  Kaiser  had  consented 
to  arbitrate.  Venezuela  engaged  the 
American  minister,  Mr.  Herbert  W. 
Bowen,  to  conduct  the  negotiations  for 
her. 

Secretary  Hay  writes  to  a  private 
correspondent: 

They  [the  German  Government]  are  very 
much  preoccupied  in  regard  to  our  attitude, 
and  a  communique  recently  appeared  in  the 
Berlin  papers  indicating  that  the  negotia- 
tions would  have  gone  on  better  but  for  our 
interference.  We  have  not  interfered,  except 
in  using  what  good  offices  we  could  dispose  of 
to  induce  all  parties  to  come  to  a  speedy 
and  honorable  settlement,  and  in  this  we 


JOHN  HAY'S  STATESMANSHIP 


33 


have  been,  I  think,  eminently  successful.  I 
think  the  thing  that  rankles  most  in  the  Ger- 
man official  mind  is  what  Bowen  said  to 
Sternburg1:  "Very  well;  I  will  pay  this 
money  which  you  demand,  because  I  am 
not  in  position  to  refuse,  but  I  give  you  warn- 
ing that  for  every  thousand  dollars  you 
exact  in  this  way  you  will  lose  a  million  in 
South  American 
trade."  [February 
1 6,  1903.] 

That  Germany, 
voracious  for  col- 
onies, should  chafe 
at  the  Monroe 
Doctrine,  which 
shut  her  out  from 
the  American  con- 
tinent, was  as 
natural  as  that 
the  American  Sec- 
retary o  f  State 
should  make  it  his 
business  to  thwart 
German  schemes, 
whether  open  o  r 
underhand.  But 
Hay  also  dis- 
cerned very  early 
the  changing  at- 
titude of  the  Ger- 
m  a  n  -  Americans 
and  their  league 
with  the  Irish- 
Americans. 

It  i  s  a  singular 
ethnological  and 
political  paradox 
[he  wrote  the  Pres- 
ident] that  the  prime 
motive  of  every 
British  subject  i  n 
America  is  hostility 
to  England,  and 
the  prime  motive 
of  every  German- 
American  is  hostility  to  every  country  in 
the  world,  including  America,  which  is  not 
friendly  to  Germany.  .  .  .  The  Irish  of 
New  York  are  thirsting  for  my  gore.  Give 
it  to  them,  if  you  think  they  need  it.  [April 
23,  I903-] 

One  of  Hay's  first  duties  was  to  settle 
the  dispute  over  the  Samoan  Islands, 
where  the  United  States,  England,  and 
Germany  exercised  a  condominium.  The 

1Freiherr  Speck  von  Sternburg,  soon  after  this 
appointed  German  Ambassador  to  succeed  Hol- 
leben. 


LORD  PAUNCEFOTE 
British  Ambassador  to  the  United  States 


following  notes  refer  to  the  conclusion  of 
this  thorny  matter. 

To  President  McKinley: 

1  his  morning  the  German  ambassador 
called  at  the  department  and  with  the 
greatest  solemnity  urged  that  Chambers  be 
recalled.    Germany  is  very  anxious  that  this 

be  done.  England 
is  rather  indifferent, 
but  would  acquiesce 
if  the  United  States 

consented  I  think 

that  in  strict  justice 
Germany  has  a  right 
to  complain  of  him. 
The  point  on  which 
I  am  not  absolutely 
clear  is  as  to  what 
would  be  the  effect 
on  public  opinion  of 
our  joining  in  his 
recall.  The  hyphen- 
ated Germans  are 
so  frantically  unjust 
toward  us  that  noth- 
ing we  could  do 
would  have  any 
effect  upon  their 
howling,  so  that  I 
think  we  will  have 
to  decide  the  matter 
without  reference  to 
them.  [June  26, 
1899.] 

To  Mr.  Henry 
White 

Our  relations  with 
Germany  are  per- 
fectly civil  and  cour- 
teous. They  are 
acting  badly  about 
our  meats  and  can- 
not help  being  bully- 
ing and  swaggering. 
It  is  their  nature. 
But  we  get  on  with 
them.  We  are  on 
the  best  of  terms  about  Samoa;  Sternburg 
backed  up  Tripp  in  everything,  so  that,  to 
our  amazement,  Germany  and  we  arranged 
everything  harmoniously.  It  was  rather 
the  English  commissioner  who  was  offish. 
The  Emperor  is  nervously  anxious  to  be 
on  good  terms  with  us — on  his  own  terms, 
bien  entendu.    [September  9,  1899.] 

When  England  and  Germany  came  to 
an  agreement,  Mr.  Hay  wrote  privately 
to  Mr.  Choate: 

I  was  kept  quite  in  the  dark  up  to  the  last 
moment  as  to  the  arrangement  made  between 


34 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Germany  and  England.  The  newspapers 
have  announced,  without  the  least  reserve, 
that  England  was  to  keep  Samoa  and  Ger- 
many get  the  Gilbert  and  Solomon  Islands, 
or,  as  the  boys  with  a  natural  reminiscence 
of  the  opera  bouffe  called  them,  "The  Gil- 
bert and  Sullivan."  I  should  have  been 
glad  if  you  had  squandered  a  little  of  the 
public  money,  let- 
ting me  know  by  tel- 
egraph the  true  state 
of  the  case.  It  is  a 
satisfaction  to  me 
to  know  that  Lord 
Salisbury  assured 
you  that  equal 
rights  as  to  trade 
and  commerce 
would  be  reserved 
for  the  other  Powers 
in  Samoa,  and  of 
this  he  was  informed 
by  your  letter  be- 
fore the  German 
Embassy  received 
the  authentic  news 
that  the  arrange- 
ment had  been 
made.  Germany,  it 
is  true,  has  been  ex- 
cessively anxious 
to  have  the  matter 
concluded  before 
the  Emperor's  visit 
to  England,  and,  in 
the  intense  anxiety, 
I  am  inclined  to 
think  they  have 
somewhat  lost  sight 
of  their  material  in- 
terests in  the  case. 

For  a  year  past  I 
have  been  convinced 

that  the  condominium  was  doomed.  It  was 
impossible  to  carry  on  the  scheme  of  the  Ber- 
lin Act  without  constant  friction,  which  in- 
volved continual  danger  of  conflict.  Our  in- 
terests in  the  archipelago  were  very  meager, 
always  excepting  our  interest  in  Pango  Pango, 
which  was  of  the  most  vital  importance.  It 
is  the  finest  harbor  in  the  Pacific  and  abso- 
lutely indispensable  to  us.  The  general  im- 
pression in  the  country  was  that  we  already 
owned  the  harbor,  but  this,  as  you  know,  was 
not  true.  .  .  .  Seeing  the  intense  anxiety  of 
the  Emperor  that  the  negotiations  should  be 
hastened,  I  sent  at  his  personal  request  the 
despatches  which  you  have  received.  Assured 
that  all  our  interests  would  be  safeguarded, 
and  knowing  also  that  in  case  the  arrange- 
ment proposed  was  not  satisfactory,  we  al- 
ways had  the  power  of  a  peremptory  veto. . . . 

The  arrangement  seems  to  have  been  re- 
ceived with  general  satisfaction  in  the  coun- 


VON  HOLLEBEN 
German  Ambassador  to  the  United  States 


try,  though  the  New  York  Sun,  which  is 
usually  very  friendly  to  us,  is  greatly  dis- 
pleased by  it;  while  the  Tribune,  which  has 
of  late  been  playing  the  role  of  "the  candid 
friend,"  highly  approves.  Our  Navy  De- 
partment has  for  a  long  time  been  very 
anxious  for  this  consummation,  and  of 
course  they  are  delighted  with  it.    I,  myself, 

have  no  doubtwhat- 
ever  that  we  are  the 
party  which  has  de- 
rived the  most  of  the 
advantage  from  the 
arrangement.  Tu- 
tuila,  though  the 
smallest  of  the  isl- 
a  n  d  s  ,  is  infinitely 
the  most  important 
and  the  most  useful 
to  us.  The  argu- 
ment from  size, 
which  the  Sun 
makes  so  much  of, 
is  hardly  worth  a 
moment's  conside- 
ration. An  acre  of 
land  at  the  corner 
of  Broad  and  Wall 
Streets  is  worth 
something  like  a 
million  acres  in  Ne- 
vada. The  proof 
that  size  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the 
case  is  that  Savii, 
by  far  the  largest 
of  the  islands,  was 
considered  by  Ger- 
many and  by  Eng- 
land as  entirely 
worthless.  My  own 
opinion  is  that  Ger- 
many has  the  least 
valuable  bargain  of  the  three  and  that  she 
was  led  by  her  sentimental  eagerness  into  a 
bad  trade.    [November  13,  1899.] 

On  December  2,  1899,  Secretary  Hay 
signed  the  Samoan  agreement. 

I  think  it  was  a  good  day's  work.  The  con- 
dominium had  proved  to  be  absolutely  im- 
practicable, and  contained  in  it  the  seed  of 
all  sorts  of  trouble.  We  are  happily  rid  of  it, 
and  have,  besides  this  negative  advantage, 
the  very  great  positive  gain  of  the  most  im- 
portant island  in  the  Pacific  as  regards  har- 
bor conveniences  for  our  navy  and  a  station 
of  the  great  trans-Pacific  route.  Besides,  we 
secured  all  the  trade  privileges  which  we  now 
have,  and,  in  fact,  all  that  Germany  herself 
possesses  in  the  group. 

To  turn  from  political  to  personal 
matters,  death  brought  to  Mr.  Hay  in 


JOHN  HAY'S  STATESMANSHIP 


35 


1901  losses  which  almost  crushed  him. 
In  June,  his  elder  son  Adelbert,  whom 
President  McKinley  had  just  appointed 
his  private  secretary,  died  instantly  by  a 
fall  from  a  window.  He  had  gone  to 
New  Haven  to  attend  the  Yale  Com- 
mencement. 

If  sympathy  could  help  [Mr.  Hay  writes 
Mr.  White]  our  sorrow  would  be  brief.  But 
every  word  of  praise  and  affection  which  we 
hear  of  our  dead  boy  but  gives  a  keener  edge 
to  our  grief.  Why  should  he  go,  I  stupidly 
ask,  with  his  splendid  health  and  strength, 
his  courage,  his  hopes,  his  cheery  smile  which 
made  everybody  like  him  at  sight,  and  I  be 
left,  with  my  short  remnant  of  life,  of  little 
use  to  my  friends  and  none  to  myself?  Yet 
I  know  this  is  a  wild  and  stupid  way  to  wail 
at  fate.  I  must  face  the  facts.  My  boy  is 
gone,  and  the  whole  face  of  the  world  is 
changed  in  a  moment. 

This  also,  written  from  Newbury,  is  to 
Mr.  White: 

...  I  hardly  know  what  to  say  about 
myself.  I  am  dull  and  inert.  I  am  inclined 
to  hold  on  if  possible  a  little  while  longer. 
The  President  is  most  kind  and  insistent.  If 
I  keep  afloat  till  next  winter,  we  shall  then 
see.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Hay  bears  up  wonderfully, 
and  keeps  us  all  alive  and  sane.  She  said  at 
the  very  beginning:  "We  must  act  as  if  he 
were  away  on  one  of  his  long  journeys,  and 
as  if  we  were  to  see  him  again  in  due  time. 
We  must  make  no  change  whatever  in  our 
way  of  life."  So  the  children  go  on,  asking 
his  and  their  friends  up  here,  trying  to  make 
no  difference.  I  am  sure  she  is  wise — and  I 
hope  for  the  best.    [July  26,  1901.] 

Mr.  Hay's  forebodings  as  to  the  future 
were  soon  verified.  Early  in  September 
President  McKinley  was  shot  by  the 
anarchist  assassin,  Czolgosz  and  lay  for 
a  week  between  life  and  death.  On  Sep- 
tember 14th  he  died.  While  Vice-Presi- 
dent Roosevelt  and  the  other  members 
of  the  Cabinet  hastened  to  Buffalo, 
where  the  crime  was  committed,  Secre- 
tary Hay  remained  in  Washington. 

The  President's  death  was  all  the  more 
hideous  [Hay  wrote  to  Mr.  Adams]  that  we 
were  so  sure  of  his  recovery.  Root  and  I  left 
Buffalo  on  Wednesday  [September  nth]  con- 
vinced that  all  was  right.  I  had  arranged 
with  Cortelyou  that  he  was  to  send  a  wire 
the  next  day  telling  me  if  the  doctors  would 
answer  for  the  President's  life.  He  sent  it, 
and  I  wrote  a  circular  to  all  our  Embassies 
saying  that  recovery  was  assured.  I  thought 
it  might  stop  the  rain  of  inquiries  from  all 
over  the  world.  After  I  had  written  it,  the 
Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781— 5 


black  cloud  of  foreboding,  which  is  always 
just  over  my  head,  settled  down  and  envel- 
oped me,  and  I  dared  not  send  it.  I  spoke  to 
Adee  and  he  confirmed  my  fears.  He  dis- 
trusted the  eighth  day.  So  I  waited — and 
the  next  day  he  was  dying. 

I  have  just  received  your  letter  from  Stock- 
holm, and  shuddered  at  the  awful  clairvoy- 
ance of  your  last  phrase  about  Teddy's  luck. 

Well,  he  is  here  in  the  saddle  again.  That 
is,  he  is  in  Canton  [to  attend  President 
McKinley's  funeral],  and  will  have  his  first 
Cabinet  meeting  in  the  White  House  to- 
morrow. He  came  down  from  Buffalo  Mon- 
day night,  and  in  the  station,  without  wait- 
ing an  instant,  told  me  I  must  stay  with  him, 
— that  I  could  not  decline  nor  even  consider. 
I  saw  of  course  it  was  best  for  him  to  start 
off  that  way,  and  so  I  said  I  would  stay,  for 
ever,  of  course,  for  it  would  be  worse  to  say 
I  would  stay  awhile  than  it  would  be  to  go 
out  at  once.  I  can  still  go  at  any  moment  he 
gets  tired  of  me,  or  when  I  collapse.  [Sep- 
tember 19,  1901.] 

Before  the  year  ran  out,  death  took 
John  Nicolay  and  Clarence  King,  two  of 
Hay's  nearest  friends.  Well  might  he 
say,  "I  have  acquired  the  funeral  habit." 

The  President  [McKinley]  was  one  of  the 
sweetest  and  quietest  natures  I  have  ever 
known  among  public  men  [Mr.  Hay  wrote 
on  September  14th  to  Lady  Jeune  in  Eng- 
land]. I  can  hear  his  voice  and  see  his  face  as 
he  said  all  the  kind  and  consoling  things  a  good 
heart  could  suggest.  And  now  he,  too,  is  gone 
and  left  the  world  far  poorer  by  his  absence. 

I  wonder  how  much  of  grief  we  can  endure. 
It  seems  to  me  I  am  full  to  the  brim.  I  see 
no  chance  of  recovery — no  return  to  the  days 
when  there  seemed  something  worth  while. 
Yet  I  feel  no  disgust  of  life  itself — only  regret 
that  so  little  is  left  and  so  narrow  a  field  of 
work  remaining.  .  .  .  What  a  strange  and 
tragic  fate  it  has  been  of  mine — to  stand  by 
the  bier  of  three  of  my  dearest  friends,  Lin- 
coln, Garfield,  and  McKinley,  three  of  the 
gentlest  of  men,  all  risen  to  the  head  of  the 
State,  and  all  done  to  death  by  assassins. 

I  think  you  know  Mr.  Roosevelt,  our  new 
President.  He  is  an  old  and  intimate  friend 
of  mine — a  young  fellow  of  infinite  dash  and 
originality.  He  has  gone  to  Canton  to  lay  our 
dear  McKinley  to  rest,  and  asked  me  to  stay 
here  on  the  avowed  ground  that,  as  I  am  the 
next  heir  to  the  Presidency,  he  did  not  want 
too  many  eggs  in  the  same  Pullman  car.  .  .  . 

The  shocks  of  that  summer  left  an 
indelible  impression  on  Hay's  health; 
but  he  had  still  nearly  four  years  of  ser- 
vice before  him  under  the  masterful 
young  President. 


Patricia,  Angel-at- Large 


A    STORY    IN    THREE    PARTS— I 


BY  MARGARET  CAMERON 


\T  is  rather  difficult  to 
decide  just  where  the 
thing  really  began.  Per- 
haps none  of  it  would 
have  happened  if  the 
little  Gayley  boy  had 
not  chosen  that  par- 
ticular Friday  for  his  attempt  to  emulate 
Peter  Pan  and  fly  from  his  bedroom  win- 
dow with  no  other  equipment  than  an 
unquestioning  self-confidence  and  a  set 
of  swimming-wings.  He  not  only  suf- 
fered several  painful  concussions  and 
contusions  and  broke  a  collar-bone,  but 
he  also  broke  up  very  effectually  his 
mother's  contemplated  house-party  in 
honor  of  the  American  minister  to  Uru- 
guay and  Paraguay,  and  altered  the 
direction  of  several  lives  which  were 
still  turbidly  seeking  new  and  permanent 
channels  long  after  his  own  had  been 
restored  to  its  normal  course  again. 

When  Gayley's  telegram  announcing 
his  son's  sad  accident  reached  the  min- 
ister, he  was  standing  at  the  door  of  the 
club  on  his  way  to  the  Fall  River  boat. 
He  had  just  met  Ned  Davenport,  for  the 
first  time  in  years,  and  was  explaining 
why  he  could  not  accept  even  one  more 


invitation. 


I'm  sorry,  Ned,  but  I  haven't  an 
hour  left,"  he  said.  "I'm  off  to  Mag- 
nolia now,  for  a  week-end  at  the  Gay- 
leys'.  Monday  I  go  to  Bar  Harbor  for 
a  week's  cruising  on  Senator  Sherwood's 
yacht.  I  must  be  in  Washington  the 
following  Monday,  and  shall  have  to 
hurry  my  business  there  to  keep  an  ap- 
pointment in  Chicago  Friday.  I  shall 
spend  the  rest  of  the  summer  with  my 
people,  somewhere  on  the  Lakes,  and 
not  be  back  here  until  just  before  I  sail 
for  Montevideo  in — " 

"Telegram,  Mr.  Blaisdell,"  said  a 
page  at  his  elbow,  and  fifteen  minutes 
later  Davenport  was  triumphantly  car- 
rying the  diplomat  off  to  his  Connecticut 


country  place.  They  had  almost  reached 
it  when  it  occurred  to  him  to  ask: 

"By  the  way,  Billy,  did  you  ever 
know  Patty  Carlyle?" 

"Patty  Carlyle?  Of  Detroit?  Major 
Carlyle's  daughter?  Well,  rather!  We 
used  to  be  great  pals.  Angular  kid,"  he 
added,  smiling  reminiscently,  "all  arms 
and  legs  and  flying  braids  —  and  frec- 
kles." 

"She's  not  much  like  that  now," 
Davenport  dryly  commented. 

"No,  I  suppose  not.  That  was  fifteen 
years  ago.  Piquant,  fascinating  little 
imp,  she  was!" 

"She's  that  still.  She's  staying  with 
us.  Get  out  all  your  anchors  to  wind- 
ward, Billy.    You'll  need  'em." 

"Oh?  Dangerous,  is  she?  Well,  I've 
weathered  several  gales."  The  minister 
laughed  a  little.  "I  guess  I  can  hold 
together  for  forty-eight  hours  or  so  in 
deep  water — with  no  reefs  about." 

"H'm!  Don't  be  too  sure  of  those  old 
charts  of  yours.  You  may  run  aground 
where  you  least  expect  it." 

"You're  making  me  willing  to  take  a 
chance,  anyway.    Is  she  pretty?" 

"Yes,  she's  pretty,  but  it's  not  that 
entirely.  She's  witty,  too — but  it's  not 
that,  either.  I  suppose  it's  charm,  and — 
Well,  here  we  are!  You'll  see  for  yourself 
presently.  There  she  goes  now.  Look 
who's  here!"  he  called,  and  a  girl  who 
was  crossing  the  terrace  swerved  in  her 
course  and  approached  them. 

Among  all  the  pictures  of  her  that 
Blaisdell's  mind  afterward  recorded,  this 
was  always  one  of  the  most  vivid — her 
lithe  figure  clad  in  some  filmy,  floating 
white  stuff,  her  bare  head  daintily  yet 
proudly  set,  the  sunlight  reflecting  in 
gold  glints  from  the  waves  of  her  brown 
hair,  her  sensitive  lips  smiling  a  little, 
and  her  frank  eyes  looking  straight  into 
his.  He  sprang  out  of  the  car  with  an 
eager,  "How  do  you  do?" 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


37 


"Why — !"  She  stopped  short,  shot 
an  astonished  glance  past  him  at  Daven- 
port, and  then  gave  him  that  clear, 
direct  gaze  again.  "Why — Billy  Blais- 
dell!" 

"The  Honorable  William  Blair  Blais- 
deli  now,  if  you  please,"  announced 
Davenport,  with  a  flourish.  "Minister 
Plenipotentiary  and  Envoy  Extraordi- 
nary of  the  United  States  of  America 
to — 

"Oh,  dry  up!"  Blaisdell  flung  over  his 
shoulder.  By  this  time  he  was  holding 
both  Patricia's  hands,  and  they  were 
smiling  delightedly  at  each  other.  "How 
did  you  know  me?" 

"How  many  years  is  it?"  she  counter- 
questioned. 

"You  were  an  imp  in  long  braids." 

"And  you  were  that  scornfulest  of 
all  created  beings,  a  senior  in  college. 
How  you  did  snub  us  smaller  fry!" 

"Never!"  he  declared.  "Not  you! 
You  played  the  best  game  of  tennis  of 
any  girl  I  ever  saw." 

"  But  you  forgot  it  when  that  yellow- 
haired  Vassar  girl  was  available,"  she 
reminded  him,  disengaging  her  hands. 
"And  you  teased  me  mercilessly  about 
my  freckles — and  everything  else,  for 
that  matter!" 

"I  had  to  do  something  to  draw  your 
fire.  You  were  a  precocious  and  obser- 
vant elf,  with  a  disconcerting  gift  of 
expression.  It  was  safer  to  be  the  at- 
tacking party." 

"Even  in  those  days  you  had  mas- 
tered the  first  law  of  diplomacy." 

"What's  that?" 

"Never  be  caught  napping,  isn't  it?" 

"Do  you  play  that  game  as  well  as 
you  play  tennis?"  To  the  challenging 
spark  in  his  eye  there  was  an  answering 
flash  in  hers,  but  she  asked,  demurely: 

"What  game?" 

"H'm!"  said  the  minister.  "I  see 
you  do." 

When  they  entered  the  house,  Daven- 
port was  chuckling.  An  hour  or  so  later 
he  appeared  in  the  doorway  of  his  wife's 
dressing-room,  remarking,  as  he  tied  his 
cravat: 

"By  the  way,  Nell,  fire  and  tow  have 
met,  and  the  battle's  on." 

"What  are  you  talking  about?" 

"Patty  and  the  Honorable  Billy.  You 
never  saw  anything  so  sudden.  One, 


two,  three,  and  they  were  off!  Alas, 
poor  Yorick!" 

"Don't  you  worry  about  Billy  Blais- 
dell," she  replied,  laughing.  "Unless 
he's  greatly  changed,  he  scatters  his 
young  affections  about  as  recklessly  as 
you  do  metaphors — with  as  little  real 
damage.  If  he  loses  his  heart  in  two 
days,  it  will  come  ambling  comfortably 
home  on  the  third,  like  Bo  Peep's  sheep." 

"Other  things  come  back  sometimes," 
he  mentioned.  "Chickens — to  roost — 
and  boomerangs  and  things.  Billy's  too 
cock-sure  he's  immune.  Some  day  he'll 
catch  it." 

"Not  he!  But  what  if  he  does?  Could 
you  ask  a  better  match  for  either  of 
them  ?" 

"Match!"  her  husband  exploded. 
"I  never  thought  of  that.  She  never 
marries  'em!" 

"She  will  some  day,  goosie!" 

"Yes,  I  suppose  she  will,"  he  ad- 
mitted, thoughtfully.  "Looked  at  from 
that  angle,  we've  shouldered  some  re- 
sponsibility, haven't  we?" 

"Don't  let  it  disturb  your  slumber,  as 
long  as  it's  only  Billy  Blaisdell,"  she 
advised.  "He's  a  perfect  dear!  Of 
course,  he  is  an  incorrigible  flirt,  but  he's 
so  transparent  about  it  that  he  wouldn't 
mislead  a  child,  much  less  Patty  Carlyle! 
Don't  worry  about  them.  They'll  have 
a  lovely  time  together,  and  nothing  will 
happen  to  anybody."  Which  only  goes 
to  show  how  little  any  of  us  realize  the 
dynamic  force  latent  in  the  simplest 
situation. 

The  next  contact  setting  the  currents 
in  motion  occurred  at  dinner,  when  some 
one  mentioned  the  unwillingness  of 
many  human  parents  to  let  their  young 
fare  forth  on  their  own  wings,  and 
Davenport  was  reminded  of  a  case  in 
point. 

"There's  Bob  Chamberlain,  a  distant 
cousin  of  mine,"  he  said.  "Attractive, 
energetic,  ambitious  kid,  but  he's  an 
only  child,  and  ever  since  his  father's 
death  he's  been  tied  tight  to  his  mother's 
apron-string.  Last  spring  he  was  keen 
to  go  off*  into  the  wilds  of  Brazil  some- 
where with  an  engineering  party,  but 
when  Cousin  Julia  found  she  couldn't 
be  near  him  she  made  such  a  row  that 
he  finally  gave  it  up.  Guess  she'll  wish 
now  that  she'd  let  him  go." 


38 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Why,  Ned?"  asked  his  wife. 

"Oh,  didn't  I  tell  you?  She  came  in 
to  see  me  to-day.  Bob's  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  a  siren  several  years  his  senior, 
and  is  determined  to  marry  her." 

"Not  really!   Bob's  such  a  dear,  too!" 

"How  old  is  he?"  Patricia  inquired, 
and  Davenport  replied: 

"Twenty-three.    Just  out  of  college." 

"And  the  woman?" 

"She's  a  widow.  Owns  up  to  twenty- 
seven,  but  is  nearer  thirty-five,  accord- 
ing to  his  mother." 

"Who's  entirely  unprejudiced,  of 
course,"  murmured  Blaisdell,  whereat 
they  all  laughed  a  little. 

"Cousin  Julia,"  Davenport  continued, 
"is  a  perfect  specimen  of  the  wealthy 
suburban  type — with  one  chicken.  For- 
tunately, Frederick  Howard — the  chap 
they  call  'the  water-power  wizard' — 
owns  the  place  next  theirs  down  on  Long 
Island,  where  they  spend  their  summers, 
and  for  years  he's  been  filling  Bob  up 
with  ideals  about  the  use  of  wealth  in 
the  development  of  natural  resources. 
That's  the  reason  the  kid  took  the  engi- 
neering course  in  college,  and  when 
Howard  offered  to  send  him  to  Brazil 
after  he  graduated,  Bob  was  for  it  strong. 
But  his  mother  wouldn't  hear  of  it,  and 
toted  sonny  ofF  to  Europe  two  days 
after  Commencement." 

"Where  does  the  siren  come  in?" 
asked  one  of  the  men. 

"Right  here.  They  came  back  a  cou- 
ple of  weeks  ago  to  open  High  Haven, 
their  Long  Island  place,  and  she  was  on 
the  ship.  Bob's  worth  half  a  million  or 
so  now,  and  will  come  in  for  a  lot  more 
some  time,  and  the  lady  went  right  to  it. 
It's  the  kid's  first  experience  with  that 
sort  of  thing,  and  he's  hypnotized. 
Naturally,  his  mother's  frantic." 

"Then  why  doesn't  she  stop  it?" 
Patricia  inquired. 

"My  sweet  child,  she's  moved  heaven 
and  earth  to  stop  it.  She  came  in  to- 
day to  get  me  into  it.  Wants  me  to  talk 
to  him  like  a  brother." 

"But — surely  she  isn't  fighting  it 
openly — visibly!"  cried  the  girl. 

"Sure  she  is!  Tooth  and  nail!  Began 
on  the  ship  and  still  going  strong." 

"But  that  only  fans  the  flame!" 

"Up  to  date,  that's  all  she's  accom- 
plished.   You  see,  she  thought  that  if 


she  could  prevent  a  crisis  on  board  she 
could  whisk  Bob  directly  from  the  dock 
to  High  Haven  and  fence  him  in." 

"Bob  didn't  whisk,  I  take  it,"  Blais- 
dell remarked. 

"Oh  yes,  he  whisked.  So  did  the 
widow.  When  she  found  Cousin  Julia 
couldn't  be  induced  to  invite  her  to  High 
Haven,  she  remembered  that  an  old 
friend  of  hers  lived  in  their  vicinity,  got 
herself  invited  by  wireless  to  visit  this 
Mrs.  Fairweather,  and  they  all  whisked 
over  on  the  same  train.  Fairweather 
Hill  less  than  a  mile  from  High  Haven, 
siren  apparently  firmly  intrenched  there, 
Bob  refusing  to  leave  the  neighborhood 
on  any  pretext  and  more  deeply  in  her 
toils  every  day — wax  in  her  hands  now, 
his  mother  says — and  there  you  are!" 

"But  why  are  you  necessarily  there?" 
Patricia  persisted.  "Surely  other  peo- 
ple model  in  wax!  Has  the  man  no 
friends?   Women  friends?" 

"Hosts  of  them!  His  mother's  had 
them  down  there  singly  and  in  tribes, 
but  he  won't  play  with  them  at  all." 

"Of  course  he  won't — thrown  at  him 
that  way!  But  is  there  nobody  to  meet 
the  woman  on  her  own  ground?" 

"Apparently  not.  Anyway,  it's  too 
late  now." 

"She  hasn't  married  him,  has  she?" 

"N-no — he  hasn't  actually  proposed 
to  her  yet.  He's  a  modest  kid,  in  his 
way,  and  he's  afraid  she'll  refuse  him. 
Says  his  mother's  spoiling  what  little 
chance  h  e  has,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

"Then  of  course  it's  not  too  late! 
The  right  woman  could  do  it." 

"Why  don't  you  try  it,  Miss  Car- 
lyle?"  a  man  suggested. 

"Hear!  Hear!  Patricia  to  the  rescue!" 
Davenport  lifted  his  wineglass. 

"Well,  you  may  laugh" — she  was 
laughing  herself — "but  that's  a  perfect- 
ly good  idea!  Somebody  ought  to 
found  an  order  of  women  to  look  after 
the  mis-managed  sons  of  incompetent 
mothers." 

"What's  the  matter  with  the  younger 
brothers  of  well-meaning  sisters?"  some 
one  asked,  "And  the  husbands  of  un- 
intelligent wives?" 

"Or  poor  unattached  males  without 
any  women-folk  to  guide  their  faltering 
footsteps,"  Blaisdell  contributed,  smil- 
ing into  Patricia's  eyes. 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


39 


" Capital!  It's  a  new  career!"  she 
cried.  "An  Order  of  Female  Knights 
Errant,  whose  purpose  it  shall  be  to  suc- 
cor gentlemen  in  distress." 

"Wouldn't  Guardian  Angel  be  a  more 
suitable  term  to  apply  to  a  woman  per- 
forming that  noble  mission?"  submitted 
the  diplomat,  with  grave  lips  and  twink- 
ling eyes. 

"Better  yet!"  she  returned,  in  the 
same  tone.  "But  we  must  lift  the  term 
above  its  former  narrow,  circumscribed 
— er — individual  application.  Our  ser- 
vice must  be  in  accord  with  the  modern 
awakened  social  consciousness.  We  shall 
be — well — angels-at-large,  as  it  were." 

"H'm,"  deliberated  Blaisdell.  "Don't 
you  think  the  man  would  prefer  to  know 
that  he  was  the  sole  charge  of  his  par- 
ticular angel?" 

"Clip  her  wings,  in  other  words? 
Yes,  I  suppose  he  would.  But  need 
we  enlarge  man's  opportunities  for 
indulging  his  preferences  in  that  direc- 
tion?" she  deprecated.  "You  see,  ours 
will  be  strictly  an  emergency  service,  and 
surely  we  shouldn't  permit  the  monopo- 
listic desires  of  one  man  to  interfere  with 
the  otherwise  wide  usefulness  of  an 
angel-at-large!  Just  see  what  a  field 
we  should  have,"  she  elaborated,  includ- 
ing the  whole  party  in  her  sparkling 
glance.  "We  could  settle  family  quar- 
rels and  prevent  business  disasters.  We 
could  supply  inventors  with  capital,  in- 
vestors with  opportunity,  and  artists 
with  inspiration.  We  could  reunite 
parted  lovers  and  restore  bereaved  ones 
to  a  normal  interest  in  life — and  girls — 
again." 

"Which  brings  us  back,"  Davenport 
interrupted,  "to  my  unfortunate  young 
cousin.  What  could  you  do  to  save  him  ?" 

"Provide  him  at  once  with  an  in- 
teresting —  and  disinterested  —  woman 
friend,  and  never  let  him  discover  that 
she  models  in  wax,"  she  prescribed. 

"That's  all  very  well.  But  how?"  re- 
torted one  of  the  men.  "Ned  says  this 
youngster  won't  play  with  girls  any 
more." 

"There  are  ways,"  he  was  told. 

"It  should  be  done  boldly,  don't  you 
think?"  Blaisdell  suggested.  "He's  com- 
pletely under  the  spell  of  this  lorelei. 
It'  s  no  time  for  finesse.  Explode  a  bomb 
under  him." 


"Perhaps,"  she  admitted. 

"I  have  it!   He  must  save  her  life!" 

"The  diplomatic  imagination  is  a 
trifle  lurid,  isn't  it?"  Her  manner  was 
politely  deprecating.  "A  little — just  a 
little — under  the  influence  of  fiction, 
perhaps?" 

"Not  at  all!"  he  maintained.  "I  sub- 
mit that  no  man  born  of  woman  can  be 
indifferent  to  a  pretty  girl  whose  life  he 
has  saved." 

"That's  right!"  affirmed  several  men, 
and  he  qualified: 

"Unless  she  rubs  in  the  hero-and-pre- 
server  business  afterward." 

"She  won't,"  Patty  said,  dryly. 
"Once  his  interest  is  really  aroused, 
she'll  begin  building  barriers." 

"No,  no!"  he  protested.  "You've  no 
time  to  fool  with  impediments!  Re- 
member, the  widow's  waiting." 

"That's  the  reason.  No  properly  con- 
stituted male  ever  saw  a  high  stone  wall 
without  wanting  to  climb  it.  I  read 
that  in  a  book,  so  it  must  be  true."  She 
twinkled  a  glance  at  the  diplomat.  "A 
man  wrote  it." 

"H'm.  Well — anyway,  we  have  her 
on  the  field.  She  falls  on.  Now  what's 
the  most  engaging  form  of  peril  ?  Drown- 
ing's  always  effective,  but  rather  messy. 
Runaway  horses  are  out  of  date.  I  sup- 
pose a  train  wreck  would  be  difficult  to 
arrange,  even  for  angels?  How  about 
an  automobile  collision?" 

"An  aeroplane  smash  would  be 
newer,"  Davenport  suggested,  with  an 
amused  glance  at  Patricia,  while  a  ripple 
of  laughter  ran  around  the  table,  "and 
would  be  sure  to  interest  Bob." 

"The  very  thing!"  cried  Blaisdell. 
"There  you  are — all  done  with  a  simple 
turn  of  the  wrist!  Beautiful  maiden  lit- 
erally tumbles  out  of  sky  into  hero's 
arms — nice  bit  of  symbolism  there, 
don't  you  think? — he  falls  in  love  with 
her,  and  they  live  happily  ever  after!" 

"His  Excellency  seems  to  forget  that 
we  contemplate  organizing  a  corps  for 
relief  work,  not  a  matrimonial  agency," 
dryly  remarked  Patricia,  adding,  with  a 
gleam  in  BlaisdelPs  direction:  "How- 
ever, your  Excellency's  point  of  view  is 
most  refreshing.  Pray  go  on — and  don't 
let  any  possible  danger  to  the  operator 
curb  your  fancy!" 

"But  what  chivalrous  lady  could  hesi- 


40 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


tate  at  a  little  personal  risk,  when  the 
whole  future  happiness  of  a  noble  youth 
is  at  stake?"  he  argued.  "No  actress 
would  stick  at  a  part  like  that.  And 
what  is  this  but  a  clever  actress  playing 
to  an  audience  of  one?  Anyway,  it  must 
be  a  sadly  crippled  angel  for  whom  avia- 
tion holds  terrors."  Misunderstanding 
the  burst  of  laughter  greeting  this  sally, 
he  added,  "Or  do  you  intend  to  clip  their 
wings  when  you  enlist  them  for  this 
service?" 

"Not  she!"  the  hostess  exclaimed,  as 
they  arose  from  the  table.  "I  wonder 
whether  you  know,  Billy,  that  Patty's 
a  particularly  skilful  and  adventurous 
aviator?" 

"No,  I  hadn't  heard  that,"  he  ad- 
mitted; "but  having  been  long  con- 
versant with  her  capacity  for  sustained 
flight  in  other  mediums,  I'm  not  sur- 
prised that  she's  added  conquest  of  the 
air  to  her  many  accomplishments."  He 
made  a  formal  little  bow  to  the  young 
woman  in  question,  who  swept  him  an 
exaggerated  courtesy  as  she  replied: 

"Your  Excellency  is  too  kind!  But 
your  Excellency  is  master  of  one  accom- 
plishment I've  never  been  able  to 
acquire." 

"Indeed?"    He  eyed  her  warily. 

"When  I  attempt  to  speak  at  length 
with  my  tongue  in  my  cheek,  I  in- 
variably end  by  biting  it.  Has  your 
Excellency  ever  had  that  painful  ex- 
perience?" 

"I've  had  some  years  in  the  diplo- 
matic service,"  he  mentioned.  "It  has 
its  jolts.  And  before  that  there  was  a 
period  when  I  was  privileged  to  spend 
more  or  less  time  in  your  society."  A 
privilege,  it  soon  became  evident,  of 
which  he  intended  to  avail  himself  still, 
at  every  possible  opportunity. 

In  the  beginning,  it  occurred  to  no- 
body— least  of  all  to  Patricia  herself — 
that  her  suggestion  for  a  new  Order  of 
Chivalry  was  to  have  serious  conse- 
quences. Sunday  afternoon,  however, 
Davenport  caught  sight  of  her  passing 
through  the  hall,  and  called  her  into  the 
library. 

"Look  here,  Patty,"  he  began;  "you 
intimated  the  other  night  that  a  woman 
would  know  how  to  break  up  that  affair 
between  Bob  Chamberlain  and  the 
widow.    How  would  you  go  about  it?" 


"Are  you  going  to  try  it?"  she  asked, 
smiling. 

"I  don't  know  what  I'm  going  to  do," 
he  answered,  with  a  puzzled  frown. 
"I've  been  talking  to  Cousin  Julia  on 
the  'phone,  and  she's  frantic.  I  advised 
her  the  other  day  to  get  Howard  to  re- 
new his  Brazilian  offer,  but  she  couldn't 
quite  face  it.  Yesterday  she  got  so  des- 
perate she  gave  in.  Howard  did  his 
best,  and  that  young  fool  won't  go! 
Says  they're  all  trying  to  wreck  his  life — 
part  him  from  the  only  woman — all  that 
rot!  He  must  have  a  bad  case  when 
even  Brazil  doesn't  tempt  him !  And  I — 
well,  I'm  fond  of  the  boy.  Look  here, 
Patty;  would  you  be  willing  to  go  down 
there  and  see  if  you  can  get  him 
interested  in  you?  Temporarily,  of 
course." 

"I?  Interested  in  me!"  The  amazed 
look  she  gave  him  brought  the  color  to 
his  face,  and  he  explained,  clumsily: 

"Well,  you  said  the  right  woman 
could  do  it,  and — hang  it,  the  kid's  got 
fine  stuff  in  him!  Breaks  me  all  up  to 
think  of  his  spoiling  his  life  this  way,  at 
the  start!  I  thought  if  there  was  any 
way — and  if  anybody  on  earth  could 
out-siren  a  siren,  it  would  be  you!" 

At  this  she  laughed  a  little,  but  shook 
her  head.  "Thanks!  The  contest  doesn't 
appeal  to  me.  Besides,  that  isn't  the  way 
to  go  about  it." 

" What  is,  then?" 

"Don't  you  know  why  clerks  in 
candy-shops  don't  eat  candy?" 

"What's  that  got  to  do  with  it?" 

"If  they  could  be  thrown  together 
constantly —  In  other  words,  if  your 
boy  should  be  fed  exclusively  on  candy 
for  several  days — don't  you  see?" 

"By  Jupiter!"  He  looked  at  her 
thoughtfully.  "I  wonder  if  that's  the 
answer?" 

"It's  one  answer,  anyway.  If  his 
mother,  instead  of  opposing  and  antago- 
nizing him,  had  pretended  to  be  on  his 
side,  and  had  thrown  him  with  that 
woman  morning,  noon,  and  night — made 
it  impossible  for  him  not  to  be  with  her — ■ 
probably  it  would  all  be  over  by  this 
time. 

"  But  she  didn't.  She  couldn't,  either. 
Cousin  Julia's  not  that  sort." 

"Evidently.  That's  why  I  asked  if 
he  had  a  friend — a  woman  friend." 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


41 


"He  hasn't — unless  I  have!  Patty, 
won't  you  go  and  try  it?" 

"  My  dear  Ned,  don't  be  absurd !  How 
could  I  ?" 

"Why  couldn't  you?" 

"In  the  first  place,  I  don't  know  him. 
And  he's  not  interested  in  girls,  now, 
anyway." 

"He'd  be  interested  in  you,  all  right — 
especially  if  you  took  your  monoplane 
down  there.  I'd  arrange  the  introduc- 
tions, and  you'd  do  the  rest.  Won't 
you?    Please — for  my  sake?" 

"But — I  can't  deliberately  undertake 
to  break  up  a  love-affair,  Ned !  She  may 
really  care  for  him,  even  if  she  is  older. 
Such  things  happen." 

"If  you  find  she  does,  you  can  always 
quit,  can't  you?  And  if  she  doesn't — if 
it's  the  money  she's  after —  It's  a  man's 
whole  future,  Patty,  and  everything  else 
has  failed.   It's  up  to  you." 

"What  are  you  two  so  absorbed  in?" 
Blaisdell,  coming  in  search  of  Patricia, 
smiled  at  them  from  the  doorway. 

"Bob  Chamberlain,"  replied  his  host. 
"Come  in,  Billy.  Cousin  Julia's  played 
her  last  card  and  lost,  and  she's  sounding 
the  S.  O.  S." 

"I  suppose  you'll  complete  your  met- 
aphor by  hot-footing  to  the  rescue," 
laughed  the  diplomat  as  he  joined  them, 
and  Davenport  daringly  ventured: 

"No.    Patty  says  it's  her  job." 

"Yours?  Why  yours?"  Blaisdell 
looked  at  her. 

"Have  you  forgotten  the  angel-at- 
large?"  she  asked,  dimpling. 

"Oh,  I  see!"  He  began  to  laugh,  but 
a  glance  at  Davenport's  face  checked 
him.  "Look  here!  You  two  aren't — 
Oh,  pshaw!   Of  course  you're  not." 

"  Not  what  ?"  Something  in  Patricia's 
manner  gave  her  host  hope. 

"Taking  this  seriously.  I  admit  you 
got  a  rise  out  of  me!" 

"The  boy's  whole  life  is  involved. 
Doesn't  that  strike  you  as  serious?" 
Davenport  inquired,  an  eye  on  Patty. 

"Oh,  undoubtedly  his  situation's  seri- 
ous enough." 

"Well,  then?"  queried  the  girl,  and 
Blaisdell  laughed  again. 

"No.  I  may  have  bitten  once,  but  at 
least  I  don't  take  the  same  bait  twice. 
Try  another  worm." 

"Can't  you  see  that  if  ever  there  was 


a  situation  appealing  to  a  woman's  sym- 
pathies and  calling  for  her  help,  this  is 
it?"  The  warmth  of  her  tone  brought 
the  diplomat's  glance  to  her  face  in  star- 
tled inquiry,  and  what  he  saw  there 
puzzled  him. 

"Need  angels,  therefore,  rush  in?"  he 
asked,  lightly,  and  as  lightly  she  an- 
swered his  implication: 

"  '  Fool '  is  frequently  only  another 
name  for  a  hero  who  has  failed.  Any- 
way, there's  nothing  angelic  about  a 
coward." 

"True.  But  even  an  angel  must  stop 
short  of  the  ridiculous." 

"Oh?  You  think  this  ridiculous?" 
The  sparkle  reappeared  in  her  eye. 
"You  were  so  helpful  in  working  out 
the  idea." 

"It  has  humorous  possibilities,"  he 
granted. 

"I'm  afraid  Bob  won't  see  the  humor 
of  the  situation  if  he  marries  this  wom- 
an," commented  Davenport.  "What 
shall  I  tell  Cousin  Julia  ?" 

"Tell  her  you're  writing,  and  she's  to 
do  nothing  and  say  nothing  until  she 
receives  your  letter.  That  will  give  us 
time  to  think  what  we'd  better  tell 
her,"  Patricia  replied,  and  again  her  tone 
caused  Blaisdell  to  look  searchingly  at  her. 

"Are  you  going  to  take  ' Cousin  Julia' 
into  your  confidence?"  he  asked,  draw- 
ing her  into  the  deep  embrasure  of  a 
window  as  Davenport  went  to  the  tele- 
phone. "Or  is  she  to  entertain  an  angel 
unaware?" 

"I'm  afraid  she  has  hardly  enough 
discretion  to  be  trusted  with  anything 
as  dangerous  as  the  truth,"  she  returned. 
"Besides,  I  rather  want  to  do  the  deed 
alone,  and  earn  my — what  shall  I  say? 
Not  spurs,  I  suppose.  Halo?" 

"Take  care  it  isn't  a  cap  and  bells," 
he  warned,  laughing.  "I  dare  say 
you're  also  contemplating  that  aeroplane 
stunt?" 

"I  am."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  up  to 
that  instant  she  had  been  only  playing 
with  the  idea,  but  all  at  once  she  found 
herself  resolved.  Davenport's  pleading 
might  have  won  her  fully  in  the  end,  but 
Blaisdell's  manner  piqued  her,  crystal- 
lizing her  sympathetic  interest  into  defi- 
nite purpose,  and  it  was  as  much  to  her- 
self as  to  him  that  she  said  so  positively, 
"I  am." 


42 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"What?"   He  was  still  incredulous. 

"Aeroplane  stunts  are  my  particular 
delight,  and  this  offers  unusual  oppor- 
tunities. I'll  think  of  you  gratefully 
when  he  saves  my  life." 

"What  if  he  fails  to  rise  to  the  emer- 
gency  r 

"There's  a  risk,  of  course."  She 
shrugged  her  shoulders.  "But  'what 
woman  could  hesitate  when  the  whole 
future  happiness  of  a  noble  youth  is  at 
stake '  ?"  At  this  they  both  laughed  softly. 

"Your  sense  of  humor  always  gives 
you  away,"  he  said,  concealing  his  relief. 
"If  it  weren't  for  that,  you  might  almost 
have  fooled  me." 

"  Kind  sir,  I'm  not  trying  to  fool  you," 
she  retorted.  "You're  deceived  by  your 
own  super-sagacity.  For  once  I'm  en- 
tirely serious."  Again  he  looked  in- 
tently at  her  and  encountered  a  gaze  of 
convincing  candor. 

"You're  joking!"  Her  only  reply  was 
a  shrug.  "Confess  you  don't  mean  it!" 
Another  shrug.  "Anyway,  not  that 
crazy  life-saving  stunt!  Why,  child, 
think  of  the  danger!" 

"All  in  the  day's  work!  Girls  in  the 
movies  take  that  sort  of  risk  constantly, 
and  I  shall  be  'only  an  actress,  playing 
to  an  audience  of  one.'" 

"Oh,  for  Heaven's  sake!"  he  began, 
impatiently,  but  she  stopped  him  with 
uplifted  fingers,  as  voices  were  heard  in 
the  hall. 

"'Sh!  Here  come  the  others!  Re- 
member, this  is  confidential." 

As  soon  as  the  minister  could  get  his 
host  alone  for  a  moment,  he  said:  "See 
here,  Ned;  you  don't  realize  it,  but  that 
girl's  in  earnest!  She  thinks  she's  going 
to  do  this  fool  thing!" 

"Sure  she's  going  to  do  it,"  Daven- 
port calmly  assented. 

"And  you  intend  to  stand  for  it?" 

"Why  not?  The  situation's  desper- 
ate, and  she's  worked  out  an  ingenious 
scheme  for  handling  it.  I  believe  she  can 
pull  it  ofF.  Anyhow,  it  will  do  no  harm 
to  try.   Things  couldn't  be  worse." 

"Oh,  couldn't  they!"  snorted  Blais- 
dell.  "Evidently  you  don't  know! 
She's  going  to  attempt  that  idiotic  aero- 
plane stunt!" 

"Is  she?"  His  friend  laughed  easily, 
not  in  the  least  believing  it.  "Well,  if 
she  does,  it  '11  be  all  right." 


"All  right!  Man  alive,  she  may  kill 
herself!" 

"You  don't  know  Patty!  She  loves 
her  young  life.  But  she'll  make  Master 
Bob  sit  up  and  take  notice,  or  I  miss  my 
guess! 

"That's  another  thing  you  don't  seem 
to  have  thought  of.  Suppose  she  mar- 
ries him!" 

"She  won't." 

"How  do  you  know  she  won't?  She's 
a  lovely,  fascinating,  piquant  creature — 
and  you  say  yourself  he's  attractive. 
You  throw  them  into  intimate  daily  in- 
tercourse— he  falls  desperately  in  love 
with  her — " 

"You  forget  the  other  woman." 

"If  Patty  Carlyle  deliberately  sets  out 
to  fascinate  that  kid,  there  won't  be  any 
other  woman!" 

"You  encourage  me,"  said  Daven- 
port, laughing.  "  Evidently  you  think  it 
will  work." 

"Work?  Of  course  it  will  work!  But, 
good  Lord,  Ned,  have  you  no  regard  for 
the  girl?  Think  what  it  will  mean  to  her 
if  she  marries  a  cub!  She's  one  of  the 
most  charming  women  I  ever  met!  She 
ought  to  marry  a  man  of  maturity — ex- 
perience— distinction — " 

"I  see."  His  host  looked  at  him  with 
a  grin.  "Any  particular  man  in  mind, 
Billy?" 

"What?  No!  Don't  be  a  donkey! 
But  I'm  in  some  sense  party  to  this 
thing,  since  I  helped  plan  it,  and  I  don't 
care  to  be  responsible  for  that  girl's  tying 
herself  for  life  to  a  clumsy,  half-baked 
cub,  even  if  he  is  your  cousin!" 

"Well,  she  won't,  Billy;  so  be  ca'm, 
be  ca'm!  Bob's  a  year  or  so  younger 
than  she  is — and  she's  not  going  to  lose 
her  head,  anyhow." 

"What's  her  head  got  to  do  with  it?" 
growled  the  other.  "A  woman's  domi- 
nated by  her  heart,  not  her  head — unless 
she's  one  of  those  modern  monstrosities 
whose  emotions  are  atrophied!" 

"Patty's  emotions  are  in  perfectly 
good  working  order,"  the  other  assured 
him,  still  laughing.  "But  her  head's 
tight  on  her  shoulders,  and  it's  going  to 
be  some  cataclysm  that  shakes  it  loose!" 

"Propinquity — and  wealth — and  youth 
—  only  one  answer  to  that!"  gloom- 
ily prophesied  Blaisdell.  Then  a  new 
thought  occurred  to  him,  and  he  de- 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


43 


manded,  ''See  here;  who's  responsible 
for  her?" 

"  Responsible  ?"  Davenport  was  hon- 
estly puzzled. 

"Yes.  She  must  have  some  family 
somewhere." 

"Not  a  soul  except  a  little  old  maiden 
aunt — Miss  Chetwoode." 

"Can't  she  prevent  this  thing?" 

"She  wouldn't  even  try,  if  Patty 
wanted  to  do  it.    She's  hypnotized." 

"Who  are  her  closest  friends,  then? 
Patty's,  I  mean." 

"I  suppose  we  are." 

"Then  you  stand  in  the  position  of  her 
brother,  and  it's  up  to  you  to  take  care 
of  her.  She's  carried  away  by  her  en- 
thusiasm— woman-like,  swayed  by  her 
emotions — and  it's  up  to  you!  Tell  her 
she  can't!" 

"Good  Lord,  man!  Haven't  you 
grasped  the  fact  that  Patricia  Carlyle's 
an  eminently  modern  young  woman — a 
free  moral  agent,  'even  as  you  and  I'? 
It  would  take  more  than  a  near-brother 
to  exercise  authority  over  her.  Even  a 
real  one  couldn't  do  it." 

"Well,  by  gad!  if  she  were  my  sister 
I'd  do  it!  Angel-at-large!  Heh!  Who's 
this  precious  cousin  of  yours,  anyhow, 
that  he  can't  take  his  medicine,  along 
with  a  lot  of  better  men?  What  busi- 
ness have  you  interfering  in  his  affairs?" 

"If  you  saw  a  puppy  lapping  up  poi- 
son, you'd  take  it  away  from  him, 
wouldn't  you?"  mildly  inquired  Daven- 
port, with  twinkling  eyes. 

"Well,  I  wouldn't  send  a  woman  to  do 
it!  That's  sure!  Where's  Nell?  Per- 
haps she's  sufficiently  removed  from 
your  family  connections  to  get  a  per- 
spective on  this!"  With  that,  leaving 
Ned  still  chuckling,  Blaisdell  hurried  off 
in  search  of  his  hostess,  but  caught  sight 
of  Patricia  ascending  the  stairs  and  gave 
chase,  overtaking  her  in  the  upper  hall. 

"Patty,  don't  do  this  thing!"  he 
begged.    "Promise  me  you  won't!" 

" But  why?" 

"Because  it's  not  the  sort  of  thing  for 
you  to  do." 
"Oh?" 

"No!  Why  should  you  compromise 
your  dignity — your  sweet  womanli- 
ness— " 

"O-oh,  I  see!"  She  looked  up  at  him 
with  dancing  eyes  and  lips  demurely 

Vol.  CXXXI,— No.  781— G 


drawn.  "If  Ell  promise  to  be  a  good 
little  girl  and  not  step  outside  the  pretty 
flower-garden,  will  uncle  give  me  a  lolli- 
pop ?"  Blaisdell  dropped  her  hands  with 
a  sharp  ejaculation.  "Really,  isn't  your 
Excellency  a  little  absurd?" 

"I'm  not  an  Excellency!"  he  informed 
her,  savagely. 

"No?"  she  teased.  "What  a  pity!  It 
sounds  so  impressive." 

"Why  don't  you  call  me  Billy?  You 
used  to." 

"Did  I?  Well,  then— Billy  — you're 
an  idiot!  I'm  enchanted  with  this  plan. 
It's  an  adventure." 

"You  don't  want  adventures!"  he  de- 
clared. "You  don't  realize  what  you're 
saying.  You  ought  to  be  protected — 
sheltered — cherished !" 

"All  same  Chinese  little-foot  lady?" 
Her  eyes  were  riotous  with  suppressed 
mirth.  "No,  thank  you!  Even  at  the 
risk  of  enlarging  them,  I  prefer  to  use  my 
feet.  But  I'll  promise  one  thing.  No 
one — not  any  one  at  all — shall  clip  my 
wings!"  And  with  that  dubious  com- 
fort he  had  to  be  content. 

Patricia  spent  most  of  the  remainder 
of  the  day  in  planning  with  her  host  and 
hostess  the  details  of  her  arrival  at  High 
Haven,  and  late  in  the  afternoon  Blais- 
dell came  upon  them  composing  a  letter 
to  "dear  Cousin  Julia,"  in  which,  after 
promising  to  think  the  matter  over  care- 
fully, Davenport  was  to  urge  his  kins- 
woman to  keep  a  tight  rein  on  her  emo- 
tions, to  avoid  at  any  cost  further 
antagonizing  her  son,  and  above  all  not 
to  worry,  as  everything  would  come  out 
right  —  an  optimistic  confidence  for 
which  "dear  Cousin  Julia"  could  per- 
ceive no  adequate  reason  when  she  re- 
ceived the  letter. 

"Shall  we  advise  her  at  all  about  her 
attitude  toward  Mrs.  Yarnell?"  Ned 
asked,  and  Blaisdell  turned  toward  him 
with  a  start,  demanding: 

"Toward  whom?  What  was  that 
name: 

"Yarnell.  That's  the  widow.  Elise 
Yarnell.    Ever  hear  of  her?" 

"Well,  rather!  I  used  to  know  her 
very  well — but  I  didn't  know  she  was  a 
widow." 

"Where?    When?"  they  chorused. 
"Oh,  some  years  ago — -before  her  mar- 
riage."   BlaisdelPs  smile  was  non-com- 


44 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


mittal.  "Must  be  the  same  girl.  Yar- 
nell's  not  a  common  name." 

"Another  of  his  faded  early  loves!" 
sighed  Mrs.  Davenport.  "You  might  at 
least  wrap  them  up  decently  and  put 
them  away  in  lavender,  Billy." 

"I  have  no  reason  to  think  I  departed 
in  any  way  from  the  normal  course  of 
youth,"  he  returned,  laughing.  "Dad 
used  to  say  I  was  afraid  the  girl  crop 
would  run  out.  By  Jove!  Elise  Tal- 
cott,  rediviva! " 

"Immortelle,  perhaps?"  Patricia  sug- 
gested, observantly,  and  smiled  as  his 
Kps  twitched.   "What's  she  like,  Billy?" 

"Very  attractive.  At  least,  she  used 
to  be." 

"How  long  ago?" 

"Oh — perhaps  five  years." 

"You  said  you  were  in  China  five 
years  ago,  and  hadn't  been  home  for 
three  years  before  that,"  she  reminded 
him. 

"Did  I?  Then  it  must  have  been  be- 
fore —  or  perhaps  afterward  —  that  I 
knew  Mrs.  Yarnell." 

"Oh,  come  across,  Billy,  come  across!" 
urged  Davenport.    "When  was  it?" 

"I  make  it  a  point  never  to  remember 
more  than  five  years  back  where  a 
woman  is  concerned,"  the  minister  im- 
perturbably  returned.  "And  she  was 
very  young  at  the  time." 

"Did  she  try  to  marry  you,  Billy?" 
Nell  asked. 

"Obviously  not,  since  I'm  still  un- 
fortunate enough  to  be  a  bachelor." 

"What  are  her  tastes?"  Patty  ques- 
tioned.   "Literary?  Athletic?" 

"Philanthropic,  I  should  say."  A 
shadowy  smile  flickered  across  his  fea- 
tures. "She  obeyed  very  literally  the 
injunction  of  the  Apostle  Paul  to  be  all 
things  to  all  men." 

"How  she  would  have  graced  the 
diplomatic  service!  Why  weren't  you 
more  persistent?" 

Blaisdell,  having  dressed  betimes, 
slipped  down  to  the  library  while  all  the 
others  were  changing  for  dinner,  and, 
after  some  study  of  the  telephone  direc- 
tory, called  up  a  number  on  Long 
Island.  A  few  minutes  later  he  was 
saying: 

"Hello.  Is  that  Fairweather  Hill? 
.  .  .  Is  Mrs.  Yarnell  there?  .  .  .  Yes, 


please.  Tell  her  an  old  friend  is  on  the 
wire.  .  .  .  That  you,  Elise?  Yes,  of 
course  it  is!  You  haven't  changed  at 
all!  I'd  have  known  you  anywhere! 
What?  .  .  .  Why  haven't  I  called  you 
up  before?"  Here  he  grinned  appre- 
ciatively. "Why  haven't  you  sent  me 
your  address,  so  I  could?  .  .  .  Oh, 
didnt  you  know  where  to  reach  me?" 
Here  he  laughed  outright.  "You're  the 
same  tactful  Elise  and  you're  putting  up 
a  good  blufF,  but  it's  quite  evident,  my 
sweet  child,  that  you've  not  the  faintest 
notion  whom  you're  talking  to!  .  .  . 
Oh,  it  does  sound  familiar,  does  it?  That 
speaks  well  for  your  memory,  for  it's  a 
voice  from  the  far-away.  .  .  .  Oh,  very 
far.  I've  forgotten  just  how  far" — here 
he  grinned  again — "but  it  must  be  al- 
most five  years,  I  should  think.  You 
were  about  eighteen.  .  .  .  Well,  let's 
stop  sparring  and  get  down  to  brass 
tacks.  Do  you,  by  any  chance,  remem- 
ber one  B.  Blaisdell,  who  used  to 
worship  at  your —  What?  .  .  .  Billy 
Blaisdell.  No  other!  .  .  .  No,  not  am- 
bassadoryet;  just  minister.  Good  little 
Elise!  Keep  track  of  your  old  friends, 
don't  you?  .  .  .  I've  been  playing 
around  New  York  for  a  couple  of 
months,  but  only  heard  to-day  that  you 
were  here.  .  .  .  Oh,  just  happened  to, 
indirectly,  through  somebody  you  never 
heard  of.  Very  roundabout.  Look  here, 
Elise.  I  want  to  see  you.  .  .  .  Well, 
I'm  supposed  to  leave  for  Maine  to- 
morrow, but  I'll  stay  over  if  you  and 
your  friend  Mrs.  Fairweather  will  run 
into  town  for  dinner  and  the  theater  to- 
morrow night.  Will  you?  .  .  .  Ask  her 
to  stretch  a  point  in  my  favor.  I've  just 
got  to  see  you!  I'll  hold  the  wire.  .  .  . 
What?  Guests  to  dinner?  Oh,  thun- 
der! Can't  she —  What?  .  .  .  For  the 
night?  ...  I  don't  hear.  For  the  day? 
.  .  .  Oh,  for  as  long  as  I  can  stay?  .  .  . 
That's  mighty  sweet  of  her!  .  .  .  Yes,  I 
am  pretty  well  tied  up,  but — I  think  I 
can  arrange  it.  I'm  prepared  to  do  al- 
most anything  to  see  you.  .  .  .  That's 
very  kind  of  her.  You're  sure  I  won't 
be  in  the  way?  .  .  .  Then  I'll  come, 
with  great  pleasure.  I  can't  say  just 
how  long  I  can  stay,  but  I'll  try  to  make 
it  two  or  three  days,  anyway.  .  .  . 
Thanks.  What's  the  station?  .  .  .  Oh, 
all  right.  To-morrow  atone,  then. . .  By!" 


THE  STARS  BEFORE  THE  DAWN 


45 


He  replaced  the  receiver  on  the  hook, 
absorbedly  regarded  it  for  a  moment, 
and  then  threw  back  his  head  in  silent 
laughter.  When  the  others  came  down 
to  dinner  they  found  him  serenely  smok- 
ing on  the  veranda. 

The  next  morning  Patricia  motored 
into  town  with  Davenport  and  Blaisdell, 
and  they  left  her  at  the  entrance  to  a 
woman's  club. 

"Good-by,  Billy,"  she  said,  giving 
him  her  hand.  "It's  been  like  a  breath 
from  home  to  see  you  again.  Good-by — 
and  good  hunting!" 

"Thank  you  for  that!  Hasta  la  vista!" 

"What  does  that  mean?" 

"It's  the  Spanish  equivalent  of  'See 
you  later,'"  he  explained,  smiling.  "Un- 
til we  meet  again." 


"Ah,  that's  a  far  cry,  I'm  afraid! 
You're  off  to  Bar  Harbor  to-day,  and 
have  all  your  summer  full.  I'm  going  to 
Long  Island  for  an  indefinite  stay,  and 
after  that — "  She  shrugged  her  shoul- 
ders, and  he  supplied: 

"After  that — quien  sabe?" 

"  Ouien  sabe?"  she  echoed.  "Let's 
hope,  anyway,  that  it  won't  be  another 
fifteen  years  before  we  meet." 

"  It  won't.  I  can  positively  assure  you 
of  that,  "he  asserted.    "Hasta  la  vista!" 

She  nodded  to  Davenport  and  turned 
away.  At  the  top  of  the  step,  however, 
she  paused  and  looked  back  at  the  men 
in  the  car,  smiling  as  she  called: 

"Hasta  la  vista.    Is  that  right?" 

"That's  right!"  Blaisdell  affirmed. 
Then  he  chuckled. 


[to  be  continued.] 


The  Stars  Before  the  Dawn 

BY  FRANCES  DORR  SWIFT  TATNALL 

HOW  warm  and  near  the  stars  before  the  dawn 
That  silent  keep  the  last  dim  watch  ere  day; 
How  close  to  earth  their  tender  light  is  drawn, 
To  earth  so  still  and  gray. 

To  them  no  lover  cries  in  fond  appeal, 

No  reveler's  songs  their  watchful  silence  break, 

No  piteous  phantoms  of  the  night  but  steal 
Away  when  they  awake. 

Where  weary  mothers  stumble  half  asleep 
To  still  with  comfort  warm  a  baby's  cry, 

Where  little  children  dream,  their  watch  they  keep 
As  waning  night  goes  by. 

But  most  of  all,  I  think,  they  light  the  way 
For  little  ones  who  slip  beyond  our  hold 

Who,  spite  of  all  our  anguish,  cannot  stay, 
But  leave  our  arms  a-cold. 

For  them  their  tender  shining,  as  alone 

Across  the  misty  silences  they  fare, 
Beyond  our  touch,  beyond  our  fondling  gone, 

O  God,  beyond  our  care! 


The  Last  Stand  of  the  Redwoods 


BY  HENRY  SEIDEL   CAN  BY 


Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Yale  University 


iHE  slow  approach  to 
the  June  Sierras  is  as 
interesting  in  its  way  as 
the  rise  from  Italy  into 
Switzerland.  Above  the 
hot  and  semi-arid  plain 
of  central  California  the 
far-seen  mountains  pile  up  in  haze  and 
cloud  into  dim  immensities,  faintly 
gleaming  in  distant  snow-fields,  darkly 
wrapped  below  in  purple  forests.  Tow- 
ard them  the  eyes  of  farmer  and  me- 
chanic turn  longingly  in  the  hot  noons. 
Our  road  lay  straight  across  the  level 
plain,  through  burning  stretches  of  dead, 
brown  grass,  or  glossy  orchards  where 
muddy  tongues  of  irrigating  water 
forked  among  the  fruit-trees.  It  was 
hours  before  we  climbed  among  the  bare, 
brown  knees  of  the  foot-hills  and  stopped 
to  look  back  upon  a  shining  expanse 
where  the  irrigated  lands  had  become 
mere  triangles  and  oblongs  of  dark 
shade.  It  was  noon  when  we  left  behind 
the  last  palm,  came  near  to  the  live-oaks 
that  made  spots  of  shadow  on  the  dead, 
shimmering  grass  of  the  slopes,  and 
urged  our  mule  and  horse  team  to  the 
real  ascent. 

The  road  itself  was  interesting  enough 
for  any  one.  We  were  bound  for  Hume, 
a  new  lumbering-camp,  thirty-four  miles 
away  in  the  mountains.  Up  our  road, 
by  stage  and  automobile-truck,  went 
the  invading  army  of  woodsmen.  Up 
our  road  went  all  the  foodstuff  for  five 
hundred  hard-working  men,  hay  for  the 
horses,  machinery  for  the  mills,  rails  for 
the  logging  railroad.  And  these  were 
hauled  by  a  service  of  enormous  wagon- 
trains.  Often  we  passed  them;  some- 
times they  held  us  up  for  an  hour  while 
a  brake-shoe  was  fixed  or  a  trailer  wagon 
uncoupled  before  a  long  ascent. 

A  column  of  dust  ahead,  a  jingle  of 
bells,  a  quiet  and  monotonous  swearing, 
warned  us  to  pull  to  the  roadside.  First 
came  two  mules  under  arches  of  bells; 
then  more  mules  and  horses  in  assorted 


couples,  slumping  the  great  chain  be- 
tween them;  last,  two  big  horses,  the 
"wheelers,"  and  on  one  side  of  them 
the  teamster  astride.  "Gee!"  we  would 
hear  him  shout,  back  in  the  dusty  dis- 
tance. The  jerk-line  would  switch,  the 
leaders  would  swing  away  from  us,  the 
outer  line  of  the  mules  behind  would 
neatly  step  over  the  chain,  swing  their 
shoulders  to  the  yokes,  haul  the  great 
wagon  around;  then,  at  a  signal,  step 
over  the  chain  again.  We  hurry  past  in 
the  dust-cloud;  the  whip  cracks;  "Git 
up,  you  'tarnation  sons  of  black  jack- 
rabbits!"  and,  with  a  heave,  off  they  go 
again. 

The  company  "tens"  and  "twelves" 
will  pull  three  tons  up  the  five-day  jour- 
ney from  Sanger,  in  the  valley,  to  Hume, 
five  thousand  feet  above.  They  will  go 
on  until  they  die  of  it,  but  they  will  not 
back.  The  whip  and  the  weight  of  the 
great  wagons  on  their  heels  have  taught 
that  lesson  ineradicably.  I  saw  a  driver 
unhook  the  last  pair  of  mules  from  a 
team  that  had  broken  loose  from  their 
wagon.  He  turned  them  right-about, 
rehitched  them  back  to  back  to  the 
team;  then  laid  on  with  hand  and  voice. 
Dust  rose,  pebbles  flew;  the  little  mules 
got  upon  their  knees  and  fairly  scratched 
the  road.  Inch  by  inch,  every  horse  and 
mule  holding  his  ground  until  he  was  slid 
along  it,  the  stubborn  team  was  backed 
perforce  until  they  reached  the  wagon. 
Then  the  little  mules  were  swung  about; 
the  "toggle,"  or  tie-pin,  was  slid  into 
place;  "Git  up,  Kitty!"  and  one  bell- 
mule  obeyed  the  jerk-line;  "Git  up, 
Rock!"  and  the  other  side  moved  for- 
ward. Up  rolled  the  dust  again,  and 
they  rumbled  ofF. 

In  between  the  "big  teams"  were  the 
campers,  and  this  was  the  pleasantest 
sight  in  the  Sierras.  All  through  the 
month  of  June  they  were  straggling  up 
from  the  heat  and  malaria  of  the  valleys. 
Sometimes  it  was  a  couple  of  machinists 
or  clerks,  plodding  behind  a  burro,  or  a 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  THE  REDWOODS 


47 


college  boy  on  a  mule;  but  most  often 
we  passed  whole  families  of  the  happy, 
prosperous  farmers  that  have  turned  the 
great  valley  into  a  paradise  of  fruit.  It 
was  "'tween  crop-time. "  Oranges  and 
strawberries  were  over,  peaches  and 
prunes  not  ripe.  Unless  you  had  "cots" 
— that  is,  apricots — you  could  take  a 
week  or  so,  and  leave  the  blackberries 
and  the  loganberries  to  the  hired  Japs. 
Up  they  came  then,  every  few  miles,  in 
big  farm-wagons,  father  driving,  and 
little  sister  beside  him;  big  brother,  with 
a  gun  on  his  shoulder,  walking  ahead; 
mother,  aunt,  and  big  sister  sitting  on 
pillows  or  blankets  in  the  wagon-body, 
knitting,  reading,  or  paring  what  Cali- 
fornians  call  a  "spud."  A  stove  swings 
behind,  a  hound-dog  trots  after;  and  up 
they  go  to  cool  nights,  pine-needles,  trout, 
and  also,  I  think,  to  spiritual  refresh- 
ment in  the  great  wood  aisles,  under  the 
stars  and  amid  the  mountain  silences. 

But  just  above  are 
the  first  ridges  of  the 
forest  toward  which 
they  and  we  are 
plodding,  ridges 
fringed  with  taper- 
ing trees  already  sug- 
gestive of  a  height 
and  proportioning 
unfamiliar  to  Eastern 
eyes.  All  afternoon 
we  wound  up  toward 
them  through  wild 
slopes  covered 
with  impenetrable 
growths  of  pink- 
belled  manzanita. 
As  we  climbed,  new 
flowers  came  and  dis- 
appeared, for  there 
is  no  north  and  south 
in  California;  only 
high  and  low,  dry  or 
wet.  The  exquisite 
slippery-elm,  with 
flowers  like  golden 
apple  -  blossoms, 
came  and  went;  blue 
spikes  of  some  un- 
known wild  flower 
blossomed  in  the 
dust,  then  left  us. 
And  so  at  last  our 
weary  team  pulled  us 


to  the  crest  of  the  first  tall  ridge,  and 
into  the  dappled  shadow  of  feathery, 
yellow  pines,  each  one  standing  like  a 
monument  where  it  had  manfully  ad- 
vanced the  woods  toward  the  arid  valley. 
It  was  through  a  far-extending  park  of 
these  graceful  trees  that  we  entered  the 
Sierra  forest. 

I  speak  without  fear  of  contradiction 
by  those  who  know  in  saying  that  the 
Sierra  forest  is  the  most  beautiful  and 
the  most  remarkable  production  of  na- 
ture which  America  has  to  offer.  I  do 
not  mean  the  forests  of  pine  and  fir  on 
the  lower  slopes.  They  are  superb,  but 
their  trees  are  but  our  familiar  conifers 
magnified.  Nor  do  I  mean  the  unmixed 
pine  woods  of  the  high  Sierras.  They 
are  a  noble  part  of  noble  scenery  which 
would  still  be  noble  without  them.  I 
mean  rather  the  wonderfully  blended 
forests  of  sugar  pine,  Douglas  fir,  yellow 
pine,  and  silver  fir  which  attend  the  vast 


1HE  UPPER  WALLS  OF  PARADISE  CANON 


48 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


sequoias,  and  lie  on  the  slopes  of  the 
canons  between  six  and  seven  thousand 
feet,  fill  the  bowls  of  the  hills  at  this  alti- 
tude, and  descend  into  what  a  North- 
Carolinian  would  call  the  "coves"  of  the 
lower  levels.  We  spent  our  June  in  such 
a  forest.  Our  camp  was  in  a  deep  bowl 
scooped  out  of  the  flank  of  the  moun- 
tains and  hanging  like  a  bird's  nest  high 
upon  the  side  of  the  vast  King's  Canon, 
whose  rocky  north  wall,  all  in  rosy  gray, 
and  flaked  with  snow  toward  its  moun- 
tain-top, was  our  horizon. 

We  came  to  our  bowl  after  devious 
wanderings,  for  it  was  known  to  few. 
Long,  pine-clad  capes  projecting  into  the 
airy  sea  of  the  canon  protected  it,  and 
from  one  of  these  we  looked  upon  the 
pointed  firs  of  its  steep  farther  slope 
and  the  high  domes  of  sequoias  rising 
from  its  forest  floor.  Mules  and  men 
pitched  down  the  steep  guardian  wall, 
and  soon  we  saw  through  the  lower  for- 
est aisles  vast  red  columns,  luminous  in 
the  dark  woods  and  towering  up  and 
beyond  our  sight.  Then  we  reached  the 
first,  and  leaning  our  pygmy  selves 
against  the  great  knees  of  the  sequoia, 
strained  our  eyes  up  the  squirrels'  road- 
ways along  the  red  furrows  of  the  bark 
to  the  great  limbs  swinging  out  magnifi- 
cently into  an  airy  dome  three  hundred 
feet  above  us. 

These  were  not  caged  sequoias,  fenced 
in  a  little  grove.  They  spread  over  our 
valley  and  across  and  beyond  into  the 
farther  hills.  They  marched  in  a  giant 
circle  around  our  little  meadow,  and 
quantities  of  fuzzy  young,  like  little 
larches,  clustered  by  their  knees.  A  red- 
wood (as  they  call  the  sequoia  in  the 
Sierras),  alone  in  the  open  country, 
without  rivals,  and  free  to  the  eye  from 
its  great  buttresses  to  its  far-flung  dome, 
is  impressive  beyond  speech.  And  yet 
half  the  beauty  is  lost  when  the  sequoia 
is  like  some  marble  column  which  has 
been  torn  from  its  temple  and  placed  on 
a  museum  floor.  It  is  in  the  forest  that 
the  redwood  is  most  beautiful.  There 
its  glowing  columns  shine  through  the 
gloom  of  the  dark  conifers,  its  gray-green 
foliage  gleams  above  their  somberness, 
and  each  ancient  tree  rises  a  strong  tower 
in  the  moat  its  roots  have  made  for  it, 
surrounded  by  tall,  slender  minarets  of 
pine  and  fir; 


We  pitched  our  little  camp  beneath 
the  knees  of  the  Titans  of  the  meadow, 
and  let  familiarity  dull  the  awe  of  this 
forest.  What  most  surprised  my  Eastern 
eyes  was  its  openness  and  its  light.  The 
white  rays  of  the  Sierra  sun  streamed 
through  the  broad  spaces  between  the 
big  trees,  and  reflected  vividly  from  the 
glossy  manzanita  and  the  bright  trunks 
of  the  redwoods.  It  was  a  dry  forest. 
No  muck,  little  undergrowth  except  the 
shrubbery  of  manzanita  and  snow-bush, 
no  vines,  but  everywhere  bare,  dead 
trunks  of  prodigious  trees  long  since 
fallen  on  a  brown  floor  tinted  by  flowers 
or  touched  with  green  where  seedlings 
struggled  upward.  So  dry  was  the  forest 
that  two  of  our  passings  with  loaded 
mules  would  kick  up  the  loose  gravel 
into  the  semblance  of  a  trail.  And,  like  a 
solemn  warning,  great  caves  burned  into 
the  sequoias  told  of  penalties  long  since 
paid  for  drought. 

And  yet  not  even  the  forests  of  the 
tropics,  which  I.  held  in  loving  memory, 
compared  with  this  one  for  brilliance. 
The  dark  branches  of  the  pines  and  firs 
were  draped  in  hanging  moss  of  beryl 
green;  the  cinnamon-red  sequoias  shone 
even  until  twilight;  the  dry  ground  was 
illumined,  like  an  ancient  text,  by  shin- 
ing wild  flowers,  at  home  in  the  dust  and 
more  brilliant  by  comparison.  From  the 
barest  slopes  irises,  yellow  and  blue, 
sprang  forth;  a  tiny,  pansy-like  flower 
veiled  the  rocks  as  with  a  blue  mist;  in 
splendid  clumps  the  wild  lilac  bloomed 
purple  and  white;  and  in  the  darkest 
shadows,  where  a  dun  carpet  of  needles 
stretched  between  vast  trunks,  the  scar- 
let snow-flower,  flaming  in  bulb  and  leaf 
and  flower,  sprang  up  like  a  trumpet 
note.  Indeed,  it  is  the  eye  that  triumphs 
among  the  senses  in  the  Sierras. 

The  Sierra  Nevada  is  the  finest  play- 
ground in  the  world;  we,  however,  had 
come  for  work.  Under  the  leadership 
of  Professor  Ellsworth  Huntington  we 
were  continuing  a  study  of  climate  which 
promises  to  rewrite  much  history  and 
explain  some  of  the  mysteries  of  the 
world.  The  sequoia,  oldest  of  living 
things,  bears  a  record  of  the  dry  years 
and  the  wet  which  runs  back  and  beyond 
the  days  of  the  Homeric  Greeks.  Al- 
ready the  stumps  of  departed  Titans  had 
been  studied  for  the  history  in  their 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  THE  REDWOODS 


49 


rings,  but  this  time  our  efforts  were  to  be 
directed  upon  the  living  redwood  in 
preference  to  the  dead.  Over  the  lower 
King's  Canon  trail  our  two  mules,  An- 
nette Junior  and  Annette  Senior,  packed 
green  and  brass-bound  boxes  which  held 
an  engine  by  means  of  which  we  hoped 
to  unlock  the 
secrets  of  many 
centuries  hidden 
in  the  big  trees. 

Nine  redwoods 
rose  in  solemn 
conclave  above 
our  camp.  The 
bird  flights 
through  the  sun- 
ny air  of  the  lit- 
tle meadownever 
reached  their 
lowest  branches. 
Our  tables  we 
made  of  strips 
of  bark  from  a 
fallen  sequoia; 
our  beds — in  that 
rainless  month 
— we  spread  un- 
der the  tree-tops, 
upon  springy 
branches  of  the 
fir.  Snowbirds 
and  chipmunks 
cleared  away  our 
crumbs;  a  melo- 
d  i  o  u  s  sparrow 
perched  at  early 

dawn  on  a  branch  that  swung  above  our 
heads,  and  awoke  us  to  the  labors  of  the 
day. 

At  the  head  of  the  meadow  was  a 
thicket  of  young  sequoias,  and  among 
them,  in  a  little  amphitheater,  an  an- 
cient hero  that  bore  his  plumes  upward 
for  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet.  We 
roped  him  round  and  found  him  ninety 
feet  of  girth;  his  knees  stretched  out  like 
buttresses;  his  bark  was  ridged  and 
fluted  like  a  glaciated  hill.  Him  we 
chose  for  the  first  operation,  and  having 
placed  our  jointed  ladders  against  his 
flanks,  we  prepared  to  clamp  the  engine 
over  his  great  heart. 

Cautiously  we  drove  spikes  into  the 
foot  or  so  of  red  bark  which  protected 
the  great  sequoia,  and  hung  ourselves 
by  chains  from  the  tree-cliff.  Iron  brace- 


ANNETTE  SENIOR,  PACKED  FOR  THE  JOURNEY 


plates,  like  porous-plasters,  were  fastened 
firmly  to  the  trunk,  then  down  we  slid, 
and,  painfully  heaving  the  engine  up  a 
ravine  in  the  monster's  side,  we  pinned 
and  chained  it  fast.  It  was  such  an 
engine  as  a  motor-cycle  carries.  A  bore, 
like  a  diamond  drill,  was  coupled  with  it, 

and  on  the 
ground  other 
sections  were 
waiting  to  be 
screwed  on  when 
the  first  should 
have  been  driven 
into  the  soft 
trunk.  We  hoped 
at  the  end  of  our 
first  experiment 
to  have  a  solid 
core  of  wood  from 
north  bark  to 
south  bark, 
which,  without 
injury  to  the  old 
t  r  e  e1,  might  be 
packed  away 
home  for  careful 
study  of  its  two 
or  three  thou- 
sand years  of 
rings. 

When  all  was 
ready  we  group- 
ed below  admi- 
ringly. The  mo- 
tor clung,  like  a 
giant  woodpeck- 
er with  outstretched  wings,  to  the 
broad  bulk  of  the  tree.  Then  the 
chug  of  the  explosions  began,  the  pro- 
peller of  the  air-cooler  whirled  faster 
and  faster  at  the  rear,  the  wing  chains 
rattled  with  the  bite  of  the  bore,  and 
the  incongruous  little  machine  whirred 
like  an  aeroplane  in  mid-flight.  But 
soon  it  began  to  grunt  and  wheeze; 
and  then  it  stopped,  its  bore  so  obsti- 
nately planted  in  the  trunk  that  no  tug- 
gings  could  get  it  out.  The  wood  was 
too  soft,  the  chips  too  wet.  Some  one 
bethought  him  of  a  rope,  and  one  end 
of  a  lariat  was  soon  lashed  fast  to  the 
steel  bore.  A  hundred  feet  away  the 
vast  and  sloping  trunk  of  a  fallen  se- 
quoia made  a  steep  ascent  from  the  un- 
derwood. With  a  swift  ax  we  cleared 
away  the  intervening  brush,  and  then, 


50 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


CLAMPING  THE  DRILL  TO  THE  TRUNK  OF  A  GIANT  SEQUOIA 


cutting  steps  for  a  firmer  hold,  mounted 
the  great  trunk,  and  with  strong  jerks 
all  together  slowly  pulled  out  the  tube 
with  its  mouthful  of  core. 

Again  the  propeller  whirled,  the  bore 
bit  into  the  tree,  and  the  pop  of  the 
engine  reverberated  through  the  quiet 
woods.  Again  it  stuck,  and  again  we 
pulled,  and  yet  again  throughout  a 
sunny  morning.  It  was  of  no  use.  The 
experiment  was  successful,  but,  like 
many  an  operation,  not  on  the  first 
patient.  The  core  was  too  often  broken. 
We  had  learned  how  it  might  be  done 
next  time;  but,  with  engine-builders  and 
machine-shops  a  hundred  miles  away, 
our  leader  was  forced  reluctantly  to  defer 
the  assault.    Regretfully  we  loosened  all 


and  lowered  the  engine 
to  the  ground.  Man's 
puny  attempt  had  been 
foiled.  A  few  chips,  a 
pile  of  bark  scarcely 
noticeable  at  the  foot 
of  the  vast  tree,  and  a 
hole  in  the  trunk  just 
big  enough  for  a  squir- 
rel's nest  were  the  only 
evidences  of  our  day- 
long labor.  And  yet 
it  is  unwise  to  senti- 
mentalize upon  this 
triumph  of  Nature,  for 
next  y  e  a  r  a  far  less 
subtle  engine,  the  saw, 
with  an  illiterate  Greek 
at  either  end  of  it,  will 
easily  bring  this  glori- 
ous Titan  rumbling 
and  thundering  to  an 
inglorious  end. 

In  spite  of  this  de- 
feat of  hope,  we  did 
not  lack  abundant 
occupation.  I  n  t  h  e 
oldest  of  forests,  with 
a  theory  of  climatic 
cycles  which  sought 
all  evidence  that  trees 
could  bring  for  its 
support,  we  were  not 
likely  to  be  idle.  Some 
of  the  expedition  were 
off  each  daylight  over 
the  wonderful  trail  to 
the  west,  which  clung 
to  the  wall  of  the  canon, 
rose  to  views  of  the  snow-fields,  and 
dropped  until  you  could  hear  the  roar  of 
the  river  three  thousand  feet  below. 
They  worked  all  day  in  the  hot,  lumcered 
district,  measuring  with  millimeter  scale 
the  relative  distances  between  ring  and 
ring  on  the  sequoia  stumps,  fat  distances 
for  the  wet  years,  lean  distances  for  the 
dry  years. 

But  others  among  us  followed  cooler 
occupations.  Of  these,  the  "sequoia 
census"  was  my  favorite,  for  it  gave  me 
the  opportunity  to  range  widely  through 
the  little-known  forest,  and  see  and  ob- 
serve. With  aneroid  and  compass  we 
planned  out  rough  districts  in  the  woods. 
Some  would  be  valley  lands  with  feeding 
rivulets;  others,  steep  slopes  and  knolls; 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  THE  REDWOODS 


51 


one  stretched  to  eight  thousand  feet, 
and  the  top  of  our  boundary  hill  where 
there  were  snow  patches  and  a  view  of  a 
world  of  peaks.  Hallooing  to  one  an- 
other so  that  we  might  leave  no  unex- 
plored space  between,  we  would  crash 
through  manzanita,  slide  down  the  steep 
and  shingly  slopes,  crawl  under  fallen 
branches,  and  clamber  over  fallen  logs  as 
high  as  garden  walls. 

It  was  their  reproduction  we  were 
studying.  Are  the  redwoods,  as  many 
authorities  assert,  approaching  extinc- 
tion? Have  they  lived  beyond  their 
geological  time?  These  questions,  inter- 
esting in  themselves,  had  a  bearing  upon 
the  changes  of  climate  which,  for  us, 
was  more  interesting  still.  The  answers 
of  our  districts  were  definite  and  some- 
what different  from  those  hitherto  pro- 
posed. On  the  steep  slopes,  on  the 
knolls,  and  wherever  the  soil  was  dry 
and  there  could  never  be  standing  water, 
young  trees  and  seedlings  were  rare,  even 
in  the  near  neighborhood  of  the  old 
monarchs.  But  in  stream-bottoms,  and 
in  cups  of  moist  soil,  groves  of  waving 
young  clustered  about  every  giant,  and 
in  a  few  favored  spots  a  carpet  of  seed- 
lings covered  the  ground.  Where  there 
is  water  the  sequoia  is  not  disappearing. 
Even  should  the  groves  be  all  cut  down, 
a  new  growth  would  fringe  the  streams 
and  be  ready — in,  say,  a  thousand  years 
— to  make  new  nation- 
al parks,  for  what 
more  appreciative  na- 
tion who  may  know! 

After  the  sequoia 
census  came  the  hun- 
dred years'  test.  The 
"theory"  required  evi- 
dence for  study,  evi- 
dence especially  which 
might  be  used  to  de- 
termine the  succession 
of  the  dry  and  wet 
years  for  the  past  cen- 
tury. So,  leaving  our 
bowl,  we  crossed  into 
another  basin  rich  in 
sturdy  sequoia  chil- 
dren of  from  four  to 
six  feet  in  diameter, 
which  in  another  year 
were  to  fall  before 
the  destroyers  in  the 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781.— 7 


lumber-camps.  From  each  of  a  hun- 
dred, chosen  for  their  various  conditions 
of  soil  and  moisture,  we  took  with  our 
saw  a  hundred  years'  bite.  Across  each 
section,  as  we  drew  it  from  the  tree,  the 
rings  ran,  now  lusty  and  far  apart,  now 
contracting  to  a  web  which  only  the  glass 
could  untangle.  The  panic  years  were 
there — marked  more  impressively  than 
in  a  stock-exchange  register — and  the 
wide,  rich  bands  that  had  been  made 
when  showers  were  frequent,  crops 
throve,  and  the  country  praised  the 
tariff.  As  a  stump-speaker  the  sequoia 
had  its  own  eloquence. 

It  was  hard  work,  but  agreeable,  there 
in  the  cool,  dark  depths,  to  chisel  great 
hunks  of  soft  bark  from  the  chosen  spot, 
to  sway  your  back  to  the  saw  as  it 
spurted  through  the  watery  pulp  of  the 
sap-wood  and  bit  out  its  triangle  from 
the  tree,  while  big  Douglas  squirrels 
scolded  from  above;  pleasanter  still  to 
drop  the  tools  and  prospect  up  the  hill- 
side in  search  of  slender  trunks  for  the 
work  to  come.  Novel  sights  met  you  as 
you  went  hither  and  thither  through  the 
untracked  forest.  Now  it  would  be  the 
yellow  and  black  of  a  rattler's  body 
which  sent  your  nailed  boots  sliding  on 
the  gravel;  now  a  bed  of  white  violets 
shimmering  in  the  broken  light;  now 
a  tanager  looking  as  if  his  head  had  just 
come  out  of  the  red-ink  bottle;  now  a 


EXTRACTING  THE  DRILL  AND  CORE 


52 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


pond  with  its  frog  in  the  clifflike  end  of 
a  fallen  sequoia;  or  a  big  grouse  dragging 
a  fluttering  wing  while  her  youngsters 
popped  like  little  bombs  into  the  man- 
zanita.  But  the  sight  which  stirred  me 
most  was  a  tense  and  deadly  battle  in 
the  utter  silence  of  a  forest  glade.  A 
stately  sugar-pine  and  a  young  redwood, 
with  not  six  feet  between  their  trunks, 
were  struggling  for  the  sky-room  which 
meant  life.  The  pine  had  shot  its  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet,  straining  higher  and 
higher,  until  at  the  top  it  had  tapered  to 
a  switch.  Dead  branches  told  of  old  age 
approaching  after  three  or  four  cen- 
turies. The  sequoia  may  have  been  of 
equal  age,  but  it  was  lifting  its  solid  col- 
umn in  the  flush  of  an  early  youth,  and 
with  easy  grace  was  just  flinging  its  top- 
most arm  into  the  clear  blue  air  above 
the  forest.  And  yet  this  was  like  the 
conflict  of  stags  by  which  the  hunter 
profits.  Down  both  will  go,  crushing 
and  tearing  their  rival  trunks,  when  the 


TAKING  A  HUNDRED  YEARS    BITE  FROM  A  YOUNG  SEQUOIA 


destroyer  with  his  saw  finds  them.  And 
if  the  conqueror  redwood  is  allowed  to 
fall  first  and  more  softly,  it  is  only  be- 
cause his  beautiful  body  will  be  worth 
more  when,  down  in  the  dusty  valley,  it 
becomes  mere  dead  planks,  good  for 
nothing  but  to  stop  a  crack  and  keep  the 
wind  away. 


The  "forest  primeval,"  which  in  Long- 
fellow's time  was  just  becoming  rare 
enough  to  be  romantic,  is  making  its 
last  stand  upon  the  Pacific  coast.  I  had 
sought  it  for  years  in  the  Appalachians, 
finding  shreds  and  patches  here  and 
there,  poor  remnants,  usually,  passed  in 
the  haste  of  the  lumbermen.  In  the 
Sierras  at  last  I  found  it,  still  regnant 
and  more  magnificent  than  were  ever  the 
finest  of  Pennsylvania  pine  swamps  or 
North  Carolina  "coves."  But  the  de- 
vourer  was  hard  at  work,  and  with 
weapons  of  terrible  destructiveness. 

It  was  our  good  and  our  bad  fortune 
to  recur  for  the  necessities  of  life  to  a 
nest  of  lumber-camps  on  the  slopes  of 
King's  River  Canon.  The  high-handed 
waste  of  a  national  asset  which  I  saw 
there  never  failed  to  send  me  home  to 
our  unspoiled  woods  in  a  mingled  jtumult 
of  rage  and  grief;  yet,  like  the  socialist, 
I  blamed  not  the  men,  but  the  system, 
and  saw  what  I  might  of  the  methods, 
while  deploring  the  re- 
sults. 

The  destroyer  of  the 
forest  fixes  himself  in 
some  valley  at  the  edge 
of  the  heavy  timber, 
and  stretches  out  long, 
spider    claws  through 
the  neighboring  slopes. 
Hume  was  the  center 
of  the  group  of  lumber- 
ing-camps which  were 
cutting  and  slashing  at 
the  edges  of  our  forest, 
and  the  metropolis  of 
some  five  hundred  men, 
at  work  in  the  mills,  on 
the  logging  railroads,  or 
far  back  in  the  farther 
valleys.    It  was  fifty- 
four  miles  from  the  rail- 
road, on  the  lower  slopes 
of  the    Sierras,  and 
within  easy  sight  of 
eternal  snow. 
Hume  was  beautiful  when  I  first  saw 
it.    By  next  year  it  will  be  a  barren 
waste.    We  plunged  and  jolted  down  a 
stumpy  road  into  the  midst  of  it  in  a 
June  twilight.    The  little  lake,  behind 
its  enormous  dam  of  concrete,  was  just 
touched  by  the  ripples  of  leaping  trout; 
the  great  mills  below  had  paused  be- 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  THE  REDWOODS 


53 


tween  the  day  and  the  eve- 
ning shifts;  night  was  stealing 
under  the  pines  which  stood 
about  the  shore.  A  hundred 
husky  fellows  of  every  race 
were  pouring  into  the  mess- 
hall  for  supper,  and,  as  far  as  I 
could  see  through  the  aisles  of 
the  forest,  lights  were  twink- 
ling out  in  brown  cabins  of 
fresh -sawed  board.  Women 
were  singing,  young  girls 
dressed  in  khaki  were  wander- 
ing by  the  lake  or  rowing  on  its 
waters,  and  mothers  rushed 
out  of  luminous  tents  to  pull 
their  babies  from  before  our 
swaying  motor  as  we  rocked 
and  bounded  down  what  could 
be  called  either  main  street  or 
trail. 

It  was  clear,  even  from  this 
first  glimpse,  that  a  lumber- 
camp  in  the  Sierras  was  very 
difFerent  from  the  rough  and 
lonely  settlements  in  the  deep 
winter  snows  of  our  North 
Woods.  Many  things  account- 
ed for  the  change  from  those 
outposts  of  cold  and  hardship 
to  this  almost  pastoral  scene; 
chief  among  them  the  condi- 
tions imposed  by  Nature  in  the 
war  upon  this  forest.  No 
teams  in  the  world  could  haul, 
even  over  hard  snow,  the  vast 
logs  which  must  be  handled 
from   these   mountains.  No 
Sierra  rivers,  even  in  the  late 
spring  floods,  could  be  trusted  to  float 
them  down  to  the  valley.    The  team 
has  given  place  to  the  donkey-engine,  the 
river  to  the  railroad  and  the  chute,  and 
winter  to  a  summer  season.    Late  spring 
begins  the  labor,  late  autumn  ends  it; 
and  since  their  work  is  at  a  time  when 
the  valleys  of  California  wither  in  the 
heat,  the  "fallers"  and  the  "line-men" 
bring  their  wives  and  children  with  them, 
settle  in  a  company  cabin  or  a  tent  be- 
neath a  protecting  pine,  and  to  labor  and 
profit  add  health  and  pleasure  for  all  the 
family. 

But  Hume  was  not  all  summer  resort. 
Perhaps  a  third  of  its  residents  had  come 
en  famille,  but  the  rest  were  lumber- 
jacks of  the  expected  kind,  and  their 


A  BROKEN  SEQUOIA  STRIVING  FOR  NEW  LIFE 

life  was  as  rough  as  it  was  picturesque. 
There  were  Greeks,  Slavs,  and  Italians 
in  abundance,  but  there  were  also  plenty 
of  native  Americans,  and  among  them 
remnants  of  the  old  guard  who  had 
stripped  Wisconsin  and  Michigan  of 
their  pine,  who  long  before,  perhaps,  had 
cut  the  spruce  of  Maine  or  the  hemlock 
of  Pennsylvania,  and  now  were  come  to 
this  last  frontier. 

As  one  met  them  at  dawn,  on  the  way 
to  the  forests,  with  ax  or  saw  across  their 
shoulders,  or  sat  in  the  smoke  fog  of  the 
Log  Cabin  Saloon  at  night,  a  little  of 
the  romance  of  those  other  pioneers  in 
the  Sierras,  Bret  Harte's  Forty-niners, 
shed  itself  upon  them.  No  revolvers  or 
piles  of  gold  nuggets  now,  nor  "younger 


54 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


sons,"  among  these  lumber-jacks;  and 
yet  the  change  from  gold  and  fortunes 
and  red  shirts  to  logs  and  wages  and 
overalls  had  not  done  away  with  all  re- 
semblances. "Tennessee"  and  "Arkan- 
sas" were  still  there  in  new  reincarna- 
tion, but  called  familiarly  as  in  the  old 
days  from  their 
native  states. 
"Tennessee"  was 
such  a  lanky, 
bearded  individ- 
ual as  appears 
again  and  again 
in  Civil  War  pic- 
tures. Hiswhiskies 
shot  down  straight 
and  clear  in  rapid 
succession.  "Ar- 
kansas" kept  his 
hound  dog  be- 
tween his  legs  as 
he  played  pedro 
at  the  round  ta- 
ble; his  drawl  was 
a  strange  contrast 
to  the  sharp  sibi- 
lants of  the  Slavs 
and  Greeks.  And 
there  was  Yuba 
Bill — big,  hearty, 
f  1  a  n  n  e  1-shirted, 
with   a  sweeping 

black  mustache  that  had  to  be  wiped 
both  right  and  left  after  the  beer-mug 
— Yuba  Bill,  swaggering  a  little  as  in 
Roaring  Camp,  with  the  dust  of  the 
road  on  his  knotted  handkerchief.  But 
the  Yuba  Bill  of  the  Hume  stage  route 
carried  no  pistol,  nor  did  he  scowl,  like 
his  prototype,  upon  strangers  and  "ten- 
derfeet."  Science  and  the  newspapers 
had  transformed  him.  He  was  glad  to 
discuss,  between  whiles,  the  Presidential 
situation  and  the  points  of  his  new  auto- 
mobile-truck. 

They  were  playing  "freeze-out"  in  the 
Log  Cabin  Saloon,  under  a  big  sign 
which  read,  "No  gambling  here."  But 
the  real  game  was  on  in  some  mysterious 
shack  to  the  hillward.  It  was  the  barber 
who  told  me  so.  A  "  tin-horn  " — that  is,  a 
professional  gambler — had  "cleaned  him 
out"  earlier  in  the  season,  and  every 
hour  spent  shaving  was  an  opportunity 
lost  to  get  even  with  the  game  again. 
His  outfit  testified  to  his  ardor  for  a  dif- 


LOGGERS  WHEELS,  FROM  WHICH  THE  LESS- 
ER LOGS  ARE  SLUNG  FOR  TRANSPORTATION 


ferent  occupation.  A  single  towel  and  a 
compound-can  on  a  stool  made  up  his 
shop,  and  when  he  had  finished  a  scallop 
of  my  hair  he  seized  my  thirty-five  cents 
and  melted  into  the  night. 

But  the  less  clandestine  pleasures  of 
the  bar  held  the  majority.    We  heard 

them  —  later.  A 
board-walk  leads 
from  the  Log  Cab- 
in Saloon  across 
the  shallow  water 
of  flooded  mead- 
ows to  the  mills, 
the  cabins,  and  the 
company  board- 
ing-house. Across 
that  strait  and 
narrow  pathway 
all  the  roisterers 
must  s  o  o  n  e  r  or 
later  in  the  night 
of  revelry  inevi- 
tably go.  As  we 
snuggled  in  our 
blankets  from  the 
frost  of  those  June 
nights,  we  heard 
the  last  of  the 
faithful  sally  for 
the  adventure. 
We  praised  the 
firm  feet  of  the 
prudent;  but  when  the  unsteady  fol- 
lowed we  shivered  and  pulled  the 
blankets  tighter,  expecting  what  did  not 
fail  to  follow — howls  and  a  frightful 
splash! 

The  "fallers"  were  working  at  the 
very  back  of  the  Hume  cabins;  the 
splendid  pines  were  toppling  with  roar 
after  roar;  saws  were  whining  every- 
where; and  four-horse  teams  were  haul- 
ing the  logs,  swung  beneath  gigantic 
wheels,  to  the  lake.  But  this  was  only 
an  easy  and  incidental  part  of  the  de- 
stroyer's task.  The  lumber  he  sought 
was  most  of  it  far  less  accessible,  and 
must  be  first  collected  by  more  strenu- 
ous means  in  lesser  camps  scattered 
throughout  the  mountains. 

We  had  occasion  one  day  to  leave  our 
forest  with  a  pack-train  for  one  of  these 
lesser  camps.  Arriving  there  with  our 
duffle,  we  borrowed  a  car,  and,  hitching 
it  behind  the  little  narrow-gage  lumber- 
train  which  slides  down  the  mountain, 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  THE  REDWOODS 


55 


we  carried  our  heavier  impedimenta  to 
Hume  and  the  stage  road.  In  the  course 
of  that  day  we  saw  the  whole  history  of 
the  log. 

One  picture  from  that  journey  is  im- 
printed upon  my  memory  with  the 
sharpness  of  an  etching.  We  were  stand- 
ing in  front  of  the  mess-cabin  of  this 
Camp  No  4.  Withindoors  the  "  lackeys  " 
and  " pearl-divers" — camp  euphemisms 
for  waiters  and  dish-washers — were  pre- 
paring a  twenty-two-cent  company  meal, 
and  a  good  one.  Cakes  two  feet  across 
and  pies  as  big  as  card-tables  made  our 
forest  appetites  to  burn  within  us.  The 
shack  which  served  the  log-measurer  for 
office  was  on  our  right — you  could  see 
the  sign,  "God  bless  our  Scaler,"  above 
his  head.  In  front  was  the  great,  bare 
bowl  of  the  ruined  valley,  full  of  rum- 
blings and  the  snorts  and  screams  of  dis- 
tant donkey-engines.  Suddenly  a  shrill 
whistle  blew,  and  over  the  nearest  rise  a 
mammoth  serpent  wound  toward  us. 
On  his  head  stood  the  conqueror,  grace- 
fully balancing;  the  body  slid  sinuously 
for  a  hundred  yards  behind.  It  was  the 
last  log-slide  of  the  afternoon  on  its  way 
down  the  polished  chute.   At  the  foot  of 


A  DEVASTATED  FOREST  STRUGGLING  BACK  TO  LIFE  AFTER  TWENTY  YEARS 


the  slope  the  monster  ceased  his  wind- 
ings, and,  like  the  "j'int  snake"  the 
darkies  at  home  used  to  tell  of,  broke 
apart.  Hooks  seized  his  unwieldy  sec- 
tions, an  engine  roared,  ropes  tightened, 
and  one  by  one  the  logs  of  fir  and  pine 
came  rolling  and  bumping  over  to  the 
waiting  train  of  flat-cars. 

That  morning  we  had  seen  them  in 
pride  of  health.  Our  forest  trail  crested 
a  high  ridge,  left  the  still  unassaulted 
sequoias  behind,  and  dropped  through 
the  thin  edge  of  a  melting  forest  of  pines. 
As  we  sought  for  the  trail  in  a  tangled, 
odorous  mass  of  fresh  branches,  and 
clambered  over  the  great,  brown  bodies 
of  new-fallen  trees,  "Hoo — oh — below!" 
rang  out  sonorously.  A  gentle  cracking 
sounded  through  the  forest.  Our  eyes, 
seeking  its  source,  were  caught  by  the 
tremulous  arms  of  a  two-hundred-foot 
pine,  whose  soaring  head  was  all  aflutter 
in  the  still  air.  Slowly  and  gracefully, 
with  a  majestic  curve,  it  began  to  move. 
A  second  seemed  to  pass  before  its  sweep 
had  reached  the  nearest  trees.  It 
touched  them.  A  rending  crash,  and 
their  upper  branches  sprang  out  into  the 
air;    then  with  a  roar  the  great  pine 


56 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


stripped  them  to  the  ground.  A  hurri- 
cane of  dust  whirled  up  from  the  thunder 
of  the  fall,  and  reverberations  rolled 
back  from  crest  after  crest  of  the  moun- 
tain. 

No  more  glory  for  that  pine.  The 
sawers  will  cut  his  four-hundred-year 
body  into  lengths;  the  donkey-engine, 
which  has  hauled  itself  up  the  hillside 
through  a  path  of  torn  and  ruined  herb- 
age, will  fix  the  tentacles  at  the  end  of 
its  hundred-yard  cables  upon  each  sec- 
tion and  drag  them,  jerking  and  tearing, 
through  broken  saplings,  barked  trees, 
and  devastated  undergrowth,  to  the 
head  of  the  chute;  then  down  they  go  to 
No.  4  and  the  train. 

I  suppose  that  I  shall  be  accused  of 
sentimentality,  but  yet  I  confess  that 
after  weeks  in  the  most  beautiful  forest 
in  the  world  the  sight  of  that  torn  hill- 
side was  as  painful  as  human  misery. 
The  dying  were  everywhere:  broken 
trees,  broken  ferns,  withering  flowers, 
shrinking  streams.  But  far  worse  was 
the  scene  of  their  death:  the  desert  of 
plowed-up  sand  and  littered  branches 
where  the  work  was  complete.  Ponder- 
ous logs,  snorting  and  tearing  across, 
above,  below,  had  annihilated  the  forest, 
as  cavalry  in  panic  tear  through  and 
annihilate  the  infantry  behind  them. 
For  years  that  valley  will  be  an  arid 
waste — if  fire  reaches  it,  perhaps  for  a 
half-century.  The  first  crop  of  timber 
has  been  gathered,  the  second  and  the 
third  wantonly  destroyed. 

No  other  kind  of  lumbering  is  profi- 
table, say  the  apologists.  In  the  first 
place,  I  doubt  it,  having  many  expert 
opinions  to  the  contrary.  In  the  second, 
profitable  for  whom? — surely  not  for 
those  who  hope  to  live  for  the  twenty- 
odd  years  in  which  a  second  crop  of  tim- 
ber might  have  ripened  in  that  and  many 
another  now  worthless  valley,  and  been 
ready  for  a  more  honest  plucking.  Im- 
mediately profitable  it  may  be  for  a  few; 
in  the  long  run  it  can  be  profitable 
neither  for  producer  nor  consumer, 
neither  for  the  individual  nor  the  state. 
I  left  that  valley  in  pain  and  disgust,  and 
followed  our  friends  the  trees,  who  had 
sheltered  beauty  and  been  beautiful 
themselves  for  so  many  centuries,  down 
to  their  final  change,  feeling  as  I  went 
as  might  a  fifth-century  Greek  trudging 


after  the  sledge  which  bore  some  marble 
Apollo  from  its  niche  in  the  ruined  Ro- 
man baths  to  the  ignominy  of  the  lime- 
kiln. At  No.  4  we  joined  the  funeral  pro- 
cession, the  cornucopia  chimney  of  our 
little  engine  blew  up  a  puff  of  wood 
smoke,  the  whistle  screamed,  and  we 
chugged  down  the  mountain.  Rotting 
logs,  broken  trees  littered  the  earth 
everywhere.  We  passed  over  bridges 
made  of  six-foot  trunks  of  solid  timber 
piled  crisscross  to  the  proper  height,  and 
ran  over  trestles  with  planking  enough 
in  them  to  build  a  village.  Surely  it  cost 
two  trees  to  get  a  dozen  boards  in  these 
mountains!  On  through  three  miles  of 
ruin  we  went,  then  hugged  a  steep  incline 
and  slid  down  to  Hume  and  the  lake. 

Our  flat-cars  were  coupled  in  pairs, 
and  each  pair  held  from  six  to  eight  of 
the  big  logs,  securely  chained.  Running 
out  upon  a  scaffolding  over  the  clear 
lake  water,  we  stopped  by  a  hoisting- 
engine,  which  promptly  hooked  a  claw 
beneath  a  earful  of  logs,  gave  one  mighty 
pufTP  and  swayed  them,  another  mightier 
and  tumbled  them,  until  they  rolled  with 
majestic  splashings  deep  into  the  lake, 
whence  they  wallowed  up  like  angry  sea 
monsters,  shaking  the  foam  from  their 
moss,  and  sailing  angrily  off  toward  the 
outer  waters.  For  a  day  or  so  they  roll 
there  quietly  and  shelter  the  trout.  Then 
the  sharp  hooks  of  the  lumber-jacks 
catch  them,  they  are  lifted  slowly  into 
the  dark  and  screaming  interior  of  the 
mill,  and  spurt  out  in  slabs  and  planks. 
Quick  hands  bind  the  boards  into  new 
unities,  each  one  a  raft  of  fir  or  pine,  and 
down  they  slide  to  join  the  lumber-train 
in  the  big  chute. 

The  big  chute  is  a  fifty-mile  aqueduct 
which  follows  the  canon,  and  later  stalks 
across  the  flat  lower  valley  to  the  plan- 
ing-mills  of  Sanger  on  the  railroad.  It 
bears  a  five-foot  stream  of  mountain 
water,  which  for  the  first  rapid  miles 
surges  downward,  then  swirls  onward 
calmly  to  its  destination.  Down  the 
chute  goes  the  lumber-train,  package  af- 
ter package  of  planks,  dashing  boatwise 
between  the  narrow  walls,  reported  as 
they  fly  downward  by  little  bells  which 
ring  as  the  passing  lumber  swings  them, 
and  by  telephones  at  the  inspectors'  sta- 
tions on  the  way.  Down  the  mountain- 
side they  rush,  and  out  across  the  plain, 


THE  LAST  STAND  OF  THE  REDWOODS 


57 


in  a  twelve-hour  trip  for  the  fifty  miles. 
If  you  want  excitement,  nail  together 
some  boards  into  a  rough  boat,  and  fol- 
low the  lumber-train,  as  may  be  done  if 
the  chute  boss  does  not  catch  you.  The 
ride  down  the  foaming  strip  of  water  far 
above  the  edge  of  deep  precipices  is  said 
to  be — well,  thrilling.  Unless 
your  boat  jams  at  a  corner 
and  spills  you  into  space, 
or  is  caught  and  bumped  by 
a  lumber-train  behind,  this  is 
the  cheapest,  the  quickest, 
and  certainly  the  least  dusty 
way  to  ride  from  Hume  to 
the  valley. 

Our  work  at  last  called  us 
out  of  the  forest,  past  the 
lumber-camps,  to  the  great 
basins  of  the  outer  ranges. 
There  devastation  had  come 
and  gone  twenty  years  before, 
and  many  stumps  of  the 
decaying  sequoias  were  avail- 
able for  our  study  of  the  re- 
lations between  tree  growth 
and  the  cycles  of  climate 
through  many  centuries. 

Our  way  led  us  up  from  the 
low  level  of  Hume  and  across 
a  barrier  of  outlying  crests. 
On  the  top  of  one  of  these  is 
the  Grant  National  Park, 
and  it  was  beneath  the  little 
grove  of  redwoods  for  which 
this  reservation  was  made 
that  we  passed  a  lazy  noon 
awaiting  the  slow  crawl  of 
our  mule-team  up  the  circui- 
tous mountain  road. 

The  " tourist  groves"  of 
big  trees  are  a  little  har- 
rowing after  weeks  spent 
among  the  free  sequoias  in  the  deep  for- 
est. To  be  sure,  it  is  not  so  bad  here  as 
in  Tulare  County,  where,  so  I  am  told, 
the  fathers  of  the  woods  have  pinned 
upon  their  great  trunks  such  names  as 
"Blanche"  and  "Sally,"  as  if  a  bow  of 
pink  baby-ribbon  should  be  tied  to  a 
Great  Dane's  neck!  Nevertheless,  it  was 
painful  to  see  our  noble  giants  fenced 
in,  bepathed,  stuck  full  of  arrows  in  their 
lustrous-  bark,  and  initialed  as  high  as 
their  great  buttresses  would  allow  the 
vandal  to  climb.  I  felt  shame  for  the 
indignities,  the  flippancies,  which  these 


ancients  of  days  must  suffer  from  the 
horde  of  curious  insects  discharged  by 
stage  and  automobile  in  the  shadow 
world  far  below  them. 

However,  these  necessary  evils  of 
popularity  are  slight  in  comparison  with 
the  benefits  of  preservation.     In  the 


THE  CLIFFS  OF  KING  S  CANON 


Grant  Park  one  regrets  only  that  the 
redwoods  are  so  few  as  to  seem  to  be 
specimens  merely,  rather  than  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  Sierra  forest.  If  we 
hope  to  get  the  greatest  value  from  this 
wonderful  mountain  country,  we  must 
preserve  not  simply  individual  trees,  or 
groups  of  trees,  because  they  are  very 
big  or  very  accessible,  but  more  espe- 
cially whole  ranges  of  this  forest,  where 
the  plains-dweller  may  go  "back  to  na- 
ture" for  his  vacation  under  conditions 
that  can  scarcely  be  found  elsewhere. 
The  potential  value  in  pleasure,  recrea- 


58 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


tion,  and  inspiration  of  such  a  real  forest 
as  the  great  Sequoia  National  Park  of 
Tulare  County  includes  is  measurable  in 
dollars  and  cents.  Regarded  as  capital- 
ized enjoyment  (and  that  is  how  we  esti- 
mate the  cash  value  of  a  novel,  a  summer 
resort,  or  a  touring  automobile),  it  will 
be  worth  far  more  in  money  than  the  sale 
of  its  timber  would  bring.  There  is  a 
mountain  near  this  National  Park  called 
Redwood  Mountain,  entirely  covered 
with  an  unmixed  sequoia  forest,  such  a 
forest  as  nowhere  else  exists,  as  never 
again  will  exist  when  its  private  owners 
saw  it  away.  If  only  California  could  see 
its  duty,  and,  more  especially,  its  profit 
there;  or  if  Washington  could  turn  a  lit- 
tle rill  of  the  flowing  public  moneys 
thither!  But  it  is  still  difficult  for  this 
spendthrift  nation  to  save.  Redwood 
Mountain,  I  suppose,  must  go  to  serve 
as  text  for  the  economists  and  the 
nature-lovers  of  a  wiser  generation.  Let 
us  be  thankful  for  such  morsels  as  the 
Grant  Park. 

We  dropped  down  a  thousand  feet  or 
so,  left  our  wagon  by  the  roadside,  and 
laboriously  packed  up  another  thousand, 
to  get  to  the  Comstock  Basin.  It  lay,  a 
great  bowl,  open  and  near  the  sky,  views 
down  from  its  southern  rim  to  the  great 
plain,  an  edge  of  forest  cresting  it  to  the 
north.  All  within  was  a  vast  and  lonely 
cemetery.  A  stream  wound  among  bro- 
ken trunks,  torn  roots,  and  whitened 
slabs  of  lumber,  through  the  midst  of  the 
grassy  valley.  Above  the  thin  turf  rose 
weathered  pines  or  clumps  of  feathery 
sequoia,  like  Italian  cypresses,  and  be- 
neath and  beside  them,  at  decorous  in- 
tervals, were  the  great  tombs  of  the  dead 
sequoia. 

They  were  only  stumps,  but  in  that 
melancholy  landscape  stumps  like  these 
had  power  over  the  imagination.  The 
bark  had  long  since  gone  from  them,  but 
the  wood  held  firm  and  fast.  Ten  feet, 
fifteen  feet,  twenty  feet,  they  rose 
above  the  ground,  and  two  of  us  could 
lie  head  to  head  upon  the  tops  as 
we  pored  over  their  thousand  years  of 
rings. 

Twenty   years    had    brought  back 


beauty  to  this  wasted  valley,  though 
beauty  of  a  strange  and  melancholy  sort. 
Flowers  were  everywhere,  most  of  all 
where  the  little  stream  at  intervals  drew 
over  its  ripples  a  canopy  of  pink  azalea, 
now  in  fullest  bloom.  But  the  forest  had 
gone.  An  indiscriminate  slaughter  had 
let  in  the  sun,  its  enemy;  had  dried  the 
springs,  which  were  its  life-blood;  and 
such  tearing  and  ripping  as  we  had  seen 
at  Hume  had  rendered  the  soil,  its 
mother,  unfit  except  for  barren  grass.  A 
few  lonely  redwoods,  spared  out  of  wan- 
tonness, had  done  their  best  to  plant  the 
spaces,  but  the  younglings  near  them 
could  only  patch  the  ground;  the  pines 
and  firs  had  well-nigh  given  up  the  strug- 
gle. Ranging  cattle  were  more  than  a 
match  for  Nature  and  her  seedling  trees. 
In  the  great  stumps  themselves,  in 
blocks  and  fragments  scattered  over  the 
soil,  in  the  logs  which  choked  the 
streams,  was  more  dead  and  wasted  lum- 
ber than  a  forester  could  hope  to  grow 
on  so  many  acres  in  a  hundred  years. 
The  story  of  the  Appalachians  was  being 
told  again,  and  more  loudly. 

The  Sierra  world  was  full  of  associa- 
tions as  I  looked  back  upon  its  tumbled, 
hazy  masses  from  the  orchards  and  the 
hot  dust  of  the  plains.  The  dim  snow- 
fields  were  rich  with  the  memory  of  cliffs 
and  the  cool,  green  canon  floor  beneath 
them;  the  faint  peaks  sharpened  into 
gray  towers  as  I  remembered  how  they 
rose  over  us  when  our  trail  swung  out 
to  the  edges  of  the  woods;  the  dark  and 
heavy  mass  rolling  beneath  them  was 
the  forest.  The  thought  of  its  still 
grandeur  came  like  a  cool  shadow 
through  my  mind.  And  nearer,  above 
the  bare  foot-hills,  the  straggling,  broken 
line  as  of  an  army  on  the  march — it  was 
the  first  and  broken  ranks  of  the  pines, 
where  the  destroyers  had  been  hewing. 
I  thanked  Heaven,  as  I  looked  north  and 
south  at  the  length  and  far  depth  of  the 
great  Sierra,  that  for  a  few  decades  at 
least  they  could  not  spoil  it  all.  And  in  a 
decade  or  two,  perhaps,  we  may  have 
learned  the  value  of  natural  beauty,  we 
may  even  have  attained  to  economic 
common  sense. 


The  Blasphemer 


BY  OLIVIA  HOWARD  DUNBAR 


NASMUCH  as  public 
opinion  failed  to  regard 
Jennie  Sprague  with 
any  tinge  of  severity, 
there  is  perhaps  no  rea- 
son why  I  should  make 
a  point  of  registering 
my  own  view  of  her.  She  lived  her  life 
with  the  full  approval  of  a  watchful  and 
unlenient  community.  She  broke  no 
law,  violated  no  custom,  profaned  no 
familiar  sanctities,  outraged,  it  appears, 
no  popular  ideal.  Yet  she  seems  to  me 
now,  as  she  always  has  seemed,  the  su- 
preme illustration  of  Tolstoy's  uncom- 
promising stricture  regarding  the  woman 
ignorant  of  pain.  Not  that  her  sound 
digestive  system  and  magnificent  mus- 
cles in  themselves  affronted  me.  But 
there  were  far  more  than  physical  pangs 
that  her  odious  strength  resisted;  and 
to  these  she  remained,  to  the  end,  inde- 
cently immune. 

I  speak  of  her,  according  to  the  village 
custom,  as  Jennie  Sprague  (though  she 
had  been  married  ten  years  when  I  knew 
her),  for  it  was  thus  that  she  figured  in 
that  narrative  of  the  postmaster's  to 
which  I  must  revert  for  the  main  data 
of  her  story.  To  this  narrative,  which 
was  the  history  of  Gideon  Barstow,  she 
was,  after  all,  but  incidental.  Sam  Jer- 
rod  saw  Gideon  as  mercilessly  visited  by 
Fate,  but  he  did  not  perceive,  in  Jennie, 
Fate's  instrument.  I  did,  it  is  true, 
elicit  that  Mrs.  Jerrod  dismissed  Jennie's 
share  in  the  case  less  cursorily;  but  hers, 
Sam  afterward  explained  to  me,  was  a 
woman's  view — extravagant,  romantic. 

I  had  been  strolling  about  in  the  sultry 
September  twilight,  some  days  after  I 
had  first  come  to  lodge  at  the  post- 
master's, in  search  of  Lura  Jerrod,  whom 
I  found  after  a  little  in  the  garden-patch, 
gathering  tomatoes  in  her  invariably 
grave  and  intense  fashion.  I  had  already 
discovered  that  it  would  be  a  rough  walk 
in  bad  weather  over  the  Stony  Hill  roads 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  781.— 8 


to  the  school  where  I  had  been  engaged 
to  teach,  and  that  I  needed  to  be  shod 
as  with  steel.  I  asked  where  I  could  find 
a  cobbler. 

"Gideon  Barstow?"  asked  the  post- 
master's wife  —  rather  stupidly,  I 
thought. 

"  Is  there  more  than  one  ?  Then  which- 
ever you  recommend." 

My  hostess  was  a  colorless,  frail  wom- 
an, with  a  curiously  unsheltered  look, 
as  though  she  had  too  often  been  swept 
by  harsh  mountain  winds.  "Oh,  well, 
Gideon  Barstow's  a  good  cobbler,  poor 
soul,"  she  slowly  temporized.  "And  I 
don't  know  as  there's  another  this  side 
of  Mullen's  Bridge." 

"But  there's  some  reason  why  I 
shouldn't  go  to  him?" 

"Why,  I  don't  know  as  there  is — 
really.  But  you  being  new  here,  and 
Gideon  being,  as  you  might  say,  at  outs 
with  the  minister — "    She  paused. 

"Has  he  done — anything?"  My  own 
speech  was  becoming  indirect,  like  hers. 

"Why,  no,  you  couldn't  say  as  he  has 
done  anything,"  she  hesitated.  "But, 
you  see,  the  minister  hasn't  been  here 
long  and  he's  sort  of  stirring  things  up. 
And  Gideon  does  say  things  that  the 
minister  declares  no  church  member 
ought  to  even  think,  .  .  .  and  lately 
there's  been  a  good  deal  of  talk  about 
it  all.  .  .  .  And  I  thought  that  maybe, 
having  what  you  might  call  a  public 
position  yourself,  you  mightn't  want  to 
get  mixed  up  in  it.  .  .  .  But  I'll  tell 
you  one  thing,"  she  added,  impulsively, 
her  face  faintly  flushed,  "there  isn't  a 
greater  sufferer  on  earth  than  Gideon 
Barstow.    Not  one." 

If  she  had  wavered  up  to  this  point, 
her  words  and  gestures  were  now  final, 
emphatic.  She  gathered  up  the  weight 
of  her  bulging  apron  and  went  toward 
the  house.  Uncertain,  I  stood  where  she 
had  left  me.  The  possibility  of  taking  a 
stand  opposed  to  that  of  the  new  min- 
ister was  one  that — recollecting  an  en- 


69 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


counter  of  my  own  with  the  reverend 
gentleman  a  few  days  previous — at- 
tracted me  rather  than  otherwise.  And 
yet,  intrigued  by  Lura  Jerrod's  hints  and 
half-confidences,  I  felt  that,  after  all,  I 
should  like  an  ampler  and  more  inform- 
ing preface  before  embarking  on  the  ad- 
venture— which  had  at  first  seemed  so 
baldly  simple — of  having  my  boots  re- 
soled. But  as  I  stood  there  the  front 
gate  clicked  and  Sam  Jerrod  followed 
the  well-worn  path  that  led  to  the  back 
door  of  the  cottage.  His  wTife,  who  must 
meanwhile  have  been  following  a  train 
of  thought  corresponding  to  my  own, 
met  him  on  the  steps. 

"Sam,  the  school-teacher  has  got  to 
know  about  Gideon."  Her  ignoring  my 
presence,  though  I  was  only  a  few  yards 
away,  had  merely  the  gentle  implication 
that  for  the  time  being  I  was  a  ward  of 
theirs,  to  be  instructed  up  to  the  measure 
of  their  wisdom  and  their  responsibility. 
"You  see  he  wants  to  have  his  boots 
mended.  Just  take  your  pipe  and  sit  on 
the  porch  with  him  and  tell  him — what 
everybody  knows." 

So  Sam  Jerrod  and  I  seated  ourselves 
side  by  side  on  the  narrow  porch,  yield- 
ing to  the  comfortable  lure  of  our  to- 
bacco, an  evening's  leisure,  and  an  un- 
told story.  I  knew  that  Sam  talked 
easily  and  well  and  that  he  was  so  far 
from  indifferent  to  the  need  of  a  listener 
that  the  advantages  of  the  contract 
whereby  I  lodged  at  the  Jerrods  were  by 
no  means  altogether  mine.  Just  inside 
the  open,  screened  window  sat  Lura. 
Darkness,  faintly  starred,  had  come,  and 
light  from  the  green-shaded,  nickel  lamp 
fell  on  her  face  and  on  the  old  coat  of 
Sam's  that  she  was  mending. 

"Somehow,  I  haven't  thought  of  much 
else  but  Gideon  all  day,"  Sam  said. 
"They're  talking  about  him,  too,  all  over 
the  village — about  Gideon  and  the  min- 
ister, that  is.  .  .  .  But  I  declare  I  don't 
know  just  where  to  begin.  .  .  .  It's 
a  long  story." 

"You'd  better  begin  the  day  Jennie 
Sprague  was  born."  Lura  dropped  the 
words  with  a  gentleness  almost  mislead- 
ing. 

Sam  passed  his  hand  over  his  eyes 
with  repeated  nervous  gestures,  after  the 
manner  of  one  evoking  dead  scenes. 

"You've  noticed  the  spire  just  to  the 


south  of  us?"  he  asked.  "That's  what 
we  call  the  New  Congregational  Church. 
Ten  years  ago  this  fall — " 

"Eleven,"  corrected  Lura. 

"So  'tis.  .  .  .  Old  Enoch,  the  Bar- 
stow  boys'  father,  was  building  that 
church,  the  boys  helping  him.  Lura 
and  I  were  living  up  at  father's  farm 
then,  and  I  was  bookkeeper  down  at  the 
bicycle  works.  Well,  one  day,  just  this 
time  of  year,  I  overtook  Jennie  Sprague 
on  my  way  home  from  work.  Any- 
body '11  tell  you  what  a  fine,  handsome 
girl  she  was.  'Black,  but  comely'  is 
what  that  dark,  smooth  look  of  hers  used 
to  make  me  think  of.  And  she  had  that 
satisfied  glow  you've  seen  on  some  young 
girls — as  if  she  believed  the  stars  them- 
selves would  skip  around  and  change 
their  places  if  she  should  happen  to 
choose  some  lively  new  pattern  for  them. 

"'Lura  tells  me  your  wedding-day 
isn't  far  off",'  I  said  to  her  as  we  walked 
along. 

"'Three  weeks,'  she  beamed  at  me. 
'And  tell  Lura  my  two  chests  are  full.' 

"Well,  I'd  been  married  a  year  then, 
and  I  understood.  You'll  find,  some  day, 
that  it  means  everything  to  them,  those 
linen  things  that  they  hoard  away,  each 
one  with  the  print  of  Lord  knows  how 
many  thousand  stitches.  All  women 
love  that  sort  of  thing — even  Lura. 

"  'Let's  go  around  by  the  new  church. 
Gideon  will  be  coming  home,'  Jennie 
proposed.  We  were  having  bright,  fresh 
weather,  I  remember,  with  a  brisk  bit  of 
wind,  and  I  was  glad  of  the  extra  walk 
after  a  day  at  the  works.  And  I  must 
have  forgotten  that  Jennie  and  Gideon, 
being  engaged — and  Gideon's  eyes  al- 
most eating  Jennie  up  every  minute  they 
were  together — that  they  wouldn't  need 
me  along. 

"  But  when  we  got  in  sight  of  the 
church  we  saw  that  they  hadn't  stopped 
work.  That  is,  the  Barstows  themselves 
hadn't.  They  always  stayed  to  finish 
up  the  job  they  were  on — never  thought 
of  doing  anything  else.  The  old  man 
was  down  in  a  shed  outside,  but  Gideon 
was  on  a  scaffolding  over  the  entrance, 
and  Miles,  a  few  feet  away,  was  sitting 
inside  a  window-frame  with  his  back  to 
us." 

I  noticed  that  the  swift  excursions  of 
Lura  Jerrod's  needle  suddenly  ceased. 


THE  BLASPHEMER 


61 


Her  sewing  had  fallen  in  her  lap  and  she 
was  listening  as  intently  as  though  the 
tale  were  new  to  her. 

"  Gideon  saw  Jennie  the  instant  we 
turned  the  corner.  And  she  knew  he 
saw,  and  pretended  she  didn't  know,  in 
the  way  girls  have.  But,  Lord !  she  must 
have  been  proud  of  Gideon  then — any 
woman  would  have  been.  Tall  and  mus- 
cular, with  more  grace  than  any  girl, 
and  an  easy,  masterful  way  of  handling 
everything — whether  'twas  a  man  or  a 
woman  or  a  strip  of  lumber.  You 
couldn't  help  feeling  that  life  was  almost 
too  easy  for  the  kind  of  power  he  had. 
And  you  knew  he  didn't  even  guess, 
himself,  what  big  things  he  could  do 
when  he  once  started  trying. 

"Well,  all  the  time  that  we  were  get- 
ting nearer,  Miles,  sitting  in  his  window, 
hadn't  turned  to  look  at  us.  We  could 
see  him  fussing  and  measuring,  in  that 
slow,  careful  way  he  had.  So  Jennie,  in 
her  gay,  sweet  voice,  called  out  to  him." 

"One  man  wasn't  enough  for  her," 
Lura  almost  whispered. 

"Of  course  she  knew  he'd  want  to  look 
at  her,"  Jerrod  tolerantly  went  on. 
"He'd  always  thought  the  world  of  Jen- 
nie, though  he  stood  no  chance  with 
Gideon.  And  Jennie — well,  being  young 
and  pretty,  and  made  so  much  of  all  the 
time,  does  go  to  a  girl's  head — it's  only 
natural.  .  .  .  But  Miles  didn't  hear 
her.  The  wind  was  blowing  pretty  hard. 
So  she  called  again,  shrill  and  sudden, 
through  the  wind: 

"'Oh,  Miles;  it's  Jennie!9 

"That  reached  him.  Some  way  it 
seemed  to  pierce  him  like  a  lightning 
stroke.  In  a  flash  he  had  swung  his  legs 
through  the  window  and  faced  us.  But 
his  feet  lighted  on  the  unsupported,  pro- 
jecting end  of  the  scaffolding,  and  out 
it  went  from  under  him,  and  Gideon, 
whose  eyes  took  the  whole  thing  in  be- 
fore it  happened,  made  a  desperate  reach 
to  save  him — and — well,  they  fell  to  the 
ground  together.  .  .  .  To  this  day  I 
never  pass  the  new  church  without  see- 
ing the  boys  fall,  the  way  they  did  that 
day — and  feeling  that  sickening  horror 
deep  inside  of  me. 

"Well,  there  wasn't  a  doubt  in  my 
mind  as  to  what  I  should  see  when  I  got 
to  where  the  two  boys  were  lying — or 
what  was  left  of  them.    So  I  took  hold 


of  Jennie's  arm,  pretty  roughly,  maybe, 
and  told  her  she  must  let  me  leave  her  at 
the  Atkinses' — we  were  just  outside  their 
gate — and  that  she'd  have  to  wait  there 
till  I  could  get  back  and  tell  her  what 
had  happened. 

"But  Jennie  was  the  cool  kind  that 
doesn't  fly  to  pieces.  'You  needn't 
come,'  she  said.  'I'll  go  alone  and  wait 
for  you.'  And  without  a  sign  of  hyster- 
ics, off  she  went.  It  was  more  than  you 
would  have  expected  of  a  girl,  wasn't  it, 
with  her  lover  lying  dead,  as  we  sup- 
posed, or  worse  than  dead? 

"We  were  just  outside  the  village,  and 
it  was  supper-time,  so  it  took  only  a 
second  for  some  one  to  fetch  the  doctor. 
And  he  had  us  telephone  to  another 
doctor  at  Mullen's  Bridge,  and  by  that 
time  Miles  was  conscious  again  and  we 
knew  that  Gideon  was  alive,  at  least. 
When  I  got  back  to  Jennie,  some  of  the 
village  girls  were  gathered  round  her, 
holding  her  hand  and  crying  over  her, 
but  Jennie  was  just  looking  at  them  in  a 
queer,  stolid,  resentful  way.  She  wasn't 
the  kind  of  girl  you  could  pity.  I  took 
her  home  and  late  that  evening,  ten  or 
eleven  o'clock,  I  went  back  to  tell  her 
what  the  doctors  had  said. 

"She  must  have  known  by  the  quiet 
way  I  came  in  that  I  didn't  have  good 
news.  But  I  tried  to  make  it  easier  by 
telling  her  about  Miles  first. 

"'They  can't  find  that  anything  is 
the  matter  with  him,'  I  told  her.  'Badly 
bruised,  of  course,  but  apart  from  that 
as  sound  as  when  he  was  born.' 

"'Well?'  she  said,  waiting  for  me  to 
go  on.  Her  mother  was  sitting  crying 
in  the  little  old  black  hair-cloth  rocker, 
but  Jennie  didn't  shed  a  tear.  Her 
cheeks  were  bright,  as  they  always  were, 
and  you'd  have  thought  from  her  un- 
crumpled  white  dress  and  smooth  braids 
of  black  hair  that  she  had  been  sitting 
there  waiting  for  Gideon  to  come  in, 
just  like  any  other  evening. 

"'Well?'  she  said  again. 

"'They're  coming  over  from  the  hos- 
pital to  operate  on  Gideon  in  the  morn- 
ing. His  spine  is  injured.  And  he's  hurt 
other  ways.'  I  had  meant  to  soften  it 
in  telling  her,  but  there  was  something 
about  her  that  forced  the  brutal  truth 
right  out  of  me. 

'"Will  he — die?'  she  asked  me. 


62 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


'"Oh,  Jennie,  Jennie!'  little  Mrs. 
Sprague  wailed  out.  'You  mustn't  say 
it.   You  must  hope.' 

"But  Jennie  was  looking  at  me  hard. 
'No,'  I  said.  'They  expect  to  save  his 
life.  But — they're  afraid  he  won't  be 
able  to  walk  any  more.' 

"Of  course  this  was  enough  to  give 
Mrs.  Sprague  a  fit  of  crying,  and  that 
took  up  Jennie's  attention  for  a  while; 
and — somehow,  I  guess  that  must  have 
helped  us  through. 

"In  a  few  days  Miles  was  out  of  bed 
and  almost  well  again,  but  the  doctors 
couldn't  say  that  Gideon's  operation  had 
helped  him  any.  There  wasn't  any  hope 
now,  they  said,  that  he'd  ever  be  able 
to  walk.  Pretty  hard  luck,  wasn't  it, 
for  a  boy  like  that?  And  I  can  tell  you 
that  it  wasn't  easy  for  the  rest  of  us 
even  to  look  on.  The  thing  would  have 
seemed  bad  enough  if  it  had  happened  to 
a  worthless  tramp,  but  that  Gideon 
should  be  struck  down  that  way — Gid- 
eon .  .  .  when  we  all  thought  so  much 
of  him  ...  it  was  enough  to  break 
your  heart. 

"And  then — there  was  Jennie.  You 
see,  it  was  a  mighty  different  kind  of  life 
that  seemed  to  be  stretching  ahead  of 
her  now,  with  Gideon  a  cripple.  So  I 
wasn't  surprised  when  Lura  came  home 
one  day  about  a  week  after  the  accident 
and  told  of  the  bad  state  Jennie  was  in." 

"Sam,"  said  Lura,  through  the  win- 
dow-screen, "you  might  as  well  tell  the 
whole  story.  You  know  what  was  the 
matter  with  Jennie  Sprague.  She  was 
afraid." 

Sam  Jerrod  was  silent. 

"You  might  as  well  put  it  into  words, 
Sam."  Lura's  voice  trembled  under  the 
restraint  she  imposed  upon  herself. 
"You  know  it's  the  truth.  She  was 
afraid  she'd  have  to  marry  Gideon. 
That  was  what  ailed  her  when  she  was 
whimpering  there  at  home  and  every- 
body in  Stony  Hill  was  pitying  her.  She 
was  afraid  she'd  have  to  marry  Gideon, 
after  all.  There  he  had  been  in  bed  a 
week,  just  as  conscious  of  everything  as 
you  and  I  are  conscious  this  minute,  and 
Jennie  Sprague  hadn't  been  to  see  him. 
She  said  her  mother  wouldn't  allow  it. 
Her  mother!  Why,  you  know  those 
piercing  eyes  of  Gideon  Barstow's!  She 
knew  they  would  claim  something  from 


her  that  she  couldn't  give.  And  she  was 
hiding  from  them!" 

Sam  Jerrod  said  nothing  for  a  mo- 
ment. "Well,  now,  Lura,"  he  then  be- 
gan, very  gently,  "you  mustn't  blame 
Jennie  Sprague  for  not  being  equal  to  a 
thing  that  you  could  have  done  yourself, 
You  could  have  been  faithful  to  a  crip- 
pled lover,  and  married  him — if  he  would 
have  let  you — and  been  happy  all  your 
life  and  made  him  happy.  But  Jennie — 
why,  that  girl  wasn't  made  to  be  a 
heroine.   And  she  knew  it." 

I  looked  at  Lura.  She  was  sitting 
quite  still,  with  a  queer  little  smile  on 
her  face. 

"Why,  Gideon  saw  how  it  was,  plain 
enough,"  Jerrod  went  on.  "And  it 
wasn't  but  a  few  days  later  that  we  all 
knew  he'd  sent  word  to  Jennie  that  she 
was  free  from  every  promise  she  had 
made  him.  And  we  saw  that  that  ques- 
tion was  settled  for  good.  You  see  that, 
though  we  all  knew  Gideon  wasn't  going 
to  die,  it  wasn't  long  before  we  got  to 
speaking  of  him  as  you  would  of  a  dead 
man.  And  he'd  have  been  glad  enough 
to  be  dead — there's  no  doubt  of  that. 
I  used  to  go,  evenings,  and  sit  with  him 
— read  to  him  sometimes.  It  was  Lura 
that  made  me  do  it — and  she'd  wait  for 
me  alone  at  home.  I  won't  say  it  was 
an  easy  job.  You  couldn't  let  him  see 
how  sorry  you  were.  And  you  couldn't 
smooth  things  over,  as  you  can  for  some 
people.  Gideon  was  too  keen — he'd  see 
right  through  you.  That  bitter  way  he 
used  to  smile,  as  he'd  lie  there  in  bed 
and  look  at  me — why,  it  would  have 
frozen  my  tongue  in  my  mouth  if  I'd 
tried  to  give  him  any  goody-goody  talk. 
Still,  as  time  went  on,  we  got  so  that 
we  could  talk  pretty  naturally  of  'most 
everything — everything,  that  is,  but  one. 
We  never  mentioned  Jennie  Sprague. 
But  I  used  to  feel  that  he  always  knew 
where  Jennie  was  and  even  what  she 
was  doing.  I  never  knew  a  man  to  love 
a  girl  the  way  Gideon  did  Jennie.  .  .  . 
And  does  still,  I  almost  said.  .  .  .  Any- 
way, the  thing  he  felt  for  her  was  some- 
thing the  rest  of  us  don't  know  anything 
about;  I  don't  mind  owning  that. 

"  Before  long  Miles  was  up  and  about, 
as  good  as  ever — though  that  was  hard 
to  believe  at  first — and  he  and  his  father 
saw  that  the  church  got  finished.  We'd 


THE  BLASPHEMER 


63 


been  having  our  Sunday  services  in  the 
town  hall  since  the  old  church  was  pulled 
down,  but  along  about  the  first  of  No- 
vember the  inside  of  the  new  church 
was  all  done,  and  when  Sunday  came  we 
had  the  consecration  service.  As  Lura 
and  I  were  walking  home  that  day  she 
said : 

'"Sam,  I  expect  you  don't  know  the 
very  first  ceremony  that's  going  to  take 
place  in  the  new  church,  now  we're 
moved  in?  There's  to  be  a  wedding 
there  to-morrow.' 

"'Well,'  I  said,  half  thinking  of  some- 
thing else,  'that  means  somebody  is  in 
a  hurry,  doesn't  it?  Do  you  know  v/ho 
it  is?' 

'"Yes,  I  know,'  she  said.  .  .  .  'Miles 
Barstow  is  going  to  marry  Jennie 
Sprague.' 

"I  didn't  believe  her  at  first.  .  .  . 
I  couldn't,  somehow.  But  Jennie  her- 
self had  said  so.  And,  after  all,  as  soon 
as  I  thought  it  over,  it  seemed  natural 
enough.  Poor  old  Gideon  was  out  of 
the  running  just  as  much  as  if  he  had 
died — " 

"Only,  if  he  had  been  really  dead, 
Jennie  and  Miles  would  have  waited 
longer,"  Lura  interposed,  with  the  gen- 
tlest emphasis. 

" — and  they  were  a  practical  pair; 
neither  of  them  high-strung,  like  Gid- 
eon, and  Miles  was  in  love  with  Jennie 
just  as  he'd  been  for  years,  in  his  soft, 
peaceable  way — " 

"And  Jennie's  linen  lay  yellowing  in 
her  chests,"  said  Lura. 

"  So  there  wasn't  any  real  reason 
why  they  shouldn't  marry.  That  was 
the  way  the  village  looked  at  it.  They 
knew  that  Jennie  wasn't  the  kind  that 
old  maids  are  made  of,  and  'most  every- 
body said  she  was  a  sensible  girl  to  take 
Miles  when — when  she  had  lost  Gideon. 

"Gideon  was  well  enough  to  sit  in  a 
chair  by  the  window  by  this  time.  He 
sat  there  the  day  they  were  married, 
and  watched  Miles  go  off  to  church  in 
his  best  suit  and  come  back  afterward, 
with  Jennie.  It  was  a  private  wedding, 
but  it  was  Jennie,  I  think,  who  had 
wanted  to  be  married  in  church.  You 
see,  all  the  other  girls  had  been.  And 
she  didn't  seem  to  have  any  feeling 
about  the  accident's  having  happened 
there — " 


"Or  to  remember  it  was  all  her  own 
causing.  Would  Miles  have  stepped  on 
the  scaffolding  if  she  had  let  him  alone?" 
said  Lura. 

"Come,  Lura,  nobody's  ever  put  it 
that  way."  Jerrod  was  shocked  a  little. 
This  was  overstepping  the  conventional 
boundaries  of  the  familiar  legend. 

"It's  the  true  way,  isn't  it?"  Lura 
demanded. 

Jerrod  resumed  his  story  without  re- 
plying. "Right  off — the  next  day,  I 
think — Miles  and  Jennie  went  to  live  in 
the  same  house  they  live  in  still;  it's 
the  red  house  on  the  corner;  you  can  see 
it  from  our  front  gate.  And  Jennie  grew 
handsomer  all  the  time  and  better 
dressed,  and  things  went  well — as  they 
always  did  go  well  with  Jennie. 

"Gideon  and  his  father  lived  on  to- 
gether in  the  old  place,  and  the  old 
woman  that  had  always  lived  with  them 
waited  on  Gideon — as  much  as  he 
needed.  Crippled  as  he  was,  he  looked 
out  for  himself  mostly.  The  doctor 
couldn't  understand  it — but  I  could.  I 
knew  the  savage  way  that  Gideon  hated 
dependence.  But  I  don't  say  that  there's 
much  sense  in  having  that  kind  of  pride. 
I  guess  it  may  have  been  a  worse  thing 
for  Gideon  than  his  accident,  even.  .  .  . 

"  About  a  year,  wasn't  it,  Lura, 
after  Miles  and  Jennie  were  married,  old 
Enoch  Barstow  died.  Times  had  been 
hard  and  he  hadn't  a  penny  outside  of  his 
business,  which,  of  course,  he  left  to 
Miles.  Gideon  must  have  supposed  that 
they  would  rent  the  house  and  he'd  stay 
on  in  a  corner  of  it — it  took  so  little  to 
keep  him  alive — but  one  night  after  sup- 
per, about  a  week  after  the  funeral,  as  I 
was  sitting  with  Gideon  telling  him  what- 
ever news  I'd  picked  up,  in  walked 
Miles.  He  looked  pretty  sober  and  wor- 
ried. 

"'Don't  go,  Sam,'  he  said.  'I  just 
dropped  in  to  tell  Gid  about  the  house.' 

"'Do  you  mean  this  house?'  I  asked 
him.  Gideon  didn't  say  a  word,  but  he 
knew — Gideon  always  did  know  things 
before  you  said  them. 

"Miles  didn't  shirk.  His  face  got  red, 
but  he  forged  right  ahead.  'We  all  know 
what  father  meant,'  he  said,  looking  at 
me  instead  of  Gideon.  'He's  left  me 
what  he  had,  but  he  expects  me  to  look 
after  Gid.    And  that's  what  I  want  to 


64 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


do,  most  of  anything.  So  there's  a  nice 
little  room  waiting  for  him  down  at  our 
place,  and  we  want  him  to  come  to- 
morrow.' 

" ' Isn't  this  good  enough  for  Gideon?' 
I  said. 

"'Well — I've  had  to  dispose  of  tms 
place.  Enright  came  around  to-day  to 
make  the  deal  with  me.  He's  always 
wanted  our  land.  I  hated  to,  but  Jen 
said  we  couldn't  afford  to  keep  the  place. 
And,  as  she  says,  we  have  the  baby  to 
think  of  now.' 

"Well,  that  was  all  the  warning  Gid- 
eon had.  The  next  day  they  moved  him 
down  to  Jennie  Sprague's  house.  I  say 
that  because  it's  no  use  pretending  that 
Miles  was  ever  the  head  of  his  own  fam- 
ily, even  though  you  couldn't  notice 
anything  women's-rights-y  about  Jen- 
nie. And  there,  all  day  long,  Gideon  had 
to  hear  Jennie's  sweet,  cooing  voice  and 
look  at  her  smooth,  pretty  face.  Every 
crumb  he  ate  was  charity  from  Jennie's 
fingers.  People  even  praised  her  for  giv- 
ing it,  and  of  course  Gideon  knew  that, 
too.  Most  folks  don't  seem  to  see  the 
other  fellow's  side  of  things,  much — and 
nobody  worried  any  about  the  torture  it 
was  to  Gideon  to  live  there  under  the 
roof  with  Jennie  and  Miles.  They  just 
took  it  for  granted  that  Miles  and  Jennie 
were  kind  to  him.  But  does  anybody 
suppose  that  Gideon  cared  any  less  for 
Jennie  because  she  belonged  to  Miles? 
Care  less  for  her?  Good  God!  I  believe 
he  cared  more.    But  it  was  different — " 

"Different  because  he  learned  to  hate 
her  at  the  same  time,"  contributed  Lura. 

"I  didn't  go  to  see  Gideon  as  often 
afterwards.  He  didn't  seem  to  want 
me.  And  there  were  always  Miles  and 
Jennie  and  the  baby,  and  the  baby's 
toys  and  blankets  and  bottles  and  Lord 
knows  what.  It  was  natural  and  pretty 
enough,  of  course,  but  it  choked  Gideon 
— made  him  sick.  He  almost  never 
spoke  a  word;  but  he'd  sit  there,  day 
after  day,  and  watch  Jennie  Sprague — 
those  sharp  eyes  of  his  growing  brighter 
all  the  time.  I  wonder  Jennie  wasn't 
afraid  of  them.  You  see,  he  wasn't  the 
kind  you  hear  tell  of,  that  suffering 
makes  sweet  and  patient.  It  got  to  be 
a  fiercer  torment  every  day — and  every 
day  he  resented  it  more. 

"After  six  months  of  it  he  sent  for 


me.  It  was  one  Sunday  morning  when 
Miles  and  Jennie  were  at  church  and  the 
baby  was  with  Jennie's  mother.  'Sam,' 
he  said,  'I  can't  stand  this  any  longer.' 
I  knew  what  he  meant.  'But  my  hands 
aren't  useless.  I'm  going  to  use  them — 
get  to  work.  I'm  going  to  cobble  shoes 
for  anybody  that  '11  pay  me  for  it.  Have 
you  got  a  pair?  And  I'm  going  to  live 
in  the  little  shed  out  back  and  take  care 
of  myself.  Here  in  the  house  I'm  as 
much  trouble  as  a  dog  you'd  have  to 
throw  bones  to.   Out  there  I  sha'n't  be.' 

"I  didn't  say  a  word  against  his  plan, 
and  Lura  and  I,  we  even  helped  him 
carry  it  out.  Miles  and  Jennie,  when 
they  heard  of  it,  had  the  usual  things  to 
say — 

"Jennie  told  people  Gideon  was  un- 
grateful," Lura  quickly  threw  in. 

"Well,  she  may  have  thought  so.  I 
dare  say  she  couldn't  understand  why 
he  liked  hardships  and  the  mean  business 
of  mending  other  men's  shoes  better  than 
being  fed  at  her  table  by  her  pretty 
hands.  But  as  soon  as  folks  understood 
what  Gideon  wanted,  they  brought  their 
shoes  to  him  and  they  were  well  mended, 
I  can  tell  you  that.  There  was  nothing 
Gideon  hadn't  tried  as  a  boy — nothing 
that  didn't  come  easy  to  him.  And  he 
soon  earned  enough  to  buy  his  own  bread 
and  porridge;  that's  about  all  he  lives  on. 
But  it  was  queer  always,  the  bashful 
way  we  had,  all  of  us,  when  we'd  come 
around  with  a  job  for  him.  We'd  looked 
up  to  Gideon  so — as  if  he  were  better 
than  the  rest  of  us.  And  it  didn't  come 
natural  to  hand  over  our  worn-out  old 
shoes  to  him. 

"But,  good  Lord!  none  of  us  mindea 
it  as  much  as  Gideon  did  himself.  Per- 
haps another  man  might  have  taken  it 
differently — even  all  the  pain  that  he 
had  to  bear,  and  the  being  poor  and 
lonely  and  losing  Jennie.  But  for  Gideon 
there  wasn't  any  other  way.  He  just 
had  to  let  himself  be  torn  in  pieces. 
You'll  understand  what  I  mean  when 
you  see  him.  His  face  tells.  And  the 
worst  of  it  is,  there's  no  end  to  it — 
there's  no  way  out." 

"Not  as  long  as  Jennie  Sprague  lives," 
said  Lura. 

"Yes,  it's  queer  about  Jennie,"  Jerrod 
admitted.  "It  looked  just  as  if  she 
couldn't  let  Gideon  alone.   She'd  go  out 


THE  BLASPHEMER 


65 


to  that  little  place  of  his — that  wretched 
little  shed  that  was  the  only  escape  from 
her  the  poor  fellow  could  think  of — and 
she  would  smile  at  him  as  if  she  believed 
she  was  the  very  sight  his  eyes  had  been 
aching  for.  And  she'd  give  him  advice 
about  his  cooking  and  tell  him  where  to 
keep  his  tools,  and  that  he  ought  to  have 
the  window  open  more — or  less,  which- 
ever it  was.  Jennie's  a  remarkable 
housekeeper,  you  know.  Everybody  ad- 
mits it,  don't  they,  Lura?  It  isn't  that 
she  ever  went  to  work  and  learned  the 
tricks  of  it — but  it's  in  her  blood. 

"The  only  thing,  I  suppose,  that's 
kept  Gideon  from  losing  his  mind  is  that 
as  the  years  have  gone  by  Jennie's  chil- 
dren have  kept  her  out  of  his  way,  at 
least  part  of  the  time.  She  has  five,  and 
not  one  of  them  has  ever  been  neglected 
for  a  minute.  Jane,  the  oldest,  is  nine 
or  so.  I  guess  the  only  service  Jennie 
Sprague  has  ever  done  Gideon  has  been 
to  bring  little  Jane  into  the  world.  And 
yet,  after  all,  when  you  think  of  what's 
happened  now.  .  .  . 

"Gideon's  always  thought  everything 
of  little  Jane.  She's  a  nice  enough  child; 
not  a  remarkable  one  so  far  as  I  can  see; 
but  very  likely  Gideon  sees  more  in  her 
than  is  really  there,  just  as  he  always 
has  in  Jennie. 

"But  there's  no  doubt  that  little  Jane 
has  been  a  godsend — until  now.  For 
years  she's  been  the  only  person  Gideon 
would  laugh  and  talk  with  naturally. 
And  the  toys  he's  made  for  her  and  the 
games  he's  contrived!  Oh,  she's  kept 
him  human!  .  .  .  Poor  old  Gideon!  .  .  . 

"Anybody  else  that's  tried  to  talk 
much  with  him  has — well,  has  seen  the 
sparks  fly.  He  thinks  he's  cursed,  and 
he  don't  mind  saying  so,  and  he  don't 
mind  cursing  back  again,  any  more  than 
you  and  I  mind  complaining  of  the 
weather.  I  guess  some  of  the  things  he 
says  nowadays  are  pretty  bad — pretty 
bad.  To  a  pious  person,  who  didn't 
know  him,  they'd  probably  sound  out- 
and-out  wicked.  I  don't  like  such  talk 
myself,  but  I  know  what  Gideon  has 
been  through,  and  if  his  blaspheming  re- 
lieves him  any,  I  can  stand  for  it. 

"But  last  spring  the  new  minister 
came.  He  began  poking  around  right 
away,  and  inside  of  a  week  he  went  to 
call  on  Gideon — to  advise  him  to  be 


patient!  Of  course  they  ought  to  have 
been  kept  apart,  those  two,  though  I 
don't  see  how  it  could  have  been  done. 
Gideon  didn't  allow  any  such  liberty  as 
the  minister  had  taken,  and  he  told  him 
so — and  his  language  may  have  sizzled 
some.  And  he  told  him  what  he  thought 
about  the  universe  and  the  way  he'd 
fared  in  it.  And  then  the  minister  told 
Gideon  he'd  have  to  take  up  his  case. 
Threatened  him — threatened  Gideon! 

"Well,  he  did  take  it  up.  Seems  to 
me  he'd  have  been  a  great  success  here 
if  he'd  paid  half  as  much  attention  to 
anything  else.  All  summer  he's  been 
pestering  Gideon  to  own  up  he's  a  sin- 
ner— to  sort  of  apologize  for  those  swear- 
words, and  to  him!  But  of  course  trying 
to  coerce  Gideon  makes  him  as  defiant 
as  a  demon.  Yes,  they'll  make  a  demon 
of  that  poor  chap — " 

Sam  Jerrod  paused,  and  sat  fussing 
with  his  pipe,  as  if  the  burden  of  his 
sorry  tale  had  for  the  moment  over- 
whelmed him.  And  the  image  of  Gideon 
Barstow  presented  itself  to  me  as  that 
of  a  great,  savage,  wounded  bird,  clinging 
to  some  bleak  and  rocky  refuge  and 
screaming  hoarse  imprecations  into  hos- 
tile space. 

"About  a  month  ago,"  Jerrod  took  up 
his  story,  "they  had  a  pretty  bad  quar- 
rel. Since  then  the  minister's  tried  a 
new  tack.  Oh,  he's  a  good  man,  you 
know,  that  minister.  He  just  hasn't  got 
an  understanding  heart.  Well,  he's  been 
getting  the  parish  people  to  believe  they 
must  stand  by  the  minister  and  virtue — 
and  get  somebody  else  to  cobble  their 
shoes  for  them.  He's  been  dinning  it 
into  them  that  it  isn't  Christian  to  let 
Gideon  mend  the  toe  of  your  boot  unless 
the  poor  creature  comes  out  and  says 
he's  sorry  for  using  swear-words.  Gid- 
eon's being  disciplined,  you  see;  boy- 
cotted, starved  out,  whatever  you  choose 
to  call  it.  And  folks  are  such  sheep !  Of 
course  I  can  always  tell  the  way  things 
are  going  from  the  talk  I  hear  down  at 
the  office.  And  I  can  tell  you  there's 
hardly  a  soul  in  Stony  Hill  that  isn't 
afraid  to  go  near  Gideon  now.  And  do 
they  know  what  they're  afraid  of?  .  .  . 

"Now  there's  Miles  and  Jennie. 
They're  great  ones  for  going  to  church, 
always  have  been,  and  the  minister's 
kept  at  them  till  they  see  things  his  way, 


66 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


too.  Miles !  Why,  he  used  to  be  nothing 
but  Gideon's  good-natured  echo — and 
now  he's  setting  himself  up  as  a  judge 
over  him." 

Lura  rose  from  her  chair  with  a  spir- 
ited look.  "Sam,  do  you  mean  Gideon 
Barstow  is  without  food?" 

"No.  They  haven't  starved  him  yet. 
The  idea  is  to  make  him  eat  their  bread 
and  salt  till  they  choose  to  let  him  earn 
his  own  again.  Till  he's  good  enough, 
that  is.  That's  all  they're  after,  of 
course,  to  make  Gideon  good — as  good 
as  they  are,  I  suppose.  .  .  .  And  there's 
one  other  thing  made  me  feel  rather 
bad  when  I  heard  it.  I  guess  I  haven't 
told  you  yet,  Lura.  Jennie  promised 
the  minister  a  few  days  ago  that  she'd 
keep  little  Jane  away  from  Gideon,  and 
she  has — " 

"Sam,"  interrupted  Lura,  "I'd  talk 
a  little  lower  if  I  were  you.  There's 
somebody  just  unlatched  the  gate,  some- 
body coming  round  here  to  the  back 
porch.    Don't  you  hear?" 

We  hadn't  heard,  Jerrod  and  I;  but 
we  noticed  now  the  light,  swift  footsteps 
of  the  small  figure  that  hurried  along  the 
path  till  it  came  close  to  the  lilac-bushes 
growing  below  us,  and  spoke  in  a  little, 
frightened  voice,  through  the  branches. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Jerrod — Mr.  Jerrod — are 
you  there  ?" 

"Why,  it's  little  Jane  Barstow,"  Lura 
interposed,  maternally.  "Come  inside, 
Janey.    What's  the  trouble,  dear?" 

"Father  sent  me,"  she  gasped  out. 
"He  says  to  tell  Mr.  Jerrod  to  come  over 
to  our  house — to  come  now.  Uncle 
Gideon  is — there's  something  the  mat- 
ter with  Uncle  Gideon,  and  they're  going 
to  take  him  over  to  the  asylum;  and 
father  wants  Mr.  Jerrod  to  come  and 
talk  to  him.  I  can't  wait,  but — will  you 
come,  Mr.  Jerrod?" 

"Yes,  you  wait,  Janey.  I'm  coming 
with  you  this  minute.  Just  reach  me 
my  hat,  will  you,  Lura?" 

Lura  did  not  move,  but  sat  utterly 
unheeding.  "I  knew  she'd  do  it,"  she 
said,  in  a  low,  distinct  voice.  "I  knew 
Jennie  Sprague  would  drive  Gideon 
crazy." 

"Gideon  isn't  crazy,"  declared  Sam, 
with  what  I  thought  singular  confidence. 
"Don't  you  believe  that,  Lura.  I'll  tell 
you  what  it  all  means  when  I  get  back." 


And  leaping,  hatless,  over  the  porch  rail, 
he  vanished  into  the  darkness. 

For  perhaps  a  couple  of  hours  we 
waited  there,  Lura  Jerrod  and  I,  for  the 
most  part  in  complete  silence.  Lura 
seemed  under  too  great  a  strain  to  sus- 
tain a  continuous  conversation,  and  she 
was  always  a  woman  who  talked  little. 
But  now  and  then  she  would  break  out 
into  sudden,  startling  confidences  that 
I  shall  never  forget.  Lura's  intuitions 
were  remarkably  sound  in  all  cases.  But 
there  was  something  peculiarly  pene- 
trating and  tender  in  her  understanding 
of  poor  Gideon  Barstow.  I've  never,  in 
fact,  been  quite  able  to  make  that  out — 
the  really  ferocious  tenderness  with 
which  she  spoke  of  Gideon.  I  was  still 
wondering  about  it  when  Sam  Jerrod 
finally  leaped  up  the  steps  and  walked 
into  the  room. 

"Well,  Gideon's  gone,"  he  announced. 
"He's  fooled  them." 

"You  mean  he  isn't  crazy,  Sam?" 

"He's  no  crazier  than  I  am."  Jerrod 
seemed  to  have  no  thought  of  me  as  the 
possibly  betraying  stranger.  "But  I 
know  Gideon.  He  figured  this  out  as 
the  only  way  out  of  the  trap  they'd  set 
for  him,  the  minister  and  all  of  them. 
And  I  don't  know,  after  all,  as  he  could 
have  retaliated  any  better.  Because 
now  they'll  have  to  believe  they  did 
drive  him  crazy — and  it's  their  turn  for 
repentance." 

"Poor  Gid!"  said  Lura  softly,  address- 
ing neither  of  us.  "Poor,  poor  Gid! 
.  .  .  Well,  he's  out  of  Jennie  Sprague's 
reach  now.  ..." 

And  then  we  all  took  our  squatty  little 
kerosene-lamps  and  filed  up-stairs  to  bed. 

So,  although  I  lived  for  three  years  at 
Stony  Hill,  I  never,  after  all,  saw  Gideon 
Barstow.  But  I  often,  almost  daily,  saw 
Jennie  Sprague.  A  sound,  fully-bloomed, 
completely  adjusted  woman,  as  Jerrod 
had  pictured  her;  unscourged  by  re- 
morse, irreproachable  as  wife  and  mother, 
useful,  even,  in  the  orthodox,  routine 
fashion  of  a  passing  age,  to  the  institutions 
of  her  community.  Never  once  did  I  be- 
hold her  without  evoking  the  image  I  had 
formed  of  Gideon  Barstow — the  wounded, 
angry,  uncomprehending  bird,  clinging 
to  its  unlovely  refuge,  its  hoarse,  re- 
iterated imprecations  unheeded. 


The  Visitor 


BY  G.  P.  HELM 


STRANGE  visitor 
came  to  my  ranch  door 
the  other  night.  He 
appeared  about  sun- 
down and  made  a  cour- 
teous appeal  for  supper. 
®  He  was  lean  and  gray 
and  very  tired,  but,  by  a  sort  of  knowl- 
edge I  have  got  out  of  the  eternal  dust 
of  things  here,  I  saw  that  he  was  unvan- 
quished  and  ready  to  hit  the  trail  the 
moment  that  terrible  hunger  could  be 
satisfied. 

I  invited  him  in  and  gave  him  the  run 
of  the  house.  He  drank  water  avidly, 
as  if  to  quench  a  three  days'  thirst,  and 
waited  by  while  I  laid  forth  the  fat  and 
the  lean  of  my  storehouse.  We  looked 
at  each  other  and  measured  the  good 
points  of  each.  He  was  thorough-bred, 
under  the  alkali,  and  of  a  gallant  build. 
I  could  see  that  he  approved  of  me,  and 
I  hoped  that  later  on  he  would  give  me 
his  confidence,  because  I  was  full  of  a 
great  wonder  to  know  where  he  came 
from  afoot  and  alone  at  that  hour. 

So  we  broke  bread  together  and,  al- 
though I  did  not  know  it,  there  was 
forged  between  us  at  that  moment  an 
everlasting  bond.  Some  inner  sense,  no 
doubt,  held  this  knowledge,  but  my  only 
mental  register  was  the  fact  that  I  felt 
a  deep  peace  in  his  companionship  and 
I  meant  to  keep  him  as  long  as  I  could; 
and  to  that  end  I  played  host  to  make 
the  moment  happy  to  a  high  degree.  I 
talked  about  all  sorts  of  odds  and  ends 
of  desert  gossip  to  get  his  mind  off  his 
trouble.  He  looked  at  me  with  tender 
understanding,  as  if  to  say,  "It's  all 
right,  my  friend;  I  know  what  you  are 
trying  to  do,  and  I  am  grateful.  It  is 
a  pleasure  to  sit  here  in  this  delightful 
room  with  the  pipes  and  the  open  fire. 
I  like  the  atmosphere  of  books  and  pipes 
and  a  fire."  He  cocked  an  eye  at  me 
whimsically  and  I  nodded,  "Yea,  ver- 
ily!" 

I  held  on  to  him  persistently  whenever 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781.— 9 


I  saw  his  great,  sad  gaze  seek  the  trail 
that  led  away  from  me.  It  is  not  often 
that  my  shadow  has  a  playmate  on  the 
plains.  I  suggested  that  we  stretch  out 
a  bit  on  the  gallery  after  supper,  and  I 
left  him  to  himself  for  a  time  and  stood 
off  watching  him,  thinking  he  might  get 
his  bearings  better  without  his  stranger 
host.  His  eyes  looked  straight  ahead 
with  an  expression  of  steadfast  trust,  as 
if  they  looked  within  answering  and  be- 
loved eyes.  He  was  lost  in  deep  medita- 
tion, and  all  remembrance  of  my  efforts 
at  entertainment  had  passed  from  him. 
He  was  above  circumstance.  Sad  to  the 
verge  of  heartbreak,  but  not  bitter; 
fearless,  but  not  foolhardy.  I  wanted 
him  for  my  friend,  so  I  went  to  him.  I 
told  him  I  was  lonely,  and  for  a  moment 
he  let  me  see  into  the  depths  of  his  soul, 
where  was  revealed  a  loneliness  so  poi- 
gnant that  my  little  murmur  against  the 
arid  wastes  of  my  days  was  pitiful  and 
small.  Something  showed  me  the  cour- 
age with  which  he  looked  forward  to 
mere  endurance  of  a  state  of  mind  and 
body  bereft  of  all  save  the  quickening 
pulse  of  a  great  trust  in  his  God. 

So  passed  a  half-hour,  maybe,  each  of 
us  busy  with  our  own  emotions,  when 
he  rose  with  a  great  sigh  and  shook  him- 
self and  looked  out  into  the  gathering 
dusk.  This  was  to  be  our  farewell  then 
— he  was  going  on  with  his  journey.  And 
now,  don't  laugh  at  me,  you  who  are 
safe  and  warm  in  the  circle  of  family  and 
friends — I  made  a  desperate  plea  that 
he  stay.  Here  he  was  under  my  roof. 
I  was  alone,  cut  off  from  everybody. 
Was  his  business  on  the  road  so  urgent 
that  he  must  go  without  bed  and  break- 
fast? Did  any  one  else  need  him  as 
much  as  I?  Where  had  he  come  from? 
Where  was  he  going?  Why  could  he  not 
stay  with  me?  I  even  laid  a  hand  on 
him  and  made  him  feel  my  appeal. 

He  heard  me  out,  but  he  did  not  look 
at  me — he  seemed  rather  to  weigh  some 
grave  matter  of  right  and  wrong.  Finally 


68 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


I  became  aware,  by  the  inner  voice  that 
speaks  only  in  the  utter  silences,  that 
he  would  stay. 

"Come  along,  old  fellow,"  I  said,  joy- 
fully. "We'll  make  up  the  fire  and  bunk 
down  for  the  night,  and  in  the  morning 
we'll  talk  it  all  over.    Come,  I  win." 

But  he  did  not  stay  without  a  protest. 
He  walked  restlessly  back  and  forth,  up 
and  down  the  gallery,  and  a  rending  sigh 
came  from  him.  Then  plunging  off 
down  the  trail,  he  took  a  few  paces  back 
and  forth,  up  and  down,  and,  lifting  his 
weary  head,  he  cried  into  the  night  with 
anguish — a  farewell  and  a  summons  all 
in  one.  It  woke  the  cactus-crowned 
canons,  that  desolating  cry  of  his,  and 
died  against  my  cabin  wall.  Then  he 
limped  back,  for  he  was  sore  spent,  like 
a  wounded  creature  that  tries  to  hide 
its  hurt  as  a  shame.  Had  I  done  right 
to  keep  him,  I  wondered  ?  What  destiny 
had  I  interfered  with  ?  What  great  lonely 
duty  was  his  ? 

Once  within,  his  weariness  was  heavy 
upon  him  and  he  slept,  while  I  pondered 
these  things  in  my  heart.  Along  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  the  telephone-bell 
rang  with  its  peculiar,  insistent,  loud, 
intimate,  half  human  call.  It  is  only 
men  whose  lives  are  passed  in  lonely 
places  who  know  just  the  strange,  vi- 
brating fellowship  of  that  little  bell.  I 
sprang  to  the  instrument,  and  my 
guest  shook  himself  from  his  sleep  and 
made  a  bound  after  me.  The  moment 
was  intense  for  both  of  us,  and  I  con- 
nected the  call  with  him  absolutely. 

"Hello!"  came  a  voice — but  the  rest 
of  the  sentence  was  drowned  out  in  the 
uproar  of  joy  that  overtook  my  visitor, 
He  went  wild  at  the  sound  of  that  voice, 
and  only  with  difficulty  did  I  get  the 
words: 

"Hello-o,  this  is  Hickey.  Is  my  dog 
there?" 

His  dog  at  that  moment  was  standing 
on  his  hind  legs,  pawing  at  the  telephone- 
box,  choking  with  joy  and  leaping 
against  me  in  a  frenzy  of  uncontrollable 
happiness.  Only  by  pushing  him  off 
with  all  my  strength  and  holding  the  re- 
ceiver high  in  the  air  was  I  able  to  carry  on 
the  conversation.    So  I  yelled  to  Hickey: 

"Yes,  he's  here.  Can't  you  hear  him? 
Arrived  about  sundown,  dead  beat. 
Took  him  in." 


"Keep  him.  I'm  coming,"  bellowed 
Hickey,  and  rang  off. 

For  the  rest  of  the  night  I  had  my 
hands  full  of  dog.  Just  a  big,  silly  puppy, 
tearing  around,  upsetting  things,  coming 
to  me  for  a  moment,  rubbing  me  off  my 
feet  in  an  engulfing  wave  of  rapture, 
licking  my  face  and  hands,  off  to  the 
door  to  wake  the  night  of  stars  with  his 
baying  communication.  No  more  sleep 
for  either  of  us.  My  time  was  wholly 
given  over  to  removing  a  hard  thumping 
tail  from  the  precious  litter  of  my  pipes 
and  Mexican  tobacco-jars  and  the  out- 
fit of  my  supper-table.  Again  he  would 
stretch  his  powerful  body  at  a  little 
distance  from  the  telephone  and  there 
remain  like  a  sphinx,  motionless,  with 
interrogating  gaze. 

"So,  you  are  Hickey's  dog,",  I  would 
say  to  relieve  the  tension  of  his  rigid 
vigil,  and  these  words  brought  him  to 
me  with  the  loving  confidence  of  a  child. 
Laying  his  massive  head  on  my  knees 
and  looking  up  at  me  with  all  his  soul, 
he  would  speak  his  complaint  that  I 
didn't  know  from  the  very  first  he  was 
Hickey's — and  lost!  And  then  some 
sound  out  in  the  night,  some  vague  clash 
of  night  elements  not  heard  by  my  ears, 
would  send  him  prowling  out  on  the 
gallery.  Back  again  to  the  telephone, 
the  sphinx  once  more,  silent,  question- 
ing, motionless.  Then  to  my  knee, 
tender,  wistful,  pathetic,  trustful. 

So  passed  the  time;  when,  without 
warning,  like  an  imprisoned  earthquake, 
he  made  one  wild  circuit  of  the  room, 
lifting  the  dust  of  all  the  years  of  my 
habitation,  and  like  a  streak  of  whirl- 
wind shot  out  of  the  door.  The  thud  of 
his  enormous  paws  pounding  the  trail, 
and  a  few  quick,  joyous  barks,  broke  the 
silence.  I  had  heard  nothing;  the  night 
remained  impenetrable,  unvoiced,  of  au- 
thoritative stillness,  but  he  had  found 
his  master — caught  the  far-ofF  scent  of  a 
beloved  presence — the  rapturous,  unbe- 
lievable, traveling  particle  of  echo  that 
told  him  where  to  go. 

I  waited  a  long  time  musing  by  the 
fire.  What  a  love  this  was,  what  a 
power,  what  a  reality  to  reckon  with! 
Whether  between  man  and  woman, 
mother  and  child,  or  dog  and  master — 
there  it  is  for  us  to  acknowledge;  the 
only  power  we  do  not  give  over  to  the 


WHEN  I  GROW  OLD 


69 


arms  of  death.  I  wonder  how  it  is  that 
I  have  so  offended  love  that  it  may  not 
reach  me.  I  do  not  know,  but  "the 
solitude  is  shaken  with  an  added  lone- 
liness" for  this. 

These  meditations  were  interrupted 
by  the  sound  of  Hickey's  voice  singing 
out  to  me,  the  neighing  of  his  tired  horse, 
and  all  the  general  noisy  welcome  of 
men  meeting  at  night  on  the  plains. 

After  putting  up  the  horse  we  entered 
the  house;  and  what  a  monarch  of  a  dog 
came  in  with  proud,  lighted  eyes  and 
lifted  head.  What  ownership  radiated 
from  him!  What  lordly  bulking  of  a 
huge  body  right  in  the  way!  Nothing 
of  the  pathetic  puppy  left;  not  a  trace 
of  my  sad,  gray  soldier  who  had  fallen 
after  his  heart-breaking,  lonely  journey 
through  the  desert,  friendless  as  the 
coyote.  Everything  was  absolutely  all 
right  now,  and  as  the  firelight  glowed 
over  the  rough  figures  of  two  men  with 
their  pipes,  the  quiet-breathing,  peaceful 
sovereign  of  this  fellowship  fell  asleep 
across  his  master's  feet  because  the 
world  was  once  again  swinging  buoy- 
antly into  place  in  the  hand  of  God. 

"Tell  me,  Hickey,"  I  said — and  I 
think  I  spoke  softly — "did  he  ever  hear 
your  voice  over  the  telephone?" 


"No,"  answered  Hickey,  a  man  of  few 
words. 

"Well,"  I  continued,  incredulously, 
"don't  you  think  it's  strange  that  he 
should  recognize  your  voice  on  a  long- 
distance call?" 

"No,"  answered  Hickey,  and  I  knew 
I  wasted  words;  so  I  put  my  wonder  in 
my  pipe  and  smoked  it  down. 

"How  long  have  you  had  him?"  I 
asked,  after  the  two  pipes  had  smoked 
gently  together  for  a  time. 

"Five  years,"  said  Hickey;  and  then, 
as  if  to  himself,  he  murmured,  "And  I'll 
never  leave  him  again  by  the  grace  of 
God." 

"I  never  knew  you  had  a  dog,"  I  went 
on,  unable  to  keep  still. 

"Yes,  you  knew,  but  you  have  for- 
gotten," said  Hickey  in  his  rich,  low 
voice.  "Had  him  here  with  me  a  long 
time  ago — he  was  only  a  pup  then,  but 
he  remembered  you,  of  course,  and  knew 
the  place." 

So!  That  was  it.  He  knew  me  and 
remembered  the  place;  knew  I  was  a 
friend  of  Hickey's,  and  therefore  he 
trusted. 

O  ye  of  little  faith!    This  is  how  the 
mustard-tree  flourished  in  the  wilder 
ness. 


When  I  Grow  Old 

BY  ETHEL   R.  PEYSER 

WHEN  I  grow  old 
God  grant  that  every  child 
Will  feel  the  youthful  texture  of  my  soul 
And  will  not  turn  away  from  me 
As  from  a  shade  or  shrunken  vine, 
When  I  grow  old. 

When  I  grow  old 

God  grant  that  I  may  have  some  task 

Which  must  be  done,  or  some  one  fare  the  worse — 

That  in  some  corner  of  the  earth 

Some  one  will  need  my  hand, 

When  I  grow  old. 


Unemployment  and  Business 


BY  ELBERT  H.  GARY 


Chairman  of  the  Board,  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation 


HE  resources  and  op- 
portunities for  the  com- 
mercial success  of  the 
United  States  are  better 
now  than  ever  before. 
The  total  wealth  of  this 
country  is  at  least  dou- 
ble that  of  France  or  Germany,  and  six- 
ty-five per  cent,  greater  than  that  of 
England.  The  amount  of  money  in  the 
United  States  is  three  and  one-half  times 
as  much  as  that  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
and  two  and  one-half  times  that  of  Ger- 
many. The  United  States  has  between 
one-fifth  and  one-quarter  of  the  total 
gold  of  the  entire  world,  and  its  gold  pro- 
duction for  1914  was  maintained  in  those 
proportions.  The  annual  savings  or  net 
gains  in  the  United  States  are  at  least 
five  billion  dollars  a  year,  while  those  of 
the  United  Kingdom  are  approximately 
two  billions;  of  Germany,  one  and  one- 
half  billions;  and  France,  one  billion. 

The  products  of  our  farms  during  1914 
had  a  combined  value  of  ten  billion  dol- 
lars, including  between  six  and  seven 
billions  for  crops  alone.  With  our 
wealth,  increasing  productive  capacity, 
best  of  climates,  rich  soil,  and  vast 
bodies  of  undeveloped  minerals,  the 
United  States  should  be  the  leading 
financial  and  commercial  nation  of  the 
world. 

Idleness  does  not  result  from  the  fact 
that  there  are  more  persons  desiring 
work  than  the  resources  of  the  country 
can  accommodate,  but  it  arises  from 
interruptions  to  business,  so  that  large 
numbers  who  have  been  working  are 
th  rown  out  of  employment  in  conse- 
quence of  decreased  production.  If  the 
volume  of  trade  was  steady  and  not  sub- 
ject to  serious  changes,  the  capacity  of 
the  working  people  would  adjust  itself 
to  the  necessities  and  demands  of  capital 
and  enterprise. 

During  the  year  1914,  business  condi- 
tions generally  throughout  the  United 
States  were  perhaps  the  worst  in  a  gen- 


eration. They  were  affected  more  or  less 
during  the  last  six  months  by  the  war 
in  Europe,  but  during  the  first  six 
months  and  for  a  few  months  preceding, 
business  was  bad,  and  the  cause  cannot 
therefore  be  attributed  to  the  war,  al- 
though to  some  extent  the  preparations 
for  war  may  have  had  an  influence. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  business  prosper- 
ity in  this  country  has  always  been  peri- 
odically interrupted  with  greater  or  less 
persistency.  The  tendency  of  the  times 
during  the  last  few  years  seems  to  have 
been  opposed  to  business  progress. 
There  has  been  a  decided  sentiment,  im- 
portant and  extensive,  against  successful 
business.  This  has  been  shown  in  the 
utterances  of  public  speakers  and  wri- 
ters, the  introduction  of  many  poorly 
considered  and  vicious  bills  into  the  leg- 
islative branches  of  government,  the 
passage  of  some  unfavorable  laws,  and  in 
some  instances  a  disposition  to  go  be- 
yond justice  in  the  administration  of 
laws.  As  a  consequence  of  these  condi- 
tions capital  has  become  frightened,  the 
investor  timid,  and  the  enterprising  citi- 
zen has  discontinued  his  efforts.  There 
has  been  a  disposition  to  wait  until  the 
way  should  be  made  clear  for  the  busi- 
ness man  to  embark  safely  in  new  en- 
terprises or  to  extend  an  established 
business. 

But  the  reason  for  these  adverse  con- 
ditions has  been  partly  the  fault  of  the 
men  of  wealth  and  influence  who  occupy 
positions  of  power  in  the  business  world. 
They  have  heretofore  been  more  or  less 
careless  in  the  management  of  their 
affairs,  indifferent  to  the  rights  and  in- 
terests of  others,  regardless  of  their  re- 
sponsibility toward  those  for  whom  they 
have  become  trustees,  as  directors  or 
officials,  and  unmindful  of  the  general 
public  welfare.  They  have  failed  to 
realize  sufficiently  their  duty  toward  one 
another,  toward  rivals  in  business, 
toward  employees  whose  welfare  they  are 
in  duty  bound  to  protect  and  promote, 


UNEMPLOYMENT  AND  BUSINESS 


71 


and  to  the  general  public  which  relies 
upon  them  for  leadership  in  developing 
and  maintaining  economic  and  indus- 
trial prosperity.  Fortunately,  these  ob- 
jectionable features  are  rapidly  disap- 
pearing. 

General  unemployment  is  deplorable, 
not  only  because  of  the  great  suffering  it 
produces — and  this  phase  cannot  be  too 
often  or  too  strongly  emphasized — but 
also  because  enforced  idleness  impairs 
the  productive  capacity  of  a  nation  and 
depletes  the  general  wealth.  It  is  obvi- 
ous to  me,  as  I  believe  it  must  be  to 
every  practical  thinker,  that  it  is  far 
better  to  carry  men  and  women  on  the 
pay-roll  than  on  the  relief  roll.  It  is  to 
the  highest  advantage  of  society  that  its 
working  forces  shall  be  utilized  as  com- 
pletely as  possible.  No  inefficiency 
could  be  greater  than  to  leave  honest  and 
competent  labor  subject  to  the  humilia- 
tion of  charitable  relief.  Moreover,  such 
members  of  a  community  as  are  not  self- 
supporting — whether  through  their  own 
fault  or  otherwise — must  be  supported 
by  the  public,  and  such  support  of  the 
non-productive  individual  is  pure  waste. 

When  suffering  by  reason  of  non- 
employment  appears,  there  seems  to  be 
a  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  unemployed 
that  the  city  or  other  governmental  ad- 
ministration is  not  only  obligated  to  fur- 
nish, but  is  possessed  of  the  means  of 
properly  and  adequately  furnishing  re- 
lief, and  complaints  are  made  if  there  is 
any  delay  or  failure  in  this  respect.  But 
it  must  be  realized  that  government 
officials  cannot  create  facilities  for  work 
outside  of  the  ordinary  course  of  public 
business,  or  furnish  pecuniary  relief,  for 
the  obvious  reason  that  no  provisions 
have  been  established  by  law  for  these 
purposes.  The  problem  of  unemploy- 
ment is  essentially  one  of  business  and  of 
business  management,  and  must  be  met 
by  business  statesmanship  through  the 
normal  channels  of  business  and  eco- 
nomic organization. 

One  of  the  great  public  necessities 
existing  in  the  United  States  to-day  is 
an  effort  upon  the  part  of  business  men 
and  the  public  generally  so  to  organize 
employment  as  to  decrease  fluctuations 
in  the  labor-market.  The  adoption  of 
some  method  by  which  all  work  that 
might  wisely  and  economically  be  car- 


ried on  in  winter  should  be  undertaken 
at  times  when  employment  is  normally 
slack,  seems  to  me  to  be  needful.  It  is 
not  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility 
that  this  might  almost,  if  not  entirely, 
prevent  crises  such  as  may  arise.  But 
it  would  go  beyond  the  relief  of  un- 
employed labor.  Business  would  benefit 
as  much  as  labor  by  an  equalization 
of  employment  throughout  the  year, 
and  any  arrangement  that  benefited 
these  two  groups  would  react  favorably 
upon  the  whole  community. 

But  the  process  of  meeting  the  prob- 
lem of  unemployment,  not  only  in  times 
of  emergency,  but  permanently,  will  be 
found  to  be  difficult.  The  subject  needs 
more  persistent,  careful,  and  intelligent 
consideration  than  it  has  heretofore  re- 
ceived. It  needs  study  that  will  bring 
out  the  real  facts  and  wiii  avoid  the 
dangers  of  mere  theorizing.  Certainly, 
one  of  the  important  factors  in  this  per- 
manent solution  will  be  the  development 
of  increasingly  better  relations  between 
employer  and  employed.  Already  these 
relations  are  going  through  a  process  of 
readjustment  along  rational  and  mu- 
tually beneficial  lines.  Tremendous 
changes  have  occurred. 

In  former  years  the  employer  and  the 
employee  dealt  at  arm's-length,  and  each 
was  distrustful  of  the  other.  Distrust 
breeds  unfairness.  The  employee  be- 
lieved his  employer  was  disposed  to  get 
the  most  possible  out  of  him  for  the  least 
compensation,  and  the  employer  be- 
lieved the  employee  to  be  disposed  to 
give  the  least  labor  for  the  highest  wage. 
The  employee  believed  his  employer  to 
be  selfish  and  grasping,  the  employer 
believed  his  employee  unintelligent,  un- 
reliable, and  arbitrary.  Apparently  they 
were  at  war  with  each  other,  and  the 
war  often  became  violent.  Neither  bene- 
fited; both  suffered,  and  that  means 
that  everybody  suffered. 

One  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  the 
times  is  the  fact  that  of  late  years  both 
sides  have  come  to  realize  that  granting 
and  meriting  confidence  and  the  feeling 
and  exhibition  of  solicitude  for  the  in- 
terests of  the  other  are  of  benefit  to  both. 

Employers,  particularly  large  employ- 
ers who  have  found  it  wise  to  foster 
expert  investigation,  have  done  more 
than  begin  to  understand  that  fair  and 


72 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


liberal  treatment  of  their  employees  will 
result  in  better  service  and  more  profit- 
able operations;  and  employees,  par- 
ticularly those  who  have  been  under  the 
educational  influence  of  the  results  of 
these  large  investigations,  have  done 
more  than  begin  to  realize  that  in  the 
degree  to  which  they  seek  to  advance 
the  interests  of  their  employers  will  their 
own  compensation  and  conditions  of 
work  and  general  welfare  improve.  The 
employers  of  the  United  States  are 
spending  millions  annually  in  efforts  to 
improve  the  conditions  of  their  em- 
ployees by  the  installation  of  safety  de- 
vices, the  payment  of  voluntary  accident 
relief  for  the  injured  and  their  families, 
the  improvement  of  sanitary  conditions, 
the  establishment  of  recreational  facili- 
ties, the  payment  of  old-age  pensions, 
and  educational  work;  in  short,  through 
what  is  known  as  "welfare  work"  of 
every  description. 

Many  of  the  larger  employing  com- 
panies are  giving  their  employees  prefer- 
ential opportunities  to  become  stock- 
holders, and  therefore  in  a  measure  co- 
partners in  the  wealth  which  their  labor 
helps  to  create.  They  do  this  not  because 
of  any  spirit  of  philanthropy,  and  cer- 
tainly not  through  any  charitable  im- 
pulse, but  because  experience  has  taught 
them  that  it  is  good  business. 

It  is  by  reason  of  this  attitude  that 
employers  to-day  are  receiving  better 
service  and  better  results  from  labor 
than  ever  before,  and  that  the  workers  of 
to-day  are  getting  better  wages,  working 
shorter  hours,  and  living  in  the  midst  of 
better  opportunities  for  advancement, 
safer  methods  of  work,  more  admirable 
sanitary  surroundings,  and,  in  general, 
under  conditions  greatly  improved  over 
any  ever  before  known. 

Each  now  has  greater  confidence  in 
the  other's  integrity  of  motive,  and  in 
consequence  many  of  the  old  difficulties, 
which  were  principally  the  result  of  a 
failure  to  understand  each  other's  prob- 
lems, have  been  eliminated. 

The  tendency  of  the  times  is  all 
toward  a  better  understanding  between 
employer  and  employee,  and  this  ten- 
dency will  lead  toward  an  even  greater 


thing — a  better  understanding  by  soci- 
ety as  a  whole  of  those  economic  meth- 
ods and  conditions  which  tend  toward 
the  greatest  possible  general  comfort  and 
prosperity. 

It  has  often  happened  in  the  past 
that  disorder  and  even  crime  have  been 
the  outcome  of  unwilling  idleness.  Is  it 
not  obvious,  therefore,  that  it  is  the 
wise  course  for  individuals,  firms,  cor- 
porations, and  even  governments  to  co- 
operate toward  its  prevention? 

Idleness  is  the  curse  of  any  nation. 
The  comfort,  morals,  and  happiness  of  a 
people  are  in  large  measure  determined 
by  the  completeness  with  which  the 
working  forces  of  its  citizenship  are  uti- 
lized in  the  production  of  wealth.  An 
idle  nation  like  an  idle  man  inevitably 
drifts  toward  degradation,  just  as  an 
energetic,  active,  and  thrifty  man  or 
nation  progresses  in  character,  moral 
and  physical  health,  and  wide  and  proper 
influence.  Therefore,  while  mercy  and 
justice  demand  that  those  who  can  help 
to  alleviate  such  human  suffering  as 
arises  from  enforced  idleness  should  do 
everything  in  their  power  toward  that 
end,  practical  common  sense  demands 
that  measures  shall  be  devised  to  reduce 
the  possibility  of  unemployment  to  a 
minimum  and  to  make  the  recurrence 
of  such  an  economic  disaster  impossible 
in  the  future. 

We  should  do  all  in  our  power  to  make 
people  of  wealth  and  influence  realize 
that  it  rests  with  them  to  say  whether 
they  shall  remain  secure  in  their  place 
and  possessions.  Some  of  us  have  said 
to  them,  when  they  complained  that 
many  of  the  criticisms  directed  against 
them  were  unjust,  that  they  had  no 
right  to  complain  until  they  had  set 
their  own  houses  in  order.  Unrest  is  due 
to  a  widespread  feeling  that  men  of 
wealth  and  heads  of  large  enterprises  are 
not  doing  everything  possible  to  improve 
conditions.  The  large  majority  of  our 
people  are  fair-minded.  Unrest  would, 
I  believe,  disappear  if  the  masses  of  the 
people  were  convinced  that  everything 
reasonable  was  being  done  by  those  more 
fortunate  than  themselves  to  promote 
the  common  comfort  and  well-being. 


A  Man's  Right 


BY  HELEN  R.  HULL 


[OHN  scraped  his  chair 
over  the  bare  floor  and 
rose.  His  mother  leaned 
forward  to  pick  up  the 
napkin  he  dropped  be- 
side his  plate,  and  said, 
an  uncertain  entreaty 
in  her  voice,  "The  paper's  on  the  table, 
Johnny." 

He  made  no  answer,  but  his  mother's 
face  relaxed  when  he  walked  to  the  other 
end  of  the  long  room,  the  sitting-room 
end.  Laying  aside  the  rose-sprawled 
china  globe,  he  lighted  the  lamp  on  the 
little  round  table  and  sat  down  with 
the  paper. 

His  mother  rose  from  the  supper- 
table.  "Katie,  you  pick  up  the  dishes. 
I've  got  to  sew  to-night." 

Her  voice  drooped  a  little  wearily, 
much  like  her  shoulders. 

"I've  got  some  hist'ry  to  do,"  pouted 
Katie. 

"You've  got  dishes  to  do  first,"  re- 
torted her  mother,  sharply.  "Don't  you 
let  me  hear  another  word.  Molly  '11 
help  you." 

She  opened  the  door  which  led  to  the 
two  tiny  bedrooms,  and  a  cool  breeze 
blew  in,  ruffling  the  white  sash-curtains. 
With  her  sewing-basket  she  seated  her- 
self opposite  John.  He  did  not  raise  his 
eyes  from  the  paper,  but  he  moved 
restively,  conscious  of  her  glances  in  his 
direction. 

"Pink's  bad  for  eyes  at  night,"  she 
ventured,  as  she  held  her  needle  near  the 
lamp  to  find  the  elusive  eye.  No  answer 
from  John. 

"Are  you  going  to  the  exercises?" 

"Huh?   What  exercises?" 

"Why,  the  Memorial  Day  ones  at  the 
church." 

"What  do  I  want  to  go  for?" 

His  mother's  thread  broke,  and  she 
snapped  out  an  irritated,  "You  could 
answer  decent,  at  least." 

He  rustled  his  sheet  aggressively. 
From  the  other  end  of  the  room  came 


the  clatter  of  dishes  and  subdued  giggles. 
A  tin  slipped  to  the  floor  with  a  bang, 
and  John  jumped  up,  tossing  aside  his 
paper. 

"Can't  ever  let  a  fellow  read  in 
peace!"  he  muttered,  glowering  irreso- 
lutely. 

His  mother  looked  up  from  the  pink 
waist  at  this  tall  son  of  hers.  "Don't 
go  out  again,  John.  There — there's  pop- 
corn in  the  cellarway — " 

"Popcorn!"  John  mocked  her  accent 
scornfully.  "  I'm  going  over  town.  I've 
got  to  see  Barney." 

"You  don't  have  to  see  him."  Her 
knowledge  of  her  helplessness  made  her 
voice  shrill. 


H 


e  s  going 


!  H 


e  s  going!    sang  out 


Molly,  suddenly,  pounding  on  her  pan 
with  an  iron  spoon. 

"Hush  up!  He  ain't  going  any- 
wheres!" cried  Mrs.  Ryan. 

"What  is  there  here  for  a  fellow  to  do, 
I'd  like  to  know?"  demanded  John, 
glaring  about  the  room  with  its  bright- 
chimneyed  lamps.  "A  fellow'd  ought  to 
have  some  fun." 

"I  like  to  see  you  of  an  evening, 
Johnny.  You'd  ought  to  be  glad  you've 
a  home  to  come  to." 

"I  guess  this  is  better  than  walking 
around  with  that  Dovie  Jacks."  This 
came  pertly  from  Katie. 

"Shut  up!"  roared  John.  "Who  asked 
you  to  butt  in?"  He  turned  on  his 
sister  fiercely,  away  from  the  tears  in  his 
mother's  eyes. 

"Well,  you  were  a-walking  with  her." 
"Keep  it  up!  If  you  think  I'm  going 
to  stay  here!"  He  seized  his  hat  from 
the  hook  near  the  door,  and  would  have 
rushed  out,  but  his  mother,  stumbling 
in  her  haste,  caught  his  arm.  Her  thin 
lips  drew  into  a  little  pucker,  and  the 
hollows  of  her  cheeks  deepened  as  she 
swallowed  quickly.  John  met  her  eyes 
stubbornly. 

"Johnny!"  she  said,  and  then  was 
silent,  glancing  from  him  about  the 


74 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


clean,  bare  room.  Her  eyes  came  back 
to  his  sullen  face,  and  with  a  little  sigh 
she  released  his  arm.  He  stood  for  a 
moment,  his  face  flushing  heavily,  and 
then,  at  a  derisive  little  titter  from  one 
of  the  small  sisters,  turned  and  with 
deliberately  loud  steps  walked  down  the 
door-steps  to  the  gravel  path.  He 
heard  his  mother's  voice,  breaking  tense- 
ly through  her  control: 

"See  what  you've  done,  Katie  Ryan!" 

He  struck  off  down  the  road,  across 
the  river,  and  up  to  the  main  street  of 
the  village,  shuffling  moodily  along 
through  the  dust. 

The  street  was  dark,  save  for  the  light 
from  a  few  shops  and  the  string  of  bright 
specks  which  marked  the  intersection  of 
trolley-line  and  street,  several  blocks 
down.  The  boarded  windows  of  the 
tavern  offered  a  mute  protest  against  the 
recent  local-option  ruling  which  had 
closed  the  chief  social  refuge  of  the  vil- 
lage. Against  the  doorway  of  the  clut- 
tered general  store  were  silhouetted  the 
figures  of  several  girls. 

"Hullo  there,  John!"  called  one;j  "Oh, 
John!    Coming  to  the  exercises?" 

"No,  I  ain't,"  he  retorted,  without 
stopping. 

"Got  a  date,  John?" 

He  went  angrily  on.  From  the  drug- 
store corner  the  street  dipped  quickly  to 
the  car-tracks.  In  the  shadow  of  the 
town  hall  was  a  small  building.  The 
torn  shade  of  the  one  window  was 
drawn,  but  the  sultry  night  had  forced 
open  the  door.  John  stopped  where  the 
light  fell  on  his  discontented  face.  The 
room  within  was  full  of  smoke  and  men 
— men  lounging  about  a  green-topped 
table  and  tipped  back  in  chairs  against 
the  wall.  A  brisk  little  man  came  to  the 
door,  carefully  chalking  his  cue,  and 
John,  with  a  shrug  of  distaste,  started  on 
down  the  street. 

"Hey,  you,  John!"  The  man  spied 
him.    "Come  on  in!" 

John  stopped  a  moment.  At  a  laugh 
from  the  room  the  man  turned,  and  John 
walked  on  to  the  little  brick  waiting- 
room. 

That  was  the  newest  and  cleanest 
place  in  town.  The  taciturn  old  mail- 
carrier  was  in  front  of  the  door,  his  limp 
mail-sack  carefully  guarded  between  his 
legs.   The  station-agent,  a  sallow,  bored 


young  man,  stood  in  the  doorway,  an 
unlighted  cigar  between  his  teeth.  John 
nodded  at  him,  imitating  his  nonchalant 
pose. 

A  couple  strolled  around  the  corner  of 
the  platform,  arms  linked,  the  girl's 
white  hat  drooping  affectionately  on  his 
shoulder. 

"Married  last  night,"  commented  the 
agent.    "Going  to  live  in  the  city." 

John  stared  after  them  curiously. 

Far  down  the  road  appeared  a  glow. 
It  wavered,  disappeared,  returned,  was 
caught  by  the  trolley-wires,  and  at 
length  flashed  into  brilliancy  as  the  car 
came  up  the  grade  to  the  station. 

The  agent  walked  to  the  front  of  the 
car,  a  touch  of  officiousness  in  his  non- 
chalance. The  mail  was  tossed  onto  the 
platform.  Only  one  passenger,  a  woman, 
got  off,  brushing  rudely  past  the  couple, 
who  had  rushed  in  haste  from  their  dark 
corner. 

At  the  sight  of  her,  John's  listlessness 
fled.  She  was  slender  and  untidy,  a 
scarf  about  her  head.  Her  dark  eyes  fol- 
lowed the  station-agent  as  he  walked 
back  to  the  door,  ignoring  her,  and  she 
saw  John. 

A  hand  fluttered  one  end  of  the  scarf 
toward  him,  and  she  walked  more  slowly. 

John  scowled  at  the  old  mail-carrier 
who  stood  watching  him.  As  the  car 
pulled  out  he  joined  the  girl.  She 
laughed  back  over  her  shoulder  as  they 
left  the  platform. 

"I  was  hopin'  to  see  you,  John." 
Her  voice  was  lazy,  soft  in  its  under- 
tones, nasal  when  she  spoke  aloud.  "I've 
been  out  to  Ranna's,  helpin'  her." 

"You  help  her  a  lot,  don't  you?"  John 
asked,  awkwardly. 

"Oh,  some.  I'm  tired  to-night."  She 
sighed.  "It's  tiresome,  workin'  for 
folks." 

"You  bet  it  is,"  assented  John. 

They  said  no  more  until  they  reached 
the  bridge.  There  John,  clearing  an  ob- 
stinate throat,  asked,  "Say,  Dovie,  are 
you  too  tired  to  go  along  the  river  to- 
night?" 

She  leaned  against  the  bridge  rail, 
sighing  again. 

"It's  nice  and  cool,"  he  urged. 

"Well — seein'  that  you  want  to  so 
bad." 

John  helped  her  over  the  roadside 


Drawn  by  Howard  Giles 

HE    WOULD    HAVE    RUSHED    OUT,    BUT    HIS    MOTHER    CAUGHT    HIS  ARM 


Vol.  CXXXI— No.  781.— 10 


76 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


ditch.  She  clung  rather  heavily  to  his 
arm  as  they  started  across  the  meadow. 
The  soft  wind  fluttered  her  scarf  into 
John's  face,  and  when  he  put  up  his 
hand  to  brush  it  away  the  gauze  caught 
on  his  fingers. 

"Caught,  ain't  you?"  she  laughed. 

"Well,  I  guess  I  can  get  away,"  he 
retorted,  jerking  free. 

She  laughed  again. 

They  reached  the  meadow  fence. 
John  held  the  wires  apart  for  her  to 
crawl  through,  and  followed  slowly.  A 
dull  darkness  hung  over  the  country, 
shutting  out  stars  and  muffling  sounds. 
From  the  river  came  the  subdued  croak- 
ing of  the  frogs;  a  distant  catbird 
called  shrilly.  Just  at  the  river's  edge 
was  a  slight  rise  of  ground  with  two 
slender  trees. 

"Let's  rest,"  she  said.   "I'm  tired." 

She  leaned  against  a  tree,  her  face  a 
white  blur  in  the  night.  John  stretched 
out  beside  her,  poking  at  the  turf  with  a 
bit  of  stick.  After  a  silence  of  some 
moments,  the  girl  spoke: 

"It's  just  like  we  was  saying  last 
night.  It  ain't  right.  Here's  you  work- 
in'  fer  other  folks,  givin'  'em  all  your 
money.  An'  here  am  I,  all  wore  out, 
doin'  the  same  thing." 

John  lunged  at  the  turf. 

"Why,  I'll  bet  they  even  treat  you 
same's  if  you  was  a  baby." 

John  sat  up,  hurling  his  stick  out  into 
the  stream.  The  words  seemed  to  push 
out  in  spite  of  him,  doggedly,  "I'm  get- 
tin'  pretty  tired  of  it,  too." 

"I  know.  You  ain't  a  kid  no  more, 
and  folks  don't  know  it."  She  waited, 
and,  as  he  made  no  answer,  continued, 
plaintively:  "This  ain't  no  fit  place  to 
live,  either.  Since  I've  been  back  I've 
about  died.  They  ain't  even  any  one 
I  can  talk  to  but  you." 

The  reflection  of  vague  light  from  the 
river  hid  her  coarseness,  making  her  not 
Dovie  Jacks  so  much  as  just  a  girl. 
John  sat  very  erect,  his  shoulders 
squared.  Her  low  voice  went  on  com- 
plainingly : 

"An'  what  do  I  get  fer  talkin'  to  you? 
What  do  they  say?"  Her  hands  en- 
treated him. 

"Let  'em  talk." 

"They  say — they  say  I'm  runnin'  af- 
ter you."    She  caught  her  breath  in  a 


sob  and  covered  her  face  with  fingers 
slyly  parted  over  her  eyes. 

John  moved  uneasily.  "Don't  cry, 
Dovie.  Anybody  can't  stir  here  without 
they  get  talked  about." 

"What  does  your  own  mother  say?" 
Her  voice  rose  shrilly,  then  broke  in 
despair  again.   "What  does  she  say?" 

John  made  an  inarticulate  answer. 
A  perverse  memory  answered  Dovie's 
question,  and  he  heard  his  mother's 
"Johnny!" 

"She  says  'that  Jacks  girl!'  Oh,  I 
know.  I  hates  'em  all.  What  chanct 
have  I  got  herei    I'm  goin'  away." 

"Where?"  demanded  the  boy. 

"Anywheres.    To  the  city.  Away!" 

"An  what  '11  I  do?"   He  spoke  dully. 

She  made  an  impatient  movement  of 
a  foot. 

"I  can't  go,"  he  continued, -still  with 
the  dull  sense  of  empty,  heavy  days 
ahead. 

«g  Why  not  ?" 

"Why,  I—"  He  stopped,  unable  to 
bring  into  words  the  reason — his  mother. 

"Why  should  y  stay  an'  work?" 

"I'd  ought  to,"  he  answered,  dog- 
gedly-. 

"'Ain't  you  got  a  right  to  live?  What 
thanks  do  you  get?  Naggin'  and  words." 

John  dropped  his  head  between  his 
hands.    Hadn't  he  a  right  to  be  a  man? 

"You  ain't  a  boy  no  more.  Go  away, 
an'  she'd  respect  you  more." 

He  sat  helplessly  dumb.  After  an  ex- 
pectant pause,  Dovie  rose,  taunting  him 
with:  "Stay,  then,  sissy.   I'm  goin'." 

She  tripped,  and  caught  at  John's 
shoulder.  The  touch  woke  him,  and  he 
drew  her  toward  him. 

"You  ain't — not  without  me!"  he 
cried. 

She  laughed  and  sank  against  him, 
slipping  an  arm  about  his  shoulder,  and 
angrily,  awkwardly,  he  kissed  her.  For 
a  whirling  moment  she  clung  to  him; 
then  she  pulled  away. 

"I'm  goin'!"  John  cried  out  against 
the  confusion  within  him.  "I'm  goin' 
with  you.    We — we'll  get  married." 

"You  ain't  old  enough,  even  if  you  do 
look  it." 

"I  am.    They  don't  know." 

She  leaned  to  him,  her  face  mysteri- 
ously alluring  in  the  dim  river-light. 
"'N'what  about  yer  mother?" 


"THEY  AIN'T  EVEN  ANY  ONE  I  CAN  TALK  TO  BUT  YOU  " 


He  caught  her  roughly  to  him  and 
silenced  her.  "You'll  have  a  chance," 
he  said,  finally.  "We'll  have  it  together. 
I  can  work,  and  we'll  live.  That's  what 
we'll  do." 

She  rose  as  he  scrambled  up.  A 
placid  moon  peered  through  the  bushes 
at  them.  They  started  back  along 
the  river,  silent  until  they  reached  the 
bridge.   There  Dovie  stopped. 

"I've  got  to  get  my  clothes  out  at 
Ranna's/'  she  said.  "I  can  get  'em  to- 
morrow early.  Well!"  she  snapped,  as 
John  made  no  answer.  "I  suppose  we 
can  go  to-morrow  as  well  's  any  time." 

John  choked  over  the  word.  "To- 
morrow!" 

Dovie  moved  near.  "Don't  you  want 
to?"  she  whispered,  swaying  against  him 
slightly,  and  laughing  as  his  lips  found 
hers  again — only  for  a  second — and  she 
broke  away. 


"Somebody's  comin'.  You  slip  across 
your  back  yard.  I'll  meet  you  at  the 
crossin'  to-morrow  night.    Run  along!" 

He  started  across  the  garden,  and  she 
watched  the  tall  shadow  until  it  disap- 
peared around  a  corner  of  the  house. 

There  was  a  figure  in  the  doorway 
when  John  came  up  the  path.  It  was 
his  mother.  She  said  not  a  word  as  he 
went  past  her  into  the  house,  where  she 
followed  him. 

"You've  been  with  that  girl  again!" 

"S'pose  I  have?" 

"An'  you  a  son  of  mine!" 

"She's  good  enough  for  me."  John 
faced  his  mother,  his  face  distorted,  as 
flushed  as  hers  was  colorless. 

"John  Ryan!  That  Jacks  girl!  You 
bring  disgrace  in  the  house  by  goin'  with 
her.  You — you  'ain't  been  the  same  boy 
since  she  came  home." 

"You  lie!"    The  words  were  a  burst 


78 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  flame  from  sullen  fire,  away  from 
which  the  mother  shrank.  ''Lies!  She's 
as  good  as  I  am!  And  nothin'  could  be 
as  bad  as  livin'  here  and  workin'  and 
never  a  thing  but  jawin'.    I'm  through." 

Tossing  his  cap  on  a  chair,  he  strode 
off  into  the  tiny  bedroom,  banging  the 
door  after  him.  He  could  hear  his 
mother  pacing  back  and  forth  in  the 
outer  room,  and  he  thought  he  could 
detect  shrill  words  hurled  at  him.  When 
he  had  finished  undressing  he  stood  for  a 
moment,  his  hand  on  the  door.  The 
footsteps  still  passed  with  jerky  regu- 
larity. After  a  moment  he  crawled  into 
bed.  The  room  was  stifling  with  the 
door  closed,  and  he  could  not  sleep.  A 
long  time  afterward  the  door  crept  open. 
Through  half-closed  lids  he  saw  his 
mother,  her  hands  pressed  to  her  breast, 
a  pitiable  shadow  against  the  dimness  of 
the  outer  room.  He  was  carefully  still, 
and  she  turned  away. 

Friday,  Memorial  Day,  was  a  holiday, 
and  so  John  was  bewildered  to  wake 
early  that  morning  and  find  his  mother 
leaning  over  his  bed. 

"Get  up,  Johnny,"  she  said,  softly. 
"Still,  so's  not  to  wake  the  girls." 

"I  don't  have  to  work." 

"I've  laid  out  your  clothes.  You  just 
put  them  on." 

Her  quiet  persistence  roused  him  to 
action  without  waking  his  obstinacy. 
He  noted  with  dull  surprise  that  the 
clothes  laid  out  were  his  best,  even  to  a 
collar.  When  he  came  out  into  the 
kitchen,  his  mother,  in  unwonted  splen- 
dor of  white  waist  and  black  skirt,  was 
hovering  about  the  table. 

"Eat  your  breakfast,"  she  whispered, 
"and  I'll  tell  you  about  it." 

He  ate  in  silence,  dazed  by  the  unusu- 
alness  of  his  mother's  behavior.  She 
put  on  her  hat  while  he  ate.  She  piled 
the  dishes  into  the  sink,  and  possessing 
herself  of  a  large  pasteboard  box,  tip- 
toed him  out,  closing  the  door  gently. 

"There!  we  didn't  wake  them,"  she 
exclaimed.  "And  now  we'll  have  to 
hurry  to  catch  that  car." 

"What  car  are  you  going  to  catch?" 

John  strode  along,  impelled  to  haste 
by  the  nervous  force  which  his  mother 
displayed. 

"I'll  tell  you  when  we  get  it,"  she 
panted,  hurrying  on. 


"I  ain't  goin'  anywhere." 

She  shook  her  head  impatiently,  and 
hastened  on. 

Baffled  by  the  lack  of  anything  defi- 
nite against  which  to  protest,  John  fol- 
lowed. The  distant  gong  of  the  car 
sounded  as  they  turned  into  the  main 
street,  still  quiet  in  sleep. 

"Catch  it,  John!"  cried  Mrs.  Ryan; 
and  John  sped  down  the  hill. 

He  stood  with  one  foot  on  the  step, 
beckoning  her  to  hurry,  as  she  came 
breathlessly  up.  He  climbed  after  her, 
quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  the  car 
started  ofF  with  its  clamor  of  bell  and 
gong. 

Mrs.  Ryan's  face  was  flushed  and  her 
hat  was  awry,  but  the  dead  hopelessness 
had  left  her  eyes.  She  relinquished  the 
box  to  John,  straightened  her  hat,  and 
tucked  up  a  few  strands  of  hair.  When 
the  conductor  came  through  the  empty 
car  to  their  seat,  she  leaned  toward  him 
across  John,  gripping  a  shabby  little 
purse.  "Does  this  car  go  straight 
through?"  she  asked,  half  fearfully. 

"Yes'm.    Clear  through." 

"And  I  can  buy  two  tickets  to  Nel- 
son: 

"Sure."  He  tore  the  two  receipts 
from  his  book  and  tossed  them  aside. 
"One  dollar  thirty." 

She  handed  him  the  exact  change,  her 
eyes  on  the  slips  of  paper. 

"Don't  we  have  any  tickets?"  She 
was  politely  dubious. 

"We  don't  need  'em,  ma."  John's 
voice  had  a  hint  of  apology,  and  the 
conductor  went  on,  smiling. 

"What  are  you  going  to  Nelson  for?" 

"Well,"  she  hesitated,  "I  ain't  going 
exactly  to  Nelson.  I'm  going  on  a  little 
trip. 

"A  what?" 

"Well,  sort  of.  I've  been  saving  the 
money  for  a  while — for  you  to  go,  too." 

"Where  do  you  think  you're  going?" 

"It  ain't  just  a  pleasure  trip.  But 
it  '11  be  nice.  I  didn't  say  anything  until 
I  saw  the  weather.  But  it  couldn't  be 
a  nicer  day.  I  'ain't  had  no  vacation  for 
a  good  time."  She  paused,  looking  at 
her  hands — thin,  roughened,  with  swol- 
len knuckles  and  blue  ridges  of  veins. 
"I'm  glad  you  wanted  to  go,"  she  fin- 
ished. 

John  started  to  retort,  but  he  could 


A  MAN'S  RIGHT 


79 


not  get  the  vision  of  her  hands  out  of 
his  mind,  and  he  said  nothing.  She  had 
turned  to  the  window,  leaning  back 
against  the  seat. 

''It's  a  pretty  morning,"  she  sighed. 

John  looked  out  at  the  country  with 
the  vague  tolerance  one  has  for  an 
accustomed  journey.  The  hollows  of  the 
rolling  meadows  were  grayed  with  a 
faint  mist  which  the  sun  had  not  yet 
disturbed.  There  were  signs  of  awaken- 
ing at  the  scattered  farm-houses.  At 
a  cross-roads  waiting  -  station  several 
couples  entered,  presenting  a  wonderful 
combination  of  celluloid  collars,  white 
dresses,  red  hands,  and  loud  laughter. 

"There's  a  circus  in  Jackson,"  volun- 
teered John,  but  his  mother  made  no 
reply. 

The  mid-morning  was  hot  and  dusty. 
John  shifted  uncomfortably,  hampered 
by  his  collar,  and  glanced  at  his  mother, 
upbraidings  on  his  lips.  A  veiled  expec- 
tancy about  her  silenced  him.  She  had 
removed  her  hat,  and  the  wind  blew  her 
thin  hair  in  wisps  about  her  cheeks. 
Once  John  caught  a  smile  on  her  face. 
The  whole  proceeding  had  an  air  of 
momentousness  for  which  he  could  not 
account.  Neither  could  he  understand 
how  he  happened  to  be  there.  Would 
they  be  home  by  evening? 

The  conductor  came  down  the  aisle, 
and  Mrs.  Ryan  stretched  out  her  hand 
to  intercept  him.  "  How  much  farther  is 
Nelson?" 

It  was  the  next  stop,  and  with  trem- 
bling fingers  she  adjusted  her  hat.  She 
sat  far  forward  on  the  seat,  hands  tight- 
ly clasped.  Almost  before  the  car  had 
stopped  she  was  down  the  aisle. 

Nelson  was  little  more  than  a  street 
crossed  by  the  car-line.  The  church, 
store,  and  a  few  houses  lay  to  the  west, 
but  Mrs.  Ryan  turned  eastward  down 
the  dusty  road. 

"It  ain't  much  of  a  walk,"  she  assured 
John.    "Be  careful  about  that  box." 

She  struck  so  brisk  a  gait  that  John 
fell  behind,  his  ire  rising  with  his  in- 
creased discomfort.  His  mother,  ap- 
parently as  oblivious  to  heat  and  dust 
as  to  him,  went  on,  her  skirt  flopping 
limply  back  and  forth  above  the  little 
spurts  of  dust  from  her  quick  feet.  The 
road  skirted  a  hill  and  then  climbed 
resolutely   up  the  next.    At  the  top 


Mrs.  Ryan  stopped,  breathing  hard  and 
shading  her  eyes.  There  was  no  sudden 
descent.  The  ground  rolled  away  in 
stretches  of  green  meadows  and  dark, 
freshly  plowed  fields  at  the  left.  Not  far 
below  was  a  cross-road.  At  the  right  a 
lane  led  in  among  the  trees  of  a  little 
grove.  Mrs.  Ryan  turned  into  this  lane, 
John  still  lagging  behind.  On  through 
the  trees  they  went,  until  they  caught 
sight  of  a  white  steeple. 

"That's  the  church!"  Mrs.  Ryan's 
voice  thrilled.  In  a  moment  John  saw 
it — a  small,  worn  building,  with  a  few 
old  sheds  behind,  all  fronting  on  the 
cross-road. 

"I've  wanted  to  come  for  these  twelve 
years,"  said  the  mother,  "an'  most  of  all 
this  last  year,  since  the  car's  been  run- 
ning so  close.    An'  here  I  am!" 

"Here!"  Had  they  come  this  hot 
way  to  see  an  old  church?  But  Mrs. 
Ryan  had  gone  on,  quickening  her  steps 
almost  to  a  run.  The  sheds  shut  her 
from  view  for  a  moment.  When  John 
rounded  them  he  saw  a  stretch  of 
ground,  not  large,  surrounded  by  old 
trees.  Under  the  trees  were  mounds  in 
the  long  grass,  and  queer,  gray  tomb- 
stones. Then  across  at  the  far  side  he 
saw  his  mother  kneeling. 

He  picked  his  way  slowly  around  the 
mounds.  At  the  sight  of  a  stone  tipped 
so  sadly  that  the  carven  lamb  seemed 
trying  a  somersault  he  smiled.  A  sense 
of  quiet  rose  from  the  old  graves,  and 
the  boy  felt  his  anger  slipping  away. 
When  he  reached  his  mother  she  was 
drying  her  eyes  with  gentle  pats. 

"  I'd  oughtn't  to  cry  when  I've  wanted 
to  come,"  she  smiled  up  at  John. 

He  looked  at  the  mound.  There  was 
no  stone  here  at  all — only  a  rounded 
wooden  slab.  He  bent  to  read  the  worn 
letters  of  the  name,  and  then  stared  at 
his  mother. 

She  nodded  quietly.  "Yes,  John. 
It's  your  father's.  Now  let  me  have  the 
box." 

He  handed  it  to  her  and  watched  her 
fumble  at  the  knot.  She  took  off  the 
cover.  A  shoe-box  at  one  end  she  re- 
turned to  John.  "Just  our  lunch,"  she 
explained.  Then  she  pulled  away  the 
paper,  disclosing  a  mass  of  purples  and 
lavenders — careful  bunches  of  pansies 
and  violets. 


80 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"I  gathered  them  before  you  was  up," 
she  said,  softly.  "They'll  keep,  bein' 
that  fresh.  There's  a  tin  pan  on  that 
next  grave,  and  here's  an  old  glass.  You 
go  and  fill  them  at  the  pump  there  by 
the  church." 

When  John  returned,  his  mother  was 
pulling  away  the  grass  which  grew 
around  the  headboard.  She  handed  a 
pair  of  scissors  to  John.  "Just  cut  the 
edges  down  a  little,  Johnny." 

Then  she  brought  a  few  stones  to  hold 
the  glass  in  place,  and  spent  a  long  time 
arranging  the  flowers.  John,  on  a  stump 
just  beyond,  watched  her  silently.  At 
length  she  rose,  rubbing  her  hands  on 
her  handkerchief. 

"Isn't  it  better,  don't  you  think, 
Johnny?"  she  asked,  wistfully.  "Of 
course  we  can't  do  much."  She  pointed 
to  two  graves  near,  with  gray  stones  still 
erect,  and  a  scraggly  rose-bush  growing 
between.  "I'd  ought  to  put  flowers 
there,  but  I  want  John  to  have  them  all. 
They're  his  father  and  mother.  They 
had  these  lots.  When  John  died  I 
couldn't  buy  one  nearer  us,  so  we  drove 
over  here.  I  remember  I  couldn't  cry 
as  much  as  I  wanted  to,  because  I  had  to 
hold  Katie,  and  you  wouldn't  stay  with 
no  one  but  me.  Molly  came  that  win- 
ter.   Twelve  years  ..." 

She  was  silent  a  little  while,  and  then: 

"I  thought  I'd  get  him  a  stone  after 
Molly  came.  But  I  never  could.  All  I 
could  do  was  to  keep  my  family's  soul 
in  its  body,  let  alone  buying  stones. 
But  I  did  keep  my  family."  She  held 
out  her  hands  with  an  unconscious  ges- 
ture. "All  alone  till  you  was  big  enough 
to  help.  And  now  you've  quit  school 
and  begun  to  be  a  man.  Your  father 
used  to  think  how  you'd  be  educated, 
like  he  wanted  to  be."  She  stopped 
again,  sitting  down  on  the  grass,  her 
hand  on  the  poor  board.  "He  was  a 
good  man,  your  father.  He  wouldn't 
mind  not  having  a  stone.  I  s'pose  he 
was  the  last  one  to  come  here."  She 
looked  about  at  the  forgotten  graves. 
"They  all  go  over  to  the  Hope  Ceme- 
tery now." 

John  listened,  resenting  his  mother's 
silences,  hating  the  rebuke  of  the  wooden 
slab,  struggling  to  remain  firm  against 
these  attacks  upon  his  sympathies. 

"I  want  him  to  be  proud  of  his  boy. 


You  look  like  him.  He  wasn't  much 
older — at  first — and  you're  so  big  you 
look  about  as  old." 

"You  never  told  me  about  him,"  John 
cried  out.  "You  said  he  was  buried 
off*  where  you  used  to  live.  You  never 
said  there  wasn't  even  any  tombstone." 

"No.  I — I  was  ashamed  to  talk  about 
this."  She  touched  the  board.  "An' 
then  I  was  awful  busy." 

"He'd  ought  to  have  a  stone,"  de- 
clared John. 

"Oh,  Johnny!"  His  mother  was  radi- 
ant.   "Do  you  think  so?" 

John  rose  impetuously.  "Of  course. 
It  ain't  right.  It  ain't  decent  for  him 
not  to  have  one.  We'd  ought  to  get 
one."  He  looked  about  him  desperately. 
Where  was  Dovie?  He  fancied  he  had 
heard  her  laugh. 

"They  cost  a  lot,"  said  the  mother, 
simply. 

John  avoided  her  eyes  miserably.  Af- 
ter a  moment  she  rose.  "There's  a 
brook  down  farther.  We  can  eat  our 
lunch  there,"  she  suggested. 

Lunch  was  a  silent  affair.  John  gulped 
his  sandwiches  with  an  air  of  determina- 
tion. His  mother  ate  little.  She  sat 
half  alert,  with  remote  eyes.  John  won- 
dered what  she  heard.  The  stir  of  the 
woods,  the  soft  murmuring  of  the  leaves, 
the  faint  brook,  filled  him  with  uneasi- 
ness. When  they  had  finished  their  pre- 
tense of  lunch  John  dropped  the  box 
and  its  cover  into  the  stream.  With 
much  swirling  they  floated  out  of  sight 
around  the  curve,  and  John  turned  to 
his  mother.  But  she  was  not  ready 
to  go. 

"I — I'm  tired,  Johnny.  I  guess  I'll 
rest  awhile."  She  pulled  herself  into 
the  hollow  formed  by  the  roots  of  an  old 
stump.  "You  won't  mind  waiting  a  bit, 
will  you?" 

She  closed  her  eyes,  leaning  her  head 
against  the  rough  bark.  John  stood 
above  her,  the  sunlight  on  his  troubled 
face.  The  mother  opened  her  eyes  with 
a  swift  smile.  "We  had  our  lunch  just 
here  once.  Only  this  was  a  fine  tree. 
Come  here,  John.    No,  closer." 

He  knelt  reluctantly  at  her  side,  and 
she  ran  her  fingers  through  his  thick 
hair,  trying  to  smooth  it  into  a  neat 
part. 

"There,"  she  sighed.    "He  combed 


82 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


his  hair  so.  Go  for  a  little  walk,  Johnny, 
and  then  we'll  start  back." 

John  walked  away  slowly.  He  brushed 
his  hair  back  roughly.  He  didn't  want 
to  look  like  his  father.  Did  his  father 
mind  having  no  stone?  He  struggled 
against  the  touch  of  dead  fingers  at  his 
heart.  Hadn't  you  a  right  to  live  as  you 
wanted  to?  Lots  of  things  counted  more 
than  tombstones.  He  guessed  he'd  done 
all  any  boy  would.  Following  the  brook, 
he  struck  ofF  into  the  wood. 

Later,  so  much  later  that  the  shadows 
of  the  trees  across  the  brook  reached 
over  and  couched  her,  Mrs.  Ryan  opened 
her  eyes.  She  rose,  a  little  stiffly,  and 
walked  back  to  the  cemetery,  halting  at 
the  broken  rail  fence  which  marked  off 
the  burial  field.  Just  ahead  of  her  was 
the  grave.  High  about  the  wooden 
headpiece,  hiding  it,  was  piled  a  mass  of 
dogwood  branches.  Beyond  it,  on  the 
stump,  sat  John,  whittling,  his  back  to 
the  grave  and  to  her.   She  watched  him, 


her  hands  yearning  toward  him,  her  face 
pathetic  in  its  wistful  hope. 

John  stopped  whittling  and  turned  his 
head  as  if  to  listen.  Then  he  rose,  brush- 
ing a  few  shavings  from  his  coat,  and 
turned  very  slowly  until  his  eyes  met  his 
mother's.  He  grew  red,  but  his  eyes 
held  to  hers  resolutely. 

"The — flowers  are  pretty,"  she  said, 
her  lips  trembling. 

"You  can  talk  about  expense  all  you 
want  to" — there  was  defiance  as  well  as 
blustering  apology  in  John's  voice;  "my 
father's  got  to  have  more  than  a  stick  of 
wood." 

"Oh,  Johnny!  I — I  guess  we  won't 
mind  the  cost." 

She  laughed,  a  little  laugh  that  choked 
in  her  throat.  Bending  down  she  broke 
a  sprig  of  the  dogwood  to  stick  in  her  belt. 

"It  '11  take  a  while"  —  John  hesi- 
tated— "but  we'd  ought  to." 

"Yes,  Johnny."  She  glanced  up  at 
him.   "Well,  we'd  better  be  going  now." 


Spring  in  War-time 

BY  E.  NESBIT 

NOW  the  sprinkled  blackthorn  snow 
Lies  along  the  lovers'  lane, 
Where  last  year  we  used  to  go — 
Where  we  shall  not  go  again. 

In  the  hedge  the  buds  are  new, 
By  our  wood  the  violets  peer — 

Just  like  last  year's  violets,  too, 
But  they  have  no  scent  this  year. 

Every  bird  has  heart  to  sing 

Of  its  nest,  warmed  by  its  breast; 

We  had  heart  to  sing  last  spring, 
But  we  never  built  our  nest. 

Presently  red  roses  blown 

Will  make  all  the  garden  gay.  .  .  . 
Not  yet  have  the  daisies  grown 

On  your  clay. 


Herdsmen  of  the  Deep 


BY  WILLIAM  II A RN DEN  FOSTER 


AVE  'e  ever  been  be- 
fore ?" 

And  then,  standing 
before  the  window  of 
the  emigration  inspec- 
tor's office,  at  the  head 
of  an  East  Boston  dock, 
in  the  four-o'clock  blackness  of  an  Octo- 
ber morning,  I  pronounced  mechanically 
the  words  with  which  the  agent  had  in- 
structed me — the  words  which  in  the 
bleary  eye  of  the  inspector  should  make 
me  an  experienced  cattleman — "Yes, 
steamship  Iberian,  South  Boston  to 
Manchester,  two  years  ago." 

"That's  a  dom  lie,"  promptly  growled 
the  inspector  as  he  scrawled  down  an 
astonishing  description  of  my  personal 
appearance.  However,  the  blue  tag  was 
forthcoming.  This,  fastened  to  the  strap 
of  my  overalls,  made  known  to  all  con- 
cerned that  I  had  been  hired  by  a  certain 
Chicago  packing  company  to  help  tend 
nine  hundred  and  thirteen  of  its  cattle 
from  Boston  to  Liverpool.  The  wages 
were  a  free  passage,  with  such  food  and 
accommodations  as  the  company  might 
be  inclined  to  provide. 

Twenty-five  other  blue  tags  were  re- 
luctantly produced  by  the  sleepy  in- 
spector as  twenty-five  other  men,  in 
nearly  as  many  dialects,  responded  to 
his  growling  questions.  Then  the  thick- 
necked  agent,  with  a  once  badly  broken 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781,— 1J 


nose  and  a  mushroom  ear,  led  his  motley 
following  down  through  the  dark  vaults 
of  the  freight-house. 

At  one  side  a  train-load  of  cattle  was 
restless  in  the  dark,  lowing  incessantly. 
In  the  distant  end  of  the  shed,  men, 
cursing  and  sweating  in  the  dim  glow  of 
electric  lights,  were  brandishing  sticks 
and  opening  the  car  doors.  The  bewil- 
dered cattle,  after  a  week  of  cramped 
terror  in  the  cars,  stumbled  out.  Each 
one  tripping  over  a  short  piece  of  rope 
that  dangled  from  its  horns,  they 
plunged  after  the  ones  ahead.*  The  lead- 
ers were  being  guided  into  the  waiting 
pens  aboard  the  ship  that  loomed  beside 
the  dock.  The  rattle  of  donkey-engines 
on  deck  spoke  of  bags  of  corn  and  baled 
hay  that  were  being  stored  below. 

The  cattlemen,  especially  the  uniniti- 
ated like  myself,  cast  apprehensive 
glances  in  the  direction  of  the  stock- 
train  as  they  slunk  up  the  narrow  gang- 
way. At  the  forecastle  the  agent  de- 
parted, leaving  the  cattlemen,  who 
deposited  such  luggage  as  they  were  pos- 
sessed of  on  a  hatch-cover.  In  the  gray 
morning  the  tumult  of  pounding  hoofs 
and  shouting  still  came  to  their  ears,  and 
silently,  except  for  a  few  broken  sentences 
murmured  in  some  gruff,  foreign  tongue, 
like  so  many  doomed  convicts,  they  hud- 
dled together. 

Up  to  this  time  no  one  character 


84 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


among  the  men  who  had  signed  had  at- 
tracted my  attention.  Now,  as  the  light 
began  to  creep  in,  I  saw  one  taller  than 
the  rest,  and  I  wondered  that  I  had  not 
noticed  him  before.  He  was  a  dark, 
swarthy  fellow.  His  face  was  hidden  by 
a  black  felt  hat,  and  if  the  ventilator 
pipe  by  which  he  slouched  had  been  a 
tree,  one  would  certainly 
have  reported  himtothe 
police  as  a  suspicious 
character.  For  the  pur- 
pose of  identification, 
let  us  bestow  upon  him 
the  nameof  " Switz,"  by 
which  he  was  referred 
to  during  the  next  ten 
days. 

In  contrast  to  the 
sullenness  of  "Switz" 
was  the  ever-increasing 
amount  of  "cockney" 
set  at  liberty  by  an  un- 
dersized individual  can- 
opied by  a  big  cap.  He 
needs  n  o  description, 
for  of  the  poorer  class 
of  English  mill  opera- 
tives he  was  typical. 
The  only  remarkable 
things  about  him  were 
a  tiny  trunk  and  h  i  s 
desire  to  talk.  Like 
"Switz,"  he  was  to  be 
crowned  with  a  nick- 
name. It  was  "York- 
shire." 

Before  I  had  time  for  further  consid- 
eration of  my  associates  a  man  whose 
stature  compared  with  that  of  "Switz" 
shambled  out  of  the  darkness.  He  was 
built  like  an  Indian,  with  long,  lean 
muscles.  His  head  was  small.  Behind 
him,  peering  around  into  the  dark  cor- 
ners as  if  he  were  looking  for  some  one, 
came  a  shorter  and  heavier  man,  with 
apparently  no  neck,  but  a  most  apparent 
crop  of  red  hair.  It  was  evident  that 
these  were  the  boss  cattlemen,  under 
whose  gallant  leadership  we  were  to 
bend  our  efforts  during  the  voyage,  in 
order  to  repay  the  Chicago  packing 
company  for  its  goodness  to  us.  These 
were  the  men  to  whom  was  intrusted  the 
care  of  the  nine  hundred  and  thirteen 
poor  brutes  in  the  hold. 

Without   warning,  the   Indian  -  like 


GEORGE 


"  boss  "  fairly  leaped  to  where  the  twenty- 
five  stood  scowling.  It  seemed  as  if  he 
expected  some  forceful  resistance  to  what 
he  was  about  to  say. 

"I  want  yer  below,  yer  two  and  you." 
It  was  "Switz,"  "Yorkshire,"  and  my- 
self upon  whom  the  "black  spot"  set- 
tled.    We  humbly  followed  him  below 
to  our  first  and  most 
arduous  task  of  the  trip. 

The  ship  by  this  time 
was  under  way,  and  a 
band  of  missionaries 
bound  afield  waved  a 
tearful  farewell  to  their 
friends  on  the  dock.  As 
we  passed  an  open  port 
we  could  hear  that  old 
hymn  of  Christian  part- 
ing, "God  be  with  you 
till  we  meet  aga'in." 

As  "Switz,"  "York- 
shire," and  I  followed 
George — the  dark-skin- 
ned boss — into  the  hold 
filled  with  thrashing, 
bellowing  cattle,  it  was 
evident  that  we  had 
hard  work  to  do.  There 
stood  the  terrified 
brutes,  jammed  into 
narrow  pens,  with  their 
horns  brandishing  and 
clashing  or  sinking  into 
warm  flesh.  Their  eyes 
were  blazing,  and  as  we 
passed  near  they  would 
rear  and  lunge  at  us.  It  seemed  as  if  by 
no  possibility  could  the  headboards  with- 
stand their  frantic  struggles. 

George  gave  us  our  instructions.  "Git 
ahold  o'  them  ropes  and  stick  them 
through  the  holes  from  the  inside  out — 
not  from  the  outside  in,  mind  'e.  Then  'e 
tie  a  knot  like  this."  And  with  a  piece 
of  rope  he  showed  us  how  to  tie  the 
cattleman's  knot. 

From  a  bunch  of  heavy  spike-tipped 
clubs  in  a  near-by  corner  he  armed  us, 
and  admonished,  "If  they  fight,  fight 
back.  They're  crazy,  but  they  can't 
stand  no  beatin'.  Hand  it  to  'em  good, 
and  don't  'e  forgit  the  knot  I  showed  'e." 

Thus  the  campaign  was  organized — 
each  one  to  a  separate  aisle,  each  one  to 
apply  as  best  he  could  the»gentle  art  of 
the  indoor  cowboy. 


HERDSMEN  OF  THE  DEEP 


85 


At  the  first  pen  I  was  able  to  get  two 
ropes  tied  before  the  wild-eyed  creatures 
realized  how  near  I  was.  Then,  just  as 
I  grasped  the  end  of  a  dangling  rope,  I 
put  my  hand  right  in  the  homely  white 
face  of  a  big  steer.  I  saw  a  wicked  green 
eye  dilated  in  terror;  I  saw  the  red  nos- 
trils twitching  at  the  scent  of  man;  I 
felt  the  hot  breath  as  I 
pulled  on  the  rope.  Then, 
with  a  snort  of  rage,  the 
big  steer  lurched  forward. 
One  horn  left  a  dent  in  the 
headboard,  while  the  other 
plowed  a  red  furrow  in  the 
fore-quarter  of  his  neigh- 
bor. With  a  roar  of  pain 
he  too  reared  and  plunged. 

In  the  mean  time,  fear- 
ing that  to  lose  my  hold  on 
the  rope  would  give  the 
first  infuriated  animal  a 
chance  to  leap  over  the 
headboard,  I  had  taken 
half  a  turn  around  a  post 
and  held  on.  Suddenly,  af- 
ter a  moment  of  sulking  at 
his  rope's  end,  he  charged 
forward,  and  in  an  at- 
tempt to  hurdle  the  head- 
board landed  with  his  fore- 
quarters  fairly  on  it.  In 
desperation  I  followed 
George's  advice  and  wield- 
ed the  bull-stick  freely; 
then,  rearing  back,  his 
hoofs  lost  their  grip  on 
the  slippery  floor,  and  he  went  down 
with  a  crash.  There  he  lay  and  kicked 
until  he  had  undermined  two  of  his 
brothers.  For  an  instant  the  floor  seemed 
only  a  confusion  of  hoofs  and  horns.  In 
another  moment  they  had  all  scrambled 
to  their  feet  with  heaving  sides  and  loll- 
ing tongues.  Old  Whiteface,  because  of 
the  thrashing  he  had  received  from  his 
penmates,  was  ready  to  surrender.  Inch 
by  inch  I  drew  him  in  until  the  con- 
tested knot  was  tied. 

Thus  down  the  aisles  I  toiled,  dodging 
cruel  horns  and  sharp  hoofs,  with  now 
and  again  a  battle  royal,  and  trouble 
always. 

As  I  neared  the  end  of  my  aisle,  I  saw 
George  and  "Yorkshire"  just  finish- 
ing theirs.  "Yorkshire's"  fingers  were 
bleeding,    and    as   he   sucked    at  his 


REDDY  RYAN 


knuckles  he  gibbered  like  a  scared  mon- 
key. George  had  an  insane  glare  in  his 
eye,  and  I  could  hear  his  bull-stick  strike 
hollow  on  the  nose  of  some  steer,  like  an 
ax  striking  a  dead  butt-log.  He  showed 
no  mercy,  for  he  knew  none. 

Needless  to  say,  it  was  with  some  hesi- 
tation that  I  approached  him  to  impart 
the  tidings  that  I  had  been 
unable  to  get  one  pen 
straightened  out.  In  this 
particular  pen  the  six 
steers  were  large  and  un- 
usually crowded.  After  I 
had  tied  four  I  found  the 
other  two  to  be  headed  in 
the  opposite  direction.  By 
no  manceuver  that  I  could 
execute  did  it  seem  possible 
to  solve  the  tangle. 

"I'll  fix  'em,"  and  with 
an  oath  George  fairly  ran 
in  the  direction  desig- 
nated. A  sleek  steer,  tam- 
er than  the  rest,  having 
made  itself  at  home,  was 
reaching  under  the  head- 
board for  a  tempting  wisp 
of  straw.  George,  prompt- 
ed by  some  cruel  instinct, 
made  a  vicious  swing.  The 
poor  brute  shook  its  head 
in  pain,  and  I  wondered 
what  sort  of  being  was 
this  George  who  could  so 
ruthlessly  cause  a  dumb 
animal  to  suffer. 
In  an  instant  George  seemed  like  an 
enemy  to  all  below  decks.  A  tall  man 
thrust  past  me,  and  in  another  instant 
the  cause  had  a  champion.  "  Switz,"  hav- 
ing finished  his  aisle,  was  coming  to  help. 
He  had  evidently  seen  what  had  hap- 
pened. Thoroughly  aroused  by  similar 
exhibitions  in  some  of  the  other  aisles, 
with  his  small  obsidian  eyes  snapping 
fire  he  strode  to  where  George  was  put- 
ting a  twist  in  a  frantic  steer's  tail. 

George  turned  defiantly,  but  he  saw 
that  look  on  the  piratical  face  of 
"Switz"  that  said  "Beware!"  He  also 
saw  a  big  hand  in  the  vicinity  of  a  hip 
pocket.  Then,  proving  himself  con- 
temptible, he  cowered.  It  was  done 
without  word  or  blow. 

It  was  under  "Switz's"  sullen  direc- 
tion that  the  animals  were  made  to  twist 


86 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


around  and  face  the  headboard.  During 
the  remainder  of  the  voyage,  if  George 
and  "Switz"  chanced  to  meet,  the  for- 
mer would  respectfully  withdraw. 

Eight  bells  had  just  struck  for  noon, 
when,  weary  and  sore-handed,  we  made 
our  way  between  the  ranks  of  cattle, 
twitching  at  their  headboards,  to  where 
we  were  to  find  food  and  rest  from  the 
arduous  duties  of  the  morning.  As  I 
passed  under  an  open  hatch  the  mission- 
aries, grouped  in  a  corner  of  the  prom- 
enade-deck, were  singing  another  hymn. 
From  where  I  stood  I  could  hear  an  ac- 
companiment. It  was  the  bellowing  of 
suffering  cattle. 

A  puff  of  cool  air  blew  down  a  ven- 
tilator pipe,  and  I  stopped  to  refresh  my- 
self. I  was  tired  and  discouraged,  and 
as  I  rested  there,  fanned  by  the  welcome 
breeze,  I  could  see  no  good  in  the  enter- 
prise. It  seemed  like  a  cruel  waste  of 
time  and  energy.  The  day  before,  I  had 
seen  the  hold  of  the  ship  loaded  with 
dressed  beef.  I  wondered  that  it  could 
not  have  all  been  prepared  and  shipped 
in  like  manner.  Why  would  it  not  have 
been  better,  and  thus  saved  all  this 
bother?  At  the  time  I  forgot  the  fact 
that  every  week  similar  ships  were  leav- 
ing Montreal,  Portland,  New  York,  and 
Baltimore,  each  carrying  from  five  hun- 
dred to  a  thousand  head  of  cattle,  to  say 
nothing  of  an  occasional  deck-load  of 
sheep.  Certainly  there  must  be  some 
favorable  arguments,  but  at  the  time  my 
opinions  were  prejudiced. 

Later  in  the  voyage  my  situation  be- 
came less  dubious,  and  I  came  to  under- 
stand the  reasons.  "A  beef  creature  on 
the  hoof  is  worth  two  in  cold  storage," 
say  our  carnivorous  friends  across  the 
sea.  On  a  cattle-ship  the  animals  are  fed 
so  lavishly  that  they  maintain  their 
Chicago  weight  in  Liverpool.  In  addi- 
tion to  this,  a  thousand  head  of  cattle 
load  and  unload  themselves  in  a  few 
hours,  and  require  no  cold  storage.  Still, 
of  what  trivial  importance  were  such 
arguments,  I  thought;  it  was  the  imme- 
diate facts  of  the  case  that  were  worrying 
me. 

In  the  absence  of  those  to  whom  the 
"tying  up"  had  fallen,  the  other  cattle- 
men had  been  leisurely  installing  them- 
selves in  the  forecastle.  They  had 
stowed  their  baggage  in  the  corners  and 


picked  out  the  most  desirable  bunks, 
indulging  meanwhile  in  necessary  rows. 
Also,  they  had  each  received,  from  some 
source,  eating-utensils  and  a  dirty  blan- 
ket. Now  they  were  just  drawing  up 
around  a  rough  board  table. 

I  entered,  followed  by  a  dirty  Span- 
iard, who,  having  been  detailed  to  the 
galley,  was  bearing  uplifted  a  pan  of 
greasy  meat.  A  moment  later  a  Slav 
came  in  with  a  pan  of  soggy  bread. 

After  a  scanty  breakfast  and  a  morn- 
ing's hard  work  I  had  a  ravenous  appe- 
tite. I  felt  that  my  first  meal  aboard 
a  cattle-ship  was  to  be  a  great  event. 
Turning  to  the  table,  after  arming 
myself  with  an  extra  knife  and  fork, 
my  eyes  were  greeted  with  the  manner 
in  which  strange  races  gather  about  a 
too-meager  board.  Almost  before  the 
pan  of  meat  (a  shapeless  mass  which,  in 
cooling,  had  taken  on  a  coating  of  yellow 
grease)  had  been  set  down,  a  black, 
hairy  hand,  like  the  claw  of  a  buzzard, 
darted  out,  and  in  an  instant  the  pan 
with  its  contents  began  to  slide  around 
the  table.  I  saw  another  hand  drag- 
ging a  lump  toward  its  owner,  leaving  an 
oily  trail.  Still  another  hand  pounced 
like  a  bird  of  prey  and  then  drew  back 
with  a  goodly  half.  A  medley  of  tongues, 
raised  in  quarrel,  filled  the  vile-smelling 
room.  The  men,  seated  at  the  table,  with 
faces  low,  clutched  portions  close  under 
their  chins,  while  over  their  shoulders 
others  pulled  and  twisted.  Thus  did  my 
comrades  dine.  "Switz"  and  "York- 
shire" were  among  them,  "Switz"  tear- 
ing at  a  huge  piece  that  no  .one  cared 
to  contest,  and  "Yorkshire"  volubly 
quarreling  over  apparently  none  at  all. 

While  I  watched,  my  appetite,  that  I 
had  supposed  insatiable,  had  departed. 
I  tried  a  loaf  of  bread,  and  found  the 
center  filled  with  sour  dough.  The  crust, 
at  least,  was  cooked,  and  I  partook  fru- 
gally of  it.    I  then  sought  the  fresh  air. 

As  I  turned  the  corner  I  met  "Reddy" 
Ryan  and  George,  each  with  his  inevi- 
table bull-stick. 

"Come  back,"  growled  "Reddy"; 
"we'll  be  o'  givin'  ye  more  work  to 
do." 

I  followed  them  back.  As  they  en- 
tered the  forecastle  the  rabble  was  sud- 
denly hushed.  "Reddy"  began  to  divide 
the  men  into  gangs  of  three  and  four, 


Drawn  by  William  Harwlen  Foster 

THE    AISLES    EBBED    AND    FLOWED    WITH    THE    ROLL    OF    THE  SHIP 


88 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


each  gang  to  attend  to  a  certain  allot- 
ment of  cattle. 

Perhaps  by  chance,  but  more  likely 
because  he  had  seen  us  working  together 
in  the  morning,  "Reddy"  picked 
"Switz,"  "  Yorkshire,"  and  myself  for 
one  gang. 

"Ye'll  find  a  hundred  an'  quarter  o' 
nice  hard  uns  on  the  third,"  he  said. 
"Ye  can  pet  um  and  sing  to  um  as  much 
as  ye  pl'ase."  This  was  aimed  at 
"Switz,"  but  whether  that  individual 
realized  it  or  not  I  never  knew. 

After  the  other  men  had  followed 
"Reddy"  away  to  different  parts  of  the 
ship,  we  went  below  to  the  third  deck. 
Here  were  one  hundred  and  thirty  head 
of  long-horned  Texas  cattle.  They  were 
ugly-looking  brutes,  and,  for  my  part,  I 
hardly  relished  my  position.  In  this 
part  of  the  ship,  too,  the  aisles  were  so 
narrow  that  when  two  steers  in  opposite 
pens  thrust  their  heads  out  the  horns 
rattled  together  across  the  aisle. 

"You'll  fill  'em  right  up,"  announced 
George;  "you'll  stuff  'em.  I  wish  they 
were  all  on  the  bottom,"  he  continued, 
"like  they  were  on  the  old  Ottawa  seven 
years  ago.  We  driv  'em  over  to  relieve 
'er.  An'  then,  blarst  'em,  they  swum  arter 
us  as  long  as  we  see  'em."  And  with  this 
George's  hard  face  came  nearer  smiling 
than  I  ever  saw  it  before  or  after. 
Then  from  a  dark  corner  he  produced 
a  dozen  yellow  water- 
pails.  A  tank  was 
filled  through  a  length 
of  fire-hose  from  a  pipe 
overhead.    From  this 


THE  MEN  IN  THEIR  ROUGH  WAY  PETTED  THE  LITTLE  BIRDS 


tank  water  was  bailed  out  and  carried  to 
the  cattle. 

The  appetites  of  the  cattle  were  not 
good.  Perhaps  there  was  too  much  ex- 
citement; perhaps  too  many  bruised 
noses.  Few  drank,  some  flatly  refusing, 
and  backing  as  far  away  from  the  aisle 
as  their  ropes  would  allow.  One  old 
steer,  when  the  pail  was  thrust  between 
his  eyes  and  slid  down  his  nose  toward 
the  trough,  snorted  in  rage.  He  swung 
his  head,  and,  catching  the  pail  on  his 
horns,  dashed  it  into  match-sticks  on  an 
iron  post. 

After  all  the  cattle  had  been  invited 
to  drink,  bales  of  hay  were  opened  with 
a  dull  hatchet  and  shaken  out  along  the 
aisles. 

"They'll  eat  enough  to-morrer  to 
make  up,"  said  George;  "they  feel  the 
motion  of  the  ship,  blarst  'em!"  - 

I  was  surprised  when,  after  glowering 
awhile  at  a  less  timid  steer  that  was 
munching  hay,  he  announced  that  our 
duties  for  the  day  were  over. 

On  deck  in  the  lee  of  the  wheel-house, 
basking  in  the  afternoon  sun,  a  number 
of  the  more  sociable  of  the  cattlemen 
lounged  and  rolled  cigarettes.  Two  little 
English  linnets  that  had  taken  up  a  per- 
manent abode  in  the  ship  flew  up  from 
the  hold  and  lit  near  the  group.  These 
men  in  their  rough  way  petted  the  little 
birds,  which  were  very  tame.  So  the 
afternoon  passed.  The  sun  sank,  and 
while  its  segment  still  showed  above  the 
horizon  the  full  moon,  out  of  the  east- 
ern sea,  projected  its  face  above  the 
calm  water. 

The  bugle  sounded  its  first  call  to  din- 
ner in  the  upholstered  saloon.  The  cat- 
tlemen threw  away  their  last  cigarette 
butts,  arose,  stretched,  and  tramped  the 
ength  of  the  ship  to  the  forecastle.  With 
a  fresh  memory  of  the  noon  meal,  I  was 
well  content  to  enjoy 
such    society    as  a 
peaceful  night  at  sea 
and  an  empty  stomach 
might  offer. 

Later  some  of  the 
cattlemen  reappear- 
ed, but  two  bells 
found  the  deck  again 
deserted.  After  a 
look  into  the  fore- 
castle,  reverberating 


HERDSMEN  OF  THE  DEEP 


89 


with  the  snoring  of  those  already 
asleep,  I  decided  that  the  hay  -  hold 
offered  more  inviting  accommodations. 
There,  in  the  sweet  hay,  with  the 
moonlight  shining  in  through  the  open 
hatch,  the  last  thing  I  heard  was  the 
three  bells  and  the  plaintive  "All's  well" 
of  the  watch  in  the  crow's-nest. 

At  four  o'clock  the 
next  morning  the  night- 
watchman  aroused  all 
hands.  He  was  a  lean 
Scotchman,  and  seemed 
to  take  a  wholesome 
delight  in  performing 
this  part  of  his  nocturnal 
duties  with  infinite  ex- 
actness. It  was  still 
dark,  and  I  was  sore 
from  the  exercise  of  the 
previous  day  and  the 
night  spent  in  the  cool 
air.  During  the  night 
the  sea  had  risen.  Now, 
as  the  Scotch  watchman 
informed  us,  we  were 
"  amangthe  green  hills." 
As  I  cautiously  felt  my 
way  through  the  dark 
aisles  I  could  see  the  cattle.  Their 
heads  were  low,  their  feet  wide  apart, 
and  they  were  swaying  to  the  motion 
of  the  ship. 

Previous  to  making  the  trip  I  had 
heard  many  unpleasant  stories  regarding 
seasick  cattle.  Therefore  I  was  momen- 
tarily prepared  for  what  I  supposed  was 
inevitable.  Later,  however,  I  found  the 
stories  to  be  unjustified.  Cattle  are 
never  really  seasick.  True,  in  rough 
weather  they  refuse  to  eat,  and  fall 
down,  refusing  to  get  up  again.  Ten 
days,  however,  is  a  long  time  to  ex- 
pect a  heavy  animal  to  stand  continually, 
especially  in  a  heaving  vessel. 

A  ship  makes  a  poor  barn.  The  water- 
ing was  cold,  wet  work  that  morning. 
Before  it  was  light  the  aisles  were  so 
many  tide  rivers  that  ebbed  and  flowed 
with  the  roll  of  the  ship. 

"Ar,  tees  bludy  weet  an'  cold," 
whined  "Yorkshire"  as  George  made 
him  reach  into  the  tank  and  rescue  a 
pail  he  had  lost.  "Switz"  worked  sul- 
lenly, waiting  patiently  for  the  Texas 
cattle  to  suck  pailful  after  pailful  of 
water  which  he  brought. 


SWITZ 


When  the  hay  was  shaken  out,  the 
men  went  to  breakfast.  As  was  the  case 
the  noon  before,  the  food  proved  to  be  a 
bone  of  contention.  Again  I  took  my 
bread  and  went  on  deck. 

The  men  had  not  finished  their  first 
cigarettes  on  deck  before  "Reddy"  and 
George  approached  from  opposite  direc- 
tions.    It  was  as  if  to 
cut  off  all  means  of 
escape. 

"Ye  don't  look  well 
restin'  this  early,  b'ys," 
roared  "Reddy." 
"Come  below  to  your 
cows  an'  corn  'em." 

The  aisles  were  swept 
and  the  corn  spread  in 
a  golden  stream  under 
the  wet  muzzles.  The 
men  were  about  to  make 
their  escape  on  deck 
when  the  ship's  first 
officer  put  in  an  appear- 
ance. His  golden  braid 
and  buttons  seemed 
strangely  out  of  place 
on  the  reeking  cattle- 
decks.  He  addressed 
himself  to  George.  "It's  going  to  blow 
to-day,  and  you'll  kindly  close  the  ports." 

"Aye,  aye,  sor,"  said  George,  and  when 
the  officer  was  a  silhouette  in  a  distant 
doorway  he  cursed  him,  his  ship,  and  her 
cargo. 

First  officer's  orders  on  a  cattle-ship 
are  not  to  be  ignored.  So  a  plank  was 
produced  and  laid  from  the  headboard 
over  the  backs  of  the  cattle  to  a  cleat 
under  an  open  port.  It  seemed  a  hazard- 
ous undertaking.  "Yorkshire,"  for  the 
sake  of  talking,  asked  if  he  might  go. 

George  growled  at  him:  "They'd  hear 
yer  everlastin'  gab  and  kick  yer  ter  jelly. 
Now  keep  'em  amused,  fer  if  they  know 
I'm  back  there  they'll  heist  me  clean 
through  to  the  bridge." 

It  was  a  good  hour's  work  getting  the 
ports  closed,  and  it  was  none  too  soon 
that  it  was  accomplished.  Already  the 
seas,  striking  the  side  of  the  ship,  sent 
up  a  sheet  of  water  that  for  an  instant 
turned  the  soft  amber  light  of  the  dusty 
hold  to  a  ghastly  green.  Later,  the  ports 
were  darkened  as  the  solid  water  crept 
above  them. 

I  had  never  before  been  in  the  hold  of 


IT  WAS  A  GOOD  HOUR'S  WORK  GETTING  THE  PORTS  CLOSED 


a  great  ship  as  she  wallowed  through  a 
storm,  and  the  sensation  was  far  from 
pleasant.  At  times  it  seemed  as  if  the 
vessel  would  never  right  herself.  Under 
the  low  iron  ceiling  and  surrounded  by 
the  reeking  cattle,  I  felt  a  suffocating 
imprisonment.  I  hastened  to  gain  the 
open  air.  On  the  way  to  the  deck  where 
we  supposed  the  rest  of  the  crew  to  be 
enjoying  themselves,  we  came  upon  a 
peculiar  gathering.  Sitting  cross-legged 
on  the  floor  were  the  nations  of  the  earth 
engaged  in  a  crude  sewing-circle.  Armed 
with  long  needles,  and  under  "Reddy" 
Ryan's  supervision,  they  were  mending 
the  empty  corn-bags.  "Yorkshire" 
could  not  refrain  from  a  few  derisive  re- 
marks. 

"'E,  look  art  old  Dutchie;  'e  thinks 
'e's  making  bludy  jacket.  'E  'ave  care, 
i  Swede,'  or  ye'll  stitch  yer  eye  up." 

"Reddy"  Ryan  fairly  roared,  "Come 
here,  ye  blatherin'  critter,  or  I'll  stitch 
yer  gabbin'  mouth  up." 

And  so  poor  "Yorkshire"  joined  the 
sewing-circle.  But  later,  on  deck,  he 
termed  "Reddy"  Ryan  in  broad  and 
bountiful  cockney  "'Reddy'  Ryan  the 
Unjust." 

The  next  few  days  were  uneventful. 
The  cattle,  becoming  more  accustomed  to 
their  quarters,  ate  and  drank  more.  So 
the  work  increased.  The  sea  remained 
rough,  and  from  our  gang  "Switz"  was 
seasick  and  "Yorkshire"  "played  'pos- 
sum."   When  "Reddy"  stepped  in,  the 


latter's  sickness  found  a  sudden  and 
complete  cure. 

No  pigpen  could  be  worse  than  was 
that  forecastle  in  those  days.  On  the 
fourth  day  out  I  gave  up  my  diet  of  sour 
bread-crust  and  made  my  debut  in  the 
bakeshop  at  meal-time  by  way  of  "the 
back  door."  In  this  way  I  was  quite 
comfortable.  I  still  slept  in  the  hay- 
hold,  hiding  my  blanket  by  day.  The 
foulness  of  the  forecastle  finally  drove 
several  of  the  more  human  of  the  cattle- 
men out.  They  also  took  up  habitation 
in  the  hay-hold,  and  "Yorkshire"  was 
one  of  them. 

One  night,  shortly  after  his  talk  had 
subsided,  I  heard  him  whisper,  "'Ere's 
the  wee  linnet;  'e  just  rune  by  me  ear. 
I'll  catch  'e  wee  tuf." 

A  moment  later  he  grabbed  into  the 
dark,  and  then  a  howl  split  the  air  that 
must  have  reached  the  man  at  the  wheel. 
"'Twa'  not  wee  linnet;  'twa'  a  bludy 
rart!"  he  shrieked.  "'E  bit  me, the  bludy 
tuf,  the  bludy  tuf."  And  his  lamenta- 
tions lasted  until  they,  with  the  excited 
gabble  of  the  other  new-comers,  had 
grown  faint  in  the  distance.  So  again  I 
was  left  in  sole  possession  of  the  hay- 
hold,  save  for  my  guardian  spirits,  the 
ship's  rats. 

Next  morning  strange  tales  came  from 
"Reddy"  Ryan's  end  of  the  ship.  They 
were  to  the  efFect  that  he  was  drunk  and 
had  hit  a  big  Londoner  in  the  neck 
for  losing  a  pitchfork  through  a  port- 


HERDSMEN  OF  THE  DEEP 


91 


hole.  The  Londoner,  knowing  something 
of  the  law,  refused  to  work.  He  sat  in  his 
bunk  with  a  towel  wound  around  his 
neck.  Reports  also  stated  that  "Reddy" 
was  on  the  war-path.  The  cattlemen, 
when  they  saw  him  at  the  far  end  of  an 
aisle,  would  dodge  between  the  pens  and 
give  him  good  leeway. 

After  dinner  the  men  were  sunning 
themselves  on  deck.  "Yorkshire,"  from 
the  rail,  was  stating  from  his  self-alleged 
experience  as  gunner  on  the  Hotspur,  the 
angle  at  which  a  gun  should  be  aimed  in 
the  air  to  hit  a  square-rigged  ship  away 
on  the  horizon. 

"Ar,  ye  blatherin'  pup  ye,  ye  couldn't 
strike  a  white  harse.  Be  still  yer  yap- 
pin'."  "Reddy"  Ryan  had  come  up  un- 
noticed. "Yorkshire"  promptly  sub- 
sided and  his  listeners  dispersed.  "Red- 
dy," unable  to  arouse  a  fight,  stamped 
over  to  where  a  group  was  playing  with 
the  linnets.  He  stood  and  glowered  at 
the  men.  His  face  was  flushed  and  there 
was  an  ugly  look  in  his  bloodshot  eye. 
A  little  English  linnet,  no  bigger  than  a 
man's  thumb,  lit  on  a  man's  hat.  The 
man  was  seated  back  to  "Reddy,"  who, 
with  his  big  red  hand,  knocked  the  little 
bird  away. 

There  was  a  growl  of  disapproval,  and 
before  any  one  realized  it  the  man  had 
leaped  to  his  feet  and  "Reddy"  Ryan, 
the  bully,  lay  flat  on 
the  deck,  with  blood 
trickling  from  under 
h  i  s   mustache.  The 
man  was  "Switz." 
Now,  near  the  end  of 
the   voyage,  both 
George  and  "Reddy" 
had  found  their  mas- 
ter. 

One  bright  morning, 
after  the  cattlemen 
had  come  on  deck  for 
their  morning  smoke, 
three  blue  peaks  varied 
the  monotony  of  the 
horizon.  It  was  a  wel- 
come sight,  and  a 
wave  of  amiability  ran 
through  the  men. 
"Yorkshire"  gabbled, 
and  some  of  the 
others  confided  their 
names  and  their  des- 

Vol.  CXXXI— No.  731.— 12 


tinations.  Even  "Switz"  broke  his 
moody  silence.  He  told  me  he  had 
worked  in  the  railroad  yards  at  Buda- 
pest. Then,  after  a  strike  riot,  he  had 
been  sought  by  the  police.  Now,  after 
six  years,  he  was  returning  to  seek  his 
friends  and  family. 

All  day  long  the  ship  skirted  the  Irish 
coast,  and  all  day  long  the  cattle  bellowed 
incessantly. 

"'Tis  the  grass  o'  the  land  they  smell," 
announced  the  Scotch  watchman. 

That  night,  after  the  day's  work  was 
done,  the  men  sat  long  in  the  moonlight. 
In  the  hold  the  cattle  lowed  softly  and 
chewed  their  cuds.  They  seemed  to 
know  that  their  long  trail  was  near  an 
end,  and  they  were  happy. 

Early  next  morning  we  passed  a  light- 
ship close  by  in  the  fog.  Soon  after,  the 
pilot  came  aboard.  By  noon  the  passen- 
gers had  been  set  ashore  and  the  ship 
docked  at  the  stock-yard. 

It  had  been  a  morning  of  rest  for  the 
men,  as  the  cattle  were  not  fed  or 
watered  that  day.  Instead  of  lounging 
around  the  wheel-house  as  usual,  they 
were  on  the  forward  deck,  perched  on 
their  luggage.  Some  had  dressed  up  for 
the  event.  "Yorkshire"  was  resplen- 
dent with  a  lavender  handkerchief  about 
his  neck.  "Switz"  I  hardly  knew  as  he 
poked  his   head   through  a  hatchway. 


THE  NATIONS  OF  THE  EARTH  WERE 
ENGAGED  IN  A  CRUDE  SEWING-CIRCLE 


Drawn  by  William  Harnden  Foster 


A    MAD    RUSH    TO    SET   HOOF    ONCE    MORE    ON    SOLID  GROUND 


HERDSMEN  OF  THE  DEEP 


93 


Instead  of  his  black  felt  hat  he  wore  a 
cap  such  as  the  down-East  farmers  wear 
in  winter. 

As  the  gangways  were  lowered  the 
English  stock  -  yard  men  swarmed 
aboard.  With  their  queer  yodel  they 
took  charge  of  the  discharging  of  the 
cargo. 

George  and  "Reddy"  Ryan,  for  the 
last  time,  ordered  the  crew  to  work. 
This  time  the  task  was  short.  At  the 
pens,  near  the  gangway,  the  knots  were 
pulled  and  the  headboards  knocked 
down.  Three  or  four  men  dragged  a 
steer  down  the  gang-plank.  The  others 
followed.  The  men  ran  hither  and 
thither,  setting  the  cattle  free.  Then  the 
animals,  conscious  that  they  were  about 
to  put  hoof  on  solid  ground  once  more, 
burst  into  the  clinker-strewn  aisles. 

Down  the  ship  they  rushed  toward  the 
small  iron  doors.  Utterly  reckless  of  the 
bull-sticks  and  pitchforks  beating  and 
prodding  from  either  side  to  hold  them 
back,  they  crowded  and  piled  up  like  an 
animated  freight  wreck. 

From  my  post  at  a  corner  of  a  pen  I 
could  see  through  an  open  space  down 
the  ship  to  the  other  gangway.  I  thought 
all  these  cattle  were  out,  for  the  aisle 
seemed  deserted.  George,  who  was 
working  down  there,  must  have  thought 
so,  too,  for  I  could  see  him  slouching 
down  the  middle  of  the  aisle.  Suddenly 


out  of  the  dusk  behind  him  charged  a 
steer.  I  still  believe  it  was  old  White- 
face.  With  head  down,  its  horns  cut  a 
swath  the  full  width  of  the  aisle.  George 
heard  it  coming  and  wheeled.  He 
brandished  his  club  and  yelled,  but  it 
was  too  late.  He  tried  to  dodge,  but  the 
steer's  momentum  carried  him  on  like  an 
express  engine.  George  went  down.  A 
big  black  steer  fell  with  a  crash  beside 
me  and  broke  its  leg,  so  I  saw  no  more 
of  George  or  Whiteface. 

In  fifty  minutes  the  ship  was  emptied. 
As  I  walked  forward  through  the  empty 
pens  I  could  hardly  realize  that  an  hour 
before  they  had  been  filled  with  cattle. 
Perhaps  even  now  some  had  met  the 
fate  to  which  they  were  doomed. 

Forward,  the  forecastle  was  deserted. 
I  went  on  deck  and  looked  up  the  paved 
dock.  There  I  saw  the  same  twenty-five 
that  had  stood  ten  days  before  at  the 
inspector's  window  in  Boston.  In  the 
center  I  could  see  "Yorkshire,"  with  the 
lavender  handkerchief.  He  was  talking. 
OrF  to  one  side,  his  cap  pulled  down  low, 
strode  "Switz."  From  behind  a  team 
of  big  Welsh  horses  "Reddy"  Ryan 
glowered  at  him. 

At  the  head  of  the  dock  the  twenty- 
five  separated,  and  I  saw  the  men  who 
had  for  ten  days  worked  and  played 
together  scatter  to  the  highways  and 
byways  of  Europe. 


The  Road  to  Tartary 


BY  BERNARD  FREEMAN  TROTTER 

0  Arab!  much  I  fear  thou  at  Mecca's  shrine  wilt  never  be, 
For  the  road  that  thou  art  going  is  the  road  to  Tartary. — Sadi. 

I LEFT  the  dusty  traveled  road  the  proper  people  tread — 
Like  solemn  sheep  they  troop  along,  Tradition  at  their  head; 
I  went  by  meadow,  stream,  and  wood;  I  wandered  at  my  will; 
And  in  my  wayward  ears  a  cry  of  warning  echoed  still: 
" Beware !   beware!" — an  old  refrain  they  shouted  after  me — 
'The  road  that  thou  art  going  is  the  road  to  Tartary." 

I  clambered  over  dawn-lit  hills — the  dew  was  on  my  feet; 
I  crossed  the  sullen  pass  at  night  in  wind  and  rain  and  sleet; 
I  followed  trains  of  errant  thought  through  heaven  and  earth 
and  hell, 

And  thence  I  seemed  to  hear  again  that  unctuous  farewell, 
For  there  I  dreamed  the  little  fiends  were  pointing  all  at  me: 
"The  road  that  thou  art  going  is  the  road  to  Tartary." 

From  all  the  pious  wrangling  sects  I  set  my  spirit  free: 
I  own  no  creed  but  God  and  Love  and  Immortality. 
Their  dogmas  and  their  disciplines  are  dust  and  smoke  and 
cloud; 

They  cannot  see  my  sunlit  way;   and  still  they  cry  aloud, 
From  church,  conventicle,  and  street,  that  warning  old  to  me: 
'  The  road  that  thou  art  going  is  the  road  to  Tartary." 

I  found  a  woman  God  had  made,  the  blind  world  tossed  aside — 
It  had  not  dreamed  the  greatness  hid  in  poverty  and  pride. 
I  left  the  world  to  walk  with  her  and  talk  with  her  and  learn 
The  secret  things  of  happiness — and  will  I  now  return 
To  that  blind,  prudish  world  that  shrugs  and  lifts  its  brows 
at  me: 

"The  road  that  thou  art  going  is  the  road  to  Tartary"? 

Nay;  we  will  go  together,  Love — we  two  to  greet  the  sun. 
There  are  more  roads  than  one  to  heaven,  perhaps  more  heavens 
than  one. 

Here  on  the  lonely  heights  we  see  things  hid  from  those  who 

tread 

Like  sheep  the  dusty  trodden  way,  Tradition  at  their  head. 
We  sense  the  common  goal  of  all — in  Mecca  we  shall  be, 
Though  the  road  that  we  are  going  seem  the  road  to  Tartary. 


"  Every  Summer" 


BY  KEENE  ABBOTT 


fCROSS  the  white  pal- 
ings of  her  front  gate, 
her  heavy  cheeks  aglis- 
ten  with  tears,  Mrs. 
Hoover  stood  anxiously 
gazing  up  the  street. 
With  a  red  hand  shad- 
ing her  blurry  wet  eyes  from  the  sun,  she 
was  trying  to  identify  a  crisply  aproned 
child  among  the  little  school-girls  troop- 
ing home.  And  presently,  as  she 
saw  from  afar  the  object  of  her  watch- 
fulness, the  woman  eagerly  began  to 
beckon. 

But  when  you  are  six  years  old,  with 
a  new  skipping-rope,  you  do  not  always 
observe  the  urgent  signals  of  your 
Auntie  Bess.  The  child  continued  gaily 
her  animated  higglety-pigglety  pranc- 
ing, with  her  brown  curls  all  loosely  bob- 
bing up  and  down,  in  time  to  the  bound- 
ing lightness  of  her  body.  Then,  her 
attention  being  drawn  to  the  hand- 
waving  across  the  white -barred  gate, 
the  little  girl  dashed  forward  at  once, 
fluttering  past  her  schoolmates  and 
spryly  gathering  up  her  rope  as  she 
ran. 

"Come,  Margie,"  said  the  woman 
when  the  child,  breathless  and  hot  and 
flushed,  had  reached  home,  "we  will  go 


into  the  parlor.  Somebody  has  come  to 
see  you." 

With  the  blue-bordered  handkerchief, 
which  hung  cornerwise,  fastened  to  the 
child's  apron  by  a  silver  clasp-pin,  the 
woman  daintily  wiped  the  blossomy  face 
of  the  little  girl.  Then  they  passed  up 
the  brick  walk,  crossed  the  little  porch, 
and  entered  the  parlor. 

Upon  entering  the  shut-in  coolness  of 
that  front  room  Auntie  Bess  said,  with 
a  certain  husky  faltering: 

"Here  she  is.  She  never  loiters  on  her 
way  home  from  school." 

"Well,  my  little  Marguerite,"  came  in 
deep-chested  tones,  "do  you  know  who 
I  am  ?" 

The  man  who  had  spoken  stood  up 
and  waited,  holding  photographs  in 
either  hand,  many  photographs  that  had 
been  given  him  to  look  at.  Extravagant 
Auntie  Bess  had  indeed  become  a  spend- 
thrift in  having  pictures  taken  of  her 
little  niece. 

Looking  up  at  the  visitor,  the  child 
stood  quite  still.  She  tolerated  the  pat- 
ting of  his  hand  upon  her  head,  and  even 
tried  not  to  mind  being  kissed,  although 
the  prickle  of  a  brown  mustache,  newly 
trimmed,  was  strange  to  her. 

Nervously  the  woman  said  to  the  lit- 


96 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


tie  girl,  "You  know  who  this  is,  don't 

you: 

"My  papa."  Hanging  her  bashful 
head,  the  child  looked  at  the  red  roses  in 
the  carpet,  and  with  the  toe  of  her  shoe 
began  tracing  the  pattern  of  them. 

"That's  it.  You  don't  forget,"  he 
said,  and  laughed.  "What  a  big  girl!" 
he  continued.  "Already  going  to  school  ? 
Do  you  like  your  teacher?" 

"Yes — almost." 

He  smiled  to  hear  his  little  girl  say 
that,  but  did  he  want  to  smile?  Then  he 
went  on  in  his  grown-up  voice  to  say  the 
very  same  thing  that  people  generally  do 
say  of  little  girls: 

"She  has  grown  a  good  deal."  After- 
ward he  looked  down,  with  honest  and 
deep  love  in  his  eyes,  and  spoke  with  a 
kind  of  choking  voice,  "You  have  your 
mother's  look,  my  precious.  Do  you 
know  that?" 

No,  Marguerite  does  not  know  that; 
but  she  does  know  that  the  sadness  of 
his  voice  has  made  her  feel  bad.  She 
feels  so  bad  that  even  the  gifts  he  has 
brought  to  her — the  tiny  doll-carriage, 
and  the  little,  pink  silk  parasol — do  not 
dance  her  back,  at  once,  into  gladness. 
Even  when  he  stops  being  so  grown  up, 
and  learns  a  way  to  talk  to  her  naturally; 
even  when,  before  long,  he  has  kissed  her 
good-by  and  gone  away — Marguerite  still 
feels  rather  queer  and  story-bookish,  as 
if  she  had  come  to  be  a  strange  little  girl 
dropped  out  of  Alice  s  Adventures  in 
Wonderland  or  some  other  region  where 
things  are  topsy-turvy. 

Even  Auntie  Bess  has  come  to  be  dif- 
ferent. She  takes  you  into  her  lap;  she 
holds  you  close,  rocking  silently  for  some 
time,  until  by  and  by  she  can  bravely 
bring  herself  to  ask: 

"How  would  you  like  it,  little  girl,  to 
go  to  another  auntie's  house  to  *live  ? 
Would  you  like  to  live  where  you  can  see 
your  papa  real  often?" 

Now,  if  you  have  to  answer  questions 
when  there  are  new  toys  to  be  played 
with,  you  try  to  say  the  thing  that  will 
let  you  get  away  from  the  hugging  arms 
of  your  Auntie  Bess.  Whether  you 
would  like  to  live  in  the  house  of  another 
auntie  is  really  not  to  be  considered  by 
little  girls  at  such  a  moment.  They 
would  as  lief  say,  No,  if  they  thought 
that  a  good  answer  and  the  one  expected 


of  them.  But  little  Margie  said  Yes. 
And  she  added,  with  an  impatient  twist, 
"You  hurt  me." 

Every  morning  thereafter  when  Mar- 
gie started  to  school  with  a  shiny  crim- 
son apple  pressed  against  her  white 
apron  she  was  pretty  sure  to  have  her 
other  hand  held  tight  and  warm  in 
Auntie  Bess's  big  palm.  So,  when  the 
two  drew  near  the  brick  school-house, 
Margie  began  to  hint  that  Auntie  Bess 
had  come  far  enough.  She  could  go  on 
alone  now. 

Being  released  after  a  final  squeeze  of 
those  adoring  arms,  the  little  girl  was 
wont  to  go  prancing  and  dancing  away, 
while  the  woman  gazed  wistfully  after 
the  fleeting,  graceful,  childish  figure. 
Would  Marguerite  think  to  look  back? 
Would  she  perhaps  wave  her  hand  ?  Al- 
ways the  heavy-hearted  woman  waited 
to  see  whether  the  little  girl  would  wave 
her  hand. 

From  the  day  of  her  papa's  visit,  Mar- 
guerite was  a  pampered  child.  Despite 
her  glowing  health,  you  might  have 
thought,  by  the  way  she  now  received 
all  manner  of  special  attentions,  that  she 
was  ill  with  some  fatal  disease.  Toys 
were  bought,  games  invented.  Auntie 
Bess  even  went  so  far  as  to  give  a  chil- 
dren's party — one  of  those  Saturday- 
afternoon  entertainments  where  little 
boys  crowd  together  on  the  sofa,  and 
keep  pushing  one  another  off,  and  pre- 
tend not  to  notice  the  little  girls. 

Yet  what  tenderness,  or  what  degree 
of  affection,  could  delay  the  message 
which  Mrs.  Hoover  had  been  anticipat- 
ing ever  since  the  one  when  Marguerite's 
father  came?  Finally  it  arrived,  that 
message.  It  was  a  telegram.  He  was 
sending  his  sister  to  fetch  his  little  girl. 

Sending — there  it  was!  Ruthless  an- 
nouncement on  yellow  paper:  he  was 
sending.  Yes,  but  why?  Why  send? 
By  what  right?  Who  had  told  him  he 
could  take  little  Marguerite  away  from 
her  Auntie  Bess? 

The  soft  nature  of  Mrs.  Hoover  actu- 
ally grew  belligerent  over  the  tersely 
meager  despatch.  So  that  was  it,  was 
it?  His  sister  was  coming.  Well,  let  her 
come!  She  would  be  shown  a  thing  or 
two,  that  sister.  For  instance,  there 
were  letters  from  the  child's  mother — 
pitiful  letters  from  the  sanitarium,  in 


"  WELL,  MY  LITTLE  MARGUERITE,  DO  YOU  KNOW  WHO  I  AM  ?" 


those  last  days  when  she  must  have 
known  that  her  motherhood  was  nearly 
done. 

Sister  Maude  did  not  want  her  hus- 
band's people  to  have  the  child.  She 
had  said  so  plainly.  It  was  all  in  her 
letters,  unmistakably  expressed.  So, 
then,  let  those  people  take  heed!  Let 
them  understand,  once  and  for  all,  that 
the  little  girl  was  not  for  them! 

But  despite  the  firmness  of  her  resolu- 
tion, the  forlorn  woman  announced,  col- 
orlessly, upon  entering  the  kitchen  of 
her  next-door  neighbor,  "They  are  going 
to  get  Margie  away  from  me,  I  guess." 


It  was  not  that  she  really  believed 
this;  no,  it  was  only  that  she  wanted  to 
hear  the  thing  denied. 

The  robust  Mrs.  Clark  consoled  at 
once.  "Nonsense,  Bess  Hoover!  That 
just  ain't  possible." 

After  a  thoughtful  pause,  as  she  sat 
with  an  expansive  wooden  bowl  upon 
her  lap,  the  sympathetic  neighbor  began 
to  cut  up  green  tomatoes  and  green  pep- 
pers, chopping  them  vindictively,  as  if 
in  punishment  for  the  telegram  Mrs. 
Hoover  had  received. 

"What's  best  for  the  little  girl — that's 
what  I  got  to  look  at,"  said  the  recipient 


98 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  the  message,  after  showing  it  and 
slipping  it  back  into  its  yellow  envelope. 
"Yes,"  she  repeated,  "that's  what  I  got 
to  look  at.  There's  her  papa — awful 
fond  of  my  little  girl.  Well  fixed,  besides 
— him  a  bridge  contractor,  and  all. 
Could  give  her  first-rate  advantages,  he 
could,  whilst  I,  you  see — " 

Mrs.  Clark  interposed  with  some 
severity,  "I  don't  know  what  you're 
a-gettin'  at,  Bess  Hoover,  by  any  such 
talk  as  that!" 

"Well,  I  been  lookin'  ahead — that's 
what  I  mean,  Sarah.    I  been  thinkin', 


what  about  music  lessons?  What  about 
boardin'-school,  when  Margie  is  a  young 
lady  grown?  And  for  me  to  keep  her 
back  from  what  she  ought  to  have;  for 
me  to  be  gettin'  in  the  way  of  what's 
best  for  her —  Wicked,  that's  what  it 
would  be!  Downright  wicked!  You 
can't  make  nothing  else  out  of  it." 

"Blest  if  I  can  see,  Bess  Hoover,  how 
you've  got  the  face  to  sit  there  argufyin' 
that-a-way.  Music  lessons,  eh?  We've 
come  to  a  pretty  pass,  we  have,  when 
every  mother's  child  has  got  to  learn 
how  to  whang  a  piano — as  if  that  was 


ALWAYS  SHE  WAITED  TO  SEE  IF  THE  LITTLE  GIRL  WOULD  WAVE  HER  HAND 


ONE  OF  THOSE  SATURDAY-AFTERNOON  ENTERTAINMENTS 
WHERE    LITTLE    BOYS    CROWD    TOGETHER    ON    THE  SOFA 


something  necessary!  A  pretty  how- 
d'y'-do  when  they've  all  got  to  get  their- 
selves  accomplished  in  the  same  kind  of 
uselessness!  I  guess  you  can't  be  learn- 
in'  the  little  girl  to  cook  and  housekeep 
and  be  first-class  at  most  of  the  useful 
things  a  woman  ought  to  know.  I  guess 
you  couldn't  do  that  for  her — oh  no! 
Course  not!" 

Mrs.  Hoover  looked  down  into  her  lap 
and  her  face  slowly  reddened  as  she 
stammered  in  abashment,  "I  ain't  re- 
fined, like  I  ought  to  be." 

"Are  you  trying  to  make  out,  Bess 
Hoover,  that  you  ain't  fit  to  go  on  moth- 
erin'  that  little  girl?" 

Huskily,  with  twitching  lips,  Auntie 
Bess  whispered,  "I — I  do  my  best." 

With  this  her  visit  ended.  Drawing  a 
plaid  shawl  about  her  thick  shoulders, 
she  got  up  heavily,  fumblingly  opened  the 
kitchen  door,  and  hurried  home.  Now 
the  telegram  did  not  seem  a  thing  so  ter- 
rible.   She  felt  better.    The  heartening 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  781—  Li 


she  so  woefully  needed  had  been  given 
her.  When,  to-morrow,  Aunt  Florence 
should  arrive,  as  the  message  announced, 
it  would  be  all  right.  No  matter  now! 
Let  her  come. 

But  the  night  before  her  coming  was 
a  dismal  period,  sleepless,  comfortless, 
achingly  long.  Through  all  those  drag- 
ging hours  Mrs.  Hoover  sat  sewing  in  the 
yellow  lamplight,  under  the  tilted  yel- 
low shade.  More  than  once  she  laid  by 
her  work  to  steal  silently  into  the  room 
where  the  little  girl  lay  sleeping.  And 
always  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  arc- 
lamp  radiance  from  the  street  corner, 
shining  pale  and  steady  through  the 
window,  rested  lovingly  as  moonshine 
upon  the  pretty  face. 

How  many,  many  times  she  had  seen 
that  soft  brilliancy  resting  upon  the  pil- 
low there  with  little  Marguerite!  But 
would  it  be  the  same  to-morrow  night? 

Mrs.  Hoover  hastened  abruptly  back 
to  her  sewing,  and,  by  the  thoughtful 


100 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


persistence  of  her  needlework,  finished,  as 
the  blue-gray  of  dawn  was  coming,  the 
dress  of  white  wool  she  had  stitched  the 
long  night  through.  It  was  a  quaint 
little  frock,  trimmed  modestly  with  blue 
ribbon  and  blue  bows.  To  complete 
the  costume  there  were  other  treasures: 
first  a  threadlike  silver  necklace  that 
had  been  her  mother's,  and  also  a  four- 
leaf-clover  pin,  which  Auntie  Bess  had 
from  her  husband,  in  those  good  sweet- 
heart days  now  so  long  ago. 

When  the  young  woman  came,  as  it 
was  written  in  the  telegram,  did  she  per- 
haps understand,  in  some  measure,  the 
struggle  dumbly  going  on  in  the  soul  of 
this  plain-faced  Auntie  Bess?  It  may 
have  been — who  knows? — that  Florence 
Tynan  really  did  understand,  for  she 
kissed  the  tremulous  mouth  and  looked 
with  kindness  into  the  tired  eyes. 

Little  Marguerite,  it  could  be  seen, 
was  drawn  at  once  to  the  new  auntie; 
for  this  one  was  young,  and  she  was 
pretty,  and  the  charm  of  a  gentle  voice 
was  hers,  and  there  was  that  about  her 
hinting  of  bright  sunshine  and  a  whole 
garden  full  of  fervid  summer  flowers. 
With  the  little  girl  cuddled  into  her  lap, 
she  said  to  Auntie  Bess: 

"You  will  come  to  see  us,  won't  you? 
Really  you  must,  by  all  means!" 

Tonelessly  Mrs.  Hoover  replied,  "All 
right."  And  afterward,  as  if  slow  to 
comprehend  what  had  been  said,  she 
articulated  briefly  the  one  word, 
"Thanks."  Then  she  moistened  her  lips 
and  swallowed,  and  spoke  almost  harsh- 
ly in  an  effort  to  keep  the  piteous  im- 
ploring out  of  her  voice:  "Maybe  now 
.  .  .  sometime,  you  know,  my  little  girl 
could  .  .  .  for  a  visit,  you  know  .  .  . 
maybe.  .  .  .  Could  she,  do  you  think, 
come  back  to  me  for  a — a  visit,  maybe?" 

Why  ask?  Why  make  beseechingly 
and  cravenly  such  a  request  as  that? 
Surrender  it  meant.  Nothing  more  nor 
less  than  complete  surrender!  And  Aun- 
tie Bess  had  not  intended — neither  did 
she  now  intend — to  do  such  a  thing.  No, 
no,  surely  not!  What,  give  up  the  little 
girl?  Not  she!  These  interloping,  kid- 
napping, fine-aired  young  women  are  the 
kind  to  be  despised.  At  least,  one 
shouldn't  like  them.  Yet,  after  all,  how 
are  you  to  help  liking  them  when  they 
are  pleasant  and  kind,  with  the  joy  and 


bloom  of  youth  upon  them?  It  is  quite 
impossible.  Bess  Hoover  saw  it  was. 
So,  after  it  had  been  conceded  that  the 
child  should,  of  course,  come  for  a  visit, 
and  for  many  visits,  there  was  nothing 
angry  and  combative  that  Auntie  Bess 
could  say;  she  could  only  articulate, 
dryly  and  hoarsely,  the  one  word, 
"Thanks." 

In  the  leave  -  taking,  soon  to  come, 
there  was  to  be  no  manifest  grief,  even 
though  the  worn  hands  could  not  help 
fumbling  a  little  in  tying  the  fresh  rib- 
bons of  the  blue  hood.  Yes,  and  it  grew 
to  be  noticeable  that  the  needle-pricked 
fingers  were  lingering  long  about  such 
matters  as  the  buttoning  of  the  blue 
coat  and  the  rearrangement  of  the  clus- 
tered brown  curls  upon  the  shoulders  of 
the  child. 

All  the  while,  too,  the  imploring  eyes 
of  the  older  woman  had  in  them  the  look 
that  said,  "You  will  do  everything  you 
can,  won't  you,  to  help  our  little  girl 
grow  up  the  kind  of  woman  we  want  her 
to  be?" 

And  the  silence  of  the  new  auntie 
might  have  meant,  "If  only  you  were 
not  quite  so  fond  of  her!" 

Well,  it  was  soon  over.  The  three 
went  to  the  station  in  a  hired  carriage. 
The  train  came  in,  and  the  train  went 
away.  Mrs.  Hoover,  looking  after  the 
train  until  even  the  last  faint  smirch  of 
smoke  had  faded  into  the  blue  sky,  re- 
turned bravely  home  and  bravely  en- 
tered the  house. 

No  matter  that  everything  within 
seemed  to  be  waiting  for  some  one.  She 
tried  not  to  notice  how  the  chairs  held 
out  their  arms,  or  how  the  center-table 
seemed  dumbly  to  be  offering  up  a 
child's  slate  and  a  primer  and  a  wee  red 
mitten  darned  at  the  thumb.  On  the 
floor  lay  what  remained  of  a  slate-pencil 
which  only  yesterday  had  been  straight 
and  long  and  glorious  in  a  jacket  of  gilt 
paper.  Now  the  pencil  lay  broken  into 
nothing  but  stumpy  fragments. 

Slowly  the  woman  gathered  up  these 
things,  and,  laying  them  in  a  lacquered 
box,  she  shut  the  lid  upon  them  and 
stowed  everything  away  in  the  closet, 
high  up,  on  the  top  shelf.  Afterward  she 
sat  down  by  the  window,  alone  in  the 
room,  with  her  eyes  shut. 

The  clock  ticked — ticked — ticked. 


"  I  DON'T  KNOW  WHAT  YOU'RE  A-GETTIN'  AT,  BESS  HOOVER,  BY  ANY  SUCH  TALK  AS  THAT'" 


But  the  monotony  and  the  aching 
mockery  of  that  ticking  were  not  long  to 
be  endured;  for  that  good  neighbor,  Mrs0 
Clark,  presently  opened  the  kitchen 
door  and  came  in  and  set  upon  the  table 
a  plate  snowily  covered  with  a  napkin. 
It  was  one  of  those  friendly  gifts  from  an 
hospitable  oven — some  freshly  baked 
spice-cookies,  very  likely,  by  the  warm 
good  odor  they  were  breathing  out  into 
the  roorrio 

Speaking  with  assumed  cheeriness, 
Mrs  Clark  said,  "So  here  you  are — back 
already  from  the  depot," 

"Yes,  I  am  back." 

Silence  again,  and  the  ticking  clock; 
but,  for  all  that,  Mrs.  Hoover  would 
make  it  appear  that  she  was  chipper  and 
well  pleased  with  the  way  everything 
had  gone. 


"How  many  cookies,  like  that,  you 
have  given  to  my  little  girl!  Awful  fond 
of  them,  wasn't  she?  Yes,  well;  but 
now  .  .  .  I'm  glad  you  dropped  in.  I 
wanted  to  tell  you  everything  is  all  right. 
Everything  has  turned  out  real  good.  I 
am  to  visit  my  little  girl.  I  am  invited. 
And  she,  Margie,  she's  coming  back  in 
the  summer.  In  the  summer  she's  com- 
ing back — every  summer,  maybe  .  .  . 
every  summer."  She  stood  up;  she 
rested  her  heavy  hands  upon  the  shoul- 
ders of  her  friend;  and,  as  if  to  make 
herself  believe  this  thing,  she  repeated 
again,  "Every  summer!" 

Yet  when  all  the  waiting  weeks  of 
winter  had  been  patiently  got  through; 
and  when,  afterward,  the  slow  spring- 
time had  finally  come  greening  in  and 
blossoming  into  June,  with  still  no  defi- 


102 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


nite  word  about  the  return  of  the  child, 
there  came  eventually  a  July  afternoon 
when  Mrs.  Hoover  greatly  felt  the  need 
of  kindly  counsel.  Then,  sitting  as  a 
kitchen  visitor  in  her  neighbor's  house, 
she  spoke  timorously  of  the  event  that 
had  not  yet  come  to  pass. 

Meanwhile  her  listener,  the  elderly 
Mrs.  Clark,  would  sometimes  look  over 
the  steel  rims  of  her  spectacles,  purse  her 
lips,  say  nothing,  but  resume  her  shelling 
of  peas  with  a  vigor  that  split  the  pale- 
green  pods  with  an  angry  popping. 

Was  there  something  she  wanted  to 
say?  If  so,  why  not  speak  her  mind? 
Yet,  as  it  turned  out,  her  electrical  si- 
lence had  been  less  hard  to  bear  than  the 
kind  of  admonition  she  had  been  choking 
back. 

"Look  here,  Bess  Hoover:  you've 
waited  long  enough.  You  don't  have  to 
wait  any  longer.  Just  you  pick  up  and 
pack  up.  That's  it.  Pack  a  satchel, 
board  a  train,  go  get  that  little  niece 
of  yours!" 

Vigorously  scooping  up  a  handful  of 
pods  from  the  sag  of  her  apron,  Mrs. 
Clark  did  more  than  drop  them  into  a 
basket.  She  assaulted  the  basket.  And 
her  counsel-seeking  neighbor  sat  staring 
helplessly,  almost  aghast,  as  if  it  were 
scandal  and  anarchy  to  say  such  things. 
If  treason  had  been  proposed,  or  a  blood- 
thirsty plot  of  some  kind,  Mrs.  Hoover 
could  scarcely  have  been  more  shocked 
by  it. 

"Not  write?"  she  whispered.  "Not 
even  write  to  the  folks?"  In  her  face 
was  a  look  of  fearsome  daring. 

"Folks?"  quoth  Mrs.  Clark.  "Why, 
them  people  ain't  folks.  They're  swells! 
That's  what  they  are!" 

"Not  write?" 

"No." 

"Send  no  word  I'm  comin'?" 

"Why  send  word?" 

Mrs.  Hoover  repeated,  as  if  thinking 
aloud,  "Not  write — just  go." 

"That's  it.  That's  what  I'd  do.  And 
besides,  Bess  Hoover,  it  won't  be  the 
same  as  if  you  wasn't  invitedo  They  did 
invite  you.    Didn't  they?" 

"  But,  Mrs.  Clark—  No,  Mrs.  Clark, 
you  can't  mean —  They  wouldn't  like 
that.  They  would —  Just  pick  up  and 
go? 

"That's  it — that's  the  thing!  Give 


'em  no  chance  to  stave  you  off  with  ex- 
cuses about  this  and  that,  and  thus  and 
so. 

It  was  too  much  for  Auntie  Bess,  this 
kind  of  talk.  Such  high  treason  is  very 
hard  to  bear.  So,  at  once,  Mrs.  Hoover 
cumbrously  fled  the  kitchen  of  her  neigh- 
bor. "My  stars!"  she  muttered,  upon 
getting  home.  She  even  forgot  to  whisk 
the  screen-door  with  her  apron  as  a 
precaution  against  flies.  "Not  write — 
just  go.    What  an  idea!" 

Two  whole  days  Auntie  Bess  waited; 
then,  upon  revisiting  her  friend's  kitch- 
en, it  was  in  the  fear — and  the  hope — 
that  Mrs.  Clark  would  begin  again  that 
preposterous,  that  revolutionary  sugges- 
tion of  hers.  But  this  time,  as  it  turned 
out,  the  good  housewife  was  grown  con- 
servative.   She  talked  tediously  of  trifles. 

It  was  Auntie  Bess  herself  who  finally, 
by  way  of  timorous  hints,  made  refer- 
ence to  the.  desperate  exploit. 

"If  I  had  something  fit  to  wear — a 
new  dress,  say,  or  mebbe  a  new  hat — " 

"Your  black  silk  ought  to  do  first 
rate,"  Mrs.  Clark  interposed.  "Now, 
me,  I'm  going  to  wear  my  gray  suit. 
It's  plenty  good,  I  think,  for  that  recep- 
tion. 

"Reception?  What  reception?"  Mrs, 
Hoover  winked  in  bewilderment. 

"Why,  for  the  new  minister — a  recep- 
tion and  lawn  social." 

"Oh!"  Bess  exclaimed,  and  tersely 
added,  "No,  I  ain't  a-goin'." 

"Then  you  mean —  I  see.  You've 
made  up  your  mind  to  go  fetch  the  little 
girl." 

Wrong!  Bess  hadn't  made  up  her 
mind.  It  was  such  a  dreadfully  hard 
kind  of  mind  to  get  made  up.  Yet 
from  this  day,  by  merely  thinking  of 
that  high  emprise,  the  lonely  woman 
grew  more  cheerful;  and  in  the  end — 
daring  unprecedented!  —  she  actually 
decided  to  go. 

But  from  the  sum  remaining  from  her 
husband's  life  insurance  could  she  spare 
enough  money  to  undertake  the  jour- 
ney? Perhaps  so;  that  is,  enough  for 
actual  expenses.  But  how  about  a  new 
dress?  Well,  never  mind  about  the 
dress.  Her  black  silk,  as  Mrs.  Clark  had 
said,  was  still  serviceable;  it  was  per- 
fectly good,  and  only  five  years  old.  In 
places,  where  it  had  cracked  a  little,  it 


"EVERY  SUMMER" 


103 


could  be  underlaid  with  pieces,  and,  as 
for  the  sponging  and  pressing,  she  could 
easily  attend  to  that. 

Still,  when  everything  was  ready,  and 
even  the  packing  finished,  the  proposed 
adventure  loomed  as  frightful  as  a  sur- 
gical operation. 

Only  last  month  Florence  had  written 
about  the  little  girl.  They  had  thought 
she  was  coming  down  with  the  measles, 
the  German  measles;  and  Auntie  Bess 
had  gone  about  over  the  neighborhood  to 
inquire  whether  there  was  some  other 
variety  of  measles  worse  than  the  Ger- 
man kind.  It  gave  her  a  great  fright  to 
learn  that  at  first  you  cannot  tell  whether 
the  ailment  would  turn  out  to  be  mea- 
sles or  something  worse,  something  so 
bad,  maybe,  as  scarlet  fever. 

If  only  they  would  write  again  to  let 
a  body  know  that  all  was  well  with  the 
little  girl!  She  told  herself  that,  even 
though  she  was  ready  now  for  her  jour- 
ney, she  need  not  go  on  the  morning 
train.  Better  to  wait  till  afternoon,  in 
case  a  letter  should  come.  Yet  no  letter 
did  come,  neither  in  the  forenoon  nor 
in  the  afternoon,  nor  on  Tuesday,  nor  on 
Wednesday,  nor  on  Thursday. 

On  the  fifth  day  a  telegram  arrived. 
Bess  was  not  at  home.  The  messenger- 
boy  went  around  the  house,  rang  the 
bell  at  the  front  door,  knocked  at  the 
side  door  and  at  the  back  door.  Mrs. 
Clark  called  to  him.  She  offered  to  sign 
for  the  telegram;  but,  no,  he  would  not 
leave  it  with  her. 

"Then,  young  man,  you  Detter  take 
the  despatch  to  the  office  of  Dr.  Davis. 
Mrs.  Hoover  will  be  there,  I  shouldn't 
wonder.  She'll  be  pestering  him  again, 
'most  likely,  about  the  symptoms  of 
measles." 

It  turned  out,  after  all,  that  Bess 
missed  the  telegram.  She  had  not  been 
at  the  office  of  Dr.  Davis.  She  had  been 
at  Dr.  Cummings';  nor  did  she  hear 
of  the  despatch  until  the  hour  was  too 
late  for  receiving  it.  When  she  arrived 
at  the  telegraph  office  there  were  two 
long  hands,  like  a  pair  of  black  spider- 
legs,  straddled  up  and  down  across  the 
white  face  of  the  great  clock.  It  was  a 
little  after  six.  The  place  was  locked. 
The  operator  had  gone  to  his  home. 

Thither,  too,  went  Mrs.  Hoover.  She 
explained  the  situation.    He  was  sorry. 


But  office  hours,  he  informed  her,  were 
from  nine  to  six — an  established  rule. 
The  public  ought  to  remember  that. 

Could  he,  perhaps,  tell  her  what  was 
in  the  telegram? 

Not  he.  A  busy  day,  this.  Lots  of 
messages! 

Auntie  Bess  went  home,  and  took  such 
stale  comfort  as  may  be  possible  from 
the  counsel  of  her  good  neighbor,  Mrs. 
Clark.  Through  her  kind  offices  she  laid 
to  her  soul  the  flattering  unction  that, 
after  all,  the  message  might  begood  news, 
even  though  her  heart  was  crushed  with 
the  old-fashioned  conviction  that  the 
only  true  purpose  of  a  telegram  is  to 
convey  direful  facts  and  tidings. 

Long  the  two  women,  with  their  faces 
yellowed  on  one  side  by  the  light  of  the 
shaded  lamp,  sat  opposite  each  other, 
the  center -table  between  them,  and 
warmly  moist  air  coming  in  at  the  win- 
dow. Mrs.  Clark  talked  and  talked. 
Auntie  Bess  tried  to  listen.  Mrs.  Clark 
spoke  gently  and  sensibly.  Auntie  Bess 
was  trying  hard  to  believe  her.  And 
yet  the  only  thing  she  really  did  believe 
was  this: 

"You've  been  a  good  friend  to  me, 
Sarah — a  good  friend!" 

Almost  as  these  words  were  spoken 
Mrs.  Clark  gave  a  start  and  shut  her 
eyes;  for  a  brilliancy  painful  in  its  be- 
dazzlement,  the  powerful  double  glance 
of  a  motor-car,  had  come  flashing  in 
through  the  window  and,  after  jiggling 
with  a  leisurely  sweep  across  the  room, 
it  went  into  extinguishment.  But  one 
still  heard  a  mechanical  whirring,  as  if 
the  automobile,  having  turned  the  street 
corner,  might  now  have  come  to  a  stop 
in  front  of  the  house. 

It  was  so,  indeed;  the  machine  had 
halted  there.  And  the  two  women, 
hastening  at  once  into  the  parlor,  arrived 
at  the  front  windows  in  time  to  see  a 
man  lifting  to  the  ground  a  child  who 
had  leaped  nimbly  into  his  arms. 

Next  the  gate  clicked.  Up  the  brick 
walk  came  a  gay  scurry  and  hurry,  a 
fleet  patter  and  prancing  of  little  feet 
dancing.  Margie  at  last!  Little  Margu- 
rite  come  home! 

"Expecting  us,  were  you?"  her  father 
asked;  but  Auntie  Bess  spoke  no  word. 
Silently,  with  the  pain  of  happiness  mak- 
ing her  dumb,  she  was  clasping  this  joy 


104 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


that  she  had  thought  would  never  come 
again. 

"I  wasn't  sure,"  the  man  added,  "that 
this  new  car  of  mine  would  set  us  here 
to-night.  That's  why  I  wired.  Didn't 
want  you  bothering  to  stay  up  for  us." 

Giving  no  heed  to  him,  or  to  what  he 
was  saying,  Auntie  Bess  led  the  way  into 
the  lighted  room,  her  arms  tight  clasped 
about  the  little  girl.  It  was  Mrs.  Clark 
who  spoke  to  him: 

"You  will  have  to  excuse  her.  She  is 
too  glad  to  talk." 

He  himself  was  the  only  one  who 
seemed  ready  to  do  much  talking.  His 
mission  here  was  to  be  explained,  and 
he  began  his  explaining  with  a  fine  ef- 
fect of  unconcern,  as  if  he  had  arranged 
and  even  practised  what  he  wanted  to 
say. 

"You  see,  Auntie  Bess,  a  town  like 
this,  a  country  town  far  away  from  fetid 
air  and  stagnant  heat  of  the  city — 
Here,  I  mean,  is  just  the  place  for  a 
child  in  summer."  At  this  point  he  hesi- 
tated, reddened,  took  a  fresh  start. 
"As  for  Marguerite's  Aunt  Florence — 
well,  fact  is,  Florence  has  other  plans: 
some  social  gadding  back  East,  a  round 
of  visits  and  —  and  so  forth.  Stays 
young,  Flo  does;  her  running  off  like 
this  is  what  must  be  expected,  I  suppose. 
And,  anyhow,  there  was  a  governess  I 


had  thought  would  fill  the  bill  right 
enough  —  get  Marguerite  started  with 
her  French  and  music,  you  know.  But, 
bless  my  soul!  this  independent  niece  of 
yours  would  have  no  governess — not  she. 
Wanted  her  Auntie  Bess.  Should,  would, 
must  have  her  Auntie  Bess!" 

Across  the  cushiony  shoulder  against 
which  the  child's  head  had  been  snug- 
gled the  little  girl  now  smiled  to  her 
father — a  friendly  and  yet  an  unmis- 
takably triumphant  smile. 

"So,  now,  here  we  are,"  he  concluded. 

Auntie  Bess  caught  up  the  words, 
gasping  exultantly,  "So,  now  .  .  .  you 
see,  now,  Sarah  Clark  .  .  .  here  we  are!" 

"I  see  we  are,"  chuckled  that  good 
friend  and  neighbor. 

"If  it  would  be  convenient,"  he 
went  on,  "for  you  to  keep  Marguerite 
awhile — at  least  till  Flo  gets  home — that 
would  be  just  the  ticket." 

In  the  fervor  of  her  rejoicing  the 
plain,  homely  face  of  Auntie  Bess 
had  grown  almost  beautiful  as  raptu- 
rously she  stammered: 

"It  has  come  out  just  as  I  said.  'In 
the  summer,'  I  said.  You  heard  me, 
Sarah.  You  remember,  don't  you ?  'In 
the  summer,'  I  said,  'my  little  girl  will 
be  coming  home  to  me.'  Didn't  I  say 
so?  'Every  summer,'  I  said.  'Every 
sum-mer!1 " 


The  Islands  of  Shetland 


BY  MAUDE  RADFORD  WARREN 


HE  very  heart  of  soli- 
tariness and  patience 
speaks  in  the  figure  of 
the  Shetlander,  breast- 
ing the  northern  winds 
on  his  hills  and  high 
moorlands.  He  moves 
slowly,  his  body  bent,  for  the  proudest 
head  must  go  down  before  the  regal 
movement  of  the  winds.  Even  in  sum- 
mer they  sweep  over  the  islands  like  a 
charge  of  magnificent  cavalry;  and  in 
winter  they  dash  in  from  their  two  hoary 
seas,  the  salt  spindrift  on  their  wings, 
and  they  beat  at  the  crofter's  lowly 
door  and  send  him  closer  to  the  warm 
red  glow  of  the  peats  on  his  hearth. 

The  sea  and  the  winds — these  are  the 
great  facts  that  color  the  lives  of  the 
Shetlanders,  that  hedge  them  about  with 
loneliness  on  the  outer  rim  of  living,  and 
that  give  them  a  richness  of  personal 
association.  On  the  outside  are  just  the 
great  waters  that  seem  to  grudge  sea- 
room  to  the  islands,  and  so  they  have 
driven  their  way  into  the  land  with  great 
blue  voes;  they  dash  themselves  against 
the  high  western  cliffs  as  if  they  some 
day  would  climb  up  the  hundreds  of  feet 
that  thwart  them  to  the  very  top,  where 
the  cormorants  and  curlews  are  crying 
down  the  wind.  No  wonder  the  Romans 
called  the  Shetlands  Ultima  Thule,  the 
farthest  land,  the  end  of  the  world. 
Rolling  seas,  sweeping  winds,  solitary 
hills,  great  stretches  of  moorland,  and 
inside,  little  warm  toons,  where  the  folk 
cling  to  one  another. 

For  one  another  is  all  those  who  stay 
at  home  have  to  cling  to.  The  great 
world  outside  claims  many  of  them,  for 
the  islands  can  scarcely  support  twenty- 
eight  thousand  souls;  other  hearths  and 
other  lands  know  them.  Three  hundred 
of  them  are  captaining  vessels,  and  many 
more  are  sailing  before  the  mast,  for  the 
deep  sea  draws  them  as  it  did  their  fore- 
bears a  thousand  years  ago.    Many  of 


those  that  stay  at  home  send  their  Norse 
hearts  wandering  into  distant  lands, 
while  their  bodies  stay  on  "the  old 
rock,"  as  the  Shetlanders  call  their 
home.  But  even  at  home  the  sea  is  their 
mistress,  constant  to  them  only  in  the 
whimsies  with  which  she  offers  up  her 
treasure-trove,  certain  only,  sooner  or 
later,  to  stamp  her  power  into  the  hearts 
of  her  people  with  bitter  scars.  The 
blue-eyed  young  sailors,  the  brave  fish- 
ermen, fathers  of  families,  for  years  win 
their  living  from  her;  and  at  home, 
mothers  and  wives  watch  the  skies  and 
the  waves,  and  pray  in  their  hearts  as 
they  sing  the  old  songs  to  their  bairnies, 
while  outside  the  wind  harps  a  louder 
tune.  There  never  is  any  real  security; 
the  mother  hopes  to  have  her  old  bones 
laid  in  the  kirkyard  at  the  feet  of  the  sea 
before  she  loses  her  son;  the  wife  hopes 
that  a  peaceful  old  age  may  await  herself 
and  her  husband  in  a  warm  croft  above 
the  tides.  But  both  know  well  that 
some  night  the  voice  of  the  seas  will  rise, 
some  night  the  Shetland  women  will 
pray  by  their  hearths,  forgetful  of  the 
dying  fires,  or  will  stand  on  their  gaunt 
cliffs,  looking  blindly  over  a  barren,  men- 
acing sea  for  boats  which  may  never 
come  home,  which,  torn  into  driftwood, 
wash  on  some  far  shore,  to  be  used  at 
last  to  warm  some  alien  hearth. 

Yet  always  their  faces  are  turned  to 
the  sea.  The  babies  stumble  down  to 
the  beach  and  play  with  its  spoil.  The 
men  build  houses  that  face  it;  the  women 
carry  home  their  peat  burdens  along  a 
road  that  looks  down  at  the  water,  and 
the  old  die  with  the  sea  sounds  in  their 
ears.  It  is  this  wresting  of  the  warmth 
of  home  from  warring  seas  and  winds, 
this  determined  haven  in  the  heart  of 
danger,  this  resolute  facing  of  their 
friend  and  enemy,  the  sea,  and  this  con- 
quering of  her  because  of  pure  greatness 
of  spirit — it  is  this  kind  of  fortitude  that 
is  most  characteristic  of  the  Shetlanders. 


106 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


The  years  pass  them  by  softly,  marked 
only  by  births  and  deaths  and  weddings 
with  quaint  old  ceremonies.  The  bair- 
nies  have  bairnies  of  their  own,  and  these 
the  old  men  and  women,  forgetting  that 
they  are  grandchildren,  call  by  the 
names  of  their  own  boys  and  girls.  His- 
tory and  time  are  lost  in  the  hard  work 
and  the  peace  of  each  day's  living.  They 
forget  their  own  ages,  for  one  day  slips 
imperceptibly  into  another,  and  their 
years,  if  the  sea  does  not  demand  them, 
are  long  in  the  islands.  They  have  taken 
the  conquering  spirit  of  the  old  Norse 
that  still  lives  in  them,  and  have  turned 
it  toward  winning,  through  peril  and 
work  and  love,  that  greatest  of  treasures 
— home. 

Mere  living  in  the  Shetlands  is  such 
a  deep  and  difficult  thing  that  it  seems 
to  obscure  all  the  history  and  all  the 
varied  scenery  of  the  islands.  For  if 
there  are  not  here  the  many  antiquities 
of  the  Orkneys,  still  the  surface  trend 
of  life  has  been  the  same — the  outer  life. 
Here  dwelt  the  tiny  dark  people,  the 
Picts,  safe,  it  would  surely  seem,  in 
Ultima  Thule,  and  yet,  wary  little  folk, 
building  their  brochs  strong,  afraid  to 
trust  either  the  sea  or  the  stranger. 
Traces  of  them  are  to  be  found  in  many 
places,  especially  in  Mousa,  the  most 
perfect  broch  extant.  And  yet  even  tall, 
thick  Mousa  could  not  hold  back  the 
victorious  hordes  of  the  Norsemen.  The 
Picts  built  it  with  much  pain  to  protect 
them  for  ever,  but  it  became  one  day  the 
home  of  the  shipwrecked  Bjorn-Brynulf- 
son  and  the  beautiful  maiden  whom  he 
stole  from  Norway;  and  two  hundred 
years  later  it  became  the  refuge  of  that 
light  woman,  Margareta,  mother  of  Jarl 
Harald,  who  fled  there  with  her  lover, 
Jarl  Erland,  and  starved  and  thirsted 
and  still  loved  till  her  son  forgave  her. 

Mousa  since  then  has  given  of  its 
stores  throughout  the  centuries  to  hum- 
bler folk,  whose  love  has  been  sanctioned 
by  kirk  and  neighbors.  Now  it  stands, 
companioned  only  by  wind  and  sea,  a 
memorial  to  the  broken  hopes  of  the 
wild,  energetic  little  race  that  wrote  its 
history  so  sparingly  in  the  Shetlands. 
Perhaps  it  is  not  a  fancy  that  the  Picts 
have  written  their  history  now  and  then 
in  the  bodies  of  the  people.  For  some- 
times, among  the  strong  Norse  or  Scotch 


faces  and  sturdy  figures,  may  be  seen  a 
little,  dark,  glancing  man  or  woman, 
feverish  in  activity,  excitable,  moody, 
with  something  suspicious  and  unsatis- 
fied behind  small,  bright-brown  eyes;  a 
little,  restless  person,  his  ways  eddying 
like  seaweed  against  the  sturdy  purpose 
of  his  quiet  neighbors. 

There  are  a  few  symbols,  too,  of  the 
hopes  of  the  holy  men  of  God,  the 
Culdees,  those  dwellers  in  solitary  places, 
who  built  their  churches  on  Papa  Stour 
and  heathy  Yell  and  other  places,  to 
soften  the  fierce  hearts  of  the  Picts,  and 
who,  like  their  Orcadian  brothers,  were 
swept  into  nothingness  by  the  vikings, 
and  yet  were  not  quite  forgotten.  More 
than  one  faith  has  found  its  way  into  the 
island.  In  religion,  the  Shetlanders  have 
been  accused  of  sailing  with  the  run- 
ning stream,  and  yet  perhaps  they  did 
only  what  they  must.  To-day  there  is 
no  church  left  symbolic  of  the  Roman 
faith,  and  still  not  all  the  traces  of  the 
old  men  of  God  have  gone.  The  ruins  of 
the  Church  of  Our  Lady,  in  Weisdale, 
not  so  long  ago  were  still  visited  by  the 
Shetlanders,  who  made  offerings  and 
said  prayers  for  their  fondest  wishes. 
Here  came  sailors  for  good  weather,  fish- 
ermen for  full  nets,  farmers  for  good  har- 
vest, and  many  a  young  girl,  furtively  to 
pray  that  the  youth  of  her  heart  might 
turn  his  face  toward  her.  And  there  are 
old  women  in  Shetland  who  still  remem- 
ber the  New-Year's  even-song  with  its 
Catholic  flavor,  which  begins: 

Gude  new'r  even,  gude  new'r  night — St. 
Mary's  men  are  we; 
We're  come  here  to  crave  our  right — be- 
fore our  leddie. 
King  Henry,  he's  a-huntin'  gane — St.  Mary's 
men  are  we; 
And  ta'en  wi'  him  his  merry  young  men 
— before  our  leddie. 

As  with  Pict  relics,  whatever  the  an- 
cient church  has  left  in  the  Shetlands 
has  become  somehow  a  part  of  the 
hearth  life  of  the  islanders.  It  is  the 
same  with  the  rest  of  the  history.  When 
the  first  viking  prow  lifted  above  a 
Shetland  beach  the  land  was  not  Ultima 
Thule  to  these  stout  invaders,  but  the 
beginning  of  a  new  warring-ground,  a 
promise  of  a  new  Norse  kingdom,  where 
jarls  and  udallers  and  thralls  should 


A  SHETLAND  CROFTER'S  COTTAGE 


taste  of  the  strong  Norse  joys  of  piracy 
and  feasting  and  combat.  These  jarls 
were  ever  sailing,  and  when  they  did 
choose  an  occasional  haven  it  was  in 
Orkney.  The  Shetlands  gave  their  toll 
of  fighting-men,  but  for  the  rest,  the 
people — free  udallers  and  thralls — lived 
an  independent  life,  much  as  they  do  to- 
day, subject  only  to  the  winds  and  the 
sea.  Of  the  same  stock  as  the  Orkney 
people,  like  them  superstitious  and 
pagan-hearted  in  spite  of  the  Christian- 
ity afterward  foisted  on  them,  dauntless 
and  tenacious,  these  Shetlanders  were 
yet  somehow  different.  In  the  rim  of 
fierce  times  they  won  the  heritage  pe- 
culiar to  themselves:  a  largeness  of  soul 
in  the  face  of  danger,  a  freedom  of  spirit 
in  the  thraldom  of  outer  facts,  a  love 
for  their  own  friends  and  their  own 
home,  a  sense  of  hearth  safety  that  gave 
them  what  their  mere  history  could  not 
— a  spiritual  stamp.  This  even  the 
stranger  feels  to-day  as  he  stands  on  a 
lonely  mound  at  night  and  looks  at  the 
twinkling  lights  against  the  dark  hills, 
and  hears  the  clear  bark  of  the  sheep- 
dogs borne  far  on  the  sweeping  wind. 

What  they  remember  best  is  not  the 
history  of  the  islands  that  bear  the  great 
brochs,  or  the  standing  stones,  or  the 
faint  traces  of  a  Norse  palace;  and  it  is 
not  the  quarrels  of  the  sea-kings  and  the 
oppression  of  the  Stuart  earls.  What 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781.— 14 


has  written  itself  into  their  lives  and 
faces  are  the  tragedies  the  sea  has 
brought  to  their  little  toons.  Old  people 
speak  as  if  they  had  been  the  witnesses  of 
sea  sorrows  old  in  their  parents'  time. 
They  hold  many  a  tally  of  lives  lost 
singly  at  drawing  the  nets  or  herding 
the  sheep  or  gathering  the  eggs  of  the 
gulls.  But  deeper  than  these  go  the 
communistic  tragedies,  when  men  have 
given  up  their  lives  in  bitter  snow- 
storms, and  have  starved  during  bread 
and  potato  famines,  and,  above  all,  have 
gone  down  with  their  broken  boats  into 
the  sea.  The  Shetlanders  have  seen 
storms  that  took  a  hundred  men's  lives; 
they  have  seen  whalers  go  out  to  Davis 
Strait  and  never  come  back;  they  have 
seen  a  ship  of  death  come  in  from  the 
north  with  frozen  sailors,  who  could 
never  again  heed  cold  or  warmth. 

And  they  still  feel  the  sorrow  of  the 
last  great  storm  of  scarcely  thirty  years 
ago,  when  sixty-three  men  from  the  is- 
land of  Yell,  returning  from  the  haaf- 
fishing,  were  caught  and  capsized  in  the 
conflicting  waters  of  the  tide  ebbing  in 
a  northwesterly  direction  through  Yell 
Sound,  and  a  tremendous  sea  rushing 
in  the  opposite  direction.  One  would 
think  that  the  ancient  spirit  of  the  bards 
had  come  back  to  the  sailors  who  can 
tell  of  the  sight.  One  man  returned  first, 
climbing  up  the  road  to  let  his  wife  know 


MOUSA — A  RELIC  OF  THE  PICTS — STANDS  COMPANIONED  ONLY  BY  WIND  AND  SEA 


of  his  good  luck  in  the  fishing.  Then 
came  the  blackened  storm  sky;  the 
anxious  women  on  the  cliffs  looking  out 
on  those  specks  of  boats  laboring  in— 
boats  that  represented  such  a  freight  of 
love  and  hope.  Then  the  rushing  seas, 
and  the  boats  turning  over  before  the 
eyes  of  those  on  shore;  the  terrible  mo- 
ment of  silence,  with  no  crying  save  that 
of  the  curlews  and  stormy-petrels.  Then 
the  wild  tossing  in  the  air  of  widowed 
and  childless  arms  —  the  terrible  out- 
burst of  anguish.  And  lastly,  two  or 
three  boats  of  those  who  had  lingered, 
waiting  for  better  luck  in  fishing,  and 
who  came  creeping  in  when  the  death 
wave  had  subsided,  the  men  almost 
ashamed  of  their  own  safety,  when  every 
lonely  cottage  along  the  shores  of  North 
Yell  had  lost  its  breadwinner. 

Their  economic  life  has  necessarily 
affected  the  Shetlanders  far  more  than 
has  their  historic  past,  but  they  have 
come  out  of  it  spiritual  victors.  There 
are  classes  of  Sicilian,  Italian,  and  Rus- 
sian peasants,  and  perhaps  Jews,  who 
show  the  marks  of  ages  of  oppression 
and  long  hardships  in  traits  that  are 
petty  or  mean  or  grasping.  Not  so  the 
Shetlanders.  Living  has  always  been  a 
hard   business  with   them.     Like  the 


Orcadians,  they  suffered  from  the  op- 
pression of  the  Scotch.  Many  of  the 
free-born  udallers  indeed,  when  their 
rights  were  interfered  with,  went  back 
to  Norway,  but  more  remained,  paying 
unjust  rent,  tithes,  and  taxes  in  their 
hard-earned  meal,  malt,  butter,  and  oil, 
and  in  the  wadmall  cloth  their  women 
spun  by  the  hearth,  hoping  for  the  day — 
which  did  indeed  come  at  last — when 
their  patience  would  have  won  them 
back  the  right  again  to  be  free  folk  in 
their  little  toons. 

The  crofters  and  cotters  suffered,  too, 
from  the  tyranny  of  proprietors  and 
middlemen.  By  sea  and  land  they  were 
bound.  The  tenants  had  to  fish  for  their 
landlord,  and  were  not  allowed  to  sell 
to  any  other  person.  The  price  was  not 
fixed  till  after  the  fishing  was  done,  and 
was  dependent  on  the  returns  from  the 
cured  fish  at  the  market.  The  landlord 
kept  one  or  more  curing-places  and  a 
shop  or  booth  in  which  he  sold  household 
and  fishing  gear;  and  as  he  allowed  no 
other  shops  to  be  opened  on  his  estate, 
the  tenants  were  obliged  to  deal  with 
him.  Reckoning  was  made  once  a  year, 
credit  or  debit  being  brought  forward  to 
the  next  account,  so  that  little  money 
passed,  and  the  tenants  had  to  rely  en- 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  SHETLAND 


109 


tirely  on  the  good  faith  of  the  landlord. 
If  there  was  a  change  of  landlords,  they 
were  practically  bought  and  sold  with 
the  estate.  Some  of  the  proprietors  sub- 
let to  middlemen,  who  carried  on  a  sharp 
enough  system. 

Not  only  were  they  oppressed  by  their 
masters  at  home,  but  the  strangers  from 
other  lands — the  Dutch  and  the  Flem- 
ish— looked  upon  the  Shetlands  as  no 
man's  country  and,  in  spite  of  all  edicts, 
fished  lavishly  in  the  waters.  To  this 
day  the  strangers  come — Scotchmen, 
Swedes,  and  a  few  Dutch — and  with 
their  trawlers  and  steam-drifters  they  go 
farther  to  sea  and  bring  home  their  fish 
more  quickly,  so  that  the  poor  Shet- 
landers,  coming  in  with  their  eight  hun- 
dred sail-boats,  find  the  market  glutted. 
A  few  of  them  make  a  little  profit, 
though  not  enough  to  get  themselves 
steam-drifters;  most  of  them  scarcely 
more  than  pay  expenses.  The  white- 
fish  have  nearly  all  gone  and  only  the 
herring-fishing  remains;  and  while  that 
is  plentiful  now,  still  it  is  always  an  un- 
certain quantity. 

Of  late  years  the  crofter  law  and  the 
new  methods  of  farming  have  made  an 
improvement  in  the  condition  of  the 


Shetlanders.  No  longer  afraid  of  having 
rents  raised,  they  are  building  better 
houses.  They  are  hoping  more  and  more 
from-  their  little  harvests;  but  in  a  land 
where  there  are  not  a  hundred  trees, 
where  apples  will  not  grow,  where  goose- 
berries ripen  only  against  a  wall — and 
sparingly  at  that,  where  the  wheat  is 
poor  and  is  often  killed  by  sea-blasts, 
and  where  even  the  plentiful  crops,  pota- 
toes and  cabbage,  have  sometimes  failed 
— in  such  a  land  agriculture  could  never 
be  a  main  resource.  Except  for  the  scant 
harvests  and  the  knitting  of  the  women, 
the  sea  is  all  they  have.  Whatever  else 
they  have  tried  has  come  to  nothing. 
They  look  back  in  the  past  to  the  failure 
of  the  haaf-fishing;  to  the  failure  of  the 
flax  and  straw  plaiting  industries,  and 
of  the  chromatic  mining  and  kelp-burn- 
ing; and  their  lives,  as  always,  are  in 
fief  to  their  two  seas.  It  is  a  noble 
achievement  indeed  to  have  met  all  these 
defeats,  to  have  given  toll  of  men  to 
other  lands  and  to  the  seas;  to  face  a  life 
of  constant  hardship  and  toil,  and  yet  to 
have  won  from  it  all  the  perfection  of 
that  best  of  spiritual  wealth — hearth 
peace. 

Yet  for  all  this  unity  of  the  hearth 


THE  DRONGS  STANDING  OUT  IN  THE  SEA  LIKE  FIERCE  OLD  VIKINGS 


110 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


there  is  sufficient  variety  in  the  Shet- 
land's. Each  island  has  its  own  life — not 
only  the  twenty-eight  which  are  ten- 
anted, but  even  the  seventy  which  are 
uninhabited  except  by  the  sheep  or  the 
wild  gulls.  The  men  of  Yell  have  a  dif- 
ferent intonation  from  the  men  of  Unst. 
The  short,  eager  islanders  of  Muckle 
Roe  are  not  like  the  mighty  men  of  Fet- 
lar.  The  single  shepherd  who  keeps  his 
sheep  on  the  foam-swept  little  island  of 
Hascosay,  separated  by  weeks  of  storm 
from  any  other  human  being,  is  not 
like  the  man  who  sells  his  wares  in  the 
narrow  street  of  Lerwick  on  Mainland. 
When  they  are  examined  separately, 
each  island  offers  a  spiritual  coin 
stamped  with  its  own  peculiar  marking. 

All  the  west  coast  of  the  Shetlands  is 
magnificent  from  Sunberg  Head  and  Fit- 
full  Head  on  the  south,  between  which, 
in  certain  winds  and  tides,  vessels  are 
buffeted  about  for  days,  to  Ramna 
Stacks  on  the  north.  Curious  alterna- 
tions of  bright  light  and  deep  shade  cross 
the  voes  and  heads,  the  brochs  and 
caves,  the  Drongs,  standing  out  in  the 
sea  like  fierce  old  repelling  vikings;  the 
holm  of  Scraada;  and  the  Gate  of  Navir, 
ground  by  the  sea  out  of  solid  porphyry 
rock.  It  would  seem  as  if  God  had  made 
these  western  shores  with  a  hard  palm, 
and  yet  often,  between  the  triumphal 
arches  and  columns  of  rock,  shows  the 
green  breast  of  some  grazing-tract,  where 
the  strong  little  sheep  jump  over  the 
dikes  like  roe-deer.  This  coast  forms 
the  western  side  of  Mainland,  the  great 
island  of  Shetland,  fifty-five  miles  long, 
but  so  strangely  invaded  by  voes,  so 
irregularly  shaped,  that  no  spot  is  more 
than  three  miles  from  the  sea.  On  this 
island  the  people  are  more  in  contact 
with  other  civilizations,  for  here  come 
the  gentlemen  of  the  south  for  fishing; 
here  come  the  Scotch,  to  teach  and 
preach  and  make  money  through  shop- 
keeping  and  banking.  They  are  not 
much  beloved  by  the  Shetlanders,  who 
call  all  strangers  bound  for  gain  by  the 
term  Scotchmen.  Here  come  still  a  few 
of  the  Dutch  fishermen  with  their  curi- 
ous busses  looking  for  wealth  in  the 
waters  from  which  their  ancestors  took 
such  an  enormous  treasure.  Here,  too, 
come  Greenlanders,  Russians,  Finns, 
Norse,  Danes,  and  Swedes  from  the  fish- 


ing-fleets to  stop  at  Lerwick  and  weigh 
and  sell  their  crans  of  herring. 

Lerwick,  the  quaint,  gray  town,  with 
the  lower  tiers  of  houses  on  Commercial 
Street  standing  in  the  water — a  great 
convenience  in  the  old  days  of  smug- 
gling— is  always  full  of  a  plodding  kind 
of  industry.  The  houses  on  the  mile- 
long  street — of  every  age  and  size,  and 
set  at  every  angle — are  connected  to  the 
"new  toon"  above  by  narrow  up-hill 
lanes  and  closes  which  patter  to  the  echo- 
ing feet  of  children  running  to  school  or 
on  errands  for  "midder"  and  "daddy." 
There  was  a  time  when  the  few  prosper- 
ous proprietors  on  the  Mainland  had  a 
town  house  in  Lerwick,  and,  oddly 
enough,  a  country  house  almost  in  sight 
of  the  town  house.  But  now  such  people 
have  given  up  their  town  houses,  usually 
to  some  shopkeeper.  Times  are  chang- 
ing in  Lerwick,  though  the  old  town- 
crier  still  plods  about  with  his  bell,  and 
calls  aloud  at  intervals  notice  of  any 
meeting  of  importance  to  the  inhabi- 
tants. 

There  is  something  circumspect  and 
quiet  about  Lerwick,  until  those  summer 
nights  when  the  fishermen  come  in  and 
all  the  Northern  nations  meet  in  its  nar- 
row, twisting  street.  Then  the  shops 
flare  wide,  especially  the  refreshment 
shops.  The  flagstones  echo  to  the  beat- 
ing feet  of  the  sailors  walking  in  couples, 
or  else  as  many  abreast  as  the  walls  of 
opposing  houses  will  admit,  enjoying 
themselves,  but  with  little  talk  and  less 
laughter.  Among  these  are  a  few  blue- 
eyed  Shetland  girls,  Scotch  lassies,  and 
perhaps  a  few  from  Ireland.  The  rest 
of  them,  however,  are  working  till  mid- 
night in  the  great  curing-sheds.  The 
fishermen,  looking  to  the  east,  can  see 
the  sheds  glowing  crimson  from  the  great 
torchlights,  the  figures  of  the  girls  black 
against  the  glow,  as  they  bend  over  their 
work  of  gutting  the  herring.  Youth  may 
call  them  out  there  in  the  Lerwick 
streets,  but  duty's  note  is  higher.  They 
must  earn  their  bounty  money;  they 
must  make  their  eight  shillings  a  day  to 
carry  them  through  the  nine  winter 
months  when  there  is  no  money  to  be 
won  except  by  a  little  knitting.  So  while 
youth  and  love  call  outside,  they  work  in 
their  oilskin  blood-stained  aprons,  amid 
the  screaming  of  the  gulls  feeding  be- 


SHETLAND  CROFTERS  WINNOWING  CORN 


neath  the  windows  on  the  offal  thrown 
them. 

A  scene  less  populous,  but  not  less 
striking,  is  old  Christmas  Eve,  the  4th 
of  January,  when  the  children  and  young 
men  of  Lerwick  go  a-guizing.  The  chil- 
dren disguise  themselves  in  strange 
dresses,  parade  the  streets,  and  invade 
the  houses  and  shops  begging  for  offer- 
ings. At  one  o'clock  the  young  men, 
coarsely  clad,  drag  blazing  tar-barrels 
through  the  town,  blowing  horns  and 
cheering.  At  six  in  the  morning  they 
put  off  their  grimy  clothes,  and,  dressed 
in  fantastic  costumes,  go  in  pairs  or  in 
groups  to  wish  their  friends  the  compli- 
ments of  the  season. 

If  Lerwick  in  its  every-day  mood  is 
always  soberly  busy,  Scalloway  con- 
ceals its  industry  under  a  soft  and  mel- 
low<exterior.  With  Tingwall  Ridge  and 
the  Witches'  Hill  for  guardians,  it  broods 
under  the  shadow  of  Earl  Stuart's  old 
castle.  Its  little  gray  or  white  cottages 
are  primly  kept,  with  here  and  there  in 
the  windows  a  handsome  old  face  under 
a  white  "mutch."  Here  and  there  an 
attempt  has  been  made  at  shrub-grow- 
ing, while  one  high-walled  garden  has 
real  trees,  dwarfs  though  they  be.  Scal- 
loway comes  from  "scalla,"  a  house,  and 
"way,"  a  roadstead,  and  throughout  the 


years,  in  spite  of  its  curing-factories  and 
fishing,  it  has  preserved  its  old  homelike 
flavor. 

The  Mainland  has  many  little  indi- 
vidual places  of  its  own — such  as  the 
town  of  Sound,  which  supplies  Lerwick 
with  peats  and  milk,  and  which  has  the 
rhyme: 

Sound  was  sound  when  Lerwick  was  none, 
And  Sound  will  be  sound  when  Lerwick  is 
done. 

Then  there  is  Cunningsburg  in  the 
south,  where  live  the  wildest  people  in 
Shetland.  They  have  harsher  features, 
larger  muscles,  and  a  broader  build  than 
their  neighbors.  In  some  ways  they 
seem  more  like  Saxons  than  Scandina- 
vians, though  tradition  assigns  them 
Spanish  blood.  They  have  not  the  fea- 
tures, but  they  have  all  the  excitability 
of  the  Spaniard.  In  old  days  their  lack 
of  hospitality  was  a  scandal;  their  typ- 
ical remark  when  wishing  to  get  rid  of  a 
guest  was  to  say  in  Norse,  "It's  dark  in 
the  chimney,  but  it's  light  through  the 
heath;  it's  still  time  for  the  stranger  to 
be  gone."  And  all  up  and  down  the 
Mainland  on  the  shores  of  the  blue  voes, 
sheltered  in  the  arms  of  the  hills,  are 
tiny  little  toons  where  the  strong,  blue- 
eyed  folks  live  by  means  of  their  fishing 


A.  &  A.  J.  Abernethy,  Lerwick. 


THE  LIGHTHOUSE  AT  BRESSAY 


and  grazing,  measuring  time  from  April 
to  harvest  by  the  herring  season,  and 
from  Yule  to  the  slow  spring  by  the 
haddock-fishing;  their  greatest  adven- 
ture, the  arrival  of  a  "Southern"  to  fish 
or  sketch,  their  own  feet  never  taking 
them  farther  than  Lerwick;  and  the 
happiest  faces  are  those  of  the  men  who 
have  grown  old  and  fish  no  longer,  and  of 
their  wives,  from  whom  is  taken  now 
half  the  fear  of  the  sea. 

On  the  east,  where  the  islands  climb 
to  the  North  Sea,  is  quiet,  soft-cheeked 
Bressay,  and  the  bonny  isle  of  Whalsay, 
where  the  women  still  burn  kelp  while 
the  men  are  at  deep-sea  fishing.  Half- 
way up  and  well  to  the  east  are  the  Out 
Skerries,  warded  by  the  crying  cormo- 
rants. Just  a  few  souls  live  here,  but  the 
islands  are  animated  enough  in  the  fish- 
ing season.  They  are  not  without  their 
past  history  of  battles  and  wrecks,  chests 
of  gold,  and  casks  of  liquor.  The  three 
important  northern  islands  are  Fetlar, 
Yell,  and  Unst.  Fetlar,  which  means 
the  fertile  isle,  raises  its  long,  green  back 
gently  out  of  the  waters,  giving  pastur- 


age to  sheep,  for  which  many  of  the 
crofters  have  been  cleared  away,  and 
pasturage  also  to  the  Fetlar  ponies,  bred 
from  a  famous  Arabian  war-horse  and  a 
Shetland  pony.  Here,  too,  live  a  few 
great-limbed,  gentle-voiced  crofters  and 
fishers — kindly,  curious  people;  sociable, 
too,  who  look  eagerly  for  the  bi-weekly 
steamboat,  and  sail  over  often,  when  the 
weather  permits,  to  visit  their  neighbors 
on  Yell. 

Yell,  next  in  size  to  Mainland,  twenty 
miles  long  and  six  or  eight  miles  broad, 
means  the  barren  island.  Yet  here  is 
the  richest  peat  in  the  Shetlands,  and 
here  a  patient,  constant  industry,  not 
surpassed  in  any  of  the  islands.  Like 
all  the  other  Shetlands,  Yell  has  had 
roads  only  for  one  hundred  years,  and 
many  of  its  heathy  hills  seem  almost 
unbroken  even  by  a  path.  The  grazing 
sheep  on  the  hills  and  moorlands,  the 
shepherd  plodding  against  the  wind  with 
his  sheep-dog  at  his  heels,  the  long  cry 
of  the  gulls,  and  a  silence  that  there  are 
hardly  enough  people  to  break,  all  give 
Yell  an  effect  of  sadness  and  loneliness. 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  SHETLAND 


113 


Yet  here,  too,  are  little  toons  and  kindly 
folk,  who  are  not  limited  by  their  week- 
days and  Sundays,  but  who  give  one  the 
sense  always  of  fitness  for  the  big  things 
of  the  world,  whether  they  are  called  to 
them  or  not. 

The  most  northern  of  the  islands  is 
Unst,  with  its  bold  peak  and  chain  of 
lochs  and  its  stretches  of  good  pastures. 
Unst  was  beloved  of  the  Norsemen;  it 
was  here  they  first  landed,  and  even  be- 
fore that  the  Picts  had  built  there 
strange  stone  circles,  afterward  used  as 
the  judging-places  of  the  Norsemen. 
Nor  was  Unst  neglected  by  the  Stuarts, 
who  left  the  fragments  of  a  feudal  castle. 
Here,  too,  are  traces  of  the  Christian 
priests  in  many  little  ruined  Catholic 
chapels.  But  the  Unst  people  have  al- 
ways remained  tranquil  among  their 
own  history  and  indifferent  to  the  wars 
of  Europe  which  have  raged  around 
them.  Their  greatest  pride  is  that  the 
island  once  gave  a  principal  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  Glasgow,  and  they  are  proud 
too  of  their  lighthouse,  set  on  that  con- 
ical rock  of  Muckle  Flugga,  the  most 
northerly  part  of  the  king's  dominion, 
its  face  toward  the  mysterious  pole,  its 
strong  base  beaten  by  the  thunderings  of 
the  North  Sea. 

There  are  many  other  islands  -some 


without  people,  storm  -  swept  little 
places,  perhaps  only  large  enough  to 
graze  half  a  dozen  sheep;  some  rocky 
and  gaunt,  haunted  by  cormorants  and 
skuas;  some  gracious  and  welcoming, 
even  when  they  have  nothing  except 
heath  to  give.  But  there  are  three,  none 
of  them  more  than  two  miles  square, 
which  preserve  their  own  peculiar  lives 
almost  untouched  by  the  changes  which 
have  been  going  on  in  the  other  islands. 

Fair  Island,  twenty-five  miles  south  of 
all  the  other  Shetlands,  has  had  a  strange 
enough  pageantry  passing  over  its  rocky 
surface.  For  not  only  was  it  the  home 
of  the  Picts,  and  then  of  the  Norse; 
and  for  the  Norse,  the  signal  beacon  to 
give  warning  of  the  coming  of  the  hostile 
sail;  besides  that,  it  supplied  a  chapter 
in  the  romance  of  the  Spanish  Armada. 
For  here  was  wrecked  the  ship  of  Don 
Gomez  de  Medina,  and  that  noble  and 
his  men  were  for  a  time  most  generously 
entertained  by  the  islanders.  But  time 
passed,  the  Spaniards  stayed,  the  meal 
and  the  mutton  diminished.  Then  the 
islanders,  wrapped  in  by  the  wild  storms, 
unable  to  get  to  any  other  island,  and 
fearful  of  famine,  hid  their  food.  The 
forced  guests  grew  weak,  many  died  of 
starvation,  and  some,  it  is  said,  were 
pushed  over  the  tall  clifFs  into  the  sea. 


A.  &  A.  J.  Abernethy,  Lerwick. 

LERWICK — A  O.UAINT,  GRAY  TOWN  WHERE  ALL  THE  NORTHERN  NATIONS  MEET 


PAPA  STOUR — AN  ISLAND  RICH  IN  LEGEND  OF  NORSE  DAYS 


At  last  one  Andrew  Umphrey  took  the 
Spaniards  away  in  a  ship,  and  since  that 
day  the  name  of  Umphrey  has  been 
powerful  in  the  Shetlands.  The  Fair 
Island  people  show  plain  traces  of  Span- 
ish blood,  but  they  resent  the  suspicion 
of  it,  saying  that  the  Spaniards  were 
isolated  when  on  the  island.  It  is  hard 
to  conceive  how  isolation  could  well  be 
possible  on  an  island  two  miles  square; 
besides,  the  Fair  Island  people  do  not 
deny  that  the  strange  patterns  and  the 
lichen  dyeing  of  the  stockings  and  caps 
and  shawls  their  women  knit  were  taught 
them  by  the  Spaniards,  and  indeed  the 
same  sort  of  handicraft  is  found  to  this 
day  in  country  places  of  Spain. 

The  Fair-Islanders  were  great  smug- 
glers in  the  old  days,  and  they  are  still 
good  bargainers.  They  are  very  intel- 
ligent, seeming  to  know  instinctively 
how  to  read;  and  not  so  very  long  ago 
they  would  follow  the  mail-steamers  in 
their  light  canoe-shaped  boats,  which 
none  but  themselves  can  manage,  beg- 
ging for  newspapers  and  books.  One  of 
their  terrors  is  of  infectious  disease;  an- 
other is  of  the  dog-tax  man,  against 


whose  coming  they  are  said  to  hang  and 
drown  their  dogs;  another  is  of  emigra- 
tion, for  they  love  Fair  Isle.  Yet  emi- 
grate they  must;  about  forty-five  years 
ago  a  hundred  of  them  went,  unable 
longer  to  coax  a  living  from  their  bare 
rock.  Their  greatest  joy  is  the  occa- 
sional visits  of  the  minister,  more  fre- 
quent now  than  in  the  old  days,  when 
he  arrived  but  once  in  about  two  years 
to  marry  and  christen.  He  preaches 
every  day  of  his  stay,  and  they  prolong 
his  visit  on  every  possible  pretext,  using, 
when  all  else  fails,  the  solemn  prophecy 
of  a  storm. 

Most  solitary  of  all  the  Shetlands  is 
gaunt  Foula,  the  outpost,  eighteen  miles 
to  the  west  of  the  other  islands,  her 
farther  coast  lifted  into  cliffs  higher  than 
any  hill  on  the  British  Isles — so  high 
that  one  standing  at  the  top  cannot  hear 
the  waves  below.  These  magnificent 
crags  break  into  five  conical  peaks,  and 
then,  running  down  to  the  eastern  half 
of  the  island,  they  stretch  into  a  plain 
almost  level,  on  which  the  two-hundred- 
odd  inhabitants  live.  Like  the  Fair  Isle 
people,  they  are  intelligent  and  religious 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  SHETLAND 


115 


and  hospitable,  and  sober  now,  though 
in  the  old  days  they  were  merry  and 
wild.  They  still  sing  the  "Foula  Reel," 
of  which  the  last  stanza  runs: 

Now  for  a  light  and  a  pot  of  good  beer — 
up  wi't 

Lightfoot,  link  it  awa'  boys. 
We'll  drink  a  gude  fishing  against  the  next 
year, 

And  the  Shaalds  [shoals]  will  pay  for 
it  a',  boys. 
The  Shaalds  of  Foula,  [etc.]. 

They  kept  the  Norse  language  and 
Scandinavian  songs  and  old  customs 
longer  than  any  of  the  other  islanders. 
To  this  day  they  call  the  southernmost 
coast  on  the  island  Norther  (Norse) 
House,  and  say  that  there  the  kings  of 
Scotland  used  to  send  their  sons  to  learn 
Norse.  They  are  not  so  poor  as  the  Fair- 
Islanders,  partly  because  very  few  chil- 
dren are  born  to  them,  and  partly  be- 
cause the  pasturage  and  fishing  are 
better.  They  still  lower  themselves  by 
ropes  over  the  dizzy  cliffs  to  gather 
young  gulls  and  eggs  for  cooking,  though 
this  practice  is  less  common  than  it  was 
in  the  days  when  one  of  these  bird- 
hunters  said,  "My  gutcher  [grandfather] 
guid  before,  my  father  guid  before,  and  I 
must  expect  to  go  over  the  Sneug,  too." 

Another  island  with  its  own  character- 
istics is  Papa  Stour,  the  great  island 
of  the  priests,  little  enough  in  surface. 
Here  the  Atlantic  has  beaten  the  west 
coast  into  strange  voes,  tall,  weird  stacks, 
and  mysterious  caves,  where  the  seals 
or  selkies  hide,  in  the  oldest  days  thought 
to  be  mermen  and  mermaidens,  or 
drowned  sailors  come  back  to  a  kind  of 
earth  life  under  a  sealskin.  Here,  as  in 
Foula,  the  Norse  language  was  slow  to 
die,  and  Norse  customs  and  strange  su- 
perstitions still  linger.  Only  a  few  years 
ago  the  men  stopped  giving  the  sword- 
dance  of  winter  evenings,  and  they  still 
speak  of  the  strange,  weird  monsters 
which  covered  Papa  Stour  about  a  hun- 
dred years  ago — monsters  so  numerous 
and  so  menacing  that  no  one  dared  to 
go  beyond  the  town  dike  after  twelve 
o'clock  noon.  Malicious  monsters,  too, 
for  at  Yule-time  and  weddings  they 
would  collect  in  such  numbers  as  to 
check  the  progress  of  the  strongest  men, 
and  sometimes  bruise  and  even  kill 
them.     Once  some  fishermen  tried  to 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781.— 15 


cross  the  mile-wide  strait  leading  to  the 
Mainland,  when  these  terrible  creatures 
surrounded  the  boat  and  blocked  the 
way,  and  all  but  drowned  the  venturers. 
It  is  not  long  since  the  beadle  was  paid 
a  fee  to  "tell"  the  sparrows  out  of  the 
crops,  and  used  to  stride  up  and  down 
ringing  his  bell  and  crying,  "Coo-osh, 
woo-osh,  awa'  fra'  this  toon  and  never 
come  again." 

A  little  bit  of  an  island,  Papa  Stour, 
offering  a  foothold  to  just  a  few  people, 
who  have  to  bring  their  peat  and  much 
of  their  food  from  Mainland,  and  yet 
happiness  and  tragedy  go  on  quietly  here 
through  the  years.  Not  long  ago  an  old 
gentlewoman  died;  still  and  sad-faced 
she  was,  with  a  seaward  heart.  For  long 
years  ago  great  preparations  were  being 
made  for  her  wedding  on  little  Papa 
Stour;  beacon-fires  were  lighted,  and  an 
ox  roasted  whole,  and  out  on  the  sea 
her  lover's  ship  was  coming  closer  and 
closer.  Then  it,  too,  showed  a  fiery 
beacon;  somehow  it  burned,  a  few  miles 
from  home.  And  when  the  old  woman 
was  dying  she  gave  her  niece  all  her  old 
love-letters,  which  in  the  long  years  she 
had  been  able  neither  to  read  nor  to  part 
with,  and  she  bade  the  girl  put  them 
into  the  fire.  So  they  went  into  nothing- 
ness in  the  red  core  of  the  peat,  and  the 
old,  faithful  soul — perhaps  that  went  to 
some  place  where  the  letters  came  back 
in  living  words  that  eternity  would  not 
alter. 

On  all  the  islands  the  houses  have  a 
solid  earth-bound  look — the  sea  shall  not 
take  them.  They  are  built  of  gray  stone, 
sometimes  whitewashed.  As  in  the  Ork- 
neys, in  some  places  the  old  style  still 
persists,  where  one  door  answers  for  man 
and  beast.  Still  to  be  found  are  the 
ben,  the  best  room,  where  the  parents 
sleep,  and  the  but,  with  its  hearth,  its 
box  beds,  chairs  with  straw  backs,  and 
the  spinning-wheels,  always  ready  to 
sing  that  song  of  the  busy  Shetland 
woman.  Tall,  black  ricks  of  peat  flank 
or  front  these  little  cottages,  not  only 
guarding  against  the  autumn  blast,  but 
suggesting  the  warmth  and  comfort  of 
the  hearth.  In  the  back,  the  sheds  and 
tiny  barns  and  hen-houses  are  made  of 
the  hulks  of  old  boats,  cut  in  two,  and 
sometimes  pieced  out  with  an  extension 
of  wood  or  stone.   The  boats,  the  peats, 


116 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  little,  huddling  stone  cottage  with  its 
bit  of  harvest  land — all  this  gives  in  a 
little  space  the  whole  reading  of  the  sim- 
ple, concentrated  life  of  the  Shetlanders. 

From  September  till  June  life  is  very 
uneventful.  The  fisherman  crofter  stays 
on  shore  cutting  and  drying  his  year's 
supply  of  peat,  sowing  and  reaping  his 
scanty  harvest.  He  may  even  make 
shoes,  though  they  may  be  only  the 
cowskin  ravelins  still  worn  by  old- 
fashioned  folks;  he  may  be  quite  as  skil- 
ful at  carpentry  as  he  is  at  fishing  and 
farming;  undoubtedly  he  can  make  the 
straw  kyshies  and  creels  useful  for  a 
dozen  purposes.  Perhaps,  if  he  belongs 
to  the  naval-reserve  men,  he  puts  in  a 
month  or  two  of  drill  at  Lerwick.  The 
summer  glory  of  greens,  the  rosy  heath- 
er, purple  in  shadows,  the  clear  amber 
of  the  little  burns,  have  all  darkened 
under  the  barren  autumn  and  the  dreary 
winter.  It  is,  as  the  Shetlander  says, 
"coorse  weather."  The  snow  drifts 
across  the  tawny  side  of  Hascosay  and 
rests  on  the  heathy  crowns  of  Yell.  Then 
of  a  sudden  comes  the  spring  fishing  sea- 
son, when  some  of  the  old  women  put 
iron  in  the  boats  to  keep  away  witches, 
and  the  old-fashioned  fisherman  avoids 
people  who  may  bring  him  bad  luck. 
Strange  crafts  are  in  the  voes,  brown- 
sailed  boats  and  hooting  steam-drifters. 
The  landmen  of  Lerwick,  who  half 
starve  during  the  winter,  depending 
only  on  their  casual  unskilled  labor,  have 
now  plenty  to  do.  The  women  sell  their 
knitted  work,  the  delicate  shawls  that 
could  almost  be  drawn  through  a  finger- 
ring,  and  the  thick  stockings.  The  Shet- 
lands  are  in  activity,  and  yet  not  all  the 
Shetlands.  There  are  still  spots  where 
the  peace  is  perfect.  When  the  long 
days  come,  the  colors  lie  soft  on  the  hills, 
and  the  day  passes  so  lightly  that  it 
seems  not  to  pass  at  all.  The  sun  sets, 
but  there  is  still  a  mellow,  luminous, 
silvery  light  glassing  the  lochs;  the  sol- 
emn twilight  stillness  of  midnight  is  in- 
vaded by  the  gray  light  of  morning,  and 
birds  sing  here  and  there,  not  knowing 
that  the  hours  belong  to  night.  Be- 
tween their  voices  the  silence  is  so  deep 
that  the  splash  seems  loud  of  a  solitary 
sea-bird  diving  for  fish.  He  takes  his 
spoil  and  rests  in  the  churchyard  on 
the  grave  of  some  child  of  the  sea-kings 


marked  by  an  old  stone,  hewn  perhaps  a 
thousand  years  ago. 

Inside  each  little  house,  blackened 
by  peat  smoke,  are  many  people:  old 
grandparents,  father  and  mother,  per- 
haps maiden  aunts,  and  children  that 
grow  like  the  corn.  The  old  grand- 
mother and  mother,  summer  and  winter, 
are  always  busy  with  the  wool  which 
they  have  pulled  from  the  sheep.  They 
knit  as  they  stand  in  the  doorway,  per- 
haps even  as  they  walk  homeward,  each 
with  a  creel  of  peat  on  her  back.  These 
Shetland  women  take  life  very  seriously. 
Strangely  enough,  they  are  nearly  al- 
ways a  few  years  older  than  their  hus- 
bands. They  are  always  able  to  hold 
the  faith  of  their  men,  as  sweethearts 
and  as  husbands.  A  sailor  may  spend 
seven  years  on  the  deep  seas  with 
never  a  sight  of  home,  but  at  the 
end  of  that  time  he  goes  back  to  his 
island  betrothed,  sure  to  find  her  faith- 
fully waiting  for  him. 

In  the  winter  the  old  grandmother  sits 
with  her  knitting  in  the  seat  nearest  the 
fire,  between  the  box  bed  and  the  chest. 
In  this  chest  is  more  than  one  old- 
fashioned  treasure — perhaps  the  goat- 
skin coat  and  trousers  her  father  wore 
when  he  was  .fishing  before  the  days  of 
oilskin.  Possibly,  too,  there  is  a  store 
of  gold,  for  some  of  the  old  people  have 
not  yet  learned  to  trust  the  banks. 
There  may  even  be  some  of  the  old 
Charles  I.  and  Charles  II.  coins,  which 
the  Shetlanders  used  to  believe  were  a 
cure  for  king's  evil. 

Not  far  away  are  the  bairnies.  Per- 
haps they  have  some  little  beast  with 
them,  for  the  Shetlanders  are  fond  of 
pet  animals.  Even  seals  and  wild  swans 
and  gulls  have  occasionally  been  domes- 
ticated. They  are  strong  and  rosy  from 
draughts  of  milk  given  by  their  Shetland 
cow,  little  and  badly  fed,  but  somehow 
generous.  Perhaps  they  have  just  come 
from  a  large  trough  of  piltocks,  put  on 
the  table  for  the  common  weal.  These 
little  children  often  answer  to  double 
names,  such  as  Kirssie-Mally,  Osla- 
Keetie,  Maggie-Baabie,  Willie-Ned,  and 
Eric-Bartle  —  comfortable  chimney-cor- 
ner names.  They  gather  about  their 
grandmother's  knees,  and  she  tells  them 
old  stories  of  Odin's  ravens,  the  dwarfs, 
and  the  trows,  all  put  by  the  Catholics 


THE  ISLANDS  OF  SHETLAND 


117 


in  the  lists  of  the  fallen  angels.  Perhaps 
she  tells  them  of  the  wizard  Leugie, 
who  could  draw  fish  out  of  the  water, 
all  roasted  by  his  master,  the  devil;  and 
so  Leugie  was  burned  on  Scalloway  Hill. 
Then  there  is  the  story  of  the  old  witch 
who  caused  a  great  wreck  of  men  by  her 
evil  practices.  She  went  out  when  the 
moon  was  pale  and  the  wind  was  moan- 
ing, and  she  touched  a  rag  to  a  stone, 
and  said: 

"I  knock  this  rag  upon  this  stane, 
To  raise  the  wind  in  the  devil's  name. 
It  shall  not  lie  till  I  please  again." 

The  grandmother  is  supposed  not  to 
believe  in  witches  any  more,  but  for  all 
that  she  keeps  an  old  razor  in  the  byre 
to  ward  ofF  the  dark  powers;  and  when 
one  of  the  bairnies  has  been  hurt  by 
the  fire  she  breathes  three  times  on  the 
burned  place,  and  she  murmurs: 

"Here  come  I  to  cure  a  burnt  sore; 
If  the  dead  knew  what  the  living  endure, 
The  burnt  sore  would  burn  no  more." 

The  bairnies  sometimes  hear  of  the 
legend  of  how  their  fierce  forefathers, 
the  Norsemen,  put  to  death  the  last  of 
the  Picts,  a  father  and  son,  who  would 
not  tell  them  the  secret  of  brewing  ale 
out  of  heather.  Or  if  these  stories  are 
too  wild  for  the  "peerie"  ones,  she  will 
tell  of  the  brownies  who  do  housework, 
and  make  roads  for  people,  and  of  the 
"guid  folk" — fairies  who  live  in  the  little 
mounds  along  the  seashore. 

The  Shetland  children  are  very  at- 
tractive, with  their  steady,  gentle,  brown 
eyes  and  soft  Northern  speech,  its  in- 
tonation and  dialect  much  more  pro- 
nounced, much  less  open  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  English  ear,  than  the 
speech  of  the  Orcadians.  Indeed,  there 
is  something  of  the  friendliness  of  child- 
hood in  the  talk  of  these  islanders;  their 
"du's"  and  "dee's"  have  almost  an  af- 
fectionate sound.  They  pronounce  their 
"k's"  strongly,  as  in  knuckle;  they  say 
"dat"  for  "that,"  and  "rink"  for 
"think,"  and  "da"  for  "the,"  and 
"wir"  for  "our,"  and  they  have  many 
other  peculiarities  of  speech,  which  even 
a  knowledge  of  the  Scotch  tongue  would 


not  illuminate.  But  no  illumination  is 
needed  for  the  moment  when  they  put 
by  their  reserve  and  give  the  full  hos- 
pitality of  their  hearts  to  the  stranger. 
"Blythe  to  see  dee,"  they  say,  and  they 
are  ready  to  "follow,"  which  means  con- 
duct one  to  all  their  places  of  beauty. 

This  hospitality  prevails,  whatever 
their  rank;  for  democratic  though  the 
Shetlanders  are,  among  them  social  dis- 
tinctions do  hold;  there  are  a  few  old 
families  who  receive  in  a  way  more  defer- 
ence than  they  would  in  a  less  isolated 
community.  Even  such  a  family  has 
a  rare,  quaint  Shetland  flavor.  The 
stranger  goes  through  a  little  gate  and 
through  an  old  doorway  and  up  the 
stairs  to  a  mellow  living-room,  where  the 
peat  fire  on  the  hearth  flickers  a  rose 
glow  upon  the  surfaces  of  old  furniture. 
Tea  is  served  from  ancient  silver;  gentle 
Shetland  voices  tell  of  the  old,  strange 
customs  of  the  islands,  and  they  read 
one  Shetland  poetry,  tender  with  longing 
for  the  sea-bound  islands  and  the  home- 
folk.  The  lonely  wind  outside  seems  to 
croon  in  with  the  voices,  and  it  all  forms 
part  of  an  indestructible  impression,  that 
will  come  back  curiously  and  poignant- 
ly to  the  stranger  when  far  away  in 
crowded  and  less-expressive  lands. 

A  gentle,  noble  people  these  grave 
Shetlanders,  making  themselves  such  a 
victorious  world  among  their  stern  con- 
ditions of  life.  When  one  of  them  stands 
before  his  own  door,  the  lonely  light- 
houses, the  crying  wind,  the  spindrift 
lashing  in  from  the  surging  seas — all  are 
absorbed  in  the  simple  feeling  of  home. 
The  very  church-bells,  sounding  bravely 
on  the  wind,  suggest  the  solid  earth  and 
the  friendly  faces  of  men.  The  wild 
gulls  feed  in  the  meadows,  and  some  of 
them,  trusting  this  spirit  of  home,  come 
to  the  threshold,  where  little  children 
feed  them  and  call  them  by  old  fairy 
names.  But  when  the  stranger  is  de- 
parting, when  the  hospitable  Shetlanders 
grow  small  on  their  shores,  then  the 
rocky  or  heath-covered  islands  suddenly 
turn  solitary  again,  stark  in  their  wild 
seas,  with  the  foam  catching  at  their 
feet.  The  wind  charges,  trumpeting, 
and  against  the  cliffs  the  sea-birds  circle, 
crying. 


A  Hypothetical  Case 


BY  NORM A N  DUNCAN 


HEN  the  sloop  was 
made  shipshape  for  the 
night  it  was  coming  on 
dusk.  The  sun  had  al- 
ready half  fallen  into 
the  sea.  A  bank  of 
cloud,  lying  low  and 
sluggish  on  the  horizon,  was  slashed,  as 
with  a  knife,  and  the  wound  showed  red 
as  blood,  with  a  pool  of  crimson  color  ooz- 
ing thickly  over  the  sea  from  the  wide, 
ominous  gash.  What  happened  there- 
after on  the  white  beach  of  Cocoanut 
Key  came  swiftly  to  pass.  It  was  inev- 
itable. Nothing  portended  it;  nobody 
was  to  blame.  Involved  in  the  sudden 
event  were  three  boys  of  Key  West  and 
the  ill-starred  hermit  of  Hapless.  The 
boys  were  joyous  youngsters,  of  good 
quality,  returning  from  a  free-coursed 
lark  in  the  main-shore  glades.  They  were 
charming  fellows:  they  were  well  born, 
well  bred,  well  grown,  well-to-do.  But 
the  hermit  was  a  nigger. 

Here  in  the  lee  of  Cocoanut  was  safe 
harbor  for  the  John  Keats.  She  had 
beaten  to  anchorage  from  the  windy, 
yellow  weather  of  that  day;  and  she  lay, 
now,  for  the  night,  in  black  water,  riding 
at  ease  off  a  crescent  of  coral  sand — a 
grove  of  wind-worn  cocoanut  palms  be- 
yond, their  long  fronds  tossing,  through 
all  the  subsequent  comedy,  in  a  slow- 
failing  breeze  from  the  Florida  Straits. 
Presently  the  hovering  bank  of  black 
cloud  vanished  in  the  train  of  the  sun; 
night  washed  the  sky  clean  of  its  red 
stain;  the  fat  moon  peeped  grinning 
over  the  palms  and  adventured  toward 
a  higher  vantage,  from  which,  inquisi- 
tive and  bold,  it  stared  full  upon  the 
beach  of  Cocoanut  Key,  cognizant  of 
all  that  occurred,  but  quite  incapable 
of  giving  witness. 

By  this  time  the  three  boys  of  Key 
West  were  sprawled  on  the  sand.  A 
boisterous  chatter  had  changed  in  the 
sentimental  light  to  shy  disclosures  of 
aspiration  —  half-uttered,  awkward,  se- 


cluded with  low  laughter  and  modest 
protests  of  self-contempt.  It  was  genu- 
ine aspiration,  for  all  that — high,  unsel- 
fish, significant,  bubbling  into  bashful 
confession  from  the  deepest  wells  of 
Youth.  A  rare  hour:  in  its  unabashed 
comradeship — in  its  delicate  communion 
— it  lingers,  cherished,  with  Mercer  to 
this  present:  the  wind  blowing  cool  over- 
head, the  swish  of  palms,  the  crescent  of 
gleaming  beach,  the  lapping  water,  the 
filmy  craft  at  anchor,  the  shy  young 
confidences. 

Hapless  Key  lies  ofF  Cocoanut.  Be- 
tween, by  day,  is  a  shallow  channel  of 
beryl  and  brown,  sun-flashed.  It  boils 
in  smart  winds,  and  had  been  whipped 
white  that  day;  but  in  the  failing  south- 
erly breeze  of  the  night  it  lay  flat  and 
gray  under  the  moon.  Hapless  is  a  poor 
key — low,  wind-swept,  meager,  out  of 
the  way.  It  is  not  regarded.  It  bakes 
brown  in  summer  weather;  in  winter 
the  northers  rake  it.  The  grass  grows 
rank  from  stony  soil;  a  single  decrepit 
tree — sparse-leafed  and  blown  to  rags — 
spites  the  gales;  the  receding  tide  un- 
covers great  reaches  of  slime  and  ooze. 
And  now  from  Hapless  Key  a  boat  put 
off  toward  Cocoanut.  It  dawdled  across; 
it  hesitated,  ventured,  paused,  came 
diffidently  into  the  cove  and  nosed 
ashore  on  the  crescent  of  beach. 

The  occupant  was  loath  to  pursue  his 
errand.  He  idled  over  the  business  of 
stranding  the  boat — glancing  the  while 
covertly  toward  the  Key  West  boys.  At 
last,  however,  he  advanced,  but  with 
reluctant  steps.  His  approach  was  curi- 
ously observed  by  the  boys. 

"It's  a  nigger,"  Mercer  drawled. 

In  respect  to  the  strangers  of  those 
places,  the  matter  of  color  must  first 
of  all  be  determined.  White  or  black? 
It  is  the  starting-point.  All  things  pro- 
ceed thereafter.  This  man  was  black — 
very  black. 

"A  big  brute!" 

The  youngest  boy  sat  up  in  excite- 


A  HYPOTHETICAL  CASE 


119 


ment.    "What's  that  little  key  over 
there?"  he  wanted  to  know. 
"Hapless." 

"If  that's  Hapless,"  said  the  young- 
est boy,  "there's  a  hermit  living  there." 
"It  is  Hapless." 

"Then  here  comes  the  Hermit  of  Hap- 
less!" 

A  hermit?  The  thing  suggested  some 
romantic  past.  It  engaged  the  boys  in 
vastly  more  interested  observation  of 
the  slinking  figure. 

"What's  he  a  hermit  for?"  Mercer  in- 
quired. 

"Happened  to  see  another  nigger  get 
lynched." 

"What  did  they  lynch  the  other  nigger 
for?" 

"Father  wouldn't  tell  me." 

"I  reckon  you  didn't  need  to  be  told," 
Mercer  drawled,  quickly  concerned  for 
the  lad.  Mercer  was  the  elder — a  sound 
elder  companion. 

"No,"  the  youngest  boy  answered, 
abashed. 

"It  must  have  scared  this  nigger," 
Mercer  muttered,  between  a  laugh  and  a 
sigh,  his  eyes  kindling  with  sympathy. 
"It  was  mighty  tough."  He  laughed 
bitterly — with  a  little  shake  of  the  head. 
That  was  Mercer's  way;  he  was  fond 
of  niggers. 

"It  did  scare  him.  That's  why  he's  a 
hermit." 

"I  call  him  a  trashy  nigger,"  the  third 
boy  objected.  "They  weren't  after  him, 
were  they?" 

"Oh,  he  isn't  a  trashy  nigger,"  the 
youngest  lad  protested,  warmly.  "No, 
they  weren't  after  him.  He  hadn't  done 
anything.  He  just  happened  to  be  there. 
But  it  isn't  fair  to  call  him  trashy. 
Why,"  the  youngest  boy  exclaimed,  hor- 
rified, "it  was  enough  to  scare  anybody! 
They  burned  that  nigger  alive." 

It  was  an  academic  question. 
"Well — "  the  third  boy  began  to  argue. 

"Father  told  me  a  good  deal  about 
it,"  the  youngest  boy  ran  on.  "Father 
says  it  wasn't  the  lynching  that  scared 
this  nigger  so  much  as  the  mistake." 

"What  mistake?" 

"Father  says  they  got  the  wrong 
nigger." 

A  thing  like  this  presents  its  humorous 
aspect  to  almost  every  mind.  The  third 
boy  almost  chuckled.    But  he  was  not 


a  heartless  boy;  he  had  a  lively  sense  of 
humor — that  was  all. 

"Anyhow,"  the  youngest  boy  con- 
cluded, "this  nigger  has  lived  alone  on 
Hapless  ever  since." 

"  But  why?" 

"He's  almighty  shy  of  white  folks." 

All  this  time  the  nigger  was  advanc- 
ing. A  big  nigger,  truly.  It  was,  how- 
ever, a  timid  approach.  The  nigger  was 
wary.  He  swerved  off  in  a  wide  arc  to 
the  edge  of  the  underbrush  and  cocoanut 
palms.  This  was  a  cautious  design  to 
pass  at  the  maximum  distance.  Under 
the  steady,  superior  scrutiny  of  the  boys 
he  began  to  fidget  uneasily.  He  was 
much  like  a  masterless  dog  slinking  past. 
A  dog  is  by  turns  abased,  ingratiating, 
menacing;  he  advances  by  fits  and 
starts,  slyly,  close  to  the  ground,  his  eye 
anxiously  alternating  between  the  un- 
friendly group  and  his  objective  point; 
he  trembles  in  the  pauses;  he  is  all  taut 
to  scurry  boldly  away  when  out  of  reach; 
being  discovered,  he  stops  to  fawn;  it 
is  his  policy  to  pretend  amiability;  but 
he  keeps  his  distance — alert,  impatient, 
shivering. 

"Oh,  you  nigger!"  Mercer  drawled,  in 
genial  summons. 

The  nigger  stopped.  He  must.  It 
was  an  assured  voice.  The  speaker  was 
clad  in  white.  These  boys  were  obvi- 
ously of  quality.  "Yassa,  boss?"  he  re- 
plied.   He  was  very  uneasy. 

"Are  you  a  hermit?" 

"So  ah'm  called,  boss."  This  was 
gravely  said.  The  nigger  straightened. 
The  consciousness  of  singularity  gave 
him  a  grotesquely  pompous  air.  "Yassa, 
boss.   Ah'm  a  hermit." 

"What  for?" 

"Ah  jes'  doan'  want  no  trouble,  boss." 
"White  folks  scare  you,  nigger?" 
"Yassa,  boss." 

"You  don't  like  to  be  a  hermit,  do 
you?"  Mercer  drawled  lazily  on. 

The  nigger  looked  humbly  down. 
"Ah'm  accustomed,  boss,"  said  he.  Ap- 
parently he  did  not  like  to  be  a  hermit. 
His  reply  was  almost  a  sigh. 

"Come  here,"  said  Mercer.  "We 
want  to  talk  to  you." 

"Ah  ain'  got  no  time,  boss."  The  nig- 
ger shifted,  then  turned  to  go,  but  lost 
courage,  and  sighed,  and  waited  where 
he  was. 


120 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Oh,  what's  your  rush,  nigger?  Come 
here." 

A  wide  grin  spread  over  the  nigger's 
face.  Then  all  at  once  he  broke  into  a 
soft  chuckle.  "Some  colo'ed  folks  livin' 
jes'  round  de  point,  boss,"  he  explained. 
Now  he  writhed  with  humor;  he  guf- 
fawed, he  kicked  at  the  sand,  he  threw 
back  his  head  and  squinted  at  the  moon. 
He  said,  gently,  "Ah'm  cou'tin'  mah 
honey,  boss."  It  was  spoken  with  simple 
tenderness. 

"In  love,  nigger?"  the  boy  quizzed. 

"Ah  reckon  ah  mus'  be,  boss."  The 
nigger  scratched  his  wool.  "In  love — 
yassa,  boss." 

It  was  infinitely  comical  in  a  nigger — ■ 
this  amazingly  accurate  resemblance,  in 
word  and  accent,  to  a  real  confession  of 
the  love-lorn  state.  It  was  like  a  clever 
burlesque.  Comical  beggars,  these  nig- 
gers! Mercer  laughed.  He  was  fond  of 
the  black  rascals. 

"Sweet  girl,  nigger?"  said  he. 

"Ah,  g'wan,  boss!"  the  nigger  tittered. 

"Sweet  girl,  nigger?"  Mercer  per- 
sisted, sharply.  It  was  his  custom  to 
have  answers  to  his  questions. 

"Pow'ful  sweet,  boss,  t'  mah  taste. 
Alim  satisfied." 

"  You  re  not  very  much  of  a  hermit," 
Mercer  laughed. 

"Ah  reckon  not,  boss,"  the  nigger 
agreed.   "Ah  on'y  been  tol'  so." 

"Come  here." 

"Fo'  Gawd,  boss,"  said  the  nigger, 
taking  new  alarm,  "ah  ain'  got  no 
time!" 

"Come  here  when  I  tell  you." 

This  low,  slow  command,  clear-cut 
and  hard,  with  its  undertone  of  menace, 
startled  the  nigger  out  of  his  caution. 
Had  he  not  lived  so  long  secluded  from 
white  domination  he  might  not  have 
committed  himself  to  the  pregnant  error 
of  hesitation.  But  he  had  fled  that 
domination  in  terror.  The  recurrence  of 
authority  appalled  him.  What  did  these 
boys  want  with  a  nigger,  anyhow?  Why 
did  they  persist?  What  were  they  going 
to  do  with  him?  Thus  in  his  supersti- 
tious fright  the  nigger  fell  into  mortal 
error.  These  were  kindly  boys;  they 
intended  no  injury  —  nor  any  humili- 
ation. The  nigger  should  have  ap- 
proached when  bidden.  But  he  did  not 
approach.    Instead,  he  swiftly  measured 


the  distance  to  the  point  of  land  and 
cast  up  his  chance  of  escape  before  he 
could  be  caught. 

It  was  astonishing  behavior.  Mercer 
perceived  in  grieved  amazement  that 
the  nigger  was  about  to  scamper  off"  in 
despite  of  him.  What  was  the  matter 
with  the  nigger?  Darn  the  nigger! — 
the  fool  nigger.  What  was  he  afraid  of? 
Mercer  resented  the  nigger's  recalci- 
trance. Such  a  thing  had  never  hap- 
pened to  the  boy  before.  He  had  the 
mastery  of  niggers;  he  had  been  born  to 
it.  And  all  this  footless  derangement  of 
the  established  relation  disturbed  him 
poignantly.  He  felt,  vaguely,  a  little  less 
a  man;  he  was  ashamed.  A  nigger  had 
defied  him — appeared,  at  any  rate,  to  be 
about  to  defy  him — in  the  presence  of 
his  friends.  It  wouldn't  do — it  wouldn't 
do,  at  all!  Mercer  had  his  self-respect  to 
serve.  He  felt  that  his  authority  must 
surely  have  its  answer.  And  to  the  end 
of  compelling  a  response  he  jumped 

Instantly  the  nigger  was  in  flight.  It 
was  a  chase.  And  the  situation  was  by 
this  divested  of  every  serious  aspect.  It 
was  a  game.  The  nigger  was  now  no 
longer  like  a  masterless  dog.  He  was 
more  like  a  child  pursued  for  its  own 
enjoyment.  He  chuckled,  he  gasped,  he 
laughed,  he  shrieked;  and  all  the  while 
he  sped  a  joyous  and  amazingly  elusive 
course  —  dodging  and  plunging  and 
squirming  over  the  moonlit  beach.  It 
was  excellent  sport — excellent!  The 
Key  West  boys  delighted  in  it;  so  did 
the  nigger;  and  the  moon  gazed  amiably 
upon  the  happy  spectacle.  But  the  nig- 
ger was  altogether  too  elusive.  His 
escape  began  to  savor  too  much  of  tri- 
umph. The  boys  lost  breath  and  tem- 
per; the  laughter  fell  away — it  was  pres- 
ently a  grim  and  purposeful  chase.  And 
the  nigger  was  alarmed  by  the  silence 
and  new  fervor  of  the  pursuit.  In  a 
panic  he  rushed  Mercer's  interposition 
with  the  aim  of  rounding  the  point  and 
vanishing  from  annoyance. 

It  was  a  blunder.  The  nigger  should, 
of  course,  have  permitted  himself  to  be 
caught.  And  he  was  both  stupid  and 
clumsy.  He  stumbled  against  Mercer, 
and  the  boy,  flashing  into  rage,  struck 
him  in  the  face. 

"Doan'  hit  me,  boss!"  the  nigger 


A  HYPOTHETICAL  CASE 


121 


pleaded.  "Ah  didn't  mean  nothin'." 
He  was  frightened — now  with  cause. 

Mercer  struck  at  the  nigger  again.  A 
blow — the  blow  of  a  boy's  fist — is  a  small 
thing.  The  nigger  should  have  taken  it, 
rubbed  the  pain  out  of  the  bruise,  and 
grinned.  A  sensible  nigger  would  in- 
stinctively have  done  so;  and  a  clever 
nigger — a  nigger  that  knew  which  side 
his  bread  was  buttered  on — a  sly  old 
stager — would  have  turned  the  other 
cheek.  Instead,  the  nigger  caught  the 
boy's  wrist — and  the  blow  failed.  It 
was  error.  The  nigger  might  with  pro- 
priety have  dodged  the  blow,  but  should 
not,  in  his  own  defense,  have  laid  hands 
on  the  wrist  of  a  white  boy  of  quality. 

There  was  a  pause — of  astonishment 
on  Mercer's  part,  of  appalling  terror  on 
the  nigger's.  In  an  overwhelming  access 
of  fury  Mercer  struck  swiftly  with  his 
clenched  left  hand.  This  blow,  also,  was 
stopped.  And  now  the  nigger  held  the 
boy's  hands  both  imprisoned.  It  was  a 
mortal  blunder.  He  should  even  then — 
while  there  was  yet  time — have  dropped 
the  hands  and  chanced  salvation.  Any 
nigger  should  know  enough  for  this.  But 
this  nigger  was  flustered  with  fear.  The 
calamity  had  fallen  suddenly;  and  Mer- 
cer was  struggling  to  release  his  right 
hand  for  a  specific  purpose  having  to  do 
with  the  weapon  under  the  breast  of  his 
shirt.  And  the  nigger  divined  what  that 
purpose  was. 

Thus  it  happened  that  in  a  quick 
wrench  Mercer  chanced  to  bring  the  nig- 
ger's knuckles  against  his  own  cheek. 

"He  hit  me!"  the  boy  screamed.  He 
was  confused.  "He  hit  me!"  he  cried 
again. 

It  was  an  honest  conviction.  The  boy 
was  no  weakling  liar. 

Mercer  had  never  before  struck  a  nig- 
ger. There  had  been  no  need.  Never 
before  had  he  suffered  personal  affront; 
never  before  had  the  offense  or  folly  of  a 
nigger  enraged  him.  In  his  own  experi- 
ence he  had  encountered  no  Nigger 
Problem.  He  had  knowledge  of  disturb- 
ances, to  be  sure;  but  he  was  persuaded 
that  these  futile  and  degrading  affairs 
were  largely  the  fault  of  the  whites — 
immigrants  from  the  North,  for  the  most 
part,  or  their  immediate  descendants, 
who  were  constitutionally  unaware  of 


the  subtleties  of  nigger-mastery.  Mercer 
was  contemptuous  of  all  such  trashy 
folk.  And  as  for  the  niggers,  he  loved 
them.  They  were  picturesque,  grinning, 
amusing,  frolicsome,  fond  inferiors,  quick 
to  serve,  radiantly  happy  in  their  sta- 
tion, amenable  to  the  lightest  touch  of 
discipline.  The  world  would  not  have 
been  half  so  jolly  a  place — nor  com- 
fortable at  all — without  them.  One  may 
love  one's  dog,  and  be  devoted  to  all 
dog-kind;  but  one  beats  a  masterless 
dog  when  he  snaps;  and  should  he  snap 
again  .  .  .  and  fix  his  teeth  .  .  . 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  because 
Mercer  struck  this  nigger  he  was  of  a 
choleric  or  savage  nature — a  brute,  a 
boor,  a  bully.  The  blow  signified  noth- 
ing of  the  sort.  It  implied  no  consid- 
erable weakness.  It  was  a  necessary 
blow — swift  with  instinct.  It  was  a  salu- 
tary expression  of  pride  and  place.  Mer- 
cer was  a  gentle,  just,  warm,  generous 
boy;  he  was  upstanding,  body  and  soul; 
and  he  was  in  that  very  period  of  his 
youth  consciously  engaged  in  fashioning 
his  character  to  conform  to  chivalrous 
ideals.  He  would  be  a  gentleman; 
therefore  he  must  be  brave,  kind,  chaste 
— neither  dealing  nor  suffering  insult; 
and  above  all,  he  must  not  dishonor  his 
self-respect.  It  was  a  fine  endeavor, 
flourishing  in  secret;  and  it  bore  fruit  in 
charm:  the  boy  was  much  loved  for  his 
manliness  and  graces  of  heart.  He  was 
no  boaster  of  cruel  deeds;  he  had  no 
pleasure  in  oppression;  he  was  no  cal- 
lous, blustering  bully,  dependent  on  the 
blows  he  could  strike. 

But  now  in  the  inimical  grip  of  this 
unknown  nigger — held  powerless — Mer- 
cer was  flushed  with  mortal  rage.  A  rush 
of  vilest  malediction,  caught  somewhere 
in  the  net  of  memory,  lingering  there  for 
employment  in  emergency,  came  chok- 
ing from  his  swollen  throat.  His  oaths 
were  broken  and  guttural.  He  fought 
for  escape.  But  the  nigger  would  not 
let  him  go.  And  the  nigger  was  huge, 
the  boy  slight.  It  was  no  match  at  all. 
The  brief,  furious  struggle  accomplished 
only  a  tightened  grip,  a  closer  contact,  a 
deeper  disgust,  a  more  bitter  humilia- 
tion, a  redder-flaring  rage.  And  the  end 
of  it  was  that  Mercer  was  held  utterly 
helpless — his  arms  pinioned  behind  him, 
his  legs  locked  between  the  nigger's  legs, 


122 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


his  body  crushed  against  the  nigger's  of- 
fensive bulk.  There  were  little  twitches 
of  fight  left  in  him — mere  spasms  of 
futile  effort — which  presently  subsided; 
and  then  he  rested  quite  still  against  the 
nigger,  sobbing,  for  a  moment,  in  shame. 

By  this  time  Mercer's  friends  had 
come  sputtering  to  his  help.  They  laid 
hands  on  the  nigger. 

"Keep  out  of  this!"  Mercer  spat  at 
them. 

They  were  slow  to  obey.  Mercer  be- 
gan to  fume  with  insulted  anger. 

"I'll  handle  this  nigger!"  he  cried, 
shrilly.  "Leave  him  alone,  can't  you?" 
He  was  in  a  frenzy. 

"Ca'm  yo'self,  boss!"  the  nigger 
begged. 

Mercer  made  neither  move  nor  reply. 
The  situation  was  in  his  keeping.  He 
waited. 

"Ah — ah — ah'll  tu'n  yo'  loose,  boss," 
the  nigger  stammered,  "jes'  's  soon  's 
yo'  gits  ca'm."  It  was  softly  spoken: 
the  nigger  might  have  been  addressing 
a  naughty  child.  "Yassa,  boss — yassa. 
Ah — ah — promise  ah  will." 

It  is  a  practical  world.  Obviously  a 
masterless  nigger  may  not  with  impu- 
nity restrain  a  spirited  white  boy.  Tra- 
dition, custom,  and  expediency  forbid  it. 
Restraint  of  this  sort  not  only  humiliates 
the  white  boy,  and  discountenances  the 
superior  race,  but  disposes  the  nigger — ■ 
and  all  other  niggers — to  saucy  behavior. 
Practised  in  the  presence  of  others,  it  is 
a  monstrously  aggravated  affront.  This 
nigger  was  aware  of  his  offense,  and 
acutely  aware  of  his  peril.  Mercer  was 
free  to  kill  him.  It  was  a  question  for 
Mercer's  sense  of  propriety — perhaps, 
too,  for  his  conception  of  duty.  But  the 
nigger  must  not  kill  Mercer.  He  might 
easily  have  done  so;  and  had  the  boy 
been  black — armed,  as  Mercer  was,  and 
savagely  bent — the  nigger  would  not 
have  hesitated.  But  nothing  could  ex- 
cuse the  outrage  of  Mercer's  death  at  the 
hands  of  a  nigger.  Damage  to  Mercer's 
feelings  was  enormity  enough  for  any 
nigger  to  answer  for.  The  boy  must  not 
be  hurt  in  his  person — not  so  much  as 
inadvertently  scratched  or  bruised. 

With  Mercer  in  a  murderous  fury  the 
nigger  dared  not  let  him  go.  Mercer 
was  armed.  He  must  be  cunningly 
mollified,  and  cautiously,  abjectly  re- 


leased. And  so  the  nigger  began  a  sort 
of  crooning  plea — a  soothing  exhortation 
to  self-command  and  to  mercy. 

Presently  the  nigger  appealed  to  the 
other  boys.  "Ah  didn't  mean  nothin'," 
said  he.  "Yo'  take  him,  boys,  an'  jes' 
hold  him  tel  ah  gits  a  good  start." 

There  was  no  response. 

"Ah  —  ah  —  ah  jes'  wants  a  good 
start!"  the  nigger  implored. 

"You'll  get  yours,  nigger!"  the  young- 
est boy  snarled. 

The  nigger  sighed.  "Ah  reckon  so," 
said  he. 

Of  all  this,  Mercer  distinguished  noth- 
ing at  all.  It  was  a  mumble  in  his  ears. 
He  waited — aching  with  hate.  There 
was  nothing  else  to  do.  He  was  quite 
helpless.  The  heat  and  color  of  his  fury 
were  gone.  He  was  white,  cola*,  and  a 
little  weak.  From  time  to  time — as  the 
horror  of  the  thing  struck  him  anew — he 
shuddered.  How  had  he  fallen  to  this? 
What  excuse  had  he?  Thus  to  be  over- 
come and  held  impotent  like  a  child! 
Thus  to  be  shamed  in  the  eyes  of  his  fel- 
lows! And  by  a  nigger!  By — a  nigger! 
And  all  aside  from  the  degrading  humili- 
ation, physical  contact  with  the  nigger 
was  revolting.  Mercer  felt  that  he  was 
dishonored.  It  was  the  ultimate  shame. 
He  could  never  hold  up  his  head  again. 
He  had  been  overcome  and  maltreated 
by  a  nigger.  There  was  no  depth  lower. 
But  yet  he  was  conscious  that  no  matter 
to  what  depth  of  insult  a  man  might  be 
subjected,  he  had  one  sure  way  of  cleans- 
ing his  honor.  There  was  only  one  way. 
It  had  always  been  the  way.  It  was  the 
way  now. 

"Boss,"  the  nigger  whispered,  "ah'm 
goin'  t'  tu'n  yo'  loose." 

Mercer's  heart  leaped  a  little.  A  plan 
of  action  took  more  definite  form  as  to 
its  detail.    But  he  gave  no  sign  of  this. 

"Is  yo'  ready,  boss?"  the  nigger  qua- 
vered. 

Other  tragedies  may  at  that  moment 
have  been  approaching  each  its  separate 
crisis  on  Cocoanut  Key — little  tragedies 
of  the  underbrush  and  grass  and  sand: 
a  thousand  little  deaths  dealt  out  to  the 
inferior  by  the  strong.  But  there  was 
no  sound  of  them  abroad — neither  in  the 
shadows  nor  under  the  moon.  Nor,  as 
the  nigger  slowly  released  Mercer,  was 
there  any  noise  of  a  nearing  climax  in  his 


A  HYPOTHETICAL  CASE 


123 


case.  It  was  done  silently.  Water  laved 
the  sand,  and  the  wind  went  playing  past; 
but  otherwise  it  was  all  still  and  placid 
on  the  crescent  of  white  beach.  The  nig- 
ger backed  swiftly  off.  He  stood,  then, 
tensely  crouched,  his  hands  lifted  and 
spread,  as  if  to  fend  off  death.  His  at- 
titude was  alert  —  neither  abject  nor 
menacing — but  intently  expectant.  It 
was  as  though  he  confronted  some  ma- 
lignant peril  of  nature — a  threat  beyond 
control  or  any  cunning  manipulation. 
He  was  helpless;  he  was  taking  his  one 
chance;  there  was  nothing  else  for  him 
to  do. 

And  Mercer  shot  him  where  he  stood. 

When  the  nigger  fell,  Mercer's  com- 
panions scampered  madly  for  the  small 
boat  of  the  John  Keats.  They  were  pos- 
sessed of  a  curiously  frantic  notion  to 
escape  from  something.  They  ran  like 
boys  caught  robbing  an  orchard,  in  a 
confusion  of  terror  and  devilish  merri- 
ment. It  was  a  scampering  rush.  There 
was  a  little  laughter,  sprung  from  their 
horror;  and  there  was  a  muffled  oath  or 
two.  But  Mercer  stood  gravely  over  the 
nigger  to  make  sure  that  his  pains  were 
not  prolonged.  He  was  loath  to  have 
the  nigger  endure  more  than  a  merciful 
death  demanded.  At  that  moment 
Mercer  suffered  no  remorse.  He  was 
sorely  troubled.  The'  deed  was  a  bit- 
ter thing  to  contemplate.  He  felt  warm 
pity  for  the  nigger,  and  for  all  niggers, 
and  for  himself. 

The  other  boys  came  back  from  the 
boat.  They  came  subdued.  There  was 
no  laughter.  This  thing  was  no  longer 
like  robbing  an  orchard. 

"God!"  the  youngest  boy  whispered, 
looking  into  Mercer's  eyes.  "You've 
killed  a  nigger!" 

"I  had  to!"  Mercer  gasped.  "Can't 
you  understand  that  I  had  to?" 

"You've  killed  him!" 

"I  wish  I  hadn't  done  it!"  Mercer 
groaned,  breaking.  "Oh,  I  wish  I  hadn't 
done  it!" 

Back  in  Key  West,  Mercer,  as  a  duti- 
ful son,  now  being  in  bitter  conflict  with 
his  conscience,  made  a  clean  breast  of 
all  this  dreadful  business  to  his  father. 
It  was  a  dreadful  business.  Mercer 
knew  it.   He  loathed  himself.   His  story 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781.— 16 


was  an  intimate  recital  of  the  deed  and 
the  feeling  of  that  night  on  the  moonlit 
crescent  of  beach.  Mercer  did  not  spare 
himself.  He  was  not  that  sort.  In  his 
narrative,  indeed,  he  gave  himself  what 
he  was  used  to  calling  "a  little  bit  the 
worst  of  it."    It  was  his  custom. 

The  elder  man  listened,  and  ques- 
tioned, and  deliberated.  There  was  a 
long,  troubled  interval.  Mercer's  father 
was  horrified  and  aghast.  This  thing 
that  his  son  had  done  was  ugly.  There 
was  no  escaping  the  horror  and  ugliness 
of  it.  A  proper  thing? — but  ugly  and 
dreadful.  Mercer's  father  groaned.  He 
began  to  pace  the  moonlit  veranda. 
What  should  he  say — to  save  the  boy? 
He  talked,  then,  a  long,  long  time. 

In  this  fashion: 

"I'm  sorry.  I  wish  it  hadn't  hap- 
pened. It's  horrible.  .  .  .  You  can't 
kill  a  nigger  and  forget  it.  I  know  that. 
.  .  .  God  help  you!  Oh,  God  help  you! 
.  .  .  But  look  here,  son;  we  mustn't  be 
sentimental.  Let's  get  at  the  rights  of 
this  ghastly  thing.  The  nigger  struck 
you,  you  say?  I  can't  see,  then,  what 
else  you  could  have  done.  He  struck 
you.  He — struck  you!  .  .  .  And  we  live 
down  here  with  them.  .  .  .  There  wasn't 
anything  else  to  do.  Nothing — nothing! 
It's  horrible.  But  there  wasn't  anything 
else  to  do.  .  .  .  Nobody  but  Jimmie  and 
Reggie  there?  There'll  be  no  scandal, 
then,  thank  God!  .  .  .  Son,  put  the 
whole  thing  out  of  your  mind,  if  you  can. 
Don't  brood.  Don't  fall  into  the  habit 
of  accusing  yourself.  What's  to  be 
gained  by  that?  And  of  course  you'll 
say  nothing  to  your  mother  about  it. 
She  wouldn't  understand.  And  she'd 
grieve,  poor  little  woman!  .  .  .  Good 
night." 

"Good  night,  dad,"  Mercer  responded, 
brokenly.  "You're  —  you're  —  mighty 
good  to  me." 

"You'll  not  be  very  happy  for  a  while, 
I'm  afraid." 

"No,  sir." 

"Good  night." 

"I  would  have  been  ashamed  of  myself" 
Mercer  sobbed  a  sudden  violent  protest 
against  his  horrible  fate,  "if  I  hadnt — 
done  it!" 

"I  understand." 

"Good  night,  sir." 

"God  bless  you,  son!" 


A  May  Flitting 


BY  GRACE  A.  CROFF 


K3WN  the  old  Curtis 
lane,  with  its  rambling 
stone  walls  and  blos- 
som-laden lilacs,  a  spare 
little  figure  was  trudg- 
ing along,  unconscious 
of  the  late  May  sweet- 
ness in  her  all-too-familiar  New  England 
country.  Skirting  the  wide,  green  front 
lawn,  she  made  her  way  deftly  through 
the  rank  grass  to  the  side  porch,  where 
two  cats  blinked  comfortably  in  the 
sunshine. 

Even  at  sixty-five  Rebecca  Cole  never 
"wasted"  a  minute  willingly,  and  now, 
after  shaking  the  door-latch  softly,  she 
stepped  to  the  kitchen  window  and 
tapped  smartly. 

"Gram,"  she  called  repeatedly. 
"Gram,  Gram,  I'm  here." 

"Yes,  Becky,  I  hear  ye,"  at  last  came 
the  answer,  and  presently  a  bent,  gentle 
old  lady,  with  bright,  squirrel-like  eyes, 
opened  the  door  excitedly.  "Well,  you 
do  beat  the  Dutch  for  gettin'  round. 
'Tain't  more'n  a  minute  ago  I  told 
George  to  step  to  the  door  an'  ask  you 
to  look  in  on  me  a  second."  She  led 
the  way  across  the  low-studded  kitchen, 
spick  and  strangely  in  order,  as  though 
she  were  leave-taking.  Her  guest  fol- 
lowed nervously. 

"Don't  say  nothin\  I  was  comin,' 
anyway.  Thinks  I  to  myself,  if  my 
eyes  'ain't  deceived  me,  Anabelle's  gone 
off  earlier  than  George  and  left  Gram 
to  do  for  herself — to-day  of  all  days. 
I  must  say  I  do  wonder  at  Anabelle." 

"Rebecca,  I  declare  you're  a  cute 
one,"  returned  Gram,  admiringly,  as 
she  put  her  hands  on  Mrs.  Cole's 
shoulders  and  gently  pushed  her  into 
a  convenient  Windsor  chair.  "You 
mustn't  blame  Anabelle  a  mite.  She's 
got  some  errands  up-town,  and  she  an' 
George  '11  meet  mc  at  the  train.  All 
I've  got  to  do  is  to  step  into  the  hack 
and  ride  to  the  depot,  slick's  a  mitten. 
But  'tis  a  pesterin'  nuisance  to  have 


'em  both  take  me  ofF  on  a  jaunt,"  con- 
tinued Gram,  disappearing  into  a  little, 
dark  bedroom  adjoining. 

"  'Tain't  your  son  George  I'm  think- 
in'  of,  nor  Anabelle,  neither,"  retorted 
Mrs.  Cole,  briskly.  "I'm  just  wonderin' 
at  your  lettin'  'em  make  you  take  to 
the  road  so-fashion."  She  rose  hastily 
and  followed  her  friend  into  the  tiny 


room. 


Oh,  Becky,  do  let  me  bring  my 
dress  out,  'tis  so  cramped  in  here," 
cried  the  little  old  lady,  fairly  shoving 
her  visitor  before  her.  "Anabelle's 
done  everything  but  git  me  into  this 
dress,  an'  you  can  see 't  I'm  shipshape. 
'Tis  a  real  easy  dress  to  slip  into.  I 
don'  know's  there's  a  bit  o'  rush,  either," 
she  exclaimed  as  Mrs.  Cole  began  with 
nervous  fingers  to  unfasten  her  soft 
black-and-white  morning  wrapper. 

"No,  I  don't  know's  there  is,"  re- 
turned Mrs.  Cole,  not  stopping  a  min- 
ute; "but  I  ruther  have  a  few  seconds 
to  git  my  breath  than  be  so  plaguy 
rushed  at  the  last  minute." 

"Well,  anyway,  it  ain't  my  doin's 
that  I'm  posted  off*  to-day,"  sighed  Mrs. 
Curtis  as  her  friend  flitted  about  her 
in  evident  delight  at  being  lady's  maid. 
"But  I  'ain't  the  heart  to  refuse  Allan, 
if  he  is  my  grandchild.  Dear  suz,  it 
beats  me  to  see  him  so  favorin'  his 
grandpa  Curtis  in  looks,  and  actin'  like 
Anabelle's  fam'ly." 

"Oh,  well,  the  Holts  meant  all  right 
— they  was  jest  naterally  shif'less  genius- 
es. Old  man  Holt  had  more  schemes  'n 
you  could  shake  a  stick  at,"  rejoined 
her  companion. 

"Now  Anabelle  she'd  always  be- 
haved rational  enough  sence  she  mar- 
ried George,  till  Allan  got  this  heathen 
notion  o'  actin'  into  his  head;  an'  I 
ses  to  George,  'What  would  Lyman 
Curtis,  your  father,  'a'  said  to  such 
goin's-on?  You  ought  ter  kill  such 
nonsense  out  like  pusley  ';  but  Anabelle 
she  spoke  right  up,  'Let  him  foster  his 


A  MAY  FLITTING 


125 


bent,'  ses  she.     I  declare  I've  never 
seen  the  minute  I  didn't  wish  his  bent 
was    some    other   way,"    she  ended 
wearily. 

Mrs.  Cole,  busy  fastening  the  placket 
of  her  friend's  dress,  lifted  a  fold  to 
her  nose  and  inhaled  the  somewhat 
strong  odor  of  camphor,  exclaiming, 
cheerfully,  "I  guess  no  moths  got  in 
here  an'  made  a  nice  home  for  them- 
selves last  winter." 

"No,  I  guess  they  didn't — the  var- 
min,"  said  Mrs.  Curtis,  glad  to  get 
back  to  every-day  converse.  "I'd  as 
soon  go  without  my  camphor  balls 
as  I  would  my  Thanksgiving  mince- 
pies. 

Mrs.  Cole  straightened  herself  and 
swung  her  charge  round  very  slowly, 
remarking,  irrelevantly:  "I've  always 
said  he  was  the  dead  image  of  his  grand- 
pa from  the  time  he  was  a  little  shaver." 

"And,  my  stars,  how  Lyman  hated 
nonsense!"  put  in  Gram,  reflectively. 
"Seems  as  though  I'm  committin'  the 
unpardonable,  goin'  to  see  his  own  flesh 
an'  blood  play-act." 

She  spoke  sadly,  as  though  she  were 
alone,  and  dropped  into  her  little,  low 
rocker  by  the  window. 

It  was  still  very  early;  the  dew  had 
not  ceased  sparkling  on  the  grass,  and 
there  floated  in  at  the  open  window 
the  faint,  dainty  smell  of  lilacs,  just 
opening  by  the  lane  stone  wall. 

"What  a  pretty  mornin'  'tis!"  she 
exclaimed,  softly,  her  eyes  wandering 
out  across  the  great  stretches  of  undu- 
lating meadow-land,  where  the  low- 
flying  meadow-larks,  all  undisturbed, 
were  calling. 

Rebecca  Cole,  meanwhile,  with  her 
eyes  on  the  clock,  had  taken  her  friend's 
black  silk  bonnet  from  the  tall,  round 
bandbox  and  began  fluffing  up  the 
lace,  remarking,  practically:  "If  you've 
got  to  go,  you  might 's  well  have  a  good 
day 's  a  bad  one.  I  shouldn't  be  sur- 
prised to  see  it  pour  to-morrer.  All 
Dadmun's  cows  were  layin'  down  when 
I  come  through  the  upper  pasture. 
Come,  now;  jest  let  me  set  this  bunnit 
on  you." 

But  Gram  only  clasped  her  hands 
together  tensely  and  rocked  violently. 
"I  don't  want  no  bunnit  on,"  she  cried, 
suddenly,  the  tears  springing  into  her 


old  eyes.  "I  don't  want  nothin'  but  to 
find  what  I've  lost." 

"Why,  Gram,  you  ain't  lost  nothin', 
have  you?"  Rebecca  put  down  the 
bonnet  in  real  alarm. 

"Yes,  I  have,  an'  I  'ain't  told  a  livin' 
soul — I've  lost  Lyman's  picture."  She 
rocked  back  and  forth,  her  whole  frame 
shaken  with  her  suffering. 

"Not  the  one  on  your  dressin'-case?" 
exclaimed  Rebecca  in  terror.  "Why, 
Gram,  that's  been  there  since  the  flood ! " 

"Oh,  don't  I  know?"  cried  Gram, 
distractedly.  "You  remember  what  he 
had  on,  Becky — the  big,  white  stock  he 
only  wore  to  church  an'  to  fun'rals — 
I  aPus  starched  it  in  cold  starch  to 
make  it  awful  stiff — an'  his  black  silk 
tie  that  wound  around  his  neck  twice, 
an'  his  Prince  Albert  coat.  You  re- 
member, Becky,  don't  you? 

"Oh,  pity!  I  should  say  I  do,"  re- 
plied Rebecca.  "I  done  up  that  stock 
for  him  once  myself,  the  winter  you 
was  to  Pepperell,  takin'  care  o'  your 
mother." 

"I  recollect  now,  you  did — such  a 
winter  that  was,  too,"  said  Gram,  shak- 
ing her  head,  woefully. 

"An'  you  give  me  some  o'  that  left- 
over black  silk  from  Lyman's  ties  so 't 
I  could  cover  some  button  -  molds," 
continued  Rebecca. 

"So  I  did.  I  remember  how  awful 
sot  Lyman  was  against  gettin'  that 
picture  took.  Oh,  he  was  so  mulish 
about  it!"  sighed  Gram. 

"Don't  take  on  so;  you'll  find  it, 
come  fall-cleanin,'  anyway."  Rebecca 
spoke  cheerfully.  "You  sure  you  'ain't 
let  it  git  behind  somethin'  when  you 
was  dustin'?  I've  done  that  thing 
time  an'  time  again." 

"No;  it's  gone  for  good.  I've  hunted 
more  'n  a  fortnight  now."  Gram 
stretched  out  her  hand  for  the  bonnet, 
and  the  two  moved  toward  the  mirror. 

"Ain't  that  enough  to  try  the  patience 
of  Job!"  Rebecca  felt  helpless  before 
her  friend's  sorrow. 

"And  on  top  o'  that,  here  I  be  trapes- 
in'  off  to  a  theater  —  I  don'  know 
what  I'm  comin'  to.  Well,  I  do  feel 
better  for  that  little  mite  of  a  cry. 
You  needn't  tell  anybody  what  an  old 
fool  I  be." 

"I  won't  say  a  word,  but  I  wouldn't 


126 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


give  up  yet,"  Rebecca  encouraged  her 
friend,  while  she  tied  the  long  bonnet- 
strings.  "Maybe  you'll  come  back  real 
spruce  for  gettin'  out  o'  the  rut  a  day." 

"No,  I  won't,"  Gram  returned,  posi- 
tively. "I  don't  ask  nothin'  but  to  be 
where  I  can  put  my  potatoes  on  to 
boil  at  quarter-past  eleven,  an'  I  know 
I'll  be  homesick  to  death  when  I  git 
to  thinkin'  how  this  nice  breeze  is 
turnin'  over  my  little  new  grape-leaves 
out  there,  an'  me  not  here  to  listen  to 
'em  rustle." 

"You  look  sweet 's  a  pink,  anyway," 
spoke  up  Rebecca,  giving  the  final 
touch  to  her  friend's  gown.  "An'  I  do 
believe  I  hear  them  hack-wheels."  She 
ran  to  the  window  and  peered  down  the 
lane.    "Yes,  there  'tis." 

"Dear  me!  The  back  door's  locked, 
ain't  it?"  cried  Gram,  all  in  a  flurry. 
"An'  let  me  peek  an'  see  if  I  took  in  the 
dish-wipers.  That's  right,  Becky;  you 
jest  try  them  winders.  I  don't  want  to 
leave  nothin'  unlocked.  Yes,  let  them 
cats  stay  out.  Here's  my  glasses  an' 
my  par'sol." 

The  two  stepped  out  into  the  porch 
and  descended  the  steps  to  the  carriage. 

"Now,  Gram,  don't  you  git  to  worry- 
in'  about  —  you  know  —  while  you're 
gone,"  admonished  Mrs.  Cole  as  she 
helped  her  old  friend  into  the  hack  and 
handed  in  the  little  velvet  bag. 

The  sad  look  came  back  again  into 
Gram's  face  as  she  leaned  forward  to 
wave  a  farewell. 

"Mind  what  I  say!"  called  Rebecca; 
but  the  noise  of  the  wheels  drowned 
the  sound  of  her  voice.  Then  Rebecca 
Cole  set  out  briskly  up  the  lane,  sweet 
with  blossoms,  remarking,  half  aloud: 
"I  might  have  got  in  and  rode  'long 
with  her  up  to  the  top  of  the  hill.  Oh, 
well,  this  'ain't  put  me  back  much  with 
my  work." 

In  the  great  theater,  beautiful  with 
its  lights  and  soft-toned  hangings,  not 
one  of  all  the  audience  noticed  the  little 
old  lady  pressed  close  to  the  rail  of  one 
of  the  boxes.  Nor  did  she,  in  her  turn, 
take  heed  of  them.  The  strangeness  of 
her  experience  had  numbed  her.  Her 
fierce  sense  of  revolt  at  coming  into 
the  terror,  which  she  could  not  even 
imagine,  had  given  place  to  an  almost 


pleasant  feeling  of  unreality.  She  put 
out  her  hand  and  touched  her  son's. 

"You're  all  right,  mother,  aren't  you?" 
he  asked,  anxiously. 

Anabelle  bent  to  her.  "You're  not 
sick,  are  you,  mother?  Do  you  feel  a 
draught  anywhere?" 

"No,  I  don't,"  whispered  Gram,  tim- 
idly. "No,  I  don't  feel  nothin*.  I  don't 
even  feel  where  I  be." 

"You're  right  here  with  us,  mother." 
Her  son  spoke  softly.  "Just  watch  the 
big  velvet  curtain,  and  have  your 
glasses  ready  to  clap  on  if  you  see  any- 
thing fine." 

Gram's  hand  went  down  obediently 
into  her  velvet  bag.  Then  she  stopped 
abruptly.  The  whole  place  had  grown 
dark.  Slowly  the  long  curtain  lifted 
and — all  at  once  she  woke.  Surely  she 
had  been  dreaming,  for  there — could 
she  believe  it? — there  was  home — her 
home!  She  uttered  a  little  smothered 
cry  and  pressed  her  hands  to  her  lips. 
For  the  first  time  she  felt  the  presence 
of  the  great,  silent  audience.  As  she 
looked  her  mind  was  not  deceived.  She 
knew  she  had  come  in  the  cars  a  long 
way  from  the  very  scene  before  her, 
but  her  heart  reveled  in  the  imita- 
tion. With  loving  eyes  she  scanned  the 
picture.  All  at  once  she  pulled  at  her 
son's  sleeve.  "George,"  she  whispered, 
eagerly,  "who  put  them  two  stones  back 
into  that  wall?" 

For  answer  he  patted  her  hand  gently. 

"My  patience!"  she  murmured  to 
herself,  "Them  parlor  curtains  'way  up 
— the  sun  beatin'  in  there  '11  fade  the 
carpet  all  to  pieces." 

Anabelle  put  her  arm  over  the  older 
woman's  shoulder  and  said,  softly,  "  Try 
to  hear  what  the  people  on  the  stage 
are  saying,  dear." 

For  the  first  time  the  little  old  lady 
noticed  a  group  of  strangers  on  her 
veranda.  Two  pretty  girls,  a  youth, 
and  a  sweet,  elderly  woman  were  en- 
gaged in  a  lively  conversation.  If  her 
own  home  were  to  be  imitated,  what 
need  to  fill  it  with  persons  unknown  to 
her? 

Suddenly  one  of  the  girls  rose  and 
hurried  across  to  the  old-fashioned 
pump.  The  youth  followed  her.  Gram 
twitched  nervously. 

"Don't  touch  that  pesky  pump!"  she 


Drawn  by  C.  E.  Chambers  Engraved  by  F.  A.  Pettit 

HIS    SMILE    WAS    FOR    THE    LITTLE    OLD  LADY 


A  MAY  FLITTING 


127 


breathed  softly.  Then,  as  the  girl  pro- 
ceeded to  work  the  handle  up  and  down, 
"You'll  spatter  that  dress — I  'ain't  let 
nobody  touch  that  pump  for  years." 

"  'Ssh,  dear,"  murmured  Anabelle. 
"She  won't  hurt  her  dress.  Every  one 
loves  this  little  scene  here." 

And  then  the  audience  laughed  at 
what  was  happening.  Gram  forgot  her 
displeasure  and  laughed,  too,  for  the 
pump  was  really  a  good  place  for  a  bit 
of  courting. 

Presently  other  people  entered,  and 
talked  together.  Then  followed  much 
scurrying  and  planning.  Gram  strained 
her  ears  to  listen.  It  was  clear  that  the 
pretty  girl  at  the  pump  was  in  trouble. 
Yes,  every  one  was  in  trouble.  Fi- 
nally they  began  to  talk  of  some  one 
who  must  come  and  save  the  situation. 

"How  they  act!"  whispered  Gram, 
disgustedly,  but  with  sympathy  in  her 
voice. 

Then,  in  a  trice,  the  curtain  fell;  the 
lights  came  on,  and  music  mingled 
pleasantly  with  the  sound  of  the  people's 
voices. 

Gram  leaned  back  wearily,  but  her 
face  was  full  of  a  sweet  wistfulness.  So 
many  thoughts  came  crowding  into  her 
mind.  Above  all,  she  reflected  how  she 
had  felt  so  sinful  at  coming.  It  had 
been  like  desecrating  the  sacred  memory 
of  one  who  had  scorned  all  manner  of 
foolishness.  And  now  she  had  sat  there 
longing  for  him  anew — longing  for  him 
to  see  their  old  place  thus. 

"All  the  stones  were  in  the  wall  the 
day  I  walked  home  with  him  a  bride," 
she  thought  happily,  "and  the  pump 
worked  so  easy,  without  spatterin'  me 
at  all.  And  the  parlor  curtains  were 
'way  up,  too.  We  had  all  Lyman's 
folks  an'  mine  to  supper  that  night." 

"You  really  are  enjoying  it,  aren't 
you,  Gram?"  Anabelle  ventured. 

"Oh  yes,  I'm  enjoyin'  it  wonderful, 
even  if  I  don't  know  them  folks  from 
a  hole  in  the  ground."  Then  she  added, 
almost  inaudibly,  "Somebody  else  I 
was  thinkin'  of  would  like  it  awful, 
too." 

George  and  Anabelle  exchanged  glan- 
ces. 

Gram  spoke  again,  as  though  a  thought 
had  just  struck  her:  "Is  Allan  in  all 
this  fuss?" 


"Perhaps  he'll  come  and  straighten 
out  the  fuss,  mother,"  suggested  George. 

"I  wish  to  mercy  he'd  come  and  show 
'em  a  little  common  sense,"  she  an- 
swered, briefly. 

Again  it  was  dark,  and  once  more  the 
curtain  rose,  this  time  on  an  empty 
stage.  It  was  the  hour  of  sunset,  and 
the  west  was  softly  aglow.  Slowly 
across  the  long  veranda  came  a  figure 
— a  tall  man,  bent  a  little,  and  white- 
haired,  with  high,  white  cravat,  and 
black  silk  tie,  and  long  Prince  Albert 
coat.  He  walked  with  his  hands  be- 
hind him,  his  head  bowed — meditating. 
When  he  reached  the  steps  he  raised 
his  head  and  smiled.  His  smile  was 
for  the  little  old  lady. 

"Lyman,"  whispered  Gram,  rever- 
ently. She  did  not  cry  out;  she  only 
unconsciously  held  out  her  hands.  For 
one  short  minute  she  forgot  the  lone- 
liness of  these  empty  years.  A  great 
peace  stole  over  her.  It  was  enough  to 
see  him;  she  did  not  ask  for  more. 
She  had  smiled  back  at  him  with  all  the 
deep,  still  love  of  her  heart  awake. 

Many  there  had  seen  the  young 
actor  before;  they  had  given  him  full 
measure  of  praise,  but  to-day  the  house 
went  mad.  They  did  not  know  that  a 
little  old  lady  had  stretched  out  her 
hands  and  smiled. 

In  the  low  rocker  by  the  sitting-room 
window  she  sat  dreaming.  It  is  so  that 
one  dreams  when  a  vision  has  troubled 
the  still  waters  of  the  spirit.  She  did 
not  even  see  Rebecca  Cole  as  she  passed 
the  window.  She  did  not  hear  her  open 
the  door  and  walk  in. 

Rebecca  stepped  timidly  into  the 
sitting-room.  "Gram,"  she  began,  "I 
had  to  come  and  see  if  you  lived  through 
that  awful  jaunt." 

"Oh — Becky — I  didn't  hear  ye  even 
come  in!"  cried  Gram,  with  a  start. 

"I  can't  stop  a  minute;  I've  got 
bread  in  the  oven,"  exclaimed  Rebecca, 
sitting  on  the  edge  of  a  chair.  "Was  it 
awful,  Gram?" 

"No,"  said  Gram,  smiling;  "it  was 
upliftin'." 

"Then  it  wasn't  like  a  circus?"  put 
in  Rebecca,  evidently  relieved.  "What 
did  ye  see  so  wonderful?" 


128 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"I  saw  the  old  place  here,"  answered 
Gram,  and  then  her  voice  dropped  to  a 
whisper,  "an*  I  saw  Lyman." 

"Then  it  was  a  spiritu'list  meetin'," 
said  Rebecca,  groping  for  light. 

"No,"  replied  Gram.  "It  was  Allan 
who  was  Lyman.  That's  where  my 
picture  went.  He  give  it  to  me  yester- 
day, all  safe." 

"How  could  he  be  more  'n  one  per- 
son to  once?"  asked  Rebecca,  incredu- 
lously. 

Gram  did  not  seem  to  hear.  "He 
was  so  nat'ral,  why  I  could  'a'  talked 
to  him  myself!  An'  the  old  place! 
'Twas  so  new  and  nice!  My!  when  I 
see  it,  an'  see  Lyman  comin'  along  with 
his  hands  right  out  to  me — my!  it  give 
me  the  bride  feelin'  all  over  again!" 

Rebecca  rose  hastily.    This  was  quite 


too  much.  "Well,  I'm  glad  it  didn't 
kill  ye,"  she  remarked.  "I  must  run 
along  to  my  bread.  I'll  drop  down 
again  soon."  She  bent  over  and  kissed 
Gram.  Then  she  hurried  from  the 
room. 

But  out  in  the  lane  she  walked  slowly. 
She  looked  over  the  quiet  fields,  and 
there  was  sorrow  in  her  face.  Rebecca 
Cole  had  never  realized  the  epochs  in 
her  life  keenly.  She  had  always  been 
so  busy  working.  Things  had  gone 
on — they  always  would  go  on,  she  had 
supposed.  This  morning  suddenly  all 
the  home  landscape  looked  different  to 
her.  She  felt  as  though  her  friend  had 
gone  away  from  her. 

"Gram's  come  to  her  second  child- 
hood," she  said,  slowly;  and  her  feet 
were  weary  as  she  climbed  the  hill. 


Hidden  Love 

BY  MARGARET  WIDDEMER 

[T  was  a  singing  hour,  when  little  winds 

1  And  fresh-blown  sunlight  quivered  on  the  leaves, 

And  lilac  fronds  hung  scented  thrillingly; 

And  all  was  glad  as  singing  birds  are  glad, 

My  wild  heart  glad  with  all  the  things  of  June. 

And  then — there  was  a  curtain  suddenly 
Drawn  black  across  the  gentle  sense-delights, 
And  my  heart  broke  with  darkness  weighing  it 
Where  I  lay  sobbing  on  the  sparkled  grass  .  .  . 
As  if  there  were  no  morning  any  more. 

And  then  my  heart  moaned  through  its  sobbing:  "Why? 
For  it  is  June,  and  I  am  young  and  glad, 
And  there  is  nothing  grievous  in  the  world 
That  hurts  me  nearly,  or  could  burden  me!" 

Then  a  voice  tolled  from  out  that  aching  dark 
Which  clutched  my  inner  soul-sense  terribly: 

"One  whom  your  mind  and  body  never  knew, 
But  whom  your  soul  loved  immemorially, 
Died  on  this  hour  that  you  lie  weeping  here, 
And  your  soul's  grief  silenced  your  singing  heart." 


Southward  from  the  Golden  Gate 


BY  J  LICE  COWDERY 


|S  we  slid  by  our  San 
Francisco  dock,  one 
might  have  anticipated 
that  impulse  to  jump 
off,  cling  to  home;  one 
might  have  anticipated 
the  look  of  that  be- 
loved city,  flattening,  diminishing;  the 
low  sun  striking  on  gilded  and  glassy 
domes,  on  fort  and  sand-dune  and 
Cliff  House — but  could  one  have  fore- 
told that  the  last  glimpse  of  the  home 
port  was  to  be,  vivid  in  the  dusk,  a 
whirling  white  cross  within  a  white  cir- 
cle, and  only  the  old  familiar  windmill 
on  the  beach? 

And  the  pilot!  Is  it  customary  for  a 
pilot  to  be  so  old,  so  smart,  so  agile;  to 
wear  a  frock-coat  and  a  dashing  hat; 
to  carry  a  walking-stick,  and,  as  neatly 
as  if  he  were  leaving  a  street-car,  leap 
from  a  swinging  rope  to  a  vast  cavern 
between  two  waves? 

The  Penny  rides  low  and  slow,  aware, 
from  her  half-century  of  it,  that  time 
is  made  for  savoring.  She  is  Yankee- 
built,  yet  inclined  to  the  spirit  of  the 
tropics  whither  we  were  bound — some 
freight,  some  mail,  some  passengers,  to 
be  unloaded  along  that  western  manana 
coast  that  lies  between  San  Francisco 
and  Panama. 

To  the  Penny  s  motion  one  did  not, 
ostentatiously,  succumb;  but  the  moon 
that  suddenly  filled  the  port-hole  like  a 
great  reflector  that  first  night,  the  moon 
knows  how  oily-smooth  and  yet  how 
agitated  an  ocean  can  be. 

Quoits  and  shufHeboard,  reckless  snap- 
shooting, speculative  glances  as  to  how 
we  shall  endure  three  weeks  of  our- 
selves, and  then  delightful  vegetative 
days — land  out  of  sight,  but  Mexico 
promised;  warm,  local  color  beginning; 
spouting  whales,  schools  of  porpoise, 
with  holes  in  the  tops  of  their  heads — 
strange,  dark  creatures,  who  leap  and 
dive  and  race  neck  to  neck  with  the 
ship  as  with  a  great  playmate.   To  cling 


there  above  them  in  the  very  bow, 
where  the  ship  "eats  up"  the  sea  with  a 
gnashing  of  foam,  is  to  feel  the  ecstasy 
of  their  wild  whimsy.  Turtles,  swaying 
necks  and  flappers,  pass,  and  flying-fish 
dart  like  splattered  ink;  silly,  hook- 
nosed pelican  sail  by,  haughty,  on  drift- 
wood; and  the  sun  goes  down  in  quiet 
yellow  and  green,  or  leaves  a  flaming 
west,  where  clouds  bank  themselves  into 
semblance  of  palm-fringed  villages,  dark 
along  the  hot  horizon;  and  as  if  this 
were  not  enough,  the  moon  rises.  Those 
first  nights  down  the  Mexican  coast  it 
spread  us  silver — not  as  a  trickling  lad- 
der to  inspire  the  tinkle  of  a  mandolin, 
but  silver  that  might  be  tossing  upon  the 
horns  of  mighty  herds  stampeding  over 
broiling  deserts. 

The  smell  of  earth — moist,  hot,  like 
home  conservatories — came  to  us  after 
eight  sea-days,  at  sun-up;  drew  one  from 
sleep  to  the  port-hole,  shook  one  in  mo- 
mentary homesickness.  It  was  Manza- 
nillo,  our  first  port — the  almost  perfect 
circle  of  a  bay,  rimmed  by  hills,  abrupt, 
clear-cut,  richly  green.  There  were 
launches  and  dug-outs  coming  to  meet 
us  filled  with  Mexicans,  disappointing 
in  their  tight,  pastel-colored  flannel 
shirts  (somehow  one  had  been  led  to  ex- 
pect, immediately,  serapes).  We  were 
mustered  in  the  saloon  before  the  fat, 
dark  port-doctor  with  the  incongruous 
blond  curls. 

We  brought  the  first  mail  since  the 
last  little  disturbance.  Some  of  us  went 
ashore  for  long  journeys  inland,  to 
Guadalajara,  and  thence,  by  pack,  to 
mines  and  oil-wells;  uncertain  as  to 
the  ardor  of  our  welcome,  but  taking  a 
chance — some  of  us  were  wives  and 
babies.  One  engineer  was  grimly  remi- 
niscent of  an  occasion,  a  few  months 
before,  when  he  had  been  lined  up  here 
with  sixty  others  as  a  sort  of  shootable 
hostage,  until  it  was  determined  that 
the  war-ship  outside  the  harbor  was 
Mexican  and  not  American.    And  only 


130 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  black  stumps  of  their  dock  remain, 
for  they  burned  it  with  some  idea  of 
discouraging  war-ships. 

But  no  disappointment  awaited  us 
when  we  had  left  our  scarred  and  bat- 
tered lighter.  We  found  a  plaza  with 
hot,  red  blossoms  and  slim,  brown  figures 
asleep  on  bench  and  band-stand  stair; 
asleep  before  courtyard  and  prison; 
skin-tight  as  to  trousers,  with  bell- 
shaped  flares  at  the  foot;  vast  straw 
sombreros,  serapes — all  there  as  one  had 
hoped;  narrow,  pebbled  streets;  tiled 
roofs  glowing  through  acacia  and  cac- 
tus up  precipitous  trails;  Indian  families 
camped  under  walls  in  the  midst  of  ex- 
otic debris  and  a  number  of  quite  familiar 
tin  cans;  rows  of  dark  little  shops  and 
bedrooms  that  opened  on  the  streets, 
inviting  curious  glances,  defying  them 
with  dark  eyes;  all  the  interiors  of  a 
Rembrandt  shadowiness  against  sun- 
streaked  courts.  And  all  glimpses  wa- 
vering up  through  vertiginous  heat. 

There  stands  out  among  them  the 
dark  shop-opening  of  a  cobbler,  withered 
and  leathery  as  the  thonged  sandals  he 
mended,  and,  gleaming  beside  him,  a 
pair  of  tiny  white-duck  pumps.  And 
there  gleams  out  another  incongruity — 
one  of  ourselves.  He  was  beautifully 
tubbed  and  talcumed  and  white-flan- 
neled.  His  breadth  strove  to  obstruct 
the  narrow  streets,  and  his  whiteness  of- 
fered shining  reproach  to  their  antiquity. 
He  wore  a  very  stiff  sailor  hat.  He 
wanted  cigars,  and  ice,  and  a  scotch-and- 
soda.  And  at  the  sight  of  the  barefooted 
constabulary  in  blue  jeans  with  a  dagger, 
and,  more  particularly,  at  the  smell  of 
the  disgraceful,  delightful  meat-shops, 
his  scorn  was  a  withering  and  a  blight- 
ing thing.  Only  it  didn't  wither  or 
blight. 

Still,  through  the  dizzy  heat  we  had 
silhouettes  of  women  and  little  girls, 
black-rebozo  wrapped  against  it,  or  bal- 
ancing oyers  on  their  heads — impres- 
sions that  what  life  Mexico  has  lost  of 
late  is  about  to  be  replaced;  impressions 
of  strange  antipathies,  inseparable  from 
the  beauty,  too,  of  all  strangeness;  of 
old  women  —  so  withered,  hideous, 
ragged,  but  ready  to  give  one  smile  for 
smile;  of  burros  with  all  but  their 
staggering  little  legs  hidden  under  cu- 
rious girths  and  packs;  of  small  beasts, 


dreadful,  half  -  starved  travesties  of 
dog. 

We  passed  a  school-room  opening  on 
the  street.  From  the  children  who  sat 
at  pedestal  desks  recitation  issued  forth 
in  uproarious  chorus;  the  others  romped 
about  the  room  or  shrilled  from  the 
courtyard,  and  the  handsome  young 
Mexican  who  presided  was  wreathed  in 
spirals  of  graceful  smoke.  Just  beyond 
lay  the  lagoon,  where,  but  a  few  weeks 
before,  they  had  left  the  bodies  of  their 
enemies — and  even  yet  a  flock  of  buz- 
zards circled  it  or  perched  near  by,  along 
the  ridge  of  a  red-tiled  roof;  symmet- 
rically spaced,  immovable — like  so  many 
raw-necked  Poe's  Ravens. 

Somewhere  off  Acapulco  we  were 
halted  by  wireless  one  inky  night.  It  was 
from  the  Yorktown,  patrolling  the  coast, 
hidden  in  the  dark,  crackling  and  spark- 
ling for  its  mail.  The  beauty  of  those 
blond  American  boys  coming  all  white 
out  of  the  night,  in  a  sudden  white 
launch,  to  sink  and  rise  at  the  ship's  side! 
We  hang  from  the  awning-deck  inclined 
to  waft  a  "  Pinafore"  chorus  of  welcome; 
something  like,  "Then  give  three  cheers 
and  one  cheer  more."  Some  notion  pos- 
sesses us  that,  after  all  these  seeming 
years  from  home,  every  one  rushes  to 
every  one  else's  arms.  But  the  afFair  is 
conducted  with  the  direst  propriety.  A 
solemn  procession  comes  up  the  ladder; 
some  one  exchanges  grunts  with  the  offi- 
cer at  the  gangway.  The  procession  dis- 
appears. After  an  interval  during  which 
we  still  hang  over  the  rails,  but  properly 
subdued,  the  procession  returns  and  re- 
tires down  the  ladder.  It  is  even  more 
solemn.  It  bears  a  mail-sack,  two  heads 
of  Romaine  lettuce,  and  a  box,  partially 
full  of  what  might  be  a  supply  of  the 
sweet  soda  so  prevalent  on  battle-ships. 

In  the  Gulf  of  Tehuantepec  now,  and 
when  one  leans  over  the  rail  at  night 
balls  of  phosphorus,  like  ghosts  of  stars, 
rise  and  fall  along  the  keel,  and,  later, 
even  tumble  into  the  bath-tub  if  one 
does  not  switch  on  the  light.  And  all 
day  the  mountains  rise,  high  and  higher; 
their  vastness  dawns  suddenly  when  the 
clouds  one  had  thought  to  be  above 
them  slip  down  and  show  purple  peaks 
still  pushing  up.  To  drift  for  days  down 
warm  seas  and  watch  vast  mountains 
rise  from  them  is  a  beautiful  thing  to  do. 


THE  LOW  SUN  STRIKING  ON  THE  GILDED  AND  GLASSY  DOMES 


It  was  at  Acajutla,  Salvador,  that  they 
first  burst  into  life — a  real  live  volcano 
breathing  out  a  funnel  of  smoke.  And 
they  did  it  again  farther  down,  at  Co- 
rinto. 

Guatemala  City,  cool,  charming,  lay 
up  among  them.  We  planned  to  go  up 
there  from  Ocos,  our  first  Central-Amer- 
ican port,  and  meet  the  ship  two  ports 
below.  But  we  did  not.  We  had  our 
little  kits  ready,  our  kodaks  recharged, 
and  our  merry  good-byes  said,  but  the 
train,  for  the  first  time  in  the  traditions 
of  that  locality,  was  in  a  hurry  and 
would  not  wait.  From  the  ship  we  saw 
the  absurd  toy  choo-chooing  back  into 
the  jungle,  and  our  wrath  was  long  and 
ridiculous. 

At  Ocos  the  waves  pound  high  as  a 
house,  and  landing  is  made  by  crane  and 
chair  to  a  lighter;  after  a  little  pre- 
liminary sculling  the  lighter  lassoes  a 
cable  swung  from  a  buoy  to  a  donkey- 
engine  on  shore,  and  is  tossed  through 
the  surf,  whence  its  contents,  human  or 
otherwise,  is  lifted  by  native  arms  and 
dumped  upon  an  exceedingly  treacher- 
ous-looking beach. 

In  spite  of  these  complications,  the 
commandante,  embossed  in  gold,  with  a 
cap  so  stiff  and  exalted  over  his  baldness 
that  it  produced,  from  the  rear,  the  not 
unpleasing  effect  of  an  intellectual  egg, 
was  fished  from  the  depths  in  a  little 
wooden  chair  and,  without  a  quiver  of 
lost  dignity,  mustered  and  suspected  us. 

To  be  mustered  and  suspected  by 
gilded  commandantes  is  our  fate,  as  it  is 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781.— 17 


our  fate  to  arrive  at  hothouse  dawns; 
to  depart  in  picture-postal  sunsets; 
to  dip  and  roll  all  day  before  luscious 
green  coast,  thatched  huts,  warehouses, 
and  steamers  stranded  on  treacherous 
beaches,  while  the  winches  rattle  and  the 
cranes  swing  out  boxes  of  coal-oil  or  ap- 
ples or  cement,  and  swing  in  coffee  and 
hides  and  logs,  and  bare,  wet  backs — 
black,  red,  and  tan — glisten  from  hold, 
dug-out,  and  lighter. 

At  San  Jose  de  Guatemala  we  became 
very  rich.  For  one  of  our  shining  Cali- 
fornian  dollars  we  were  given  thirty, — 
in  grimy,  germy  paper  slips,  to  be  sure, 
but  inciting  to  vast  expenditure.  So  we 
were  raised  to  the  wharf  in  an  iron 
bucket,  and  took  a  toy  train  aimed  tow- 
ard Esquintla,  which  is  half-way  up  to 
Guatemala  City.  And,  speaking  of  toy 
trains,  the  little  engine  that  came  jog- 
trotting  down  the  wharf  seemed  so 
puerile  that  one  almost  forgot  to  get  out 
of  its  way.  One  respected  it,  however, 
when  it  had  knocked  over  an  even  more 
absent-minded  native.  Somehow,  in 
these  sanguinary  days,  whose  echoes  fol- 
lowed us  so  far  adrift,  the  bruised  leg  of 
a  stray  native  did  not  rouse  one  as  it 
would  once  have  done.  Or  perhaps  it 
was  the  heat  that  inhibited  us. 

Through  rank  green,  then;  masses  of 
wild  morning-glory  dotted  with  huge 
blue  flowers;  miles  of  false  plantain, 
whose  leaves  break  into  scarlet  spikes — 
whose  spikes,  it  seems,  break  off  and  rise 
in  flashing  scarlet  birds;  through  groups 
of  cocoanut  -  palms   and  grasshoppers 


132 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


BURROS  UNDER  STAGGERING  BURDENS — ACAPULCO,  MEXICO 


that  sound,  at  stations,  like  the  patter- 
ing of  rain,  that  cling  in  thick,  brown 
masses  to  the  ties;  by  ox-teams,  and 
huts  thatched  like  mushrooms;  by 
naked  brown  babies  and  women  rebozo- 
wrapped,  blackly  or  gaily,  and  wearing 
the  full  ruffled  skirts  of  the  tropics  which 
seemed  so  uncharacteristic,  so  like  the 
cast-offs  of  some  Northern  rummage 
sale. 

When  not  rebozo-wrapped,  they  wore 
white  head-pads,  and,  beautifully  sway- 
ing, balanced  on  them  great  straw  trays. 
They  gathered  under  the  windows  at 
every  little  station  and  offered  their  fried 
chicken  wrapped  in  plantain  leaves, 
tortilla  and  papaya  cut  in  brilliant 
orange  crescents  with  seeds  piled  thick 
like  big  caviare.    They  had  also  green 


cocoanut  milk  in  its 
smooth  shell — the  one  ob- 
viously safe,  hermetically 
sealed,  hygienic  refresh- 
ment indigenous  to  the 
country.  We  drank  it 
luxuriously,  heads  on  the 
back  of  our  seats.  Buz- 
zards stalked  among  them 
with  all  the  impertinent 
familiarity  of  barn-yard 
fowls,  and  a  Guatemalan 
on  the  train,  completely 
disregardful  of  harmony, 
read  a  book  with  "Dick- 
ens" printed  in  large  white 
letters  across  the  cover. 

And  so,  in  the  per- 
petual, excessive,  humid 
heat,  on  to  Esquintla.  Es- 
quintla,  the  snatched  at, 
the  regretted !  Only  fifteen 
minutes  for  Esquintla! 
Around  a  white-hot  cor- 
ner, and  behold,  a  dusky 
market-place  and  women 
—  hundreds  it  seemed  — 
grouped  about  baskets  and 
trays  of  brilliant  fruits. 
Where  the  trees  failed, 
squares  of  canvas,  like 
kites  mounted  on  tall 
poles,  slanted  over  them; 
vision  of  vivid  color  and 
shade  and  the  dark  gleam 
of  eyes  turned  at  the  ap- 
parition of  a  Gringo  wom- 
an, frantically  snap-shoot- 
ing. Beyond,  a  cracked  cathedral 
waited.  Esquintla  the  alluring!  A 
thwarted  dream. 

But  Panama  and  the  Canal  should 
assuage  these  snatches  and  the  lost  hope 
of  all  those  other  ports  which,  because 
they  were  feverish  or  mosquitoish,  must 
be  foregone,  lest  Panama  be  contami- 
nated. So,  for  the  most  part,  we  rolled 
lazily  in  the  offing,  moaning  at  the  heat. 
And  when  cargo  was  light  and  we  put 
off  early,  we  swung  around  in  a  great 
circle  and  tested  our  compass. 

To  "roll  lazily  in  the  offing"  was  a 
fine  nautical  thing  to  do,  but  to  "batten 
our  hatches"  seemed  even  more  sophis- 
ticated. And  battened  they  needed  to 
be  those  nights  when  the  heat  broke  into 
lightning  and  storm,  which  tore  awnings, 


SOUTHWARD  FROM  THE  GOLDEN  GATE 


133 


ripped  and  wrecked  and  flooded;  split 
sky  from  zenith  to  horizon,  and  opened 
visions  of  minarets  and  palms  black 
upon  the  fire.  Meanwhile,  a  Nicaraguan 
lady  read  her  prayers  vigorously,  one 
foot  within  and  one  without  her  state- 
room door. 

Two  days  off  Corinto,  all  green  islands 
and  palmy  points,  clear-cut  mountains 
and  pelicans.  Each  night  at  five  we 
swung  off  from  the  deadly  wharf  to 
wallow  in  a  mad  tropical  sunset.  By 
day,  the  gourd  and  cocoanut  sellers 
squatted  on  the  wharf;  and  the  volcano 
spouted,  and  a  wistful  shark  snooped 
about  the  bathing-pens  near  shore  or 
swam  through  the  Nicaraguan  navy — 
consisting  of  a  rusty  and  stranded  ship 
once  rented  by  one  John  Moissant  to 
start  a  revolution  with.  And,  still  off 
Corinto,  protective  and  lovely,  lay  the 


Denver — where,  regaled  with  sweet  soda, 
we  beheld  two  hundred  cherubic  sailor- 
boys,  with  tongues  in  their  cheeks,  writ- 
ing laboriously  home;  and  a  dozen 
slightly  less  cherubic  officers,  in  bathing- 
suits,  departing  launchwise  for  some  safe 
and  sharkless  swim. 

And  the  heat!  Not  even  the  cliffy 
green  of  San  Juan  del  Sur,  with  ox-carts 
lumbering  heavenwards,  nor  Punta  Are- 
nas, where  the  tortoise-shell  man  boards 
us  with  his  inlaid  combs  and  rings  and 
pins,  whose  mechanism  dissolves  at  a 
touch,  nor  the  logs — mahogany,  cedar, 
and  rosewood — bobbing  and  sliding  un- 
der straddling  brown  figures — not  even 
these  can  curb  our  eagerness  for  Panama 
and  our  resentment  against  the  heat. 

Heat !  But  we  who  lay  in  our  steamer- 
chairs,  why  did  we  take,  so  late,  that 
last  night's  exploratory,  salutary  descent 


STEAMER  DAY — CORINTO,  NICARAGUA 


134 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


down  to  the  furnaces  and  the  depths  of 
the  glory-hole — to  fight  back  faintness 
under  each  canvas  air-chute  and  emerge, 
clothes  clinging,  like  wet  bathing-suits? 
Poor  suffering  passengers,  indeed! 

Past  white  ships  waiting  to  be  pilot- 
ed, past  fortified  island,  past  the  Canal 
opening,  its  channel  marked  with  tall, 
white  monuments  that  give  it  the  look 
of  some  watery  graveyard.  We  docked 
at  five,  and  plunged  among  the  home- 
going  workers. 

That  is  the  initial  wonder — the  multi- 


tudes, hurrying  to  their  cars,  their  quar- 
ters. Before  one  even  begins  to  wind 
among  the  narrow  streets  of  Panama, 
that  sense  of  the  work,  the  workers, 
catches  one;  of  so  many  drifting  lives 
picked  up,  utilized  by  this  tremendous 
energy — energy  here  so  unnatural,  su- 
perimposed. 

Panama  itself  is  like  a  woman  who, 
looked  at  too  closely  in  the  glare  of  day, 
might  strike  one  as  a  bit  tawdry,  some- 
what more  inclined  to  perfumery  than 
good  old  Castile  soap.  But  at  night, 
leaning  from  a  balcony  against  the  light 


STEAMING  ALONG  THE  RUGGED  NICARAGUAN  SHORE 


CAPE  BLANCO — COSTA  RICA 


that  streams  through  open  Venetian 
windows,  or  half  suspected  in  some  dim 
doorway  of  the  narrow  street,  or  among 
the  palm  shadows  of  the  plaza — then 
she  comes  into  her  own. 

It  is  as  if  Panama  said:  "What  mat- 
ter if  the  day  is  too  hot,  or  that  I  paint 
my  cathedral  a  shiny  gray  with  imita- 
tion marble  stenciling,  or  that  I  trim 
with  jig-saw,  and  harbor  a  garage  in  the 
heart  of  my  most  beautiful  ruin  ?  It  will 
all  come  right — at  night.'' 

And  the  heat  breaks  into  late  after- 
noon showers  and  makes  the  night  ready. 
Then,  through  your  half-shuttered  win- 
dows, where  you  see  the  still  palm 
crowns  and  the  tips  of  acacia  as  you 
wake  from  the  hot  and  sleepy  noon,  it  is 
as  if  the  town  stirred  softly.  There 
comes  the  gentle  "p'sss" — that  sibi- 
lant call  of  the  tropics,  so  repellent,  at 
first,  as  something  too  insinuatingly 
animal-like,  and  later  felt  to  be  emi- 
nently fitting;  the  gentle  clang  of  the 
little  landau  bells  grows  more  frequent; 
the  very  newsboys  beginning  to  shout 
their  "El  Diario  de  la  Tarde"  or  "La 
Estrella  y  el  Heraldo"  are  not  ordinary, 


raucous-voiced  urchins,  but  exotic  be- 
ings uttering  strange  messages. 

After  dinner,  hatless,  wrapless  (unless, 
being  a  woman,  the  appropriateness  of 
some  white,  slinky,  shawl-thing  proves 
irresistible),  step  into  one  of  the  little 
carriages  that  edge  the  plaza,  have  some 
one  you  love  beside  you  (but  this  is  not 
essential),  and  leave  the  matter  of  des- 
tiny to  your  negro  driver. 

Through  dark,  narrow  streets  we  go, 
where  only  one  on  foot  can  pass  us; 
by  the  sea-wall  from  whose  turrets  sen- 
tries look  down  into  the  prison  court, 
and  where,  from  the  opera-house,  half 
circled  with  waiting  cars,  comes  a  rol- 
licking chorus,  and  actors  in  cavalier 
capes  and  curls  and  swords  group  for  a 
moment's  air  at  some  vaulted  door  like 
courtiers;  by  the  Presidential  Palace, 
with  a  glimpse  of  palmy  court  and  lolling 
guard,  and  on  the  balconies  a  hint  of 
gilt  and  velvet;  by  cock-pit  and  dusky 
abattoir,  where  waiting  cattle  stir; 
through  Caledonia,  with  all  Jamaica 
flowing  into  the  squalid,  bright,  happy 
streets;  under  dark,  close-shuttered  bal- 
conies, or  where  a  consulate  coat-of- 


136 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


figures  wind  among  the 
shadows.  We  get  a 
glimpse,  through  some 
cafe  door,  of  a  dancer 
from  Peru,  writhing 
before  a  panel  of  red 
velvet  in  apparently 
barbaric  splendor;  our 
gaze  is  held  for  a  mo- 
ment by  a  crowd  of  ne- 
groes rapt  before  some 
cafe  accordion;  we  see 
bright  little  shop-win- 
dows full  of  hideous,  be- 
loved statuettes,  or  un- 
canny florists'  windows 
where  every  leaf  and 
flower  is  made  of  beads. 
We  have  a  view  of  some 
Panamanian  dance 
through  the  open  bal- 
cony windows,  the  cou- 
ples eminently  correct 
and  high-necked,  indul- 
ing  in  nothing1  more 
imaginative  than  waltz 
and  quadrille.  There  is 
a  sudden  dash  of  a  car- 
riage with  cockaded 
footmen,  the  horses 
shining  and  very  stylish 
— and  so,  weaving  from 
dark  into  light  about 
the  narrow  streets,  in 
the  gently  clanging  lit- 
tle carriage,  in  the  soft 
and  lovely  warmth,  un- 
til all  glimpses  weave 
themselves  together, 
and  the  mystery  of  that 

arms  catches  the  light  like  an  enameled  vast  energy  that  keeps  one  safe  and 
jewel;  across  into  the  zone  and  up  the  feverless,  and  builds  great  canals,  and 
hill  beneath  some  festooned  passion-  gathers  in  the  streams  of  countless  lives 
vine,  between  rows  of  royal  palms  with  to  its  will,  and  that  other  mystery,  se- 
smooth  and  silvery  trunks,  so  subtly     ducing  one  to  drift — until  these  two  be- 


THE  CATHEDRAL — SAN  JOSE,  COSTA  RICA 


tapered;  among  American  bungalows, 
through  whose  finely  screened  veranda 
openings  evening  lamps  glow  on  books 
and  tea-tables  and  all  the  dear  interiors 


come  as  one  intermingling  beauty. 

If  one  must  deplore  the  morals  of  that 
picturesque  pirate  Morgan,  who  de- 
of  home;  by  great  hospitals  and  bar-  stroyed  old  Panama  in  the  late  seven- 
racks  and  stables,  with  a  glimpse,  always  teenth  century,  the  picturesque  result,  at 
finely  screened,  of  a  white-clad  nurse,  least,  does  him  great  credit.  To  inspect 
or  a  masculine  face  bending,  intent,  over  his  work,  you  pass  through  miles  of 
book  or  blue-print;  by  the  Administra-  luscious  green  country;  by  bull-ring  and 
tion  Building,  huge  on  a  hill,  flooded  rock-shrine,  cross-tipped,  and  splashed 
with  light;  and  down  again  to  where  the  with  wax  from  pilgrim  candles;  along 
band  plays  in  the  plaza  and  white-clad     fences  with  posts  capped  to  keep  the 


SOUTHWARD  FROM  THE  GOLDEN  GATE 


137 


rain  from  rotting  them;  by  the  villa  of 
some  wealthy  Panamanian  up  in  the 
hills;  by  cane  huts  with  leafy  roofs 
plucked  from  the  very  back  yard;  by 
khaki  soldiers  and  natives  with  ma- 
chetes. We  leave  our  negro  driver  read- 
ing, with  deepest  sobriety,  a  strange 
pamphlet  entitled  Joke  Book. 

Cathedral,  court-house,  nunnery,  bro- 
ken tower  and  shattered  arch  and  every 
ledge  and  loophole  outlined  with  the 
delicate  tracery  of  tiny  palm  and  fern 
and  vine,  arranged  in  the  manner  of  our 
very  best  window-boxes.  The  trouble 
with  these  tropics  is  that  they  overdo 
it  a  bit.  They  even  managed  a  palm- 
encircled  swamp  for  us,  seen  through  a 
perfect  broken  curve,  and  sent  a  ship  at 
full  sail  across  the  sea  beyond. 

From  here,  over  that  Golden  Trail 
whose  paving  -  stones  still  mark  it 
through  the  jungle,  the  old  Pana- 
manians packed  their  pearls  and  pre- 
cious stuffs  from  Peru,  en  route  to  Puerto 


Bello  and  old  Spain.  And  precious  bur- 
dens are  still  being  packed  over  diffi- 
cult passes. 

At  first,  it  seemed  that  some  low  and 
unfelt  wind  was  breathing  across  the 
road  in  a  stir  of  tiny  leaves.  And  then 
we  knew  that  those  leaves  moved  too 
purposefully.  They  rose  and  fell;  they 
undulated  like  tiny,  unwieldy  green 
sails;  like  tiny  unmanageable  green  um- 
brellas in  a  gale.  But  each  little  ant- 
pirate  scurried  by,  unyielding  to  his  bur- 
den. They,  too,  had  worn  through  their 
jungle  a  Golden  Trail,  nearly  a  foot 
across,  and  back  and  forth  they  hurried 
up  the  ruined  walls,  like  a  slender,  quiv- 
ering vine,  over  brick  mountain,  through 
loophole  canon;  and  still  we  saw  the 
green  leaf  bits  trembling  along  the  edge 
of  the  arch,  high  overhead. 

We  follow  the  Canal.  We  listen  to 
statistics  of  water,  high  and  low;  of 
locks  and  levels;  of  towns  built  up  and 


THE  SEA  WALL,  PANAMA — A  GRAY  AND  ANCIENT  RELIC  OF  SPANISH  DAYS 


APPROACHING  THE  PACIFIC  ENTRANCE  OF  THE  CANAL — BALBOA 


then  drowned  out  when  the  waters  were 
let  in.  We  see  from  our  car  the  canal 
channel  where  it  hugs  the  hills,  and  the 
white  guide-towers  that  shine  out  of 
their  jungle.  Except  for  the  streak  of 
vivid  red  that  marks  Culebra  Cut, 
everything  that  is  not  green  is  gray; 
the  sky,  the  air,  is  a  fine,  gray  rain;  the 
Rio  Chagres,  spreading  out  of  its  banks 
now,  and  filling  the  hills  in  a  great  lake, 
is  gray;  dead  gray  trees,  still  upright, 
rot  above  the  flood.  Here  and  there  the 
top  of  a  former  hill  makes  a  green 
island,  and  here  and  there  floating 
islands  are  forming  (to  be  discouraged, 
it  is  rumored,  by  a  herd  of  hippopo- 
tami).   A  vast  and  swampy  jungle,  it 


seems,  struck  dead  by  some  uncanny 
influence. 

The  Rio  Chagres — strange  how,  under 
all  statistics  of  universal  import,  one's 
own  small  link  with  it  prevails — how 
one  remembers  the  story  of  a  little  boy 
of  ten,  unhappy,  rebellious  baby,  who 
ran  away  from  his  New  York  home,  and 
wandered  to  this  same  gray-green  jungle 
spot,  and  slept  out  with  the  natives  and 
punted  boats,  and  had  the  fever  and  was 
very  much  alone  indeed.  The  Chagres 
River — for  me,  it  resolved  then  to  but 
the  figure  of  a  little  boy  pulling  at  one's 
heart  as  only  little  boys  and  old,  old 
fathers  can. 


Mysteries 

BY  CHARLES  HANSON  TOWNE 

LIFE  holds  unmeasured  sanctities, 
Immortal  glories — sun  and  moon, 
The  quiet  stars,  the  western  skies, 
And  the  deep  wonder  of  ripe  June; 

The  hills,  the  hosts  of  flowers;  the  mood 
Of  Autumn,  and  the  rippling  rain; 

Beauty  no  heart  has  understood, 

Passion  that  makes  no  moment  vain. 

It  is  so  strange — this  gift  of  breath, 
This  pageant  of  the  earth  and  sea; 

Yet  stranger  far  than  Life  or  Death 
Is  this,  O  Love — your  need  of  me. 


Miss  Donnithorne's  Arabian  Night 


BY  MARIE  MANNING 


HE  night  was  a  miracle 
of  June  loveliness:  a 
moon  like  a  disk  of  pale, 
beaten  gold;  the  air 
reeking  sweet  with  the 
scent  of  honeysuckle 
and  white  locusts,  the 
deep  blue  of  the  sky — haunting  in  its 
suggestion  of  the  sea  and  ships  adven- 
ture. A  night  with  a  pulse  in  it — a  night 
to  trouble  the  canker  of  loneliness  in 
vigil-keeping  souls  in  whom  survives  the 
doubtful  gift  of  sensibility. 

In  the  moonlight,  the  short  street 
where  the  story  began  had  a  curious, 
picturesque  quality  that  did  not  in  the 
least  suggest  the  vicinity  of  the  Poto- 
mac. On  one  side,  a  walled  garden  with 
a  horse-chestnut  flaunting  its  white  blos- 
soms; on  the  other,  four  staid  old  houses, 
intimating,  in  their  sedate  repression, 
that  they  might  have  many  a  tale  to  tell. 
Their  wrought-iron  balconies  on  the 
second  floor,  and  long  French  windows 
opening  on  them  from  the  drawing- 
rooms,  recalled  Civil  War  prints  and 
ladies  in  crinolines  waving  handkerchiefs 
to  departing  soldiers.  Beyond  this  dec- 
orous quartette  was  a  big,  swaggering 
sort  of  house — the  kind  they  used  to 
build  when  prosperity  overtook  them  in 
a  single  night:  all  brown-stone  porch, 
mansard  roof,  and  overhanging  copings. 

To  the  neighborhood,  this  house  had 
long  smelled  of  mystery.  For  years  it 
had  been  plastered  with  signs  urging 
chance  pedestrians  to  rent,  to  buy,  to 
lease — to  take  the  old  house  on  any 
terms  at  all — but  no  one  seemed  to  no- 
tice it,  except  the  boys  who  threw  stones 
through  the  windows  and  smashed  the 
good  but  pompous  carvings  on  the  front 
door.  Then  suddenly  a  company  of 
workmen  appeared  and  set  about  put- 
ting the  place  in  order;  they  even  added 
all  sorts  of  modern  vanities,  conveying 
to  a  watching  neighborhood  that  expense 
had  not  to  be  considered.  But  to  all 
inquiries  regarding  the  identity  of  the 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781.— 18 


prospective  tenants  the  workmen  were 
as  much  in  the  dark  as  the  neighbors. 
Furniture  came,  good  substantial  stuff", 
chiefly  leather,  but  no  one  seemed  to 
move  in;  still  the  house  presented  a 
baffling  air  of  being  occupied.  From 
time  to  time  a  man-servant,  in  quiet 
livery,  would  post  a  letter  in  the  cor- 
ner mail  -  box,  and  cracks  of  light 
gleamed  back  of  the  drawn  curtains  as 
summer  approached  and  the  evenings 
grew  oppressively  warm. 

During  the  day  the  house  was  as  silent 
as  the  grave,  but  at  night  there  was  al- 
ways that  furtive  air  of  occupancy.  Mrs. 
Tuttle,  who  lived  in  one  of  the  old  houses 
with  the  iron  balconies,  declared  there 
was  no  family  living  there;  she  had 
watched  for  clothes-lines  in  the  back 
yard,  and  never  so  much  as  the  flutter 
of  a  maid's  apron  rewarded  her  vigilance. 

The  Misses  Donnithorne,  who  lived 
next  door  to  Mrs.  Tuttle,  paid  as  little 
attention  to  her  talk  as  they  did  to  the 
house  of  mystery;  they  had  a  petrified 
tragedy  in  their  family  that  had  kept 
them  fully  occupied  for  years.  All  their 
days  were  spent  in  keeping  green  its 
memory,  and  watering  it  with  their 
tears,  and  being  utterly  and  splendidly 
crushed  by  it.  The  family  calamity  had 
happened  so  long  ago  that  doubtless  the 
two  old  sisters  were  vague  as  to  details, 
but  they  clung  to  it  as  a  drowning  man 
to  a  floating  spar.  Without  it  life  for 
them  would  have  lost  all  significance, 
their  perpetual  mourning  its  pleasing 
morbidity — and  yet,  in  its  way  the  trag- 
edy was  rather  a  small  affair.  Their  only 
brother,  younger  than  they  by  a  decade, 
had  consoled  himself  by  marrying  a 
French  opera-singer,  after  the  father  of 
the  girl  with  whom  he  had  danced 
through  one  season  had  refused  him  as  a 
son-in-law.  The  girl  in  question  had 
allowed  herself  to  be  married  to  a  rising 
young  Congressman,  and  the  affair,  now 
all  but  forgotten,  had  convulsed  Wash- 
ington tea-tables  in  the  early  nineties. 


140 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


That  was  all — but  the  mesalliance,  as 
the  two  sisters  regarded  it,  served  to 
send  them  into  retirement  at  an  age 
when  most  women  are  still  resolutely 
girlish.  And  when  their  brother's  daugh- 
ter, Viola,  came  to  live  with  them,  after 
the  death  of  her  parents,  they  dug  up 
the  affair  all  over  again.  They'd  do 
their  duty  by  the  child,  of  course,  yet 
each  put  on  an  extra  veil  when  they  took 
her  to  walk. 

The  little  girl  flourished  in  the  magical 
way  a  plant  will  sometimes  flourish  from 
a  crumb  of  earth  dropped  within  the 
crevices  of  a  stone  wall.  She  was  a 
creature  all  fire  and  quick,  kindling  sym- 
pathy, full  of  impulse,  stormy,  passion- 
ate. Her  appearance  was  another  griev- 
ance to  the  two  elderly  ladies:  "she 
looked  so  very  French" — as,  indeed,  she 
did,  with  soft  blue-black  hair  that  swept 
about  the  healthful  pallor  of  her  face 
like  smoke,  gray  eyes  with  black  lashes, 
and  a  mouth  as  scarlet  as  the  one  sung  of 
by  Solomon. 

At  twenty  Viola  had  never  been  to 
a  party,  never  been  taught  to  dance, 
had  no  young  friends,  and  was,  in  fact, 
an  outcast  from  the  fairy  kingdom  of 
youth.  She  understood  that  there  was 
something  "terrible"  about  her  history, 
something  that  her  aunts  refused  to  dis- 
cuss, but  beyond  this  she  knew  nothing. 
On  the  wonderful  June  night  in  question 
Viola  had  had  a  solitary  dinner,  the  old 
aunts  having  gone  to  their  summer  place 
in  Fauquier  County,  leaving  their  niece 
to  follow  with  the  two  remaining  ser- 
vants when  the  sacred  family  rite  of 
"putting  up"  the  strawberries  should  be 
finished.  She  was  tired  from  the  stirring 
and  boiling  of  the  fruit,  and  somewhat 
anxious  about  the  result,  this  being  the 
first  time  her  aunts  had  wholly  in- 
trusted her  with  this  important  bit  of 
domestic  ritual.  The  balcony  looked  in- 
viting, and  she  had  gone  there  after  din- 
ner for  a  breath  of  air. 

But  the  loveliness  of  the  night  exer- 
cised on  Viola  anything  but  a  tranquil- 
izing  influence;  the  day  with  its  scores 
of  tasks  about  the  old  house  was  one 
thing,  the  night  with  its  almost  aching 
beauty  and  its  invitation  to  reverie  was 
another.  The  street  was  absolutely 
quiet — already  half  Washington  had  fled 
the  heat;  the  house  with  the  walled  gar- 


den opposite  was  closed;  Mrs.  Tuttle's 
was  the  only  one  of  the  row  except  their 
own  that  was  open.  The  life  awaiting 
her  in  the  country  would  be  a  replica  of 
the  life  in  town — the  same  faces  of  fam- 
ily and  servants,  the  same  kinds  of 
meals,  the  same  isolation;  and  in  Octo- 
ber they'd  close  the  country  place  and 
return  to  the  same  desiccating  monot- 
ony in  town. 

The  witching  loveliness  of  the  June 
night  stung  like  a  thousand  arrows,  the 
perfume  of  the  honeysuckle  climbing 
over  the  balcony  almost  hurt.  It  all 
seemed  spectacularly  mocking  —  the 
white-flowered  horse-chestnut  opposite, 
the  honey-colored  moon,  the  night  blue 
of  the  sky,  and  this  old  barracks  of  a 
house  in  which  her  very  soul  seemed  to 
be  shriveling. 

"'Sh-sh-sh — !"  The  adjoining  bal- 
cony began  to  creak  under  the  tread  of 
their  neighbor,  Mrs.  Tuttle,  as  she  set- 
tled herself  in  a  rocking-chair  like  a 
cataclysm  of  nature.  "'Sh-sh-sh!  Did 
you  notice  that  taxicab  stop  at  the  cor- 
nerr 

Viola  admitted  that  she  had  not  no- 
ticed. 

"Well,"  communicated  the  neighborly 
lookout,  "it  did.  And  a  young  man 
got  out  of  it  and  stuck  as  close  to  the 
shadow  of  these  houses  as  he  could, 
then  dashed  up  those  steps."  She  nodded 
dramatically  toward  the  house  of  mys- 
tery. 

"Then  perhaps  some  one  is  going  to 
move  in  at  last,"  Viola  commented. 

"People  don't  move  in  like  sneak- 
thieves,  my  dear— at  least  the  kind 
of  people  that  make  desirable  neigh- 
bors." 

But  the  implied  offer  of  a  private-de- 
tective partnership  was  not  taken  up  by 
the  girl;  if  anything  could  be  worse 
than  such  an  evening  alone,  it  would  be 
the  desecration  of  spending  it  in  the  gos- 
siping society  of  Mrs.  Tuttle.  She  re- 
sponded valiantly  to  her  neighbor's  cate- 
chism regarding  the  preserves,  then  went 
in. 

In  the  candle-lighted  drawing-room 
beyond  the  Donnithorne  balcony,  the 
twilight  of  a  past  generation  seemed  per- 
petually to  prevail.  In  just  such  a  draw- 
ing-room Horace  Walpole  might  have 
culled  gossip  for  a  letter  to  the  Misses 


Drawn  by  Walter  Biggs 

"PEOPLE    DON'T    MOVE    IN    LIKE    SNEAK-THIEVES,    MY  DEAR" 


MISS  DONNITHORNE'S  ARABIAN  NIGHT 


141 


Berry.  To  step  across  its  threshold  was 
to  step  into  the  eighteenth  century. 
Everything  was  homogeneous;  nothing 
looked  as  if  it  had  been  "picked  up." 
But  the  delicate  spindle-legged  mahog- 
any, set  in  its  background  of  time- 
mellowed  green,  evoked  no  admiration 
from  Viola;  to  her  it  had  a  sort  of  Val- 
halla quality  in  which  the  memories  of  a 
past  generation  seemed  to  have  been 
embalmed.  It  was  all  like  the  clutch 
of  a  dead  hand  at  her  youth — the  draw- 
ing-room, the  old  house,  the  mummified 
old  ladies  peering  out'  of  their  spectral 
past. 

For  solace,  friend,  and  confidant  in 
this  limbo  world  Viola  had  her  piano, 
and  she  played  admirably.  Her  aunts 
had  had  her  well  taught — they  called  it 
an  accomplishment,  but  to  the  girl  it 
meant  talking  to  God.  So  that  on  this 
particular  June  night  when  the  moon, 
like  a  disk  of  pale  beaten  gold,  mocked 
her  loneliness,  and  the  white  blooms  of 
the  locusts  and  honeysuckle  seemed  to 
whip  like  thongs,  she  ran  to  her  piano 
with  the  outrage  of  it. 

Schumann's  "Fantasiestiicke"  tempted 
her.  He  knew  all  the  joy  and  woe  of  the 
human  heart  and,  in  the  great  year  of 
his  singing,  had  written  of  life  in  every 
mood.  Her  fingers  flew  to  the  witchery 
of  "Grillen."  What  exhilaration,  what 
yearning,  what  understanding!  She 
played  it  over  and  over,  till  the  first  fine 
edge  of  her  revolt  had  expended  itself. 
And  then  she  unconsciously  slipped 
into  "  Warum?"  Why,  why,  she  asked 
her  friend,  should  her  life  be  so  cruelly 
different  from  other  lives?  Why  should 
her  heart  cry  out  to  youth,  and  only 
querulous,  complaining  age  answer? 
Her  plaintive  questioning  sang  itself 
into  the  perfumed  sweetness  of  the  June 
night — and,  as  always,  there  came  no 
answer. 

And  then,  like  a  flash,  the  tropic 
beauty  of  the  night  was  invaded  by  a 
rush  of  harsh  sounds — the  sharp  fluting 
of  a  policeman's  whistle,  the  answering 
call  of  another  at  a  distance,  the  crash- 
ing thump  of  a  night-stick  on  the  pave- 
ment, the  noisy  clatter  of  a  patrol,  the 
alarm  of  distress  answered  by  the  mu- 
nicipal "Here!" 

Viola  did  not  move  from  her  piano.  A 
man-hunt  in  the  interests  of  law  and 


order  was  doubtless  necessary,  but  the 
sound  of  it  was  horrible  and  she  had  no 
morbid  curiosity.  The  long  French  win- 
dows from  the  balcony  to  the  drawing- 
room  were  open  to  the  floor,  and  the 
night  breeze  drove  the  curtains  half-way 
across  the  room.  The  candles  over  the 
piano  flared  in  their  sconces.  She 
glanced  at  her  wrist-watch.  A  quarter  to 
eleven.  Time  to  fasten  the  windows  and 
go  to  bed.  Another  gust  lifted  the  cur- 
tains, as  with  a  faint  chilling  of  the  blood 
she  became  conscious  of  something  draw- 
ing her  attention  to  the  balcony.  It 
drew  her  gaze  surely,  relentlessly  as  a 
magnet  draws;  she  felt  her  eyes  await- 
ing the  next  inward  sweep  of  the  curtain, 
then  met  the  glitter  of  a  pair  of  eyes 
outside  the  window. 

In  an  instant  the  breeze  had  sucked 
back  the  curtains  and  blotted  them  out. 
She  stifled  her  first  impulse,  which  was 
to  cry  out,  and  waited.  The  man 
crouching  on  the  balcony  was  breathing 
hard,  as  if  he  had  been  running;  the  flare 
of  the  candles  caught  a  white  expanse  of 
shirt;  the  fugitive  was  in  evening  dress. 

"Don't  be  frightened,"  he  jerked  out 
as  well  as  his  ragged  breathing  would 
permit.  "It's  brutal  to  descend  on  you 
like  this — they  just  missed  me  by  a 
hair." 

The  hubbub  in  the  street  took  on  a 
hoarser  tone  as  the  pursuers  realized 
their  game  had  slipped  through  their  fin- 
gers. There  were  cries  that  he  had 
escaped  into  one  of  the  adjoining  houses, 
cries  that  he  had  got  out  the  back  way, 
more  whistling  and  stick-pounding. 

"Won't  you  trust  me?"  the  man 
pleaded.  "Things  look  dead  against  me, 
I  know.   Let  me  come  in?" 

Perhaps  it  was  due  to  one  of  those  un- 
charted currents  in  the  mind  that  sweep 
human  impulses  impartially  on  toward 
mobs  or  crusades,  man-hunts  or  martyr- 
dom; Viola  never  knew  what  it  was  that 
turned  her  fear  of  the  crouching  man  on 
the  balcony  into  blind  adherence.  She 
never  stopped  to  ask  herself  what  he  had 
done,  or  whether  he  was  guilty  or  inno- 
cent. A  crowd  was  in  full  cry  after  him, 
hunting  him  as  they  would  hunt  a  beast 
in  a  jungle.  In  a  flash  her  compassion 
was  enlisted — she  was  for  the  man 
against  the  mob. 

She  nodded  her  head  in  assent.  "Keep 


142 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


away  from  the  window  or  they'll  notice 
your  shadow."  He  stepped  into  the 
green  twilight  of  the  candle-shaded 
drawing-room.  After  the  mad  scramble 
and  breakneck  escape  of  the  last  few 
minutes  the  room  seemed  to  hold  the 
peace  of  a  secluded  forest. 

" Thank  you!"  His  breath  was  still 
labored,  his  face  bloodless;  he  was  big 
and  limber  with  the  easy  suppleness  of 
youth.  Life  in  the  open  had  marked  him 
plainly  as  with  a  branding-iron;  his 
clean-cut  face  was  darkly  tanned,  save 
for  a  white  scallop  across  the  forehead 
where  the  vizor  of  a  cap  had  evidently 
protected  it.  His  was  the  open  type  of 
face  reckoned  the  world  over  as  a  syno- 
nym of  integrity.  Viola  stood  looking 
up  at  him — he  towered  a  foot  higher 
than  she;  her  face  showed  gentle  and 
soft  in  the  candle-light,  with  something 
in  it  of  especial  compassion. 

He  threw  back  his  head  and  shook  it, 
the  gesture  of  a  man  who  has  fought  for 
life  among  tumbling  breakers.  Slowly 
the  color  filtered  back  to  his  face,  his 
breathing  became  more  regular.  "If 
you  had  done  me  some  trifling  courtesy, 
I  should  have  said  'Thank  you.'  You 
save  something  more  precious  than  my 
life — and  yet  there  isn't  anything  else  to 
say.    With  all  my  heart,  then,  thank 

you! 

His  smile,  boyish,  winning,  was  a 
strong  credential — the  tumult  of  the 
street  notwithstanding.  They  stood 
looking  at  each  other  in  the  dim,  quaint 
old  room  full  of  the  mystic  charm  of 
yesterday,  and  something  of  the  wonder 
of  two  shipwrecked  survivors  meeting  in 
the  sunrise  after  the  storm  was  theirs. 
It  was  not  merely  that  she  was  beautiful 
and  feminine;  it  was  the  allurement  of 
the  timid  gesture  of  protection  with 
which  she  took  his  hand  and  drew  him 
from  the  window.  And  as  for  the  girl, 
the  big  man  in  his  peril  was  as  unac- 
countable as  she  to  him.  It  was  one  of 
those  moments  that  are  a  law  unto  them- 
selves— it  had  the  headlong  rapture  of 
youth  finding  youth;  it  had  the  intensity 
of  fear.  He  drew  a  step  nearer — the 
front-door  bell  clanged  through  the  house 
with  the  rude  summons  of  a  tocsin. 

"They're  at  the  door!"  And  now  it 
was  the  girl's  face  that  blanched,  and  to 
the  man  came  that  hair-trigger  steadi- 


ness of  nerve  that  only  a  great  moment 
can  inspire. 

"Is  there  a  pistol  here?  Armed,  the 
chances  are  about  even." 

"There's  an  unloaded  musket  from 
the  war  of  1812  in  Aunt  Annabel's  desk," 
And  in  spite  of  the  pounding  on  the 
door  they  smiled  faintly.  "No,  I  don't 
believe  even  policemen  could  be  bluffed 
by  an  unloaded  musket  of  1812." 

The  door-bell  rang  again;  a  night- 
stick beat  a  tattoo  on  the  panels.  "Go 
down  this  hall  as  far  as  you  can  and 
you'll  find  a  little  back  staircase.  Be 
careful;  it's  perfectly  dark.  The  key  will 
be  in  the  back  door,  and  there's  a  bolt, 
too,  at  the  top.  If  the  noise  wakens 
our  old  man-servant,  say:  'Young  miss 
says  it's  all  right.'  The  back  yard  opens 
into  the  alley — I'll  speak  to  them  from 
the  balcony."  Her  answer  to  his  mo- 
mentary hesitation  was  a  brisk  shove 
down  the  hall.  "Go;  there's  not  a  sec- 
ond to  waste!" 

And  now  she  was  calm  with  the  tense 
composure  that  the  last  turn  of  the  screw 
of  fear  can  give.  She  stepped  to  the 
balcony,  a  challenging  figure  of  indigna- 
tion: "Officer,  do  you  know  that  you 
are  ruining  our  door?" 

"Thin  why  don't  you  open  ut  and 
let  me  git  the  man  thot's  hiding  in 
there?" 

"There's  no  one  here — I've  been  play- 
ing the  piano  for  over  an  hour." 

"A  man  saw  him  drop  from  the  third- 
story  of  eight  twelve;  he  caught  the 
coping,  landed  on  that  far  balcony,  and 
crept  up  behind  thim  vines.  'Tis  me 
juty  to  break  in  the  door  if  you  won't 
opun  ut." 

•    "Very  well,  I'll  come  down." 

Breathlessly  she  sped  along  the  hall 
and  felt  her  way  down  the  crooked  stairs 
at  the  back  of  the  house.  He'd  be  gone 
by  this  time,  and  she'd  turn  the  key  in 
the  back  door,  fasten  the  bolt,  then  let 
them  search  to  their  hearts'  content — 
the  longer  the  better.  But  at  the  foot  of 
the  stairs  the  fugitive  stood. 

"There  were  a  few  more  bluecoats 
waiting  in  the  alley  than  on  the  street," 
he  said. 

"I've  got  to  open  the  door;  they've 
threatened  to  break  it  in." 

"Yes — they'll  become  suspicious  if 
you  wait." 


MISS  DONNITHORNE'S  ARABIAN  NIGHT 


143 


Her  feet  carried  her  mechanically 
along  the  dark  kitchen  passage,  then 
into  the  front  hall,  where  a  dim  gas-jet 
burned.  A  pulse  beat  in  her  throat;  she 
could  neither  think  nor  plan;  she  knew 
only  that  she  had  to  open  the  door  and 
that  the  big  man  had  no  means  of  escape. 

She  slipped  the  bolt;  two  policemen 
dashed  past  her  with  enough  noise  for 
twenty  captures,  overturning  furniture 
in  their  rush  for  the  stairs.  A  third  they 
left  outside  the  front  door  to  apprehend 
the  fugitive  should  he  attempt  to  escape 
that  way.  In  three  minutes  they  had 
reduced  the  second  floor  to  chaos, 
switched  lights  on  and  off,  torn  out  the 
contents  of  closets,  and,  finding  nothing, 
had  rushed  to  the  third  floor.  Viola, 
who  had  stuck  to  her  post  in  the  front 
hall,  waited  dumbly  for  them  to  make 
their  discovery  on  the  back  stairs. 

And  then  happened  one  of  those  mi- 
raculous things  that  compel  a  belief  in 
fate  or  luck  or  guardian  angels.  Mrs. 
Tuttle,  having  found  Viola  unsympa- 
thetic toward  the  neighborhood  mys- 
tery, retired  shortly  after  the  girl  had 
left  the  balcony.  A  heavy  and  vociferous 
sleeper  at  all  times,  Mrs.  Tuttle  had 
slept,  and  vouched  for  it  in  the  stirring 
notes  of  a  bass  viol  during  the  first  din 
of  the  police  invasion.  But  finally  the 
noise  of  the  overturned  furniture  in  the 
Donnithorne  household  began  to  pene- 
trate her  slumber,  and  in  her  half-waking 
state  it  implied  the  invasion  of  her  own 
premises  by  burglars.  Thump,  thump, 
thump  went  the  Donnithorne  mahog- 
any, and  Mrs.  Tuttle,  at  the  sound,  lifted 
up  her  voice  and  gave  the  troublous 
night  the  full  strength  of  her  lungs. 
"Help!  Police!  Burglars!"  she  shrieked, 
and  the  sentinel  policeman  at  the  Don- 
nithorne door  began  to  climb,  hand  over 
hand,  up  the  Tuttle  balcony.  And  pres- 
ently the  Tuttle  door  was  opened  from 
within,  the  two  policemen  from  the  Don- 
nithorne house  transferred  their  activi- 
ties next  door,  the  crowd  poured  up  the 
Tuttle  steps,  gaping  like  young  birds  in 
a  nest — and  Viola  and  the  big  sunburned 
man  walked  over  the  forsaken  Donni- 
thorne threshold  without  drawing  a 
glance.  They  did  not  dare  run.  The 
house  was  but  a  few  steps  from  the  cor- 
ner, which  they  turned,  and  made  for 
the  hospitable  darkness  of  the  small 


public  park.  Then  they  ran  along  the 
serpentine  asphalt  walk  as  only  youth 
and  bounding  pulses  can  run.  The  park 
was  practically  deserted,  but,  even  if  it 
had  not  been,  the  spectacle  of  a  muslin- 
gowned  girl  and  a  man  in  evening  clothes 
running  might  well  have  passed  for 
youthful  high  spirits — a  moon-tempted 
bit  of  madness  inspired  by  the  sorceries 
of  spring.  They  flashed  past  a  great  pur- 
ple-and-white  carpet  of  blooming  hya- 
cinths, and  the  scent  seemed  to  follow 
them  in  their  headlong  flight.  At  the 
middle  gate  they  stopped. 

"We'd  better  saunter  across  Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue;  it's  not  exactly  the  sort 
of  night  to  inspire  violent  exercise — it 
might  have  a  suspicious  look." 

"A  thing  to  be  avoided,  considering 
our  guilt — "  she  began,  lightly;  then 
broke  off  suddenly,  embarrassed.  Was 
he  guilty?  She  had  given  her  stanchest 
adherence,  shared  his  peril  without 
knowing.  He  caught  the  ricochet  of  her 
thought,  and  answered: 

"No,  I  swear  to  you  I'm  not  guilty  of 
anything  worse  than  that  of  protecting 
some  one  very  dear  to  me,  some  one 
wrongfully  accused.  I'll  have  to  ask 
you  to  take  me  on  faith — black  as  things 
look,  I  can't  explain." 

"You've  no  time  for  explanations 
now,  at  any  rate — that's  a  patrol  coming 
down  Seventeenth  Street." 

He  caught  her  hand  and  again  they 
flew,  this  time  down  the  quiet  street  that 
bounds  the  White  House  on  the  west. 
"The  gods  are  with  us — see!"  he  said, 
and  fairly  flung  her  into  a  big  closed 
automobile  that  stood  empty  in  front  of 
the  White  House  office-buildings,  still 
brilliantly  lighted  from  within.  He 
started  the  machine,  expecting  momen- 
tarily to  be  apprehended,  but  no  one 
appeared  to  question  his  right,  and  he 
turned  its  dark-blue  and  highly  decorous 
nose  in  the  direction  of  the  Speedway. 
But  this  high-handed  commandeering  of 
the  car  affected  Viola  as  the  unbelievable 
events  of  the  night — the  surprise,  the 
escape  together,  the  flight — had  not 
done.  For  the  street-lamp  opposite  the 
executive  offices  had  made  perfectly 
plain  to  her  the  device  on  the  panel  of 
the  car:  an  eagle  with  the  national 
colors — a  good  thing  to  leave  unmolested 
at  all  times.    She  gave  one  backward 


144 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


glance;  her  suspicions  were  confirmed; 
it  was  the  patrol. 

"Do  you  know  whose  car  this  is 
you've  taken?"  Her  teeth  shut  as  if 
they  might  chatter  any  minute;  this 
was  brazen  buccaneering  above  her  ken. 

"I  do,"  he  answered,  as  he  forced  the 
engine  to  the  highest  speed. 

"Are  you  in  the  habit  of  helping  your- 
self to  state  cars?" 

"When  I  borrow  them  for  state — well, 
party  business.  Rather  a  nice  car,  isn't 
it?  Smooth,  but  I've  seen  better  for 
speed." 

Then  a  most  disconcerting  thought 
occurred  to  Miss  Donnithorne;  it  did 
not  seem  possible,  but —  "You're  not  a 
detective,  are  you?" 

"On  my  honor  as  a  fugitive  I'm  not  a 
detective.  But  there  have  been  some 
awfully  jolly  detectives — think  of  Sher- 
lock Holmes." 

"I'm  thinking,"  she  said;  "but,  all 
things  considered — " 

"Don't  give  it  another  thought.  I'm 
not." 

Despite  the  hour,  there  were  enough 
motors  on  the  Speedway  among  which  to 
lose  themselves.  The  big  blue  car  swung, 
darted,  cut  for  place,  and  then  was 
promptly  swallowed  in  the  stream  of 
vehicles  that  seem  perpetually  to  circle 
the  river  drive.  The  breeze  cooled  their 
flushed  cheeks  deliciously,  the  weeping 
willows  swayed  to  the  water's  edge. 
Viola  loved  them;  to  her  they  seemed, 
in  their  delicate  sighing  and  shuddering, 
like  pale  wraiths  of  the  forest  racked  by 
phantom  woe.  A  train  thundered  across 
a  bridge  high  above  them — argus-eyed, 
black,  screaming;  the  motor  darted  be- 
neath the  structure,  and  the  deafening 
pounding  of  the  train  above  seemed  to 
mark  the  climax  of  their  escape,  a  sort 
of  Strauss-like  crescendo  bidding  them 
godspeed.  And  now  the  car  was  flying 
along  what  seemed  to  be  an  open  coun- 
try road.  Viola  kept  saying  over  and 
over  to  herself:  "This  is  not  real.  Pres- 
ently I'll  wake  up  in  the  green  drawing- 
room,  and  the  old  French  clock  will 
be  chiming  away  another  hour  of  my 
life.  That's  all  that  ever  happens  at 
home — the  clock  kills  a  little  of  us  each 
day.'* 

"Has  all  this  really  happened?"  she 
asked  her  companion  as  he  slackened 


speed  a  little.  "I  am  beginning  to  think 
I've  gone  quite  mad." 

"Isn't  it  splendid?  Shall  you  ever 
want  to  become  sane  again  ?  We'll  both 
be  gloriously  mad  together." 

"You  haven't  told  me  who  you  are?" 

"With  you  I'm  absolutely  happy. 
Isn't  that  enough  ?  You  and  I  speeding 
through  the  June  night  like  an  arrow, 
the  perfume  of  a  thousand  flowers,  a 
honey-colored  moon  loitering  in  the  blue 
— will  you  have  these  things,  or — ex- 
planations ?" 

Her  heart  rose  chokingly.  Every  atom 
of  Donnithorne  demanded  to  have  things 
explained — but  the  De  Beaulieu  half  of 
her  answered,  "You  have  what  your 
heart  craved;  be  thankful  for  it." 

"But — "  said  all  the  dead-and-gone 
Donnithornes,  clamoring  for  their  pound 
of  credentials. 

"'But'  is  the  assassin  of  romance," 
whispered  all  the  dead-and-gone  De 
Beaulieus.  "Your  aunts'  delicately  ex- 
otic drawing-room,  the  mockery  of  the 
June  night  from  your  solitary  balcony — 
they're  all  waiting  for  you!"  She  shud- 
dered at  the  recollection  of  them. 

"  I  am  going  to  choose  the  June  night 
— and  without  explanations,"  she  lilted 
out  of  the  darkness. 

He  pulled  up  the  car  with  a  jerk. 
"You  mean  you'll  take  things  as  they 
are — my  coming  like  a  thief  through  the 
window,  the  police,  the  chase,  this  car — 
everything  ?" 

She  remembered  him  as  he  came  to 
her  first,  the  unwavering  look,  eye  to 
eye,  and  the  clean-cut,  tanned  face  open 
as  daylight.  There  is  an  intelligence  of 
the  heart  as  well  as  of  the  head;  it 
reasons,  deduces,  and  passes  judgment 
unconsciously,  involuntarily;  it  is  the 
court  of  final  appeal  upon  which  all  the 
great  questions  of  life  are  decided. 
"What  are  appearances  to — this?"  she 
answered. 

"You'll  never  ask — always  take  the 
happenings  of  this  night  on  faith,  be- 
cause I've  given  my  word  never  to  speak 
of  them  to  any  one  not  already  in  the 
secret.  A  cowardly  attempt  was  made 
to  blacken  the  reputation  of  an  official — 
my  father.  For  his  party's  sake,  it  must 
not  be  discussed.  I've  given  my  word." 

"I'll  never  ask." 

"To   think   that  you  and  I  have 


Drawn  by  Walter  Biggs 

"  GO  ;    THERE'S    NOT    A    SECOND    TO    WASTE " 


MISS  DONNITHORNE'S  ARABIAN  NIGHT 


145 


been  wandering  about  this  grim  old 
world  for  years,  without  finding  each 
other!"  The  car  with  the  eagle  on  the 
panel  slowed  down;  he  leaned  over  and 
drew  her  face  to  his. 

She  came  out  of  the  wild  rapture  of 
the  moment  with  a  start.  "Are  they 
following?"  she  asked. 

"Who  could  follow  us  here?  It's 
paradise,  and  there  are  no  return  tick- 
ets. 

The  car  swung  back  along  the  river- 
bank,  the  beckoning  weeping  willows 
sighed  and  shivered,  and  the  moon's 
reflection  threw  a  ragged  ribbon  of 
gold  across  the  dimpling  stream.  "I've 
just  been  thinking,"  she  said,  "that 
perhaps  the  police  have  made  up  their 
minds  you  are  not  hiding  under  any 
of  my  aunts'  four-posters." 

"So  soon?  You  flatter  their  intelli- 
gence." 

"It  must  be  very  late,  or  awfully 
early — " 

"There  isn't  any  time  on  a  night  like 
this — there's  only  us  and  the  moon." 

"While  the  moon  holds  out,  you'd  bet- 
ter take  me  to  my  cousin  on  Sixteenth 
Street;  she'll  harbor  me  for  the  night 
and  know  what  to  do  about  our  wrecked 
home;  she's  a  tremendously  capable  per- 
son." She  gave  him  the  number  of  the 
house,  and  neither  of  them  spoke  till  the 
big  car  stopped  at  the  door.  He  cook 
her  hand. 

"Shall  I  tell  you  who  I  am  to-night?" 

"No:  to-morrow  will  be  time  enough 
for  cards  and  names  and  things  like  that. 
But  to-night —  Would  you  change  any- 
thing about  to-night?  Besides,  I  know 
you're  in  the  navy;  that's  passport 
enough." 

"In  Heaven's  name,  how  did  you 
know  that?" 

"By  the  white  scallop  across  your 
forehead,  by  the  tan  on  your  face,  by — " 
She  broke  from  him  and  dashed  up  the 
steps.  Her  ring  was  quickly  answered, 
considering  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  and 
the  door  closed  on  her. 

Fifteen  minutes  later,  the  young  man 
had  returned  the  dark-blue  car  to  its 
official  bailiwick  and  been  enthusias- 
tically heralded  for  his  daring  adven- 
tures. Then  he  hurried  home.  His 
mother  came  to  meet  him  with  traces  of 


tears  on  her  face,  a  thing  he  never  re- 
membered seeing  there  before.  She  was 
a  finer  edition  of  her  son,  but  more  the 
Spartan  type — a  woman  who  accepts 
life  on  the  terms  of  a  model  prisoner  in  a 
penal  institution.  "My  boy,"  she  said, 
"to  think  what  you've  been  through — " 

"Now,  mater  dear,  don't  be  too  sym- 
pathetic about  what  I've  been  through. 
Has  father  come  in?" 

"Some  time  ago — and  he's  bent  on 
giving  this  thing  publicity.  He  wants  to 
call  in  the  newspaper  men,  demand  an 
investigation  of  the  club,  and  sue  for 
libel  the  paper  back  of  the  whole  busi- 
ness." 

"He's  dead  right,  in  principle — but 
the  thing  can't  be  done.  If  he  drags  the 
thing  through  the  courts  and  the  papers, 
perhaps  a  fifth  who  will  read  the  accusa- 
tion will  not  read  the  retraction  and  the 
apology.  Of  the  number  that  read  both, 
there  are  always  hordes  of  the  dismally 
suspicious  who  pride  themselves  on  the 
no-smoke-without-fire  theory.  If  he 
gives  it  out,  the  administration  will  suf- 
fer— the  party  will  never  be  able  to 
shoulder  it.  Imagine  the  head-lines: 
'Member  of  Cabinet  Caught  in  Gam- 
bling Raid!'" 

"But  it  was  not  a  gambling  raid.  'The 
Antlers'  is  a  veritable:  shrine  of  old-fogy 
respectability — never  a  bet,  never  a  card 
played  for  money.  Naturally  they  had 
to  be  secretive  about  it,  since  it  was  the 
only  place  in  Washington  where  a  gov- 
ernment official  could  go  and  avoid  re- 
porters, newspaper  tipsters,  and  office- 
seekers;  but  in  that  fact  the  paper  that's 
hounded  your  father  ever  since  he  has 
been  in  office  pretended  to  see  a  gambling 
hell." 

"Oh  no;  they  knew  jolly  well  there 
was  no  gambling,  mater,  but  they 
banked  on  the  very  issue  father  proposes 
to  raise — a  suit.  Even  if  they  have  to 
pay  heavy  damages,  they  know  no  pub- 
lic man  can  stand  that  sort  of  thing,  no 
matter  how  clean  his  hands  are.  I  was 
dining  at  the  Stoddard  to-night  when  I 
got  the  tip — Toner,  who's  on  that  paper, 
couldn't  stomach  the  job,  at  the  last 
minute.  He  quit — and  the  cat  was  out 
of  the  bag.  It  seems  that  six  months 
ago  one  of  their  local  men  swore  to 
information  before  the  district  attorney 
that  'The  Antlers'  was  a  private  gam- 


146 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


bling-house  where  they  played  for  huge 
stakes — members  all  high  officials,  gov- 
ernment money  lost  at  the  tables,  and 
God  knows  what  else.  The  chief  of 
police  smiled  over  the  story.  He  hap- 
pened to  know  all  about  'The  Antlers' — ■ 
knew  it  was  nothing  but  a  quiet  little 
rendezvous  for  men  like  the  dad,  who 
must  have  their  little  game  in  peace; 
the  chief  had  been  there  himself.  But 
he  filed  away  the  papers  as  a  sort  of 
amusing  Munchausen  document.  When 
he  left  for  Chicago  last  night,  that  rep- 
tilian paper  decided  to  get  busy." 

"Ah,  that  was  it!  The  chief  of  police 
was  out  of  town;  the  members  couldn't 
understand,  as  he  knew  all  about  the 
place." 

"  It  seems  there  was  a  very  ambitious 
young  lieutenant  left  in  charge,  and  he 
was  bent  on  making  a  record.  The  hos- 
tile paper  sent  a  man  to  headquarters  to 
prefer  charges;  the  zealous  lieutenant 
bit — he  found  the  documents,  filed  away 
by  the  chief  six  months  before,  and  de- 
cided to  make  the  raid,  which  was  solely 
for  the  purpose  of  rounding  up  the  dad. 
Well,  I  beat  them  to  it  by  about  ten 
minutes.  Doubtless  he's  told  you  the 
rest,  except  perhaps  that  he  grew  abso- 
lutely stubborn,  declined  to  budge,  and 
was  literally  carried  down-stairs  and  put 
into  a  motor  by  a  club  steward  and  my- 
self. When  the  motor  started  I  felt 
we'd  outwitted  our  enemy,  the  paper — 
then  the  dad  remembered  he'd  left  a 
light  overcoat  with  some  private  papers 
at  the  club.  I  ran  back  for  them,  but 
the  raid  had  begun — regular  Donni- 
brook  fair  in  progress — crack  every  head 
was  the  rule.  We  were  all  in  it — club 
members,  police,  club  servants.  Missing 
father,  they  concentrated  on  me — bound 
to  get  one  of  the  family.  The  first  thing 
I  knew  I  was  making  a  break  for  an  open 
window,  below  which  was  a  foot-wide 
stone  cornice,  and  a  balcony  a  story 
below  that — " 

"My  boy — my  boy — " 

"What  I  found,  mater  dear,  was 
worth  dropping  farther  for." 

"And  what  did  you  find,  son?" 
rieaven. 

"Stephen,  did  you  hit  your  head  when 
you  dropped  through  that  window?" 

His  boyish  laughter  rang  out.  "No, 
mater  dear;  when  I  got  to  Paradise  I 


had  all  my  faculties — and  needed  'em, 
too.  There  were  four  houses  exactly 
alik ;  next  the  club — English  basement, 
with  balconies  on  the  second  floor. 
When  I  dropped  on  the  first  balcony,  the 
most  heavenly  music  was  pouring  out  of 
the  windows  of  the  end  house.  The 
music  settled  it;  I  decided  to  try  my 
luck  with  that  house.  I  crept  across  the 
intervening  verandas  and  hid  back  of 
the  vines  that  scrambled  all  over  the  end 
house.  A  breeze  swept  the  curtain  in, 
and  there  sat  my  fate!  She  saw  me — 
and  was  scared,  all  right,  at  first;  but 
she  did  not  scream — and  then  she  was 
sorry  for  me,  too.  The  most  ungodly 
din  was  raging  in  the  street.  I  might 
have  been  guilty  of  anything,  judging 
from  the  row.  She  looked  at  me  a  long 
time,  sizing  me  up — we  were  in  the 
strangest,  quaintest  old  room,  sort  of 
place  you  might  dream  about — then  she 
slipped  her  hand  in  mine  and  took  me  on 
faith. 

"We  had  the  maddest  ride,  in  Big 
White  Chief's  car;  but  there  we  were, 
dashing  breakneck  into  love,  regular 
Montague-Capulet,  first-sight  sort  of 
thing  that  I  had  scoffed  at  all  my  life. 
And  she'd  turn  and  ask  me  if  it  was  all 
true,  or  if  she'd  wake  up  and  find  herself 
in  her  aunts'  house  where  the  clock 
killed  a  little  bit  of  her  each  day.  Their 
name  is  Donnithorne,  or  something  like 
that.  But  what  do  I  care  about  her 
name! 

"Donnithorne!  The  old  house  with 
the  vines  near  Lafayette  Square?  Yes, 
I  know — "  she  broke  off  abruptly.  "The 
girl's  name  is  Viola." 

"Why,  that's  your  name,  mate — " 
"The  long  arm  of  coincidence,"  she 
sighed.  He  watched  the  lines  of  her  face 
soften,  but  he  could  not  know  that  be- 
fore her  tired  eyes  there  had  floated,  for 
a  moment,  the  magic  of  another  June 
night,  and  out  of  the  dim  past  there  had 
rung  the  sound  of  Robert  Donni- 
thorne's  voice,  begging  her  to  leave  her 
father's  house  and  go  with  him.  And 
the  fear — the  stifling  dread  of  authority 
— that  had  chained  her  to  all  the  gray 
years!  She  had  married  the  "rising 
man"  her  father  had  had  in  mind,  and 
young  Robert  had  married  his  opera- 
singer,  and  the  years  had  sped  on;  but 
the  magic  of  the  June  night  had  never 


WHEN  I  GO  WALKING  IN  THE  WOODS 


147 


returned.  But  this  daughter  of  the 
opera-singer  had  had  the  inner  vision — 
the  faith  that  sees  below  the  surface — 
this  girl  had  trusted  her  son  while  the 
mob  howled.  They  sat  without  speak- 
ing; the  young  man  thought  his  mother 
more  quiet  and  repressed  than  usual, 
when  suddenly  she  reached  out  her  hand 
and  drew  him  to  her  and  began  to 


speak  with  the  breathless  eagerness-  of 
youth,  her  face  for  the  moment  trans- 
figured: 

"You  must  not  miss  it,  son;  it  comes 
only  once,  the  real  call  of  heart  to  heart, 
and  nothing  else  in  life  matters.  You 
and  the  girl  have  found  each  other;  love 
and  life  and  the  magic  of  eternal  youth 
are  yours. " 


When  I  Go  Walking  in  the  Woods 

BY  RICHARD  LE  GALLIENNE 

WHEN  I  go  walking  in  the  woods, 
I  take  one  thought  with  me, 
And,  unaware, 
I  find  it  there 

Beside  me  in  the  sea; 
Yea!  could  I  fly, 
I  doubt  not  I 

Would  find  it  in  the  air; 
Companion  of  all  solitudes — 
It  is  the  thought  of  her. 

And,  when  I  fall  asleep  at  night, 

But  for  one  thing  I  pray: 
The  power  that  stole 
Away  her  soul 

To  bring  it  back  some  day; 
And  all  my  dreams, 
Till  morning  gleams, 

That  through  the  day  console, 
Smell  sweet  of  her,  with  her  are  bright 

As  with  an  aureole. 

And,  sometimes  in  the  afternoon, 

When  all  is  strange  and  still, 
When  sunshine  sleeps 
In  the  sea's  deeps, 

And  loiters  on  the  hill, 
I  seem  to  hear 
A  footstep  near, 

A  sound  of  one  who  creeps 
Softly  to  listen — then,  too  soon, 

The  sound  of  one  who  weeps. 


Vol-  CXXXI.— No.  781.— 19 


THE  other  day,  or  week,  or  month, 
while  the  European  powers  were 
driving  their  peoples  to  recip- 
rocal slaughter  on  land  and  sea,  the 
President  of  this  unembattled  Republic 
was  addressing  a  meeting  to  promote  the 
interests  of  Berea  College.  For  such  of 
our  readers  as  may  not  know  what  or 
where  Berea  College  is,  we  will  explain 
that  it  is  an  educational  institution 
in  the  mountain  region  of  Kentucky, 
founded  for  the  instruction  of  the  white 
youth  of  the  hills  at  a  time  when  the 
ignorance  of  the  colored  youth  of  the 
South  seemed  to  call  for  collegiate  train- 
ing. It  appeared  to  the  founders  of 
Berea  that  their  mountaineers  had  an 
equal  claim  with  these  colored  youth  to 
the  sympathy  of  enlightened  persons 
throughout  the  country,  and  Berea  has 
sturdily  persisted  in  justifying  their  be- 
lief through  well-nigh  a  generation,  by 
the  excellent  instruction  which  the  stu- 
dents have  shown  themselves  eager  to 
avail  of.  "There  are  colleges  and  col- 
leges,,,  the  President  said.  "Most  of  the 
pupils  of  most  of  our  universities  resist 
being  taught.  Here  is  a  college  filled 
with  people  hungry  to  learn.  If  I  had 
anything  worth  their  hearing  I  should 
love  to  address  a  body  of  people  hungry 
to  learn,"  he  said;  and  he  said  also: 
"What  America  has  vindicated  above 
all  things  else  is  that  native  ability  has 
nothing  to  do  with  social  origin;  .  .  . 
and  when  one  thinks  of  that  old  stock  in 
storage  there  in  the  mountains,  for  over 
a  hundred  years  untapped,  some  of  the 
original  stuff  of  the  nation" — one  must 
burn  with  zeal  for  the  work  which  Berea 
is  doing.  The  President  declared  that 
he  himself  could  not  think  of  it  without 
catching  fire,  and  he  did  not  find  it  irrele- 
vant in  another  part  of  his  discourse  to 
observe:  "It  is  very  amusing  sometimes 
to  see  the  airs  that  high  society  gives 
itself.  The  world  could  dispense  with 
high  society  and  never  miss  it.  High 
society  is  for  those  who  have  stopped 


working  and  no  longer  have  anything 
important  to  do." 

In  this  observation  he  apparently 
wished  to  imply  that  if  the  Bereans  were 
as  hungry  to  learn  as  they  seemed,  they 
might  be  saved  from  the  sad  satiety  of 
those  graduates  of  other  colleges  who 
had  no  desire  in  them  for  anything  but 
the  vain  distinctions  of  high  society. 
But  here  we  venture  to  have  our  doubts, 
except  in  the  case  of  the  exceptional  few. 
We  have  not  the  statistics  at  hand,  but 
we  fear  that  if  they  could  be  collated 
we  should  discover  in  most  of  the 
Berean  instances  the  same  ambition  ulti- 
mately to  shine  in  the  halls  of  pride  that 
animates  the  average  graduate,  say,  of 
Harvard,  or  Yale,  or  Princeton,  or  even 
Columbia.  At  first,  no  doubt,  the  young 
mountaineers  who  issue  from  Berea  have 
the  nobler  longing  to  qualify  themselves 
by  usefulness  to  their  kind  in  whatever 
sort,  for  the  social  superiority  which  all 
men — or  at  least  young  men,  and  cer- 
tainly all  women  of  every  age — look  for- 
ward to  as  the  reward  of  their  endeavor 
for  learning.  But  very  soon  this  glowing 
illusion  falls  from  them.  They  learn  to 
know  later,  if  not  sooner,  what  the  youth 
of  Harvard,  Yale,  Princeton,  Columbia, 
have  imbibed  with  their  Alma  Mater's 
milk;  and  they  perceive  that  social 
superiority  requires  no  sort  of  achieve- 
ment from  them  for  the  full  usufruct  of 
its  honors  and  privileges.  It  does  not 
exact  any  kind  of  doing — good,  bad,  or 
indifferent;  it  demands  only  being,  or 
rather  not-being,  if  the  President  is 
right  in  saying  that  "high  society"  is 
for  those  who  have  stopped  working 
and  have  no  longer  anything  important 
to  do. 

We  ourselves  think  he  is  so  ngnt  in 
this  that  we  are  glad  to  have  had  him 
say  it.  At  the  same  time  we  should 
like  to  distinguish,  at  least,  so  far  as  to 
note  that  this  thing  of  mere  being,  or 
not-being,  is  by  no  means  a  light  or  easy 
thing.    We  are  all  born  with  the  pas- 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


149 


sion  of  doing  something,  but  to  do 
something  is  almost  inevitably  to  be- 
come or  to  be  something,  and  there 
you  have  an  end  of  the  high-society 
ideal  of  not-being  at  a  blow.  To 
do  and  to  be  are  primal  instincts,  and 
it  might  be  urged  in  behalf  of  high  soci- 
ety that  the  suppression  of  instinct  is  in 
a  way  the  triumph  of  reason.  It  might 
be  contended  that  with  the  advance  of 
civilization  not-doing  and  not-being 
have  widened  their  spheres  so  as  now  to 
include  classes  that  never  dreamed  of  that 
inclusion  in  the  past.  From  kings  and 
nobles  the  high-society  ideal  has  spread 
in  some  degree  to  nearly  every  one  who 
has  not  got  to  work  with  his  hands  for 
a  living,  and  in  our  own  happy  Republic 
perhaps  few  readers  of  the  society  page 
of  the  Sunday  editions  are  wholly  with- 
out the  desire  to  realize  it,  to  live  it. 

But,  as  we  say,  it  is  difficult.  Its 
prime  necessity  is  the  cultivation  of  the 
class  feeling,  which  has  been  enjoined 
upon  labor  by  its  leaders,  as  we  think 
superfluously.  For  labor,  class  feeling 
is  very  easy.  It  is  easy  for  the  hand- 
worker of  any  sort — the  carpenter,  the 
bricklayer,  the  plumber,  even — to  con- 
ceive of  himself  as  inferior  to  the  profess- 
or, the  doctor,  the  lawyer;  and,  this 
done,  you  have  the  corollary  of  the  social 
superior.  But  you  have  not  yet  estab- 
lished this  social  superior  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  superiority.  The  skilled 
mechanic  may  have  no  difficulty  in  feel- 
ing himself  lower  than  the  person  of  a 
learned  vocation,  but  there  may  very 
well  be — and  we  really  think  there  are — 
professors,  doctors,  and  lawyers  of  such 
humble  make  that,  try  as  hard  as  they 
may,  they  cannot  feel  in  their  bones  that 
they  are  any  better  than  so  many  car- 
penters, bricklayers,  and  plumbers.  We 
do  not  say  they  are  right,  and  we  do 
not  say  they  are  wrong  in  this;  we 
merely  say  that  they  differ  fundamen- 
tally from  the  members  of  high  society 
who  have  studied  not-doing  and  not- 
being,  and  by  that  means  have  acquired 
the  power  of  giving  themselves  those  airs 
which  the  President  finds  amusing. 

In  a  way  such  airs  are  in  fact  amus- 
ing, and  in  a  way  they  are  not  amusing, 
but  exasperating,  as  the  highest-hearted 
Berean  may  find  if  he  gets  on  far  enough 
in  the  world.   In  the  first  place,  it  will  be 


difficult,  even  to  madness,  for  him  to  im- 
agine that  kind  of  society  which  he  will 
find,  all  the  same,  one  of  the  stubbornest 
of  the  human  facts.  "How,"  he  will  ask 
his  brave  soul,  experienced  only  in  lofty 
endeavors,  "how  is  it  possible  for  a 
person,  because  he  has  found  himself  in 
certain  social  circumstances,  to  look 
down  upon  one  less  fortunately  placed — 
for  that  reason  and  no  other?"  He  will 
then  endeavor  to  look  down  upon  that 
person  in  turn,  and  he  will  find  that  it 
will  not  work.  That  person  has  some- 
how the  whip  hand,  and  inwardly  the 
brave  Berean  cowers  before  him,  however 
bold  a  front  he  outwardly  makes.  The 
brave  Berean  is  not  able  to  look  down 
upon  the  social  superior  who  is  his  essen- 
tial inferior,  and  if  he  is  of  a  mind  to 
waste  himself  in  the  inquiry  he  may 
fruitlessly  explore  the  mystery  to  the  end 
of  his  little  chapter  of  the  general  life. 

It  is  a  mystery,  and  almost  the  great- 
est in  the  world,  which  has  been  em- 
ployed ever  since  the  dawn  of  civilization 
in  contriving  it.  The  primitive  world 
knew  it  not;  the  savage  was  without 
any  sense  of  it,  as  the  child  is  yet.  The 
boy,  somewhat  longer  than  the  girl, 
plays  with  the  children  round  the  cor- 
ner in  an  unquestioning  equality  till 
some  day  his  mother  comes  and  whisks 
him  home,  as  she  has  already  whisked 
his  sister,  and  forbids  him  to  play  with 
those  children  any  more.  To  his  ago- 
nized "Why?"  she  answers  with  a  stern 
"Because,"  or  at  the  most  with  the 
unsatisfying  explanation  that  they  are 
low-down.  Then  the  serpent  which  en- 
venoms the  life  of  the  world  is  born  in 
the  boy's  breast  and  poisons  him  into  a 
swell  with  the  will  to  regard  some  one 
else  as  beneath  him;  or  into  a  snob  with 
the  desire  to  truckle  to  some  one  above 
him.  Why  beneath  or  above,  he  can 
say  no  more  in  one  case  than  in  the 
other.  He  is  not  aware  that  the  swell 
and  the  snob  are  equally  requisite  to 
the  constitution  of  what  the  President 
calls  high  society.  When  he  becomes 
part  of  it,  either  as  swell  or  as  snob — if 
he  ever  does — it  will  not  matter  the 
least  to  him  what  the  President  calls  it, 
or  that  he  finds  the  airs  it  gives  itself 
amusing. 

Our  brave  Berean  will  discover  this 
fact  without  dismay,  possibly,  when  he 


150 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


comes  up  to  the  capital  to  serve  his  coun- 
try in  the  Cabinet  or  in  some  obscure 
clerkship  of  a  department  where  the  sa- 
cred principle  of  segregation  saves  him 
from  contact  with  the  colored  clerks. 
But  however  he  carries  it  off,  his  wife 
and  daughters  will  wither  before  it, 
and  shrink  to  their  smallest  compass; 
for  it  is  through  lovely  woman  and  her 
capacity  for  stooping  to  that  kind  of  folly 
that  high  society  has  chiefly  its  power 
of  giving  itself  those  amusing  airs. 

The  Berean  and  his  family  may  have 
really  thought,  even  while  studying 
the  woman's  page  in  the  Sunday  edi- 
tion, that  "the  world  could  dispense 
with  high  society  and  never  miss  it." 
But  high  society  does  not  care;  it  will 
not  even  know  that  it  is  being  done 
without;  it  does  not  know  that  it  had 
stopped  working,  that  it  has  nothing 
worth  while  left  to  do.  It  can  answer,  if 
it  cares  to  give  the  matter  so  much 
attention,  that  it  has  always  been  that 
way,  which  is  in  fact  the  only  reason  for 
its  being  at  all.  In  other  countries,  say 
those  countries  where  God  gave  the  peo- 
ple kings  "for  the  hardness  of  their 
hearts,"  there  is  chartered  authority  for 
high  society  whose  disoccupation  is  logi- 
cally in  the  keeping  of  the  prince 
and  the  nobles  the  prince  has  created. 
But  with  us,  in  a  commonwealth  founded 
on  the  ideal  that  all  men  are  created 
equal,  high  society  exists  simply  Be- 
cause. That  is  enough,  for  it  is  apparent 
that  if  we  could  get  on  without  it  we 
would,  and  as  we  do  not  get  on  without 
it,  we  cannot;  and  even  without  this 
reason  Because  would  suffice. 

From  time  to  time  mankind  has  pro- 
posed to  get  on  without  it,  and  most 
nations  began  without  it.  Or  they  go 
on  with  it  until  high  society  becomes 
intolerably  oppressive  and  demands  ser- 
vice as  well  as  homage  which  the  inferi- 
ors can  scarcely  render  with  their  life's 
blood.  Then  these  rise  up,  and  in  wars 
little  or  large  rebel  against  authority  and 
try  to  be  the  men  they  have  seemed. 
The  most  signal  instance  of  the  kind  is 
the  notorious  French  Revolution,  in 
which  the  inferiors  triumphed  over  the 
superiors  almost  to  the  extreme  of  de- 
troying  them  altogether,  and  brought 
themselves  into  general  discredit  by 
these  excesses.    They  did  not  greatly 


mind  that,  and  would  have  kept  on  cut- 
ting off  the  heads  of  their  superiors,  if 
the  guillotine  had  not  begun,  in  its  insen- 
sate gluttony,  to  thirst  for  the  blood  of 
such  inferiors  as  it  suspected  of  pitying 
its  victims.  Worse  yet,  these  dominant 
inferiors  began  to  grow  superiors  among 
themselves.  They  grew  a  Directorate, 
they  grew  a  Consulate,  they  grew  an 
Empire,  and  then  the  game,  or  call  it 
jig,  was  up.  High  society  was  back  in 
force;  the  titled  ghosts  were  there,  as  if 
the  decapitated  dead  had  come  up  smil- 
ing in  spite  of  all  the  beheading. 

This  is  not  the  only  proof,  though 
perhaps  the  most  dramatic  proof,  of  the 
inextinguishable  vitality  of  high  society, 
which  consists  in  the  very  fatuity  and 
inanity,  the  very  tendency  to  give  itself 
amusing  airs,  which  the  President  notes. 
It  remains  the  most  stubborn  of  all 
the  facts  of  civilization,  and  will 
probably  remain  such  in  spite  of  all 
that  all  the  bravest  of  the  Bereans  can 
do  against  it.  High  society  has  been 
the  prey  of  satire  from  the  beginning  of 
satire;  it  may  be  said  to  have  created 
satire,  which  would  have  had  nothing  to 
feed  on  if  high  society  had  not  supplied 
it.  On  this  meat  Juvenal  grew  so  great 
among  the  ancient  Romans,  and  prob- 
ably there  were  lively  Assyrians  who 
derided  high  society  in  cuneiform  in- 
dented on  tiles,  and  Egyptians  who 
made  their  mock  of  it  in  scathing  hiero- 
glyphics. As  for  the  English  (to  take  a 
long  jump),  who  created  high  society  as 
we  have  it  (in  dilute  and  mitigated  form, 
to  be  sure),  they  could  never  have  en- 
dured it  if  they  had  not  made  it  their  jest. 
If  they  would  or  must  have  lords,  it  com- 
forted them  to  have  the  House  of  Peers, 
through  one  of  themselves  recognized 
in  "lolanthe"  as  having  always  done 

— nothing  in  particular, 
And  done  it  very  well. 

After  that  let  a  chorus  of  peers  go 
singing, 

Bow,  bow,  ye  lower  middle  classes, 

as  much  as  it  liked.  All  degrees  of  in- 
feriority could  keep  in  higher  heart  and 
enjoy  a  truer  self-respect  because  of  that 
gibe  at  the  House  of  Peers.  At  the  same 
time  the  scorn  poured  upon  high  society 
in  its  supreme  form  of  British  aristocracy 
did  not  impair  its  self-satisfaction  in  the 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


151 


least.  There  is  no  record  of  its  having, 
forinstance,  anymore  minded  Thackeray, 
who  made  despite  of  it  his  whole  stock 
in  trade,  than  the  House  of  Peers  was 
moved  by  the  burlesque  of  Gilbert. 
Very  likely  it  did  not  feel  the  scorn;  the 
snake  was  not  only  not  killed,  it  was  not 
even  scotched;  it  simply  winked  the 
other  eye,  and  reared  its  basilisk  crest 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  as  high  as 
ever.  Here,  the  society  in  which  its 
spirit  is  impregnably  lodged  shows  itself 
wherever  the  Sunday  editions  penetrate 
with  their  deleterious  intelligence  of  the 
behavior,  or  the  misbehavior,  of  the  ex- 
clusive circles  which  wheel  and  whirl  all 
over  our  continent.  In  every  largest 
city  and  smallest  town  high  society 
towers  aloft  and  spurns  with  its  down- 
ward glance  those  outsiders  who  cannot 
make  out  why  it  is  above  or  they  below. 

The  mystery  of  it  remains.  Why 
should  a  person  who  has  done  nothing 
and  is  nothing  seem  not  only  to  himself, 
but  to  others,  superior  to  the  rest  of  the 
world  which  is  something?  What  is  his 
feeling  really  like?  Is  it  a  veritable  con- 
sciousness, or  is  it  a  sort  of  obsession 
which  enables  him  to  impose  himself  on 
himself  for  a  thing  of  importance  when 
he  is  of  no  importance  whatever?  For 
a  moment,  though  there  is  always  the 
question  whether  the  game  is  worth  the 
candle,  one  might  like  to  try  and  feel  like 
what  it  is  to  feel  superior  to  somebody 
else.  Is  it  like  that  immeasurable  satis- 
faction which  appears  to  come  to  some 
white  people  from  the  mere  circumstance 
of  not  being  black,  or  is  it  like  the  Phari- 
see's gratitude  for  not  being  as  yon 
Publican  is?  Is  the  feeling  a  pleasure  or 
a  pain?  Is  it  like  the  delight  of  wisely 
measured  repletion,  or  like  the  dull  mis- 
ery of  surfeit? 

Always,  we  say,  it  is  a  mystery,  but 
whatever  it  subjectively  is,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  President  is  right  about 
it.  The  airs  that  high  society  gives  itself 
are  sometimes  amusing  to  see;  it  is  for 
those  who  have  stopped  working  and 
have  nothing  important  to  do.  The 
brave  Berean  quitting  his  groves  of 
Academe  cannot  take  too  careful  note  of 
these  facts,  for  on  the  glaring  highway 
of  the  world  he  will  sooner  or  later  meet 
this  alluring,  this  daunting  shape,  and 
will  have  to  decide  whether  he  will  be 


its  victor  or  its  victim.  Achievement 
will  not  avail  him  for  its  favor;  it  has 
never  achieved  anything  and  does  not 
care.  Character,  the  virtue  of  the  mind 
and  heart,  will  not  command  it;  it  has 
never  asked  character  in  its  votaries  and 
will  not  be  bidden  by  it.  In  England, 
its  native  country,  of  course  there  are 
cachets  to  which  it  must  bow.  The 
King  can  bestow  titles,  and  with  them  the 
glamour  that  bedevils  the  fancy  so  that 
high  society  must  honor  the  noble  he 
makes  out  of  a  surpassing  brewer,  or  a 
brilliant  statesman,  or  a  victorious  gen- 
eral, or  (most  rarely  of  all)  a  famous 
author;  but  even  against  these  high 
society  will  remember  under  its  breath 
that  their  honors  are  new,  and  in  its 
heart  of  hearts  will  deal  with  their  wives 
and  daughters  accordingly.  These  will 
be  in  it,  they  may  dazzle  there,  but  they 
will  not  be  of  it,  and  they  must  keep 
their  candles  burning  by  constant  trim- 
ming, while  those  born  to  high  society 
need  be  at  no  such  trouble.  This,  at 
least,  is  what  people  say  who  have  never 
been  of  that  high  society,  such  as 
novelists  and  dramatists. 

With  us,  we  have  been  told,  high  soci- 
ety is  much  more  complex,  or  at  least 
more  insensible  to  observance.  No  one 
can  say  what  makes  it  or  how,  but  there 
it  is,  and  you  cannot  get  round  it  or 
through  its  air-drawn  net  to  those 
worldly  eminences  which  it  guards.  This 
will  be  a  hard  saying  to  the  brave 
Berean,  and  harder  yet  to  his  wife  and 
daughters,  who,  as  fast  as  he  conquers 
place  and  favor  in  law  or  politics  or 
medicine,  or  painting  or  divinity  or 
poetry,  will  desire  to  seize  the  social  joys 
which  they  believe  must  flow  from  his 
achievement.  But  we  can  suggest  a 
means  of  not  suffering  from  this  disap- 
pointment which  we  have  heard  has  been 
tried  by  some  with  success.  The  right 
way  to  use  with  the  high  society  which 
does  not  want  you,  O  brave  Berean  and 
his  wife  and  daughters,  is  not  to  want  it. 
For  it  is  said  that  if  you  will  not  seek 
its  favor,  you  will  go  far  to  win  it;  if  you 
will  not  pursue  it,  that  it  will  turn  and  fol- 
low you;  that  the  less  you  desire  it,  the 
more  it  will  desire  you.  Perhaps  this 
is  not  altogether  true,  O  brave  Berean 
family!  But  perhaps  there  is  some- 
thing in  it:  perhaps  it  is  worth  trying. 


WE  may  not  go  back  to  Nature 
through  the  surrender  of  human 
values;  it  is  rather  because  of 
these  values  that  we  are  for  ever  return- 
ing to  her.    But  in  this  season 

When  the  grass  brightens  and  the  days 
grow  long 

And  little  birds  break  out  in  rippling  song, 

we  are  chiefly  assured  of  the  fact  that, 
whether  we  will  or  no,  Nature  is  always 
coming  back  to  us.  As  Celia  Thaxter, 
the  author  of  the  above  lines,  also  sang, 

The  sunrise  never  failed  us  yet. 

The  late  Madison  Cawein,  one  of  the 
most  eloquent  of  our  nature-poets,  in  his 
"Miracle  of  the  Dawn"  asks, 

What  would  it  mean  to  you  and  me 
If  dawn  should  come  no  more? 

and  suggests  with  what  wonder  and  awe 
we  should  behold  it,  with 

What  rapture  and  what  tears 

if  it  burst  upon  the  world 

Once  every  thousand  years! 

We  take  it  so  much  as  a  matter  of 
course  that  the  suggestion  is  startling. 
What  if  the  sun  and  winds  and  waves 
had  something  of  our  boasted  freedom, 
and  could  choose  ?  A  more  startling  con- 
jecture it  would  be  were  we  to  conceive 
it  as  possible  for  any  man  to  command 
the  sun  to  stand  still  or  fix  the  bounds  of 
the  sea.  We  would  far  rather  trust  our- 
selves to  Nature's  own  arbitrary  inclina- 
tions, if  she  could  be  supposed  to  have 
them.  A  slight  irregularity  in  her  larger 
movements  would  not  only  literally  up- 
set her  gravity,  but  would  imperil  all  her 
claims  to  consistency.  She  is  bound  to 
good  behavior  as  a  condition  of  getting 
on  at  all  in  her  so  many  worlds. 

It  is  difficult  in  these  spring  days, 
when  germinant  and  freshly  growing 
things  are  chiefly  in  evidence,  to  give 
that  macrocosmic  background  a  place  in 


our  mental  vision;  there  is  no  room  for 
anything  so  vast  in  the  scene  that  direct- 
ly meets  the  eye.  The  soft  blue  above, 
flecked  with  fleecy  clouds  and  vibrant 
with  animated  song,  seems  to  lie  close 
about  us  all  day  long,  jealously  hiding 
the  larger  view.  We  so  prize  the  bright- 
ness and  life-giving  warmth  of  the  sun 
in  these  lengthening  days  that  we  ignore 
the  starry  brotherhood  to  which  he  be- 
longs, and,  by  concealing  from  us  our 
sister  planets,  he  strengthens  our  favor- 
ite illusion  of  his  exclusively  earthly  re- 
lationship. When  he  gracefully  retires, 
or,  rather,  when,  by  an  enforced  altru- 
ism, we  yield  him  to  our  Western  neigh- 
bors, and  we  are  permitted  to  behold 
"Hesperus  with  the  host  of  heaven," 
then  the  purely  esthetic  enjoyment  of 
the  near  scene  may  give  way  to  an 
infinitely  detached  speculation. 

Winter  shuts  us  in  to  human  society 
and  to  such  satisfactions  as  we  can  give 
one  another,  largely  through  artifice  and 
art.  Nature,  in  that  season,  gives  us  the 
cold  shoulder,  compelling  detachment 
from  herself,  promoting  mental  exer- 
cises. She  emphasizes  and  prolongs  the 
night-time,  exalting  the  starry  firmament 
as  if  inviting  us  to  contemplation,  thus 
reversing  her  summer  allurement — just 
as,  in  the  poverty  of  her  light  and 
warmth  and  in  the  wan  slenderness  of 
her  landscapes,  she  attenuates  our  es- 
thetic sensibility  to  outward  things. 

So  does  her  unkindness  develop  man- 
kind. Our  mentality  is  challenged  to  in- 
vent artificial  substitutes  for  the  light 
and  heat  withdrawn.  Our  conviviality 
is  intensified,  often  to  excess,  as  if  to 
compensate  for  the  missed  wantonness 
of  summer.  The  nobler  challenge  is  to 
the  creative  faculty.  Art  grows  as  Na- 
ture wanes,  at  least  with  our  detachment 
from  her,  which  is  inevitable,  whether 
she  invites  or  repels.  In  the  mild  climate 
of  Mediterranean  countries,  where  civili- 
zation first  came  to  flower,  the  distinc- 
tively artistic  temperament  especially 


EDITOR'S  STUDY 


153 


prevailed.  While  civilization  implied 
the  human  detachment  from  Nature, 
this  peculiarly  esthetic  sensibility  was 
due  to  Nature's  bounty  rather  than  to 
her  severity.  The  kindly  aspects  of  Na- 
ture tempted  these  peoples,  even  in  their 
cities,  to  an  outdoor  rather  than  a  home- 
centered  existence,  and  to  this  circum- 
stance ancient  art  adapted  itself  in  the 
form  of  its  appeal;  but  its  themes  were 
never  derived  from  Nature — earth  and 
sea  and  sky  were  but  the  setting  to  a 
story,  wholly  human,  or  else  divine  after 
a  human  fashion. 

Modern  civilizations  in  northern  lati- 
tudes have  therefore  been  more  favor- 
able to  the  development  of  landscape- 
painting — of  music  also,  since  we  cannot 
imagine  a  people  living  so  open  a  life  as 
the  Greeks  bringing  instrumental  music 
to  any  high  degree  of  perfection. 

The  arts  which  may  almost  be  said  to 
have  survived  sculpture  and  architec- 
ture— at  least  in  any  intimate  appeal  to 
modern  sensibility — are  just  those  to 
which  Nature  is  not  merely  a  setting, 
but  into  which  she  enters  because  of  the 
artist's  conscious  appreciation  of  her 
varied  charms.  Probably  Greek  and 
Roman  sensibility  to  these  charms  and 
the  immediate  enjoyment  of  them  were 
even  deeper  than  our  own,  and  for  that 
very  reason  there  was  less  articulate  ex- 
pression of  the  feeling  for  Nature  in  class- 
ic art  and  literature.  The  poignancy  of 
this  feeling — as  in  the  intoxication  of 
delight  shown  by  Russians  at  the  coming 
of  spring — we  should  not  expect  to  find 
in  those  who  experience  less  "the  sea- 
son's difference."  The  pastorals  of 
Theocritus  and  Vergil  abound  in  human 
and  mythological  associations  with  Na- 
ture, whose  breath,  we  know,  is  the  in- 
spiration of  every  scene,  but  we  miss  the 
beating  pulse  of  her  that  we  feel  in 
Chaucer's  verse. 

But  there  is  another  kind  of  difference 
which  we  note  when  we  compare  the 
Nature-poetry  of  the  last  hundred  years 
with  all  that  had  preceded  it,  modern  as 
well  as  ancient;  for  hardly  earlier  than 
Wordsworth  was  there  any  poetic  ex- 
pression of  love  for  Nature  on  her  own 
account.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  it  has 
been  during  the  same  period  that  land- 
scape-painting and  music  have  had  their 
extreme  modern  development  through  a 


feeling  for  Nature  which  implied  a  dis- 
cernment of  her  own  values,  for  what 
they  are  in  themselves  as  appealing  di- 
rectly to  a  developed  human  sensibility, 
divested  of  fanciful  conceits,  of  mytho- 
logical allusions,  and  of  the  utilitarian 
associations  which  infested  the  imagina- 
tion of  Hesiod  in  his  Works  and  Days, 
and  even  of  Vergil  in  his  more  elegant 
Georgics. 

Nature  is  fine  in  Shakespeare,  but  she 
is  not  allowed  to  be  herself.  We  are  so 
impressed  by  the  poetry  of  his  expres- 
sion that  we  accept  tolerantly,  but  not 
as  truth,  its  conventional  glosses.  See 
how  full  of  these  Perdita's  speech  is,  as 
she  distributes  the  flowers,  in  Winter  s 
Tale: 

O  Proserpina, 
For  the  flowers  now,  that,  frighted,  thou 

let'st  fall 
From  Dis's  wagon!  Daffodils, 
That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty;  violets 

dim, 

But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes, 
Or  Cytherea's  breath;   pale  primroses, 
That  die  unmarried  ere  they  can  behold 
Bright  Phoebus  in  his  strength  .... 

In  these  nine  lines  five  pagan  divini- 
ties masque  the  expression.  Turning 
from  Perdita  to  Ophelia,  performing  the 
same  office  in  Hamlet,  we  find  another 
form  of  indirection;  our  attention  is 
distracted  from  the  flowers  themselves 
to  things  of  the  mind  traditionally  asso- 
ciated with  them:  rosemary  standing 
for  remembrance,  pansies  for  thoughts. 

Not  only  do  Wordsworth  and  the 
poets  of  his  time,  and  since,  treat  more 
frequently  and  more  variously  the  as- 
pects of  Nature,  but  they  are  free  from 
all  this  obliquity  of  expression.  They 
retain  only  the  one  veil  which,  for  all 
humanity  as  well  as  for  the  poet,  must 
for  ever  invest  living  Nature — the  guise 
we  put  upon  her  of  our  moods  and 
emotions.  Only  Science  can  attempt 
that  final  divestiture. 

Though  we  cannot  cast  aside  that  old 
habit  of  humanizing  Nature,  it  becomes 
more  and  more  a  loose  garment,  witting- 
ly worn.  Creative  imagination  in  its 
modern  expansion  is  clarified  by  the 
equally  comprehensive  expansion  of 
knowledge.  Science  perforates  all  our 
masques,  and  we  forgive  her,  seeing 


154 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Creation  widens  on  our  view.  Thus  men- 
tality is  a  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  nineteenth  and  twentieth  century  art, 
including  poetry.  There  would  never 
have  been  art,  in  our  human  sense  of  it, 
without  mentality,  which  is  the  condi- 
tion and  leverage,  though  not  the  source, 
of  that  distinctive  kind  of  creation.  The 
Greek  mind  was  as  wonderful  as  the 
Greek  art.  The  evolution  of  creative 
Imagination  cannot  be  considered  apart 
from  that  of  creative  Reason. 

The  change  which  is  so  manifest  in 
the  attitude  of  humanity  toward  Nature 
— as  expressed  in  the  art  and  poetry  of 
the  last  century — is  not  due  to  tempera- 
ment as  affected  by  climate  or  any  other 
outward  circumstance;  it  is  a  trans- 
formation of  human  sensibility,  which 
is  as  evident  in  an  altered  perspective  of 
spiritual  as  it  is  in  our  new  estimate  of 
world  values.  In  regard  to  the  latter, 
it  is  a  change  of  feeling  as  well  as  of 
vision.  There  has  been  a  joyous  recla- 
mation of  sensibility,  and  even  of  the 
senses,  by  the  soul;  and  thus  Nature, 
formerly  disguised  and,  in  some  periods, 
spiritually  despised  and  repudiated,  has 
been  accepted  by  us  on  her  own  terms. 
We  prefer  the  tree  to  the  dryad,  and 
need  no  reference  to  Phoebus  to  add 
excellence  to  the  sun. 

There  is  a  thought  we  may  well  heed 
expressed  by  Sir  Gilbert  Parker  in  a 
recent  essay  on  Education: 

It  is  impossible  for  man,  with  his  senses 
all  alive — seeing,  hearing,  feeling,  smelling, 
tasting — to  be  wholly  uninspired,  to  be  dull, 
despairing,  or  forlorn;  to  be  lacking  in  hu- 
manity or  uncultured.  The  real  essence  of 
culture,  the  beginning  of  culture,  is  the 
training  of  the  senses.  All  thought  has  had 
its  origin  in  feeling,  from  the  first  bleat  of 
anthropological  man  to  the  last  note  of  a 
symphony  by  Debussy. 

The  elemental,  whether  in  Nature 
or  human  life,  is  a  constant  factor  in 
culture.  Only  our  attitude  toward  it 
changes  with  the  evolution  of  our  psy- 
chical background.  What  we  bring  to 
Nature  determines  its  realizable  values 
for  us.  That  makes  the  difference  be- 
tween modern  and  ancient  art,  between 


the  nature-poetry  of  Wordsworth  and 
Tennyson  and  that  of  Theocritus  and 
Vergil. 

In  our  art,  as  in  our  science,  our  quest 
for  values  is  far  more  disinterested  than 
in  the  earlier  stages  of  human  mental 
development.  The  satisfactions  of  rea- 
son and  of  the  esthetic  sense  derived 
from  real  values,  in  which  truth  is  one 
with  beauty,  are  infinitely  remote  from 
those  derived  from  values  as  utilities. 
Nature  is  more  fully  responsive  to  the 
spirit  on  this  disinterested  plane  and,  as 
if  in  gracious  return  for  our  good  man- 
ners, yields  us  also  a  finer  enjoyment  of 
her  purely  sensuous  charms. 

She  cannot  answer  us  in  speech.  We 
are  ourselves  her  articulation — her  first 
and  last  word — but  she  is  inarticulate. 
We  boast  our  mastery  of  her,  but  the 
uses  we  most  acclaim  are  the,  least  of  her 
all-pervasive  service  of  our  bodies  and 
our  souls.  We  are,  for  the  most  part, 
heedless  of  her  ample  bounty. 

Bubbles  we   buy  with   the  whole  soul's 
tasking: 

'Tis  Heaven  alone  that  is  given  away — 
'Tis  only  God  may  be  had  for  the  asking; 
No  price  is  set  on  the  lavish  summer; 
June  may  be  had  by  the  poorest  comer. 

Nature  asks  nothing  of  man  —  not 
even  thanks  for  her  service  or  for  her 
bounty.  Her  independence  of  him  is 
more  patent  than  his  mastery  of  her,  but 
she  does  not  assert  it.  Even  if  she  could 
speak,  there  would  be  no  such  term  in 
her  vocabulary — the  term  stands  for  no 
reality  in  our  own.  Her  sympathy,  the 
key-note  of  all  her  cosmic  harmony,  is 
ineffable. 

In  the  realm  of  Nature  which  is  nearest 
to  us — that  of  her  living  things — this 
sympathy  is  peculiarly  intimate,  since 
we  ourselves  are  a  part  of  it;  almost  it 
finds  a  voice.  M.  Fabre  finds  in  bees 
not  only  instinct,  but  discernment.  Re- 
cent science  discovers  sensibility  in  plant 
life.  The  conscious  element  is  so  evi- 
dent in  animate  creation  that  there  is  no 
strain  in  the  speculation  that  attributes 
to  all  life  a  kind  of  mental  detachment, 
and  so  an  artifice  and  an  art  not  abso- 
lutely unakin  to  our  own. 


Mumping  the  Mumps 

BY  HOWARD  BRU BAKER 


ALTHOUGH  I  live  in  New  York  and 
consider  it  a  large  and  wealthy  city, 
L  I  have  no  narrow  pride,  and  I  readily 
accepted  an  invitation  to  spend  a  few 
days  with  a  married  cousin  in  Philadelphia. 
Moreover,  I  was  at  the  time  not  encumbered 
with  a  lucrative  position,  so  I  was  free  to  go 
and  come  at  will,  remembering  always  that 
the  railways  charge  one  more  for  going  and 
coming  large  distances.  On  the  morning  I 
was  expected  in  Philadelphia  I  did  not  feel 
particularly  well;  and,  besides,  it  was  a  driz- 
zly, cold,  autumn  day;  but  I  am  a 
man  of  my  word,  and  shortly  be- 
fore noon  I  began  to  see  the  smoky 
chimneys  and  the  bill-boards  of 
the  "City  of  Homes." 

I  had  told  my  seat-mate — a 
gentleman  with  pink  cufFs  and 
a  prominent  Adam's  apple — that 
I  was  rather  under  the  weather, 
and  had  received  in  reply  a  boast- 
ful account  of  various  things  that 
had  been  the  matter  with  him  in 
times  past.  His  narrative  took 
me  back  in  memory  to  "The  Idle 
Hour,"  a  rest-cure  sanitarium  at 
which  I  was  once  employed  as 
clerk,  and  where  I  often  heard 
the  guests  comparing  diseases. 
Having  finished  with  a  fascinat- 
ing account  of  his  operation  for 
appendicitis  (it  seemed  that  he 
had  lost  his  appendix  before  most 
people  even  knew  they  had  one), 
he  gave  some  attention  to  my 
ailment.  He  looked  at  me 
thoughtfully  from  a  front  view 
and  then  poked  me  awhile  in  the 
region  where  my  neck  converges 
upon  my  jaw. 

"It's  swollen  badly,"  he  said. 
"Does  it  hurt  when  I  touch  it?" 

I  admitted  that  such  was  the 
case.  This  reply  seemed  to  give 
him  great  satisfaction,  for  he  said: 
"Ah  ha!  You  can't  fool  an  old 
stager  like  me!"  He  added  that  if  I 
would  excuse  him  hewould  goto  the 
Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  781.— 20 


smoking-car.  Before  I  had  time  toinquire  what 
it  was  I  couldn't  fool  him  about,  he  had  gone. 

It  takes  quite  a  while  to  enter  Phila- 
delphia, and  for  pastime  I  punched  myself  in 
the  throat  and  experienced  disagreeable  sen- 
sations. Also  I  examined  myself  with  my 
pocket-mirror;  I  did  not  appear  swollen,  but 
the  glass  was  a  notably  poor  one  and  gave 
one  a  wavy  appearance  to  which  one  was  not 
entitled — and,  no  doubt,  vice  versa.  When 
the  train  entered  the  station  shed  the  old 
stager  came  back  to  get  his  bag. 


IT  S  SWOLLEN  BADLY,  HE  SAID. 
"DOES  IT  HURT  WHEN  I  TOUCH  IT?" 


156 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"How  did  you  come  to  have  the  mumps?" 
he  asked. 

I  was  a  little  nettled  at  this  question,  and 
replied,  recalling  an  old  anecdote,  that  I  had 
not  come  to  have  the  mumps,  but  to  visit  my 
cousin,  Emmaline,  who  was  married  to  a  gen- 
tleman named  Cuthbert  Seeley,  and  had  two 
lovely  children. 

"Emmaline,"  he  said,  as  he  hurried  away, 
"will  be  glad  to  welcome  you  for  the  sake  of 
the  children." 

His  words  filled  me  with  foreboding;  if  I 
had  the  mumps  I  ought  not  go  to  Emmaline's 
house  and  expose  Gregory  and  little  Jessa- 
mine. I  was  tempted  to  take  the  next  train 
back  to  New  York,  but  it  did  not  seem  fair 
to  the  Seeleys  to  have  them  keep  lunch  wait- 
ing for  a  day  or  two  until  they  heard  from  me. 
I  thought  of  the  telephone,  but  upon  search- 
ing the  book  in  the  station  I  failed  to  find  any 
Seeleys  except  James  B.  Seeley,  who  was  a 
dyer  and  cleaner.  So  I  conceived  a  happy 
compromise  and  set  off*  for  Emmaline's  house. 
Not  wishing  to  expose  even  total  strangers 
to  my  disease,  I  did  not  take  the  car,  but 
walked  the  entire  distance  in  the  rain,  asking 
the  way  of  policemen  from  time  to  time  and 
trying  to  reconcile  their  answers  with  one  an- 
other. At  last  I  arrived  at  my  destination 
drenched  and  foot-weary  and  not  entirely 
happy.  It  was  my  first  visit  to  the  Quaker 
City,  but  of  course  it  is  not  fair  to  judge  a 
place  by  walking  through  it  in  the  cold  rain 
with  a  valise  and  the  mumps. 

I  knew  at  once  that  I  was  at  the  right 
address  because  the  brick  house  with  its 
white  doorway  was  exactly  like  hundreds  I 


had  seen  in  my  walk,  and  the  Seeleys  are 
not  eccentric  people.  If  they  had  been  New- 
Yorkers,  they  would  have  lived  in  an  apart- 
ment with  marble  in  the  lower  hall;  in  Buf- 
falo they  would  have  had  a  house  with  a  little 
patch  of  grass;  in  Kansas  City  they  would 
have  had  a  stout  fence  around  their  yard  to 
keep  their  lovely  children  from  falling  into 
other  parts  of  that  thriving  but  hilly  city. 
Very  dependable  people,  the  Seeleys. 

I  rang  the  bell,  then  backed  down  the  steps 
into  the  street.  The  maid  seemed  astonished 
to  see  me  so  far  from  the  door  she  had 
opened,  and  in  order  not  to  increase  her  alarm 
I  did  not  mention  my  name  or  ailment, 
but  told  her  to  advise  Mr.  Seeley  that  a 
gentleman  was  waiting  for  him  out  there. 

Cuthbert  came  and  started  toward  me  in 


at  last!"  he  said. 


a  welcoming  manner. 

"Well,  here  you  are 
"We've  kept  lunch — " 

"Stop  where  you  are!"  I  shouted.  "I 
came  to  your  house  to  tell  you  that  I  cannot 
come  to  your  house." 

Cuthbert  stopped  in  his  tracks  as  if  from 
astonishment.  "What  are  you  talking  about 
and  what  are  you  doing  out  there  ?  We  never 
eat  lunch  in  the  middle  of  the  street  when  it 
is  raining." 

"Mumps!"  I  yelled.  "I've  got  the 
mumps."  As  he  seemed  not  to  understand, 
I  repeated,  "Mumps,  mumps,  mumps!" 

"He's  got  three  mumps,"  said  Cuthbert, 
inanely,  as  he  retreated  to  the  sidewalk.  I 
backed  away  to  the  opposite  curb,  but,  as  the 
streets  are  narrow  in  that  city,  conversation 
was  entirely  practical. 


IT  WAS  A  DISTRESSINGLY  SMALL  HOUSE 


EDITOR'S 

"  If  you  have  the  mumps,"  Cuthbert  asked, 
"why  did  you  come  to  Philadelphia?" 

Waiting  until  an  automobile  had  passed,  I 
replied,  with  dignity:  "Because  I  did  not 
know  I  had  them  until  I  got  here."  I  told 
him  how  the  experienced  invalid  and  appen- 
dicitis pioneer  had  diagnosed  my  case  and 
refused  to  sit  with  me.  "Of  course,"  I  con- 
cluded, "I  must  not  come  in  now  and  expose 
the  children.    What  had  I  better  do?" 

"Why  don't  you  go  straight  home?" 

"I'd  thought  of  that,  but  I  don't  believe 
my  landlady  would  care  to  have  me  bring 
mumps  into  the  boarding-house.  She's  a 
particular  landlady,  and — well  there  has  al- 
ready been  some  discussion  between  us  about 
some  slight  arrears." 

Cuthbert  was  thinking  deeply;  Emmaline 
came  out,  looking  very  well,  I  thought,  and, 
after  having  the  situation  explained  to  her, 
got  to  thinking  deeply  also.  A  small  boy 
came  paddling  along  in  the  rain  on  my  side 
and  took  an  unsolicited  interest  in  the  pro- 
ceedings. 

"Won't  they  let  you  come  in?"  he  asked. 

I  had  to  threaten  to  cut  off  his  ears  (for 
I  am  fond  of  children)  to  get  him  out  of  the 
germ  zone. 

"He  could  go  to  a  hospital,"  said  Emma- 
line  to  Cuthbert. 

"It  would  have  to  be  a  contagious-disease 
hospital,"  said  Cuthbert  to  Emmaline. 
"There  would  be  other — things  there." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  I  asked. 

A  noisy  coal-wagon  passed  at  that  mo- 
ment and  all  I  heard  of  the  list  was  small- 
pox and  diphtheria.  I  could  see  no  point  in 
exposing  myself  to  these  complaints,  and  per- 
haps leprosy  and  bubonic  plague  (I  was  not 
familiar  with  Philadelphia  diseases),  just  be- 
cause I  had  the  mumps.  So  I  bade  my  cou- 
sins an  affectionate  farewell. 

"I'll  manage  somehow,"  I  said. 

"Some  boarding-house,  perhaps,"  said 
Emmaline,  brightening  a  little,  "with  a  nice 
motherly  landlady  who  would  be  glad  to  help 
a  strange  young  man." 

"Telephone  us  how  you  come  out,"  said 
Cuthbert. 

"Have  you  a  'phone?  I  couldn't  find  your 
name  in  the  book." 

"Two  companies  here.  A  person  always 
looks  in  the  wrong  book  first." 

I  have  explained  this  at  considerable 
length  so  that  all  might  understand  how  it 
came  about  that  a  near-sighted  young  man 
with  a  valise  and  four  dollars  was  wandering 
about  the  streets  of  Philadelphia  in  the  rain 
looking  for  a  place  to  have  the  mumps. 
Otherwise  one  might  think  it  strange. 

Soon  my  attention  was  attracted  by  a  sign, 
"Boarding  by  Day  or  Week."  I  looked  the 
place  over  carefully,  for  I  was  at  this  time 


DRAWER  157 

rather  particular.  It  was  a  distressingly 
small  house;  it  might  have  been  all  right  for 
some  wasting  disease,  but  one  does  not  want 
to  be  cramped  while  having  the  mumps. 
Presently  I  found  a  larger  place.  The  land- 
lady herself  answered  my  ring. 

"Pardon  me,"  I  said,  lifting  my  hat,  "but 
may  I  have  the  mumps  here?" 

The  lady  closed  the  door  very  quickly 
indeed,  but  I  gathered  from  what  I  heard  of 
her  reply  that  I  might  not.  Evidently  she 
was  not  one  of  those  motherly  persons  that 
Emmaline  had  recommended. 

One  block  south  and  half  a  block  east  that 
scene  was  re-enacted  in  its  essential  details, 
with  the  difference  that  this  time  the  door 
in  closing  struck  my  toe.  My  next  experi- 
ence, however,  was  quite  otherwise.  A  white- 
aproned  maid  opened  the  door  and  agreed  to 
see  whether  the  mistress  was  in.  Thus  I  was 
permitted  to  sit  down  and  get  some  needed 
rest  before  the  landlady  came  and  refused 
my  petition. 

Up  to  this  time  I  had  treated  these  Phila- 
delphia ladies  with  perfect  frankness.  I  did 
not  care  to  get  accommodations  under  false 
pretenses  and  afterward  perhaps  find  myself 
in  the  hands  of  a  querulous  and  unmotherly 
person.  Now  I  began  to  think  I  had  been 
too  abrupt  in  my  tactics;  better  get  into  a 
person's  good  graces  first  and  reveal  the 
truth  gradually.  So  thinking,  I  climbed  the 
steps  of  a  house  whose  sign  announced  that 
Mrs.  R.  M.  Shonts  had  rooms  to  let.  During 
my  brief  career  as  salesman  for  a  patent  coat- 
hanger,  I  had  learned  that  it  always  makes  a 
good  impression  to  call  people  by  their 
names.  (That  I  was  not  successful  as  a 
salesman  was  not  due  to  my  following  this 
rule.)  So  while  waiting  for  the  door  to  open 
I  resolved  to  address  the  landlady  as  Mrs. 
Shonts,  and  not  to  mention  mumps  until  our 
acquaintance  had  ripened  a  little.  I  still 
think  that  this  was  a  good  plan,  but  I  was 
perhaps  a  little  nervous  at  the  sight  of  the 
sour-visaged  lady  who  answered  the  ring,  and 
my  ill-advised  words  were: 

"Pardon  me,  Mrs.  Mumps — " 

"Don't  get  fresh,  young  man!"  was  the  re- 
ply. The  slamming  of  the  door  served  as  an 
exclamation-point  to  this  sentence. 

Chagrined  at  my  error,  weary  and  hungry, 
the  happy  thought  came  to  me  of  going  to  a 
restaurant  for  refreshment.  I  did  so,  remem- 
bering not  to  order  pickles,  because  they  do 
not  go  well  with  mumps.  This  was  no  hard- 
ship, for  I  never  eat  pickles,  even  when  well 
and  strong.  The  restaurant  mirror — a  fairly 
good  one — showed  an  unmistakable  swelling 
on  both  sides  of  my  throat  and  my  food  gave 
it  pain. 

The  nourishment  and  the  rest,  however, 
brought  me  renewed  vigor,  and  at  the  next 


158 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


I  CAN  TELL  WHEN  I  AM  NOT  WANTED 


place  I  was  at  once  admitted  to  the  house  by 
a  kindly  woman.  We  had  a  very  pleasant 
talk  about  the  unpleasant  weather,  and  final- 
ly I  told  her  about  my  trouble.  To  my  regret 
she  suddenly  became  cold  and  distant  in  her 
demeanor  and  claimed  to  be  sorry  that  her 
house  was  quite  full. 

"I  thought  you  seemed  a  motherly  sort  of 
person,"  I  said,  gloomily. 

"I'm  motherly  enough  to  have  three  of 
my  own.  Now  I'll  ask  you  to  excuse  me.  I 
think  I  smell  something  burning."  There 
was  obviously  nothing  burning,  so  what 
could  I  do  but  go  away?  I  can  tell  when  I 
am  not  wanted. 

Of  course,  I  thought,  landladies  do  have 
children.  I  changed  my  tactics  and  inquired 
at  a  number  of  places  whether  there  were 
children  in  the  house,  as  though  I  could  not 
bear  the  thought  of  them.  I  found  that  the 
birth-rate  in  Philadelphia  boarding-houses 
was  very  high. 

At  last  there  came  a  ray  of  light.  A  door 
was  opened,  not  by  landlady  or  maid,  but 
by  a  gentleman  with  a  scholarly  face  and 
an  umbrella.  He  was  evidently  just  going 
out. 

"I  have  the  mumps,  sir,"  I  said,  candidly, 
and  do  you  know  what  to  do  with  them? 
Can  you  advise  me?" 

"Why  do  you  use  the  plural?"  he  asked. 


"I  have  them  on  both  sides. 
Perhaps  that  would  make  a  differ- 
ence. 

"That  is  a  misapprehension, 
young  sir.  I  am  professor  of 
philology  in  the  university  and 
have  given  no  small  attention  to 
the  subject.  Mumps  is  singular. 
1  here  is  no  such  thing  as  a  mump. 
To  be  sure,  there  is  a  verb  'to 
mump,'  meaning  to  utter  im- 
perfectly; akin  to  mumble." 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  I 
said,  stepping  aside  respectfully 
to  let  the  professor  pass.    I  am 
not  a  college  man  myself,  but  I 
think  highly  of  erudition.  Be- 
sides, he  had  given  me  an  idea. 
What  I  must  do  was  to  express 
myself    unclearly  —  to  mump 
my    mumps,    as    the  scholarly 
gentleman  would  have  said.  I 
carried  out  this  plan  when  the 
mistress  of  the  house  answered 
my  ring.    I  do  not  know  what 
she  thought  I  asked,  but  she  gave 
a  glance  at  my  valise  and  replied: 
"No,  I  do  not  care  to  buy  any  to- 
day," and  closed  the  door  upon  my 
explanation.    For  a  time  I  gave 
myself  up  to  mumping,  but  with 
no  success.  The  afternoon  was  far 
spent  and  I  was  beginning  to  feel  discour- 
aged.    I  had  reached  the  business  part  of 
the  city  and  was  wandering  along  in  the 
gathering  dusk  when  an  idea  came  to  me,  a 
bold  yet  simple  idea.    I  was  passing  a  mag- 
nificent hotel.    With  desperate  courage  I 
entered  and  approached  the  prosperous-look- 
ing young  man  at  the  desk;  a  muscular  youth 
in  a  uniform  wrenched  my  bag  from  me. 

"Pardon  me,"  I  said,  pretending  to 
straighten  my  necktie  in  order  to  hide  my 
swollen  throat,  "do  you  suppose  I  could  get 
a  room  here?" 

My  precaution  was  unnecessary,  for  the 
clerk,  without  looking  up,  pushed  the  register 
in  my  direction,  and  I  was  soon  ushered  into  a 
room  which  was  calculated  to  demolish  my 
meager  resources.  The  next  step  was  to  tele- 
phone to  Cuthbert  and  ask  him  to  send  me 
some  funds.  There  were  two  instruments  in 
the  room,  but  as  I  did  not  remember  which 
company  I  had  almost  patronized  at  the  sta- 
tion, I  took  up  the  wrong  book  first  and  again 
learned,  what  in  my  own  trouble  I  had  sel- 
fishly forgotten,  that  James  B.  Seeley  was  a 
dyer  and  cleaner.  In  the  other  book  I  found 
Cuthbert's  name,  and  he  seemed  glad  to  get 
out  of  the  difficulty  at  any  reasonable  price. 

Thus,  surrounded  by  more  of  the  com- 
forts of  home  than  my  own  home  had,  I  spent 
three  luxurious  days  in  bed  with  tonsilitis. 


Boy  (to  officer  on  submarine) :    "  Say,  mister,  if  ye're  goin 
down  again,  would  ye  mind  lookin  for  my  knife  ?     It's  got 
two  blades  an   a  black  handle." 


Those  Wilful  Toys 

BY  BURGES  JOHNSON 

jy^Y  house  is  quite  full  of  such  curious  things. 

There  are  blocks  that  have  feet,  there  are  books  that  have  wings; 
And  dolls  that  can  walk,  and  two  old  Teddy-bears 
With  legs  that  can  carry  them  up  and  down  stairs. 
And  Polly's  not  sure,  and  Jimmy  can't  say 
Just  how  they  were  made  in  this  curious  way. 

We  stand  each  book  nicely  away  on  the  shelf, 

But  somehow  it  seems  to  get  down  by  itself. 

And  toys  that  we  put  every  day  in  their  place 

All  scamper  about  till  they're  quite  a  disgrace. 
And  Polly  can't  say,  and  Jimmy  don't  know 
Just  why  we  should  find  them  wherever  we  go. 

This  morning  I  called,  in  a  voice  loud  and  clear. 

So  even  the  toys  in  the  attic  could  hear, 

"If  you're  all  in  your  places  at  bedtime,  I  might 

Bring  home  something  good  in  my  pockets  to-night." 
And  Polly  don't  know,  and  Jimmy  can't  say, 
But  they  think  that  the  toys  are  quite  sure  to  obey. 


160 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


For  Housekeepers 

MRS.  SMITH  gave  a  birthday 
party  for  her  little  daughter, 
and  among  the  guests  was  Bessie, 
aged  six.  One  of  the  principal 
dainties  of  the  birthday  dinner 
was  creamed  chicken  served  in 
frilled  paper  cases. 

When  Bessie  returned  home 
her  mother  asked  numerous 
questions  about  the  party. 

"What  did  you  have  to  eat, 
dear?"  she  asked. 

"Why,  mother,"  replied  the 
child,  seriously,  "they  had  hash 
in  candle-shades." 


"Leggo,  Mike. 


No  Overtime 

There  goes  the  twelve  o'clock  whistle 


Narrow-Minded 
*TTIE  teachers  of  a  Chicago  school  in  the 
university  quarter,  looking  out  at  re- 
cess, discovered,  to  their  horror,  what  seemed 
a  general  fight  in  progress  among  the  chil- 
dren, boys  and  girls  together.  When  order 
was  restored  it  was  found  that  one  flushed 
and  disheveled  faction  gathered  round  the 
extremely  fat  little  daughter  of  a  university 
professor,  and  the  other  round  the  small  son 
of  a  famous  pianist. 

"Now  what  does  this  disgraceful  thing 
mean?"  asked  a  teacher,  sternly. 

"He  slapped  Natalie!"  shrieked  the  little 
girls. 

"Did  you?"  questioned  the  teacher. 
"Yes,"  said  the  boy,  sturdily,  "I  did." 
"And  why  did  you  do  such  a  bad,  rude 
thing?" 

"I  don't  like  her,"  he  answered,  scornfully; 
"  she's  too  wide!" 


A  Salesman 

"THE  depression  in  business 
caused  a  local  jeweler  to 
discharge  his  experienced  man, 
replacing  him  with  a  high-school 
graduate — a  youth'  just  out  of 
school.  He  appeared  very  anxious 
to  learn,  and  the  proprietor 
at  the  end  of  the  first  week 
was  much  pleased  with  results. 
One  day  the  merchant  was  ob- 
liged to  be  away  from  the  store, 
and  upon  his  return  inquired: 

"Well,  Frank,  did  you  sell 
anything  while  I  was  out?" 

"Yes,  sir;    I  sold  five  plain 
band  rings." 

"Fine,  my  boy!"  said  the 
jeweler,  enthusiastically.  "WVll 
make  an  Ai  salesman  out  of  you 
one  of  these  days.  You  got  the 
regular  price  for  them,  of  course  ?" 
"Oh  yes,  sir.  The  price  on 
the  inside  was  18c,  and  the  man  took  all 
that  were  left,  sir." 


Tired  of  It 

ONE  Sunday  morning  the  weather  was  so 
bad  that  little  Louise's  mother  would 
not  allow  her  to  attend  services.  The  child 
was  very  disconsolate. 

"Grandma  will  read  the  Bible  to  you," 
her  mother  assured  her. 

"  I  don't  want  to  hear  the  Bible,"  objected 
Louise.    "I  want  to  say  my  prayers." 

"Well,  dear,"  said  the  mother,  "God  will 
hear  your  prayers  just  the  same  if  you  say 
them  at  home  as  if  you  were  in  church." 

"  But  I  don't  know  any  prayers  without 
the  prayer-book,"  said  Louise. 

"Why,  yes,  you  do!"  said  the  mother. 
"You  know  'Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep/" 

"But,  mother,"  remonstrated  the  little 
girl,  "God  has  heard  that  so  often." 


EDITOR'S  DRAWER  161 

Where  Extremes  Meet 
"\X/HAT  zone  is  this  we  live  in? 

*     You  may  answer,  James,"  said 
the  teacher. 

"Temperate. " 

"Now  what  is  meant  by  a  'tem- 
perate zone' ?" 

"It's  a  place  where  it's  freezin'  cold 
in  winter  and  red  hot  in  summer." 


Unconvinced 
MATALIE  was  taken  to  church  for 
the  first  time  when  she  was  four 
years  old.  She  was  greatly  excited 
when  the  clergyman  in  his  long 
white  robe  rose  up  behind  the  pulpit. 

"Is  it  God?"  she  whispered  to  her 
mother. 

Her  mother  shook  her  head;  and 
Natalie  whispered  again: 
"Are  you  sure  ?" 


His  Turn 

JV\R-  PREW,  a  widower  with  a  little 
daughter,  married  again,  and 
in  the  course  of  time  raised  a  new 
family.  One  morning  the  daughter 
of  the  first  marriage  was  talking  of 
her  relationship  to  her  step  brothers 
and  sisters. 

"  Now,"  said  the  little  girl,  thought- 
fully, "if  mother  was  to  die,  and  father  "Oh,  pshaw!"  cried  George,  who  was  de- 
married  again  and  had  some  more  children,  voted  to  his  mother,  "it's  not  mother's  turn 
what  relation  would  they  be  to  me?"  to  die,  Maude;  it's  father's." 


"  No,  I  ain't  the  captain,  nor  yet  I  ain't  the  first  mate.  Ye  see  this 
here  ship's  called  the  ' Merican  Beauty.     Well— I'm  the  figgerhead." 


Officer:  "  Wotfs  the  meanin  o  this?" 

Embarrassed  Young  Man:  "  Well,  it's  like 
this.  I'm  taking  a  course  in  a  correspondence 
school,  and  yesterday  those  confounded  sophomores 
wrote  to  me  and  told  me  to  haze  myself." 


162 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Watchman:  "  No — /  tell  ye  this  is  a  private  road,  an  if  ye  drive  along 
here  it  will  be  over  my  prostrate  body  /" 

Owner:"   Turn  back,  James.   We've  done  enough  hill-climbing  j or  to-day." 


The  Right  Age  infant's  face  was  covered  with  a  thick  veil, 

RERT  WILLIS  is  a  very  nervous,  fidgety     and  every  now  and  then  it  would  utter  a 
young    man.     While    traveling    on    a     sharp  cry,  which  the  woman  endeavored 
train  one  day  he  chanced  to  be  seated     to   suppress.    Young  Willis  watched  the 
next  to  a  woman  who  held  a  baby.    The     proceedings  with  considerable  anxiety  for 

some  time,  and  finally,  leaning 
over  toward  the  woman,  asked: 
"Has — has  that  baby  any — 
anything  contagious,  madam?" 

The  woman  turned  and  looked 
at  him  with  an  expression  in 
which  scorn  and  pity  were 
blended. 

"Well,  'twouldn't  be  for  most 
folks,  but  maybe  'twould  for 
you,"  she  replied  sharply — "he's 
teething." 


"/  Ain't  a  Suffragette  /" 


He  Taught  Him 

VELLS  from  the  nursery 
brought  the  mother,  who 
found  the  baby  gleefully  pulling 
small  Billy's  curls. 

"Never  mind,  darling,"  she 
comforted.  "  Baby  doesn't  know 
how  it  hurts." 

Half  an  hour  later  wild  shrieks 
from  the  baby  made  her  run 
again  to  the  nursery. 

"Why,  Billy!"  she  cried. 
"What  is  the  matter  with  the 
baby?" 

"Nothing,  muzzer,"said  Billy, 
calmly;  "only  now  he  knows!" 


Harper's  Magazine 


Vol.  CXXXI  JULY,   1915  No.  DCCLXXXII 


John  Hay  and  the  Panama  Republic 

From  The  UNPUBLISHED  LETTERS  of  JOHN  HAY 

Compiled  and  Edited  by  William  Roscoe  Thayer 


f@fe^€OTj?@)N  an  address  on  "Amer- 


ican Diplomacy,"  de- 
livered by  Secretary 
Hay  at  the  New  York 
Chamber  of  Commerce 
dinner,  November  19, 
1901,  he  uttered  a  sen- 
tence which  went  over  the  country. 

"If  we  are  not  permitted  to  boast  of 
what  we  have  done,"  he  said,  "we  can 
at  least  say  a  word  about  what  we  have 
tried  to  do  and  the  principles  which  have 
guided  our  action.  The  briefest  expres- 
sion of  our  rule  of  conduct  is,  perhaps, 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  the  Golden  Rule. 
With  this  simple  chart  we  can  hardly 
go  far  wrong." 

Mr.  Hay  had  already  done  much  to 
deserve  to  be  called  "the  Statesman  of 
the  Golden  Rule,"  and  he  was  to  do  still 
more  before  he  died.  The  new  genera- 
tion associates  with  his  memory  the 
qualities  which  justify  that  noble  de- 
scription. While  he  still  lived,  men  said, 
"If  John  Hay  did  that,  it  must  be 
right";  and  since  his  death,  they  say  of 
a  given  policy,  "If  John  Hay  were  alive 
he  would  never  approve  of  this." 

I  come  now  to  the  creation  of  the 
Republic  of  Panama — that  transaction 
in  his  career  as  Secretary  of  State  about 
which  there  has  raged  the  most  vehe- 
ment debate.    Opponents  have  called  it 

<<  •  1  99    ((     *        . •       1  99    (C.  1  JJ 

immoral,      piratical,  treacherous. 
Some  supporters  have  defended  it  on  the 

Copyright,  191 5,  by  Harper  & 


ground  of  international  expediency,  or 
on  technical  legal  points;  others,  while 
reluctantly  admitting  the  ugly  appear- 
ances, have  consoled  themselves  with 
the  thought  that  if  John  Hay  gave  it  his 
sanction  the  affair  could  not  be  dishon- 
orable. 

Secretary  Hay  once  told  a  friend  that 
President  McKinley  would  often  not 
send  for  him  once  a  month  on  business, 
but  that  he  saw  President  Roosevelt 
every  day.  That  illustrates  the  differ- 
ence in  initiative  between  the  two  Presi- 
dents, or  at  least  the  ratio  of  their  in- 
terest in  foreign  relations.  From  the 
moment  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  accession 
the  State  Department  felt  a  new  impel- 
ling force  behind  it:  the  Secretary  still 
conducted  the  negotiations,  but  the  crea- 
tion and  decision  of  policy  came  to  rest 
more  and  more  with  the  President. 

In  no  case  was  this  so  true  as  in  that  of 
the  Panama  Canal.  In  the  earlier  stages 
Mr.  Roosevelt  gave  directions  which  Mr. 
Hay  carried  out;  before  the  end,  how- 
ever, the  President  took  the  business 
into  his  own  hands;  and  he  has  ever 
since  frankly  assumed  entire  responsi- 
bility for  the  achievement. 

When  the  abrogation  of  the  Clayton- 
Bulwer  Treaty,  in  December,  1901,  left 
the  field  open  for  the  United  States 
government  to  construct,  maintain,  and 
control  a  canal,  two  parties  urged  their 
claims  —  one,  advocating  the  route 
through  Nicaragua;  the  other,  the  short- 
Brothers.    All  Rights  Reserved. 


166 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


er  way  through  Panama.  Each  route 
offered  special  advantages;  each  had 
equally  formidable  drawbacks.  Senator 
John  T.  Morgan,  the  most  zealous  cham- 
pion of  a  canal,  preferred  the  Nicaragua 
plan,  and  wished  to  bind  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  to  it. 
The  government  had  appointed  a  com- 
mission of  experts, 
under  Admiral 
John  G.  Walker, 
to  study  all  possi- 
ble routes  f  o  r  a 
canal  between  the 
Atlantic  and  the 
Pacific,  and  this 
commission  re- 
ported for  Nicara- 
gua. Mr.  Hay 
also  at  first  took 
that  side. 

Before  Congress 
voted  in  favor  of 
Nicaragua,  how- 
ever, the  advo- 
cates of  Panama 
got  a  hearing.  The 
old  De  L  e  s  s  e  p  s 
Company,  after 
its  collapse,  had 
sold  its  plant, 
good-will,  and  ex- 
cavations to  t  h  e 
New  Panama 
Canal  Company. 
No  sooner  had  the 

Walker  Commission  reported  than  the 
president  of  the  new  company,  which 
had  previously  offered  to  sell  all  its  in- 
terests for  one  hundred  and  nine  mill- 
ion dollars,  cabled  from  Paris  that  the 
company  would  reduce  its  price  to  forty 
million  dollars — the  value  estimated  by 
the  Walker  Commission. 

On  January  8,  1902,  the  House 
passed,  by  an  overwhelming  majority, 
the  Hepburn  bill,  which  authorized  the 
construction  of  the  Panama  Canal;  but 
this  measure  was  fought  in  the  Senate, 
and  only  after  it  had  been  amended  be- 
yond recognition  by  Senator  Spooner 
was  it  accepted  by  the  Senate,  on  June 
19th,  and  by  the  House  a  week  later. 
President  Roosevelt  signed  it  on  June 
28,  1902.  Briefly,  the  Spooner  bill  pro- 
vided for  the  purchase  by  the  govern- 
ment of  the  New  Panama  Canal  Com- 


pany's rights  at  forty  million  dollars;  for 
acquiring  at  a  fair  price  from  the  Re- 
public of  Colombia  a  strip  of  territory 
six  miles  broad  from  Colon  to  Panama, 
together  with  as  much  additional  land 
as  was  deemed  necessary;  and  then  for 
with  the  work  of  construc- 


proceeding 
tion. 


SENATOR  JOHN  T.  MORGAN  OF  ALABAMA 
Advocate  of  the  Nicaragua  Route 


Such  was  the 
tangled  skein  o  f 
the  Panama  Ca- 
nal affair  when 
diplomacy  took  it 
up. 

The  American 
government  en- 
tered into  negotia- 
tions with  the  New 
Company  with- 
out difficulty, 
whereas,  from  the 
outset,  i  t  s  deal- 
ings with  Colom- 
bia awakened 
distrust.  While 
Congress  was  dis- 
cussing the  Spoon- 
er bill,  Secretary 
Hay  had  been 
busy  sounding  the 
Central  American 
republics  and  Co- 
lombia, and  he 
kept  Senator  Mor- 
gan, the  zealot 
of  the  canal 
each  move, 
he  wrote  to  him: 


project,  informed  of 
On  April  22,  1902 

...  It  is  true  that  the  Panama  people 
[New  Panama  Canal  Company]  have  at  last 
made  their  proposition.  I  have  been  trying 
to  induce  them  to  make  some  changes  in  it 
which  might  render  it  more  acceptable  to  the 
Senate  and  to  our  people.  When  it  is  com- 
pleted I  shall  give  them  a  note  announcing 
the  readiness  of  the  government  of  the 
United  States  to  enter  into  a  convention  re- 
specting the  canal,  when  the  Congress  shall 
have  authorized  the  President  to  do  so  and 
when  the  legal  officers  of  the  United  States 
shall  have  been  satisfied  of  the  power  of 
the  Panama  Canal  Company  to  transfer  all 
their  rights  in  the  case. 

I  regret  to  say  that  I  have  not  yet  been 
able  to  get  a  firm  offer  from  the  government 
of  Nicaragua.  .  .  .  Let  me  assure  you  in 
strictest  confidence  that  I  was  unwilling  to 
send  in  the  Panama  proposition  until  I  was 
able  also  to  send  in  the  Nicaragua  proposals. 


JOHN  HAY  AND  THE  PANAMA  REPUBLIC 


167 


.  .  The  principal  difficulty  in  the  case  is 
this:  that  both  in  Colombia  and  in  Nicaragua 
great  ignorance  exists  as  to  the  attitude  of  the 
United  States.  In  both  countries  it  is  be- 
lieved that  their  route  is  the  only  one  pos- 
sible or  practicable,  and  that  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  in  the  last  resort  will 
accept  any  terms  they  choose  to  demand. 
The  Ministers  here 
of  both  powers  know 
perfectly  well  that 
this  is  untrue,  and 
they  are  doing  all 
they  can  to  convince 
their  people  at  home 
that  no  unreason- 
able proposition  will 
b  e  considered  b  y 
the  Government  of 
the  United  States; 
but  it  is  slow  work 
convincing  them. 

The  next  day 
Mr.  Hay  reported 
a  more  cheerful 
outlook: 

...  I  conceive  my 
duty  to  be  to  try 
to  ascertain  the  ex- 
act purposes  and 
intentions  of  both 
the  Governments 
[Nicaragua  and 
Costa  Rica]  and, 
when  I  have  done 
so,  to  inform  your 
Committee  of  the 
result  for  your  in- 
formation. ...  I  do 
not  consider  myself 

justified  in  advocating  either  route,  as  this 
matter  rests  within  the  discretion  of  Con- 
gress. When  Congress  has  spoken,  it  will 
then  be  the  duty  of  the  State  Department 
to  make  the  best  arrangement  possible  for 
whichever  route  Congress  may  decide  upon. 

I  cannot  but  believe  that  you  are  ap- 
proaching the  realization  of  the  great  enter- 
prise which  has  so  long  occupied  your 
thoughts  and  your  endeavors,  and,  certainly, 
when  the  hour  comes,  no  name  in  the  world 
can  compare  with  yours  in  the  praise  and 
honor  which  will  belong  to  it  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  this  beneficent  work,  which 
will  be  for  the  benefit  of  many  generations 
yet  unborn.    [April  23,  1902.] 

But  the  capacity  of  the  Latin-Amer- 
icans to  postpone  seemed  limitless.  Wit- 
ness this  note  to  Senator  Morgan,  dated 
May  12th: 


REAR-ADMIRAL  JOHN  G.  WALKER 

Head  of  the  Commission  appointed 
to  investigate  possible  canal  routes 


It  is  impossible  for  you,  as  it  would  be  for 
any  one,  to  appreciate  the  exasperating  diffi- 
culties that  have  been  placed  in  my  way  in 
trying  to  get  a  definite  proposition  from  our 
Central  American  friends.  I  have  finally 
sent  a  note  to  Mr.  Corea  [Nicaraguan  Min- 
ister at  Washington],  telling  him  I  can  wait 
no  longer  upon  the  convenience  of  his  Gov- 
ernment; that  he 
must,  before  Tues- 
day of  this  week, 
let  me  know  what 
they  propose,  and 
that,  in  case  I  get 
no  definite  proposi- 
tion from  them  by 
that  time,  I  shall 
submit  to  Congress 
the  proposition 
made  by  the  Co- 
lombian Govern- 
ment, and  also  a 
statement  that  it 
has  been  impossible 
to  get  anything  defi- 
nite from  the  Gov- 
ernment of  Nicara- 
gua. 

In  regard  to  your 
other  question,  the 
President  has  no  de- 
sire for  any  delay  by 
Congress  in  the  con- 
sideration of  the  ca- 
nal matter.  He 
greatly  prefers,  as 
did  President  Mc- 
Kinley,  that  the 
question  of  the  route 
should  b  e  decided 
by  Congress,  but, 
in  case  it  should 
seem  best  to  the  Congress  to  leave  to  him 
the  decision  of  the  route  which  the  canal 
shall  take,  he  will  not  evade  that  labor  and 
responsibility. 

The  significance  of  the  following  ex- 
tract from  a  letter  of  May  19th  needs  no 
comment: 

...  In  our  final  negotiations  we  shall  in- 
sist upon  a  provision  being  inserted  which 
will  prevent  this  Government  from  being 
mulcted  in  enormous  indemnities  for  land 
which  has  been  recently  purchased  by  specu- 
lators with  that  intention. 

As  soon  as  the  President  signed  the 
Spooner  bill,  Mr.  Hay  began  conferring 
with  General  Concha,  the  Colombian 
Minister  in  Washington,  and  on  July 
15th  he  writes  Senator  Spooner: 


168 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


I  embodied  in  a  draft  of  the  treaty  with 
Colombia  all  the  ideas  you  set  forth  in  our 
recent  conversations,  and  think  we  have  got 
it  in  very  satisfactory  shape.  General  Concha 
did  not  think  he  had  authority  to  accept 
these  amendments  to  the  draft,  which  we  had 
formerly  agreed  upon,  and  has  transmitted 
them  to  his  Government  for  their  approval 
and  acceptance.  I  do  not  imagine  that  we 
shall  get  an  answer  immediately.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Hay  closes  his  letter  with  this 
noteworthy  postscript,  written  in  his 
own  hand: 

Gen.  Morgan  says  we  ought  to  acquire 
Panama — the  entire  state — from  Colombia. 
I  told  him  I  would  consult,  as  occasion  of- 
fered, some  of  the  leading  members  of  the 
Senate  on  that  subject. 

Senator  Morgan  seems  to  have  al- 
ready been  asking  himself,  as  were  other 
American  public  men,  whether  the  sim- 
plest way  to  assure  the  safety  of  the 
isthmian  canal  would  not  be  to  annex 
the  Province  of  Panama.  On  September 
27,  1902,  in  one  of  his  many  urgent  notes 
to  Mr.  Hay,  he  sends  a  copy  of  a  letter 
just  received  from  a  Virginian  friend 
who  had  spent  several  years  on  the 
isthmus. 

In  regard  to  the  temper  of  the  Isthmus 
population  [this  gentleman  writes]  looking  to 
annexation  to  the  United  States,  I  think  it 
would  be  favorable,  but  Colombia,  in  every 
other  section,  would  be  likely  to  be  opposed, 
as  the  Isthmus  is  looked  upon  as  a  financial 
cow  to  be  milked  for  the  benefit  of  the  coun- 
try at  large.  This  difficulty  might  be  over- 
come by  diplomacy  and  money. 

This  last  sentence  contains  the  kernel 
from  which  sprang  the  violent  climax  of 
the  canal  negotiations.  The  Province  of 
Panama,  once  independent,  had,  in  the 
course  of  endemic  revolutions,  been  an- 
nexed to  the  United  States  of  Colombia. 
Its  interests  were  quite  distinct  from  Co- 
lombia's, and,  since  the  construction  of 
the  railway  across  the  isthmus  nearly 
fifty  years  before,  its  revenues  had  gone 
mostly  into  the  pockets  of  statesmen  at 
Bogota,  the  Colombian  capital,  distant 
a  fifteen  days'  journey  from  Panama. 
As  soon  as  the  construction  of  the  canal 
seemed  probable,  those  statesmen  saw 
great  -profit  in  it  for  themselves.  The 
government,  virtually  despotic,  was  in 
the  hands  of  President  Marroquin,  who 
had  crushed  a  rebellion  of  so-called 
Liberals  in  1900. 


Making  a  treaty  with  such  elements 
was  much  like  putting  a  lid  on  an  inter- 
mittent geyser.  Nevertheless,  Secretary 
Hay  took  up  the  task  with  Dr.  Tomas 
Herran,  the  Colombian  charge  in  Wash- 
ington, and  after  many  months'  delib- 
eration they  agreed  that  the  United 
States  should  pay  Colombia  ten  million 
dollars  for  her  consent  to  purchase  the 
New  Panama  Company's  rights  and 
plant,  and  for  ceding  the  required  terri- 
tory, and  that  after  nine  years  Colombia 
should  receive  a  yearly  bonus  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  On 
January  27,  1903,  the  Hay-Herran 
Treaty  was  signed;  and  on  March  17th 
the  Senate  ratified  it.  Then  the  instru- 
ment went  to  Bogota  for  ratification. 

The  politicians  there  at  once  showed 
signs  of  balking.  Ten  million  dollars, 
followed  by  the  annual  subsidy,  looked 
a  very  small  sum  to  them — why  not 
double  or  treble  it? 

On  May  14,  1903,  Mr.  Hay  writes 
Senator  Hanna  how  matters  stood: 

Walker  told  me  that  there  was  at  Colon 
no  accurate  source  of  information,  but  the  air 
was  full  of  rumors,  which  it  was  impossible 
to  verify  on  the  spot.  From  Bogota  we  get 
occasional  very  meager  despatches  from 
Beaupre  [American  Minister  to  Colombia]. 
He  tells  us  that  there  is  very  great  opposi- 
tion based  on  two  or  three  points — one,  the 
inadequacy  of  the  terms;  second,  the  pre- 
tended loss  of  sovereignty;  and  third,  the 
talk  of  demagogues  who  want  to  get  office  by 
denouncing  the  encroachments  of  the  Yan- 
kees. You  know  that  for  some  days  past 
there  has  been  a  rumor  of  the  resignation  of 
Marroquin  and  the  succession  of  Reyes. 
This  seems  to  be  untrue.  I  never  have  be- 
lieved it,  and  should  have  been  greatly  sur- 
prised if  it  had  been  confirmed.  On  the 
contrary,  the  retirement  of  Fernandez  and 
the  entrance  into  the  Cabinet  of  Mendoza 
seems  clearly  to  me  to  indicate  that  Marro- 
quin has  the  situation  pretty  well  in  hand, 
and  that  he  would  not  have  called  his  Con- 
gress together  in  extra  session  on  the  20th 
of  June  unless  he  had  pretty  positive  assur- 
ances that  he  will  have  his  way.  Still,  you 
know  enough  about  those  countries  to  know 
that  nothing  is  certain  until  it  is  done. 

The  Colombian  Congress  met  on  June 
20th,  but  the  treaty  was  not  even  pre- 
sented to  it  for  discussion.  Marroquin 
and  his  friends  thought  that,  having  com- 
mitted the  United  States  to  accept  the 
Panama  route,  they  could  extort  any 


JOHN  HAY  AND  THE  PANAMA  REPUBLIC 


169 


price  they  chose — a  perfectly  legal,  but 
not  always  wise,  attitude  for  a  seller  to 
take.  So  they  declared,  unofficially, 
that  the  ten  millions  which  Dr.  Herran, 
their  accredited  envoy,  had  agreed  to 
would  not  satisfy  them.  They  planned, 
therefore,  to  hold  up  the  treaty  until 
they  should  get  all  they  could;  and  in- 
stead of  attacking 
the  United  States 
directly,  they  de- 
manded  of  the 
New  Panama  Ca- 
nal Company  ten 
millions  for  allow- 
ing it  to  sell  its 
rights  to  the 
United  States. 
That  company, 
whose  seat  was  in 
Paris,  was  repre- 
sented by  its  gen- 
eral counsel,  Mr. 
William  Nelson 
Cromwell,  of  New 
York.  He  refused 
the  demand.  Co- 
lombia also  inti- 
mated that  it 
expected  the 
United  States  to 
raise  its  payment 
from  ten  to  fifteen 
millions.  The  Co- 
lombian dreams 

of  avarice  grew  as  rapidly  as  Jack's 
bean-stalk. 

All  this  while  at  Washington  Secre- 
tary Hay  kept  impressing  upon  Dr. 
Herran  that  unless  the  treaty  went 
through  unmaimed,  and  within  a  "rea- 
sonable time,"  it  would  be  void;  and 
Dr.  Herran  kept  assuring  the  Secretary 
that  the  statesmen  at  Bogota  would 
surely  ratify  it.  On  July  13th  Mr.  Hay 
wrote  President  Roosevelt: 

I  have  wired  Beaupre  to  let  Colombia  un- 
derstand that  their  strike  for  more  money 
would  probably  be  rejected  by  the  Senate  and 
that  any  amendment  of  delay  would  greatly 
imperil  the  treaty. 

Colombia,  however,  was  too  canny  to 
show  her  hand  yet.  Four  days  later  the 
Secretary  again  wrote  the  President: 

.  .  .  Had  an  hour  with  Herran  yesterday 
[July  16th].    He  seems  to  think  there  is  a 


DR. TOMAS  HERRAN 
Colombian  Charge  a"  Affaires  at  Washington 


fairly  good  chance  of  the  treaty  passing  with- 
out amendment.  He  has  most  earnestly 
urged  that  course  upon  the  government,  tell- 
ing them  that  any  amendment  will  imperil 
the  life  of  the  treaty  when  it  returns  here. 

In  July  a  special  committee  of  the 
Colombian  Senate  took  up  the  treaty, 
and    on   August   4th   reported   it  so 

amended  as  to  de- 
nature  it.  The 
warnings  received 
through  Mr. 
Beaupre  and  Dr. 
Herran  had  no  ef- 
fect. The  Colom- 
bian Senate,  on 
August  12th, 
unanimously  re- 
jected the  treaty; 
but  in  order  to 
prevent  the  Unit- 
ed States  from 
losing  patience, 
General  Reyes,  in 
behalf  of  the  gov- 
ernment, said  that 
it  had  counted  on 
a  speedy  reaction 
in  which  it  would 
be  possible  to 
come  to  terms. 
He  asked  Mr. 
Beaupre  that  a 
fortnight  longer 
be  granted  to  the 
Colombians.  To  this  request  Mr.  Hay 
cabled  the  reply  on  August  24th: 

The  President  will  make  no  engagement 
on  the  canal  matter,  but  I  regard  it  as  im- 
probable that  any  definite  action  will  be 
taken  within  two  weeks. 

The  Colombians,  unable  to  coerce  the 
New  Panama  Company  into  paying  the 
ten  million  dollars,  hit  upon  a  still  better 
plan  for  realizing  their  dreams  of  avarice. 
According  to  an  early  agreement,  their 
concession  to  the  builders  of  the  Panama 
Canal  would  expire  in  1904;  but  this 
limit  they  afterward  extended  to  Octo- 
ber 31,  1910.  By  asserting  now  that  the 
first  date  was  the  true  one,  they  reckoned 
that  within  a  year  the  rights  of  the  New 
Canal  Company  would  revert  to  Colom- 
bia. This  would  bring  her  not  a  paltry 
ten  or  even  twenty  millions,  but  forty, 
besides  whatever  additional  price  she 


170 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


could  wring  from  the  next  concession- 
naire.  On  September  5th  the  special 
committee  of  the  Colombian  Senate  ad- 
vised that  the  treaty  be  rejected;  on 
October  14th  another  committee  re- 
ported in  favor  of  regarding  1904  instead 
of  1910  as  the  limit  of  the  concession; 
and  on  October  31st  the  Congress  ad- 
journed, without 
voting  o  n  either 
of  these  bills.  Why 
vote  when  their 
acts  spoke  so  plain- 
ly? 

To  a  correspon- 
dent in  San  Fran- 
cisco who  inquired 
subsequently  o  f 
Mr.  Hay  as  to  the 
action  of  this  Con- 
gress, he  replied: 

The  extravagant 
propositions  you  re- 
fer to  were  many 
times  presented  in 
various  ways  to  the 
Bogota  Congress. 
None  of  them  were 
passed  upon,  and 
no  firm  proposition 
has  ever  been  made 
by  the  Government 
of  Colombia  to  the 
United  States. 
Their  aim  was  evi- 
dently to  pursue  a 
dilatory  policy  until 
next    year,  when 

they  would  probably  have  declared  the 
French  concession  forfeited,  and  have  de- 
manded of  us  the  whole  sum  agreed  upon 
with  the  Panama  Company.  The  only 
officially  ascertained  fact  in  the  case  is  that 
they  refused  to  ratify  the  treaty  they  had 
made  with  us,  and  offered  nothing  in  its 
place.    [November  23,  1903.] 

News  that  the  Colombian  Senate  had 
rejected  the  treaty  reached  Washington 
on  August  16th.  Some  persons  inferred 
that  the  Colombian  Congress  intended 
to  adjourn  after  delegating  to  Marro- 
quin  full  powers  to  ratify  the  treaty; 
others  suspected  that  the  act  foreboded 
a  break;  others  again,  familiar  with  the 
state  of  feeling  on  the  isthmus,  predicted 
that  the  Province  of  Panama  would  se- 
cede, declare  its  independence,  and  offer 
the  canal  route  to  the  United  States. 

Secretary  Hay,  on  his  vacation  at 


GENERAL  RAFAEL  REYES 
Ex-President  of  Colombia 


Newbury,  New  Hampshire,  received  fre- 
quent epitomes  of  the  state  of  depart- 
mental business  from  the  tireless  Mr. 
Adee  in  Washington.  Some  of  his  brief 
comments  are  enlightening.  The  first 
refers  to  a  note  from  Rico,  the  Colom- 
bian Foreign  Secretary,  when  Hay  be- 
lieved the  President  was  not  inclined  to 

say  anything  more 
to  Bogota: 

I  can  imagine  his 
reception  of  Rico's 
calm  proposition  to 
make  some  new  pro- 
posal next  August. 
[Sept.  18,1903.] 

Mr.  Adee's  own 
witty  summary  of 
the  situation  was: 

It  seems  to  me 
that  'the  Colombian 
cow,  having  kicked 
over  the  pail,  says: 
"See  here;  if  I 
should  kick  over  this 
pail,  would  you  give 
me  'an  extension  of 
time'  to  see  what 
I  will  do  with  an- 
other pailful  to-mor- 
row?" [Adee  to 
Hay,  September  21, 
19031] 

By  this  time  the 
New  Canal  Com- 
pany had  become 
thoroughly  alarm- 
ed. Its  officers  seem  to  have  counted 
on  a  display  of  dictatorial  power  in 
their  favor  by  Marroquin,  but  now  it 
was  clear  that  he  either  would  not  or 
dared  not  interfere.  From  the  next  ex- 
tract we  infer  that  the  company  had 
carried  their  grievances  to  the  State 
Department.    Hay  writes: 

X  must  not  whimper  over  the  ruin  of  the 
treaty  through  the  greed  of  the  Colombians 
and  the  disinclination  of  the  Canal  Company 
to  satisfy  it.  If  they  were  willing  to  be  bled, 
why  not  say  so  at  the  time?  It  is  a  thing  we 
could  not  share  in,  nor  even  decently  know. 
[September  21,  1903.] 

On  September  20th  the  Secretary  re- 
marks: 

As  to  Colombia,  the  President  has  nothing 
to  say  at  present.   They  have  had  their  fun— 


JOHN  HAY  AND  THE  PANAMA  REPUBLIC  171 


let  them  wait  the  requisite  number  of  days 
for  the  consequent  symptoms. 

Meanwhile,  what  of  the  Panamani- 
ans? The  territory  to  be  ceded  was 
theirs;  the  persons  directly  concerned 
were  themselves.  Neither  love,  loyalty, 
nor  self-interest  bound  them  to  Colom- 
bia. As  early  as  June  they  showed  signs 
of  restlessness, 
and  at  the  delays 
of  the  Colombian 
Congress  they 
talked  more  and 
more  openly  of 
independence, 
which  would  en- 
able them  to  make 
the  canal  agree- 
ment with  the 
United  States,  to 
receive  the  ten 
million  dollars  to 
be  paid  for  the 
concession,  and 
to  enjoy  ever  after 
whatever  prosper- 
ity the  canal 
might  bring  to  the 
isthmus.  Other- 
wise, the  political 
machine  at  Bogota 
would  divide  the 
spoils. 

We  need  not 
resort  to  the  sus- 
picion  that  this 

plot  was  whispered  to  the  Panamanians 
by  emissaries  of  either  the  United 
States  or  of  the  New  Canal  Company; 
they  were  quite  competent  to  devise 
it  themselves.  Within  the  space  of 
two  years  —  between  October,  1899, 
and  September,  1901 — they  had  in- 
dulged in  four  revolutions  against  the 
Colombians.  But  as  to  a  revolution  of 
secession  and  an  offer  of  annexation  to 
the  United  States,  Mr.  Adee,  forwarding 
to  Mr.  Hay  the  daily  news  of  the  State 
Department,  writes,  on  August  18th: 

Such  a  scheme  could,  of  course,  have  no 
countenance  from  us — our  policy  before  the 
world  should  stand,  like  Mrs.  Ca?sar,  above 
suspicion.  Neither  could  we  undertake  to 
recognize  and  protect  Panama  as  an  inde- 
pendent state,  like  a  second  Texas.  Such  a 
state  would  have  a  hard  time  of  it  between 


M.  PHILIPPE  BUNAU-VARILLA 

Envoy  of  the  Republic  of 
Panama  to  the  United  States 


Colombia  on  one  side  and  Costa  Rica  on  the 
other. 

To  follow  scrupulously  the  terms  of 
the  Spooner  law,  which  gave  President 
Roosevelt  no  authority  to  accept  amend- 
ments without  the  approval  of  the  Amer- 
ican Senate,  was  the  feeling  of  the  State 
Department.    "We  are  very  sorry,  but 

really  w'e  can't 
help  itif  Colombia 
doesn't  want  the 
canal  on  our 
terms,"  summed 
up  this  feeling, 
even  after  Mr. 
Hay  was  assured 
that  the  Panama- 
nians intended  to 
secede  in  case  Co- 
lombia threw  over 
the  treaty. 

The  Col  o  m  - 
bians  miscalcula- 
te d  in  assuming 
that  the  United 
States  had  fixed 
irrevocably  on  the 
Panama  route;  for 
Mr.  Roosevelt 
was  authorized,  if 
they  did  not  ratify 
within  a  reason- 
able time,  tostrike 
a  bargain  with 
Nicaragua.  When 
they  realized  that 
he  might  do  this 
they  became  panicky,  like  a  speculator 
who  sees  his  margin -based  fortune 
about  to  evaporate.  It  is  rumored  that 
they  offered  to  ratify  the  treaty  if  the 
New  Canal  Company  would  pay  them 
sub  rosa  eight  or  even  only  five  of  the 
extra  millions  they  demanded.  The 
company  refused,  although  later  it  was 
suspected  that  it  was  ready  to  pay  up, 
if  it  could  be  guaranteed  that  a  second 
demand  and  a  third  would  not  follow. 
What  Colombian  could  insure  against 
that? 

For  the  New  Canal  Company,  as  well 
as  for  Colombia,  the  need  of  a  settlement 
pressed.  The  company  stood  to  lose 
forty  millions  by  Colombia's  obstinacy 
— a  loss  which  Mr.  Cromwell  did  every- 
thing to  avert.  Through  his  agent, 
Senor  Mancini,  he  kept  in  touch  with  the 


172 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


politicians    at    Bogota;     through  Mr. 
Farnham,  or  by  telephone,  he  communi- 
cated with  the  State  Department  at 
Washington;  while  various  trusted  emis- 
saries were  on  the  alert  at  the  isthmus. 
Until  Mr.  Cromwell  prints  his  memoirs, 
or  the  records  of  the  New  Canal  Com- 
pany are  revealed,  we  shall  not  know  in 
detail  what  went 
o  n  during  that 
September  and 
October.  But 
there  are  occasion  - 
al  rifts  in  the  cur- 
tain  through 
which  we  see  the 
Panamanians  be- 
ing encouraged  in 
their  desire  for 
freedom.  That 
desire  was  so  far 
from  being  secret 
that  in  August, 
when  the  Colom- 
bian government 
appointed  Senator 
Obaldia  Govern- 
or of  Panama, 
h  e    bluntly  an- 
nounced that  "in 
case   the  depart- 
ment found  it  nec- 
essary t  o  revolt 
to  secure  the  ca- 
nal he  would  stand 
by  Panama." 

Things  were  at  this  pass  when  a  new 
character  broke  his  way  into  the  drama 
— M.  Philippe  Bunau-Varilla,  a  French- 
man who  had  worked  on  the  isthmus 
with  the  old  De  Lesseps  Company.  A 
somewhat  picturesque  personage  was  M. 
Varilla,  to  whom  the  earth  seemed  like  a 
school  globe  which  he,  the  teacher,  made 
to  revolve  at  his  pleasure.  He  was  fired 
with  the  mission  to  see  the  canal  com- 
pleted by  the  Panama  route.  So  he 
hurried  from  Paris  to  New  York,  where 
he  got  in  touch  with  Dr.  Manuel  Amador 
Guerrero,  a  conspirator-patriot  from 
Panama,  whom  he  despatched  with  funds 
to  the  isthmus  on  October  20th.  Varilla 
himself  visited  Washington,  and  on  Oc- 
tober 9th  called  on  the  President,  to 
whom  he  reported  that  the  only  way  out 
in  Panama  was  a  revolution.  A  week 
later  (October  16th)  he  saw  Secretary 


HON.  WAYNE 
Counsel  for  Colombia  in 


Hay,  and  when  he  repeated  his  predic- 
tion of  a  revolution,  the  Secretary  re- 
plied that  American  warships  had  orders 
to  proceed  to  the  isthmus,  in  case  there 
were  a  disturbance  there.  From  that 
time  forward  M.  Varilla  imparted  to 
every  one  the  secret  that  the  revolution 
would  come  off  on  November  3d. 

Throughout  Oc- 
tober  Mr.  Hay 
seems  to  have  had 
less  and  less  com- 
munication with 
the  isthmus  and 
Bogota,  whereas 
the   activity   o  f 
President  Roose- 
velt increased.  By 
his  orders  several 
ships  assembled 
near  the  isthmus, 
and  on  November 
2d  the  Nashville, 
Boston,  and  Dixie 
were  instructed  to 
keep  the  transit 
across  the  isthmus 
free,  and  to  "pre- 
vent landing  of 
any  armed  force, 
either  government 
o  r  insurgent,  a  t 
any  point  within 
fifty  miles  of  Pan- 
ama." Such  steps 
were  by  no  means 
novel — similar  orders  had  been  issued 
during  many  previous  upheavals,  as  late 
as  1901.  The  revolution  "happened"  on 
November  3d — bloodless  so  far  as  re- 
garded the  combatants,  although  one 
Chinaman  and  one  dog  were  acciden- 
tally killed.    On  November  4th  the  Re- 
public of  Panama  was  proclaimed;  on 
the  6th  the  United  States  recognized  it. 

A  few  days  later  M.  Bunau-Varilla 
returned  to  Washington  as  the  accred- 
ited envoy  of  the  new  republic,  with  full 
powers  to  conclude  a  treaty.  In  a  letter 
to  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Payne  Whitney, 
Secretary  Hay  describes  what  happened: 

As  for  your  poor  old  dad,  they  are  working 
him  nights  and  Sundays.  I  have  never,  I 
think,  been  so  constantly  and  actively  em- 
ployed as  during  the  last  fortnight.  Yester- 
day morning  the  negotiations  with  Panama 
were  far  from  complete.    But  by  putting  on 


MAC  VEAGH 

the  Ca.nal  Negotiations 


JOHN  HAY  AND  THE 


PANAMA  REPUBLIC 


173 


all  steam,  getting  Root  and  Knox  and  Shaw 
together  at  lunch,  I  went  over  my  project 
line  by  line,  and  fought  out  every  section 
of  it;  adopted  a  few  good  suggestions,  hur- 
ried back  to  the  Department,  set  everybody 
at  work  drawing  up  final  drafts — sent  for 
Varilla,  went  over  the  whole  treaty  with  him, 
explained  all  the  changes,  got  his  consent, 
and  at  seven  o'clock  signed  the  momentous 
document  in  the  little  blue  drawing-room, 
out  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  inkstand,  and 
with  Clarence's  pen.  Varilla  had  no  seal,  so 
he  used  one  of  mine.  (Did  I  ever  tell  you  I 
sealed  the  Hay-Herbert  treaty  with  Lord 
Byron's  ring,  having  nothing  else  in  the 
house?) 

So  the  great  job  is  concluded — at  least  this 
stage  of  it.  I  have  nothing  else;  will  come 
up  before  Thanksgiving.     [November  19, 

1903-] 

When  the  Colombians  realized  that 
they  had  overreached  themselves,  they 
made  a  desperate  effort  to  propitiate  the 
United  States.  They  sent  Gen.  Rafael 
Reyes,  their  most  respected  public  man 
and  former  president,  to  Washington  to 
beg  the  government  to  reconsider.  He 
engaged  as  his  counsel  Mr.  Wayne 
Mac  Veagh,  than  whom  none  was  more 
resourceful  or  adroit.  According  to  a 
trustworthy  statement,  Reyes  was  au- 
thorized to  say  that  Colombia  would  let 
bygones  be  bygones  and  concede  every- 
thing for  eight  million  dollars. 

On  December  4,  1903,  Mr.  Hay  wrote 
to  the  President: 

Can  you  receive  Reyes  to-morrow,  Sat- 
urday? If  so,  at  what  hour?  Permit  me  to 
observe,  the  sooner  you  see  him,  the  sooner 
we  can  bid  him  good-by. 

I  have  a  complaint  to  make  of  Root.  I 
told  him  I  was  going  to  see  Reyes.  He  re- 
plied: "Better  look  out!  Ex-Reyes  are  dan- 
gerous." Do  you  think  that,  on  my  salary, 
I  can  afford  to  bear  such  things? 

Mr.  Hay  had  more  than  one  interview 
with  General  Reyes.  On  December  24, 
1903,  he  reported  to  the  President: 

General  Reyes  called  yesterday.  Said  he 
was  candidate  for  Presidency  of  Colombia. 

I  could  give  him  no  positive  assurances  of 
what  he  could  accomplish.  I  left  no  doubt 
in  his  mind,  however,  that  we  regarded  the 
establishment  of  the  Republic  of  Panama  as 
an  accomplished  fact  which  we  would  neither 
undo  ourselves  nor  permit  any  outside  par- 
ties to  overthrow;  that  we  had  made  the 
treaty  with  Panama  on  grounds  which  we 
thought  right,  and  to  which  we  still  adhere; 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782.-22 


that  the  treaty  was  going  to  be  ratified  and 
carried  into  effect;  but  that,  these  facts  be- 
ing accepted  by  Colombia,  we  should  then 
use  our  utmost  influence  to  bring  about  a 
satisfactory  state  of  things  between  the  two 
republics  and  ourselves;  that,  as  to  nego- 
tiating with  Colombia  without  regard  to  the 
existence  of  Panama,  it  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

He  then  handed  me  a  written  memoran- 
dum of  complaints  and  grievances,  which  is 
the  result  of  Mac  Veagh's  work  for  the  last 
fortnight.  It  is  very  long,  some  twenty-two 
typewritten  pages,  in  Spanish.  It  attacks 
and  impeaches  our  action  all  along  the  line 
with  considerable  energy,  but  with  the  usual 
Spanish  courtesy  of  manner,  which,  I  imag- 
ine, shows  the  hand  of  the  translator  more 
than  the  author,  and  ends  by  asking  the 
submission  of  all  pending  questions  to  The 
Hague.  I  at  once  sent  the  document  to  the 
State  Department  to  be  translated,  with 
orders  that  it  be  submitted  to  you  as  soon  as 
it  is  written  out. 

Responsibility  for  the  dynamic  climax 
to  this  solution  of  the  Colombia-Panama 
struggle  rested  entirely  with  the  Presi- 
dent, who  seems  not  always  to  have  in- 
formed Secretary  Hay  and  the  Cabinet 
officers  of  his  acts.  As  early  as  October 
ioth  he  wrote  confidentially  to  Dr.  Al- 
bert Shaw,  editor  of  the  Review  of  Re- 
views, that,  as 

there  was  absolutely  not  the  slightest  chance 
of  securing  by  treaty  [from  Colombia],  the 
alternatives  were  to  accept  the  inferior 
Nicaragua  route  or  to  take  the  Panama  terri- 
tory by  force.  ...  I  cast  aside  the  proposi- 
tion at  this  time  to  foment  the  secession  of 
Panama.  Whatever  other  governments  can 
do,  the  United  States  cannot  go  into  securing, 
by  such  underhand  means,  the  cession. 

What  followed  may  be  conjectured. 
The  New  Canal  Company  had  encour- 
aged the  malcontents  at  Panama;  then 
came  from  Paris  the  very  efficient  agent, 
M.  Bunau-Varilla,  and  laid  the  train  for 
the  explosion.  M.  Varilla  communi- 
cated the  plan  to  President  Roosevelt, 
who,  though  unwilling  to  occupy  the 
isthmus  and  drive  out  the  Colombians 
by  American  soldiers,  arranged  that 
American  warships  should  keep  Colom- 
bian troops  from  landing,  and  so  should 
create  the  condition  through  which  the 
revolution  must  succeed.  Reasoning 
from  results  to  causes,  this  conjecture 
does  no  injustice  to  any  of  the  parties 
concerned. 


174 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Although  Secretary  Hay  did  not  take 
part  in  the  actual  revolution,  he  imme- 
diately announced  his  approval  of  it, 
and  he  never  qualified — much  less  with- 
drew— this  approval.  Among  his  papers 
I  have  found  no  hint  that  he  felt  remorse 
■ — as  has  been  alleged — for  the  "  crime 
nor  can  I  believe  that  any  regrets  secret- 
ly preyed  upon  him  and  shortened  his 
days. 

Two  or  three  of  his  letters  will  serve 
to  give  his  own  refutation  of  certain 
charges;  they  ought  also  to  set  at  rest 
the  legend  of  his  remorse. 

On  January  n,  1904,  he  writes  to 
Senator  George  F.  Hoar: 

The  President  tells  me  that  in  a  letter  to 
him  you  refer  to  a  newspaper  publication  to 
the  effect  that,  in  discussing  the  subject  of 
the  coming  revolution  in  Panama  with  a  Mr. 
Duque,  on  his  informing  me  that  the  revolu- 
tion was  to  take  place  on  the  23d  of  Septem- 
ber, I  had  said  to  him  that  that  was  too  early, 
and  it  ought  to  be  deferred.  I  now  find  the 
same  statement  copied  from  the  Evening 
Post  in  a  speech  by  Senator  Morgan  in  the 
Senate. 

It  seems  rather  humiliating  to  be  obliged 
to  refer  to  such  a  story,  but,  since  you  men- 
tioned it  to  the  President  and  since  it  seems 
to  have  made  some  impression  upon  your 
mind,  I  venture  to  say  to  you,  confidentially, 
that  I  never  saw  Mr.  Duque  but  once,  that  I 
never  saw  him  alone,  and  that  nothing  in  the 
remotest  degree  resembling  this  printed  con- 
versation was  ever  said  by  either  of  us. 

A  protest  by  members  of  the  Yale 
faculty  having  reached  him  of  the  in- 
iquity of  the  "  rape  of  Panama,"  he  wrote 
the  following  letter  to  Prof.  George  P. 
Fisher: 

Your  letter  of  the  19th  of  January  has 
given  me  great  pleasure.  I  can  even  con- 
gratulate myself  on  the  unexpected  and  un- 
accountable action  of  some  of  your  colleagues 
which  has  procured  me  so  agreeable  a  letter. 
I  shall  take  pleasure  in  bringing  it  to  the 
notice  of  the  President. 

Some  of  our  greatest  scholars,  in  their  criti- 
cisms of  public  life,  suffer  from  the  defect  of 
arguing  from  pure  reason  and  taking  no 
account  of  circumstances.  While  I  agree 
that  no  circumstances  can  ever  justify  a 
Government  in  doing  wrong,  the  question  as 
to  whether  the  Government  has  acted  rightly 
or  wrongly  can  never  be  justly  judged  with- 
out the  circumstances  being  considered.  I 
am  sure  that  if  the  President  had  acted  dif- 
ferently when,  the  3d  of  November,  he  was 


confronted  by  a  critical  situation  which 
might  easily  have  turned  to  disaster,  the  at- 
tacks which  are  now  made  on  him  would  have 
been  ten  times  more  virulent  and  more  effec- 
tive. He  must  have  done  exactly  as  he  did, 
or  the  only  alternative  would  have  been  an 
indefinite  duration  of  bloodshed  and  devas- 
tation through  the  whole  extent  of  the  isth- 
mus. It  was  a  time  to  act  and  not  to  theo- 
rize, and  my  judgment  at  least  is  clear  that 
he  acted  rightly.    [January  20,  1904.] 

Among  the  stern  censors  of  the 
"crime"  was  James  C.  Carter,  then  the 
leader  of  the  American  bar.  Of  his 
criticisms  Mr.  Hay  wrote  to  Mr.  Root 
on  March  12,  1904: 

How  on  earth  a  fair-minded  man  could 
prefer  that  the  President  should  have  taken 
possession  of  the  Isthmus  with  the  mailed 
hand  and  built  a  canal  in  defiance  of  the 
Constitution,  the  laws  and  the  treaties, 
rather  than  the  perfectly  Tegular  course 
which  the  President  did  follow,  passes  my 
comprehension.  And  that  he  should  persist 
in  this  view  after  reading  your  speech  only 
adds  to  the  mystery.  I  have  not  hitherto 
spoken  to  you  about  that  admirable  address, 
I  believe,  but  as  a  work  of  art,  as  a  piece 
of  oratory  and  history,  I  think  it  is  incom- 
parable, and,  as  a  legal  argument,  better 
lawyers  than  I  think  it  is  without  a  flaw. 
Carter  could  not  have  read  it  with  an  open 
mind  and  persist  in  his  error.  I  frankly  con- 
fess myself  unable  to  add  anything  to  the 
unanswerable  demonstration  which  you  have 
made  of  the  case. 

Not  all  the  critics  condemned  him. 
To  Mr.  James  Ford  Rhodes,  the  his- 
torian, he  sent  this  grateful  reply: 

I  thank  you  for  breaking  an  occasional 
lance  for  us  in  the  headquarters  of  Mug- 
wumpery.  When  I  think  of  how  many  mis- 
takes I  have  made  which  have  escaped  no- 
tice, I  ought  not  to  be  dissatisfied  with  being 
lambasted  in  an  occasional  case  where  I  have 
done  right.  It  is  hard  for  me  to  understand 
how  any  one  can  criticize  our  action  in 
Panama  on  the  grounds  upon  which  it  is 
ordinarily  attacked.  The  matter  came  on  us 
with  amazing  celerity.  We  had  to  decide  on 
the  instant  whether  we  would  take  possession 
of  the  ends  of  the  railroad  and  keep  the 
traffic  clear,  or  whether  we  would  stand  back 
and  let  those  gentlemen  cut  each  other's 
throats  for  an  indefinite  time,  and  destroy 
whatever  remnant  of  our  property  and  our 
interests  we  had  there.  I  had  no  hesitation 
as  to  the  proper  course  to  take,  and  have  had 
no  doubt  of  the  propriety  of  it  since.  [De- 
cember 8,  1903.] 


HAUNTED 


175 


Finally,  when  Mr.  Hay  negotiated  a 
treaty  with  the  infant  Republic  of  Pana- 
ma as  to  the  building  of  the  canal,  he 
met  with  denunciation  from  an  unex- 
pected quarter.  Senator  Morgan  broke 
loose  in  violent  letters,  one  of  which  he 
addressed  to  President  H.  S.  Pritchett, 
of  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology. 

I  return  herewith  General  Morgan's  letter 
[Hay  replied  to  Mr.  Pritchett].  ...  He  is  in 
such  a  state  of  mind  in  regard  to  the  canal 
that  if  you  should  answer  everything  he  said, 
categorically  contradicting  him  with  his  own 
public  utterances,  it  would  have  no  effect  on 
him.    As  he  admits  in  paragraph  3,  page  1, 


he  is  as  much  the  author  of  the  present 
canal  treaty  as  I  am.  Not  only  did  I  embody 
in  it  all  his  amendments  to  the  Herran  treaty, 
but  I  went  further  than  he  has  ever  done  in 
getting  the  proper  guarantees  for  jurisdiction 
over  the  canal.  A  year  ago  he  wrote  me  a 
series  of  earnest  and  impassioned  letters, 
which  he  afterward  embodied  in  articles  in 
some  of  the  religious  periodicals,  denouncing 
the  Government  of  Colombia  as  the  sum  of 
all  iniquities,  and  saying  that  we  were  vio- 
lating every  law  human  and  divine  in  favor 
of  the  Government  of  Colombia  against  the 
Liberals  of  Panama,  insisting  that  it  was  our 
bounden  duty  to  aid  them  in  attaining  their 
liberty.  How  can  you  argue  with  a  man 
whose  prejudices  are  so  violent  and  so 
variable  as  this?   [December  28,  1903.] 


Haunted 

BY  HILDEGARDE  HAWTHORNE 

HAVE  you  a  garden  where  you  walk  and  see 
The  golden  flowers  of  Spring 
Crown  the  new  greenery 
With  newer  blossoming? 
A  garden  all  green  growth  and  witchery. 

And  does  the  purple  evening  come  for  you 

Slow  star  by  slow  white  star, 

Trailing  its  robe  of  dew 

With  not  a  sound  to  mar 
The  peace,  save  bird-calls  falling  faint  and  few? 

Ah  well,  I  have  no  garden  for  my  feet 

To  tread!    The  walls  of  stone 

Press  on  the  bitter  street 

Where  I  drift  by,  alone, 
Dreading  the  wolf's  glare  in  the  eyes  I  meet. 

And  yet,  have  you  not  sometimes  turned  your  head, 

Just  bending  to  a  rose, 

Thinking  you  heard  the  tread 

And  stir  of  one  who  goes 
Down  old  remembered  paths — but  now  is  dead  ? 


The  Manager  of  Crystal  Sulphur 

Springs 


BY  SUSJN  GLASPELL 


)HE  array  of  turnouts 
awaiting  the  noon  train 
seemed  testifying  to  the 
prosperity  of  Freeport. 
It  was  an  array  calcu- 
lated to  make  the  trans- 
continental traveler, 
looking  languidly  from  his  window, 
stroll  out  and  ask  the  porter,  "What 
town  is  this  ?"  Glossy  limousines  panted 
in  the  proud  new  concrete  causeway  re- 
cently built  for  the  overhead  tracks,  and 
the  very  baggage-wagons  somehow  sug- 
gested a  Boosters'  Committee  a  few 
blocks  away. 

The  jaded  pair  of  bony  farm-horses 
which  turned  in  there  a  couple  of  min- 
utes before  train-time  seemed  to  know 
they  bore  an  equipment  which  would  not 
serve  the  Boosters'  Committee  as  the 
"Golden  State  Limited"  went  through. 
They  bore  what  in  its  brilliant  past  had 
been  called  a  closed  carriage.  Once  it 
had  carried  the  society  of  the  town  to 
weddings  and  parties;  when  too  scuffed 
for  festivity  it  had  a  long  time  of  som- 
berly taking  its  place  in  the  funeral  pro- 
cession. But  that  day,  too,  passed,  and 
then  it  came  to  be  called  a  hack,  and 
met  trains  for  a  third-rate  hotel  until  it 
occurred  to  the  management  that  the 
hack  perhaps  kept  away  more  people 
than  it  brought,  when  once  more  it  was 
deposed,  this  time  to  be  sold  for  the 
office  it  now  filled.  It  filled  that  office 
limpingly,  wheezing  as  the  aged  wheeze. 

The  young  boy  driving  it  surveyed  the 
backed-up  line  diffidently.  How  could 
he  ask  any  of  them  to  move  over  and 
make  room  for  the  hack  from  the  Poor- 
farm?  A  woman  opened  the  door  and 
peered  out,  anxiously.  "No  room  here, 
Johnnie  ?" 

But  the  driver  of  the  proud  new  'bus 
from  the  Hotel  Freeport  hastened  to 
make  it  plain  that  he  was  not  one  to 
crowd  out  the  lowly.  "Room  enough, 
Mrs.  Peters,"  he  called.    "Back  right  in 


here,  John.  Them  expressmen  don't 
need  the  earth,"  he  added,  with  a  dark 
look  for  menials  from  a  rival  hostelry. 

"Expectin'  some  one  for  the  Farm?" 
he  asked,  sociably,  as  the  woman 
alighted. 

She  nodded,  shaking  out  her  skirts 
and  moving  as  if  cramped  by  long  sit- 
ting. Then  she  looked  up  and  said,  in 
the  manner  of  one  telling  no  ordinary 
thing,  "Expectin'  some  one  who  never 
expected  to  end  his  days  at  that  place. 
Well,  no,"  she  hastened  to  amend,  with 
a  growlingly  significant  manner,  "never 
expected  to  end  'em  in  the  poorhouse,  is 
what  I  mean."  Then,  "It's  Mr.  Groves 
— it's  Bert  Groves  that's  coming,"  she 
said,  looking  at  him  to  see  if  he  got  all 
that  it  meant. 

His  long,  low  whistle  told  that  he  got 
some  of  it,  at  any  rate.  "So  that's  what 
those  fellows  I  heard  talking  at  the  hotel 
last  night — "  He  did  not  finish  it,  but 
said,  instead,  "Why,  my  father  knew  him 
well!"  He  repeated  it,  as  if  it  were  one 
of  the  important  features  of  the  whole 
thing.  "Drove  him  time  and  time 
again.  And  to  that  same  place  that 
boy  '11  be  driving  him  to  now."  He  stood 
there  darkly  surveying  the  new  'bus  from 
the  Hotel  Freeport,  as  if  contemplating 
the  possible  fate  of  even  the  driver  of 
that.  "Wasn't  there  nobody  to  do  for 
him  where  he  went?"  he  asked,  in  a  tone 
of  incredulity. 

She  shook  her  head,  but  just  then 
a  whistle  sounded,  and,  "There  she 
comes!"  broke  in  the 'bus-man,  stepping 
forward  quickly,  all  alert  for  his  own 
job.  But  the  woman  stepped  back  and 
stood  waiting  beside  the  rusty  hack,  as 
if  depending  upon  it  to  identify  her  with 
an  institution  the  Boosters'  Committee 
had  not  yet  reached. 

She  might  not  have  been  so  sure  it  was 
he — it  was  about  thirty  years  since  she 
had  seen  Bert  Groves,  and  he  was  an  old 
man  now — if  he  had  not  been  straighten- 


THE  MANAGER  OF  CRYSTAL  SULPHUR  SPRINGS  177 


ing  the  lapel  of  his  coat  as  they  got  off 
the  train.  Bert  Groves  always  was  one 
to  put  up  the  best  front. 

She  had  a  few  hurried  words  with  the 
man  who  had  brought  him — a  kindly 
man  going  through,  who  had  consented 
to  act  as  traveling  companion.  While 
they  talked,  Mr.  Groves  stood  a  little 
apart,  uncertainly  watching  the  talking, 
laughing  people  getting  into  the  shiny 
equipments.  She  wondered  if  he  knew 
what  town  it  was. 

The  man  who  had  brought  him  spoke 
of  that.  "Pretty — "  He  tapped  his 
own  head.  "Oh,  not  really  gone,  you 
know,  but  doesn't  get  things  straight. 
He'll  know  a  thing  one  minute,  and  not 
know  it  the  next.  But  you  needn't 
worry  about  him  being  hard  to  look 
after.  He's  been  handed  around  too 
much  for  that."  The  conductor  called, 
"All  aboard!"  and,  taking  a  hasty  leave 
of  the  man  who  was  not  going  on,  he 
turned  back  to  the  train. 

The  old  man  stood  looking  after  him, 
as  if  not  wanting  to  be  left.  But  he  took 
only  a  step,  then  stood  there  uncer- 
tainly. 

She  touched  his  arm.  "This  way  for 
us,"  she  said,  kindly,  then  stood  at  the 
door  of  the  sagging  old  hack,  waiting  for 
him  to  get  in.  He  looked  in  at  the 
lumpy,  leaky  upholstery,  then  stepped 
back  and  surveyed  a  motor-car  near  by, 
took  an  uncertain  step  toward  it.  "In 
here,  Mr.  Groves,"  said  the  wife  of  the 
superintendent  of  the  Poor-farm,  not 
unkindly,  but  firmly. 

She  saw  at  once  that  what  the  kindly 
man  had  said  was  true.  He  would  not 
be  one  to  give  trouble.  He  had  been 
"had"  too  much  for  that.  He  moved 
uneasily  on  the  unfriendly  springs,  but 
as  if  trying  to  conceal  the  fact  that  he 
was  moving.  She  saw  him  looking  cov- 
ertly at  her.  Several  times  his  lips 
started  to  move,  and  then  he  would  not 
say  anything.  But  at  length  he  asked, 
in  a  whisper,  as  if  afraid  of  what  he  was 
doing,  "Where  am  I  going  now?" 

Mrs.  Peters  claimed  she  got  along  in 
her  office,  and  helped  other  people  get 
along,  by  making  the  best  of  things. 
Making  the  best  of  things  was  her  great 
phrase.  As  she  looked  into  the  troubled 
face  of  this  broken,  helpless  old  man — 
this  meek  old  man — and  remembered  the 


Bert  Groves  she  had  known,  she  had 
— if  nothing  else — to  help  herself  out  of 
it  by  answering:  "Why,  you're  going 
home,  Mr.  Groves!  To  the  old  Groves 
place,"  she  added,  as  he  looked  quite 
blank.  After  an  instant's  hesitation  she 
finished,  "To  the  Springs — to  Crystal 
Sulphur  Springs." 

It  was  as  if  she  had  flicked  something 
before  his  eyes;  then  he  moved  so  rest- 
lessly, there  was  such  a  strange,  excited 
look  in  his  eyes,  that  she  went  on  in  a 
matter-of-fact,  soothing  voice:  "See? 
This  is  Freeport  we're  going  through 
now.  In  a  little  bit  we'll  turn  down  the 
river  road — to  the  Springs." 

He  looked  from  the  window,  turned 
and  looked  at  her,  then  edged  a  little 
away  from  her.  He  would  steal  covert 
glances  out  at  the  town,  back  to  her. 
But  he  soon  closed  his  eyes  as  if  too  tired 
to  bother  more  about  it — as  if  it  had 
passed. 

She  sat  there  wondering  just  what  it 
had  meant  to  him,  wondering  how  he 
would  "take  it"  when  they  turned  in  at 
the  old  place.  She  was  fluttered,  more 
than  a  little  awed,  by  her  own  part  in  so 
strange  a  thing.  She  sat  there  trying  to 
realize  it,  telling  herself  she  didn't  realize 
it.  "If  this  can  happen,"  she  said  to 
herself,  "anything  can  happen!"  Riding 
along  with  Bert  Groves  now,  her  mind 
went  back  to  the  times  she  had  seen 
him  on  that  very  road.  The  Groves 
place  was  the  big  farm  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  her  father  a  small  farmer  near 
by.  He  worked  for  the  Groveses  part  of 
the  time.  They  were  not  like  other 
farmers,  for  they  were  more  city  folks 
than  country  people,  having  a  house  in 
town  and  only  living  in  the  country  a 
part  of  the  year.  One  of  the  first  things 
she  could  remember  was  watching  Bert 
Groves  ride  past  the  house.  He  had  a 
fine  horse  and  rode  down  from  town  a 
great  deal.  From  her  father's  farm  she 
could  see  the  Groves  place.  She  was 
fascinated  by  their  comings  and  goings. 
They  had  a  great  deal  of  company  down 
from  town;  her  mother,  who  would 
sometimes  go  over  there  and  work, 
would  report  on  the  gay  doings. 

Bert  Groves  was  in  the  real-estate 
business  in  town;  his  brother  Edward 
was  a  doctor;  the  father  ran  the  farm. 
And  then  one  day  when  they  were  boring 


178 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


for  oil — oil  was  suspected  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  Bert  Groves,  always  one 
to  take  up  with  a  new  thing,  always  be- 
lieving in  things,  insisted  that  they  try 
for  it  on  the  Groves  place — they  found, 
not  oil,  but  the  "Crystal  Sulphur 
Spring,"  a  strong  artesian  well  of  sulphur 
water.  It  startled  every  one  to  find  it 
there,  and,  as  the  town  said,  it  set  Bert 
Groves  crazy.  What  Crystal  Sulphur 
Water  did  to  his  imagination  made  life  a 
different  thing  for  the  whole  Groves 
family.  Emma  Peters — then  Emma 
Haines,  a  girl  of  about  sixteen — remem- 
bered very  clearly  the  talk  of  those  days. 
There  were  excited  people  who  believed 
it  was  true  that  Bert  Groves  was  going 
to  make  the  fortune  of  the  entire  neigh- 
borhood, and  there  were  plenty  of  skep- 
tics to  scoff  at  the  believers. 

The  first  thing  he  started  was  a  bot- 
tling-works.  He  was  going  to  ship  Crys- 
tal Sulphur  Water  to  the  farthest  bounds 
of  the  country.  All  the  thing  needed, 
she  remembered  him  emphatically  saying 
when  he  stopped  at  their  place  one  day 
to  get  her  father  to  come  over  and  work, 
was  pushing. 

So  he  proceeded  to  give  his  time  to 
pushing  it.  It  was  said  that  he  spent  the 
whole  year's  crop  in  advertising.  She 
remembered  her  father  and  another 
farmer  sitting  before  their  kitchen  stove 
and  laughing  over  a  pamphlet  that  told 
the  story  of  the  final  discovery  of  the 
spring  of  eternal  youth.  They  said, 
"The  old  man 'd  better  look  out." 

But  the  previous  stir  was  as  nothing 
to  the  excitement  there  was  the  day  it 
was  told  that  Bert  Groves  and  his  broth- 
er, the  doctor,  were  going  to  turn  the 
Groves  place  into  a  kind  of  hospital, 
a  place  for  people  to  come  and  rest  and 
build  up  on  Crystal  Sulphur  Water — a 
sanitarium,  they  called  it.  People  got 
together  and  contributed  what  they  had 
heard.  Why,  there  was  to  be  a  lower 
and  upper  veranda  round  the  whole 
house!  That  had  its  brief  day,  but  paled 
before  the  later  knowledge  that  there 
would  be  a  fountain  right  in  the  middle 
of  the  house! 

Old  man  Groves  died  during  the  com- 
motion of  the  remodeling.  People  said 
it  was  just  as  well;  later  they  declared 
it  was  Providence.  Bert  had  talked  him 
over,  and  he  died  believing. 


The  father's  death  sobered  Bert,  they 
said,  but  he  went  right  ahead  like  what 
they  called  "a  house  afire."  She  stole 
a  glance  at  the  old  man  beside  her  and 
tried  to  realize  that  this  was  the  man 
who  had  kept  everybody  on  the  move 
that  summer  they  made  the  Groves 
place  into  a  sanitarium.  Her  father  was 
v/orking  there,  so  she  would  be  b  acic  ana 
forth  on  errands.  She  would  loiter 
around  all  she  could,  thrilled  by  the 
excitement.  And  everlastingly  Bert 
Groves  was  telling  men  a  thing  could  be 
done  when  they  were  saying  it  couldn't; 
he  was  behind  every  one,  making  things 
move,  keeping  everybody  livened  up. 
Her  father  would  come  home  and  say, 
"That  boy  may  be  crazy — but  he's  a 
wonder,  just  the  same." 

And  then  the  next  spring  there  was  a 
grand  opening — all  the  town  people 
down  and  dancing — gay  carryings-on. 
And  Bert  Groves  was  behind  everything 
that  night,  too,  beaming  on  everybody, 
his  face  shining  as  he  showed  people 
around,  a  spring  in  his  step,  and  his  voice 
so  glad  and  sure. 

Emma  Haines  was  engaged  to  work 
at  the  Springs  as  a  chambermaid.  There 
were  a  number  of  chambermaids,  and 
for  the  most  part  they  spent  their  time 
keeping  empty  rooms  freshened  up. 
"Oh,  you'll  be  busy  enough  later  on," 
Mr.  Groves  would  call  as  he  passed  a 
group  of  them  loitering  in  the  halls  be- 
cause there  was  nothing  else  for  them  to 
do.  She  wondered  just  how  long  he  kept 
on  thinking  that.  Most  of  the  people 
there  were  friends  of  the  Groveses,  but 
there  were  a  few  sick  or  tired-out  people 
who  had  read  the  pamphlets  and  really 
came  to  drink  the  water.  Mr.  Groves 
would  beam  upon  them  as  they  sat 
round  the  fountain.  "And  how  are  you 
feeling  this  morning?"  he  would  ask  in 
a  courtly  way  as  they  came  down  to 
breakfast. 

But  the  house  did  not  fill  up,  and  they 
let  some  of  the  help  go,  the  manager  as- 
suring them  they'd  want  them  all  back 
a  little  later.  But  the  beaming  look  be- 
gan to  fade,  his  eyes  to  look  pulled  to- 
gether in  a  worried  way;  there  were 
times  when  he  spoke  sharply  to  the  help, 
though  it  took  only  the  arrival  of  a  new 
patient  to  make  him  beam  again. 
"Why,  you  can't  expect  the  thing  to 


Drawn  by  Worth  Brehm  Engraved  by  Frank  E.  Pettit 

HE    WAS    BEHIND    EVERY    ONE,    MAKING    THINGS  MOVE 


THE  MANAGER  OF  CRYSTAL  SULPHUR  SPRINGS  179 


start  off  all  in  a  minute !"  she  remem- 
bered him  saying  jubilantly  one  night 
when  two  patients  arrived  after  a  long 
period  of  no  arrivals. 

They  said  afterward  that  the  wonder 
was  it  lasted  as  long  as  it  did,  that  Bert 
Groves  had  about  hypnotized  folks  or 
it  couldn't  have  been  done.  But  there 
came  a  day  when  he  could  no  longer 
hypnotize  anybody  into  lending  more 
money  for  Crystal  Sulphur  Springs.  Of 
course,  the  place  had  been  mortgaged  at 
the  first,  money  borrowed  right  along. 
The  crash  came.  Crystal  Sulphur 
Springs  was  closed.  The  Groveses  had 
lost  everything. 

She  was  there  the  last  night  it  was 
open.  After  the  reduction  of  help  she 
did  various  things,  and  she  waited  at 
Mr.  Groves's  table  that  night,  though, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  the  only  table 
in  the  dining-room.  But  there  were  two 
guests  at  it,  and  he  went  on  talking  to 
them  in  that  pleasant,  courtly  way  he 
had  with  the  guests.  But  when  she 
passed  things  she  noticed  how  awkward 
he  was  about  helping  himself,  and  when 
he  laughed  it  was  hard  to  keep  her  place 
by  the  table — she  wanted  so  to  run 
away. 

After  that  they  did  not  see  Bert 
Groves  on  the  road  between  town  and 
the  farm  any  more.  For  a  little  while  he 
went  on  with  his  real-estate  business  in 
town,  but  she  heard  a  man  tell  her 
father  that  deals  couldn't  be  swung 
without  any  money  to  draw  on,  and  that 
Groves  wasn't  making  a  living — that  he 
had  lost  his  snap,  anyway.  In  town  one 
day  she  passed  him  on  the  street.  He 
did  not  see  her,  for  he  was  looking 
straight  ahead,  his  face  drawn,  driven- 
looking.  She  turned  and  looked  after 
him,  and  what  made  her  feel  the  worst 
was  that  she  could  see  he  was  trying  to 
walk  in  the  old  way. 

He  went  away  from  Freeport  soon 
after  that;  people  said  they  guessed  he'd 
rather  be  a  poor  man  in  some  other 
town.  One  of  the  farmers  who  went  to 
the  state  capital  saw  him  a  couple  of 
years  later  behind  the  cigar-stand  of  a 
farmer's  hotel.  He  said  Bert  looked  as 
if  he  wanted  to  drop  behind  the  counter 
when  he  spoke  to  him,  but  he  pulled  him- 
self together  and  they  had  quite  a  talk. 
Groves  said  then  that  all  the  thing  had 


needed  was  pushing;  the  trouble  was 
they  hadn't  given  him  time  to  push  it. 

Then  they  heard  nothing  about  him 
for  a  long  time.  Edward  Groves,  whose 
practice  had  been  hurt  by  the  sani- 
tarium craze,  died  about  ten  years  later. 
There  was  no  near  relative  left.  Things 
changed;  no  one  seemed  to  hear  from 
Bert  Groves.  The  place  for  a  long  time 
was  a  white  elephant  on  the  hands  of  the 
creditors.  They  rented  the  farm,  but 
who  wanted  that  great  building  which 
Bert  Groves  had  believed  was  going  to 
be  crowded  with  people  coming  from  far 
and  near  to  drink  Crystal  Sulphur  Wa- 
ter? A  woman  tried  it  for  summer 
boarders,  but  Bert  Groves's  hopes  had 
been  too  high;  it  was  on  too  big  a  scale. 
For  years  it  stood  there  deserted;  and 
so,  when  with  the  growth  of  the  town 
"The  Farm"  as  well  as  other  things 
needed  bigger  quarters,  the  Groves  place 
was  eagerly  offered  for  consideration.  It 
was  run  down;  it  could  be  had  very 
cheap.  And  so  at  last  a  use  was  found 
for  the  sanitarium. 

And  so,  too,  it  came  about  that  Emma 
Haines  went  back  to  work  at  the  old 
Groves  place.  She  had  married  Henry 
Peters,  who  from  working  the  farm  at 
"The  Farm"  managed  to  get  the  place 
of  superintendent.  Twenty-five  years 
elapsed  from  the  time  she  waited  on 
Bert  Groves's  table  that  last  night  the 
sanitarium  was  open  until  she  went  there 
as  wife  of  the  superintendent  of  the 
Poor-farm.  She  had  seen  queer  things 
in  what  she  called  "our  business,"  but 
one  day  Henry  came  into  the  kitchen 
with  a  scared  sort  of  look  and  said: 

"Who  do  you  suppose  is  coming 
here?"  He  sat  down  weakly  as  he  said 
it,  and  sat  staring  at  her,  his  mouth  a 
little  open. 

"For  the  land's  sake,"  she  had  re- 
plied, flurried  with  something  she  was 
doing,  "how  do  /  know  who's  coming 
here  ?" 

"  Bert  Groves  is  coming  here,"  he  told 
her,  and  she  dropped  the  cup  she  was 
measuring  with,  and  stood  staring  at 
him. 

He  had  to  tell  her  all  he  knew  about  it 
before  she  would  believe  there  was  any 
truth  in  it,  though  he  didn't  know  a 
great  deal — just  that  the  commissioners 
had  had  a  letter  from  the  wife  of  a  cousin 


180 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  the  Groveses,  from  Simpson  County, 
in  the  west  of  the  state.  She  said  she 
had  "had"  him  for  two  years  and  could 
have  him  no  longer.  She  was  poor  her- 
self, and  he  was  getting  in  his  dotage. 
It  wasn't  as  if  she  were  a  blood  relation. 
There  was  nobody  left  who  was  a  blood 
relation  who  could  have  him.  So  the 
county  he  came  from  would  have  to  do 
for  him.  Emma  Peters  and  her  husband 
had  a  very  late  supper  that  night;  for  a 
long  time  they  could  do  nothing  but  sit 
there  gaping  at  each  other. 

They  had  wondered  with  something 
akin  to  bated  breath  how  he  would  "take 
it."  At  first  there  was  no  way  of  telling 
how  he  was  taking  it.  Mrs.  Peters  was 
not  able  to  "make  out"  his  look  when 
they  turned  in  at  the  old  Groves  place, 
could  not  make  up  her  mind  just  what 
it  was  made  him  look  frightened  in  so 
strange  a  way.  It  gave  her  what  she 
called  the  creeps  to  see  him  staring  up 
at  the  house  he  had  remodeled  thirty 
years  before.  And  then  before  they 
reached  the  house  he  stopped  looking 
from  the  window;  when  they  pulled  up 
at  the  side-door  he  was  looking  straight 
down  at  his  feet,  hands  clasped  on  his 
stick,  so  strangely  still.  She  had  to  say, 
"Come,  Mr.  Groves;  we're  here."  And 
when  they  went  in  the  house  he  did  not 
look  around  at  all,  but  was  all  the  while 
so  still  in  that  queer  way.  Mrs.  Peters 
told  Henry  she  couldn't  make  it  out; 
she  didn't  know  whether  he  knew — and 
that  was  why  he  was  like  that — or 
whether  he  didn't  really  know,  and  yet, 
in  a  way,  did.  "I  think  it's  kind  of 
working  on  him,"  was  the  nearest  she 
came  to  a  decision. 

The  first  time  she  saw  him  in  the 
dining-room  she  felt,  she  said,  as  if  her 
knees  were  going  to  let  her  drop.  It  was 
the  same  dining-room  in  which  she  had 
waited  on  him  as  manager  of  Crystal 
Sulphur  Springs.  Now  he  sat  at  a  long 
table  with  the  other  men  "inmates"; 
when  he  looked  up  he  seemed  only  to 
look  a  very  little  way,  all  the  time  so 
still  in  that  way  that  made  her  feel 
"queer."  The  men  who  were  not  able 
to  work  about  the  farm  sat  a  good  deal 
on  the  big  porch  which  Bert  Groves  had 
designed  for  the  guests  of  the  Springs. 

"Out  here  is  a  nice  place  to  sit,  Mr. 
Groves,"  she  had  cheerily  said  to  him 


the  second  day  when  she  found  him  in 
a  somber  place  back  of  the  stairs.  She 
took  him  out  to  a  chair.  After  that  he 
sat  always  in  that  same  chair,  as  if  he 
had  been  told  to  sit  there.  But  every 
time  he  sat  down  he  edged  it  a  little 
away.  "Too  good  for  the  other  board- 
ers," she  heard  Joe  Minor  laugh  in  a 
rough  way. 

But  after  the  first  week  or  so  he  began 
to  steal  covert,  frightened  glances 
around.  She  would  catch  him  looking 
at  things — looking  in  a  dazed,  troubled 
way.  One  day  she  came  upon  him  rub- 
bing his  foot  in  an  annoyed  way  over  a 
broken  board  in  the  porch  floor;  he  even 
began  to  venture  away  from  the  chair 
where  he  had  seemed  to  think  he  had  to 
sit.  One  day  she  saw  him  down  in  the 
yard,  walking  round  and  round  on  a 
little  rise  of  ground.  She  could  not 
make  out  what  he  was  doing  until  it 
suddenly  came  to  her  that  on  that  piece 
of  ground  there  had  once  been,  in 
crushed  stone,  the  words,  "Crystal  Sul- 
phur Springs."  She  stood  and  watched 
him  rubbing  his  foot  around  on  the  not- 
very-well- cared -for  grass.  The  stone 
had  long  before  been  taken  up  and  used 
on  the  road  running  round  the  house. 
But  some  traces  of  it  apparently  re- 
mained, for  she  saw  him  pick  up  some- 
thing and  stand  staring  at  it.  Then  he 
turned  and  stared  up  at  the  house.  One 
big  wing  of  it  had  been  entirely  taken 
away,  sold  years  before  to  a  prosperous 
farmer;  there  were  other  changes,  and  a 
general  run-downness.  It  had  been 
fresh  -  painted  the  day  Bert  Groves 
opened  the  sanitarium;  it  was  a  long 
way  from  fresh-painted  now.  A  little 
while  after  she  had  watched  him  thus 
staring  up  at  the  house,  she  came  upon 
him  in  the  chair  where  she  had  suggested 
he  sit.  He  was  almost  crouched  there, 
and  looked  covertly  out  of  the  corner  of 
his  eyes  when  he  heard  her  footsteps. 
He  looked  very  old  and  frightened — and 
something  more  than  that,  something 
she  couldn't  find  words  for.  She  spoke 
pleasantly  to  him,  and  stood  there  hesi- 
tatingly. She  wished  she  could  help 
him;  she  wished  she  knew  where  he  was, 
as  she  thought  it,  so  she  would  know 
how  to  help  him. 

After  that  it  became  a  common  sight 
to  see  him  about  the  place,  looking  for 


THE  MANAGER  OF  CRYSTAL  SULPHUR  SPRINGS  181 


things  that  used  to  be  there.  One  day 
she  saw  him  hobbling  round  and  round 
the  chicken-yard.  Then  it  came  to  her 
that  there  used  to  be  a  grape-arbor 
where  the  chicken-yard  was  now.  The 
guests  of  the  sanitarium  were  to  have 
sat  out  there.  And  always  after  those 
things  he  would  go  back  to  that  same 
chair  and  sit  there  very  still.  In  the 
dining-room  she  would  see  him  stealing 
puzzled,  troubled  looks  at  the  others. 

In  the  large  hall  before  the  dining- 
room  there  had  once  been  the  wonder  of 
half  the  county — the  fountain.  Now 
that  hall  had  been  partitioned  off  for  the 
superintendent's  own  quarters.  One  day 
she  came  upon  Mr.  Groves  in  the 
straight  hall  that  replaced  the  big,  open 
place,  staring  at  the  partitions.  This 
time  he  stepped  up  to  her  and  spoke. 

"Where's  the  fountain?"  he  asked,  in 
an  excited,  tremulous  voice. 

"Why — why,  they  had  to  take  it  out, 
Mr.  Groves,"  she  faltered. 

"Nobody  had  any  business  to  take  it 
out!"  he  cried,  angrily,  pounding  his 
stick  on  the  floor.  He  was  trembling 
and  his  cheeks  were  flushed.  And  then 
of  a  sudden  his  face  went  colorless;  he 
stumbled,  and  she  thought  he  was  about 
to  fall.  She  helped  him  into  her  own 
rooms  and  hastily  got  a  stimulant  for 
him.  The  man  who  brought  him  to 
Freeport  had  told  her  of  "attacks,"  of 
a  very  much  weakened  heart  that  must 
at  times  have  immediate  stimulant. 
That  was  not  a  strange  thing  to  the  peo- 
ple who  ran  the  poorhouse;  many  of  the 
old  people  were  like  that. 

He  was  soon  sitting  out  in  his  chair 
again,  looking  weak  and  yet  somehow 
different,  not  still  in  that  same  queer 
way.  The  next  day  he  came  up  to  her 
as  she  was  out  feeding  the  chickens. 

"Things  are  run  down,"  he  began, 
abruptly,  jerking  his  head  toward  the 
house.  "That's  why  we  don't  get  a 
better  class  of  people." 

She  was  aghast,  but  it  was  her  policy 
of  making  the  best  of  things  that  made 
her  answer,  soothingly,  "Why,  maybe 
that's  so,  Mr.  Groves." 

"Of  course  it's  so!"  he  cried,  with  an 
energy  that,  burning  there  in  his  frail- 
ness, made  her  want  to  cry.  He  hobbled 
away,  muttering,  "I'm  going  to  dis- 
charge half  the  people  round  this  place!" 

Vol.  CXXXI  — No.  782.-23 


That  was  the  beginning  of  it — of 
things  that  soon  caused  every  one,  not 
only  the  Farm,  but  the  town,  to 
know  that  Bert  Groves  did  not  know  he 
was  an  inmate  of  the  poorhouse,  but 
thought  he  was  manager  of  Crystal  Sul- 
phur Springs.  There  were  people  who 
laughed  about  it  and  people  who  were 
disposed  to  cry,  but  every  one  who  heard 
wanted  to  hear  more.  Never  had  the 
Poor-farm  been  so  much  on  the  public 
tongue  as  in  those  days  of  telling  the 
story  of  how  old  Mr.  Groves  believed  he 
was  still  running  the  sanitarium.  The 
"inmates"  were  glad  of  the  new  excite- 
ment, of  the  new  interest  in  the  place, 
and  it  was  easy  enough  to  get  them  to 
tell  the  tale  of  all  that  went  on.  Perhaps 
it  was  wanting  to  have  a  tale  to  tell 
which,  quite  as  much  as  kindness,  made 
them  keep  up  the  pretense.  Perhaps 
most  of  all  it  was  the  love  of  every  one 
for  "play-acting"  that  made  them  hu- 
mor the  old  man  in  thinking  he  was  still 
running  the  place  he  used  to  run.  There 
were  tales  of  how  some  of  the  number 
wanted  to  "tell,"  kept  threatening  to 
tell,  and  how  the  others  in  turn  threat- 
ened them  with  what  would  happen  if 
they  did  tell.  Perhaps,  if  they  had,  it 
would  not  have  mattered  as  much  as 
they  thought,  for  "The  Manager"  was, 
after  all,  pretty  well  protected  by  that 
almost  drawn  veil  which,  for  the  most 
part,  shut  out  things  as  they  were.  Had 
Joe  Minor  really  said:  "Don't  be  a 
fool,  or  don't  expect  us  to  be  fools  any 
longer.  This  is  the  poorhouse,  and 
you're  one  of  the  paupers,  like  the  rest  of 
us — no  better,  no  worse.  You  ain't  run- 
ning a  hotel.  Your  hotel  went  busted 
long  ago.  You're  on  the  county  now" — 
had  he  said  it,  it  is  probable  he  would 
only  have  troubled  the  waning  mind  for 
a  little  while,  not  likely  he  would  have 
brought  it  really  out  into  the  hard  light 
of  facts.  Doubtless  Mr.  Groves  would 
only  have  gone  to  Mrs.  Peters,  as  he  did 
when  things  displeased  him,  and  said: 
"I  tell  you  we've  got  to  get  things  in 
better  shape.  Then  we'll  get  a  better 
class  of  people,"  and  she,  making  the 
best  of  things,  would  have  answered: 
"That's  so,  Mr.  Groves.  We  must  do 
that  as  soon  as  we  can  get  around  to  it." 
Something  like  that  would  satisfy  him, 
for  he  never  pushed  anything  very  far; 


182 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


he  would  forget  the  next  hour  what  he 
had  proposed  the  hour  before.  The  very 
cloudiness,  fitfulness,  of  his  mind  safe- 
guarded him.  Often  when  the  inmates 
were  coming  down-stairs  in  the  morning 
Bert  Groves  would  be  there  at  the  foot, 
bowing  and  smiling  to  them,  and  asking, 
solicitously,  "And  how  are  you  feeling 
this  morning  ?" — and  some  of  them 
would  say,  heartily,  "Feeling  fine,  Mr. 
Groves/'  with  a  wink  for  some  one  near 
by,  and  others  would  look  sheepish,  and 
some  would  grin,  and  some  would  grunt. 
"Might  as  well  let  him  think  so,"  was 
the  feeling  of  most  of  them,  adopting  the 
good-humored  attitude  of  Superinten- 
dent Peters.    "What  harm  does  it  do?" 

One  day  he  said  to  Mrs.  Peters:  "I 
think  I'll  move  into  my  old  room.  I 
don't  want  him" — jerking  an  elbow 
toward  the  old  man  with  whom  he 
shared  a  room — "in  my  room  any 
longer." 

"Well,  now,  Mr.  Groves,"  she  said, 
"if  you  could  just  let  it  go  on  that  way 
awhile  longer.  We  really  haven't  got 
a  room  for  him — and  it  wouldn't  look 
well  to  send  one  of  the  patients  away, 
would  it?"  He  was  content,  going  away 
and  sitting  down  by  himself,  dozing  and 
ruminating  in  that  thin,  fitful  shaft  of 
light  left  to  his  brain,  perhaps  getting  up 
to  tell  a  man  coming  with  coal  where  to 
put  it,  not  long  disturbed  if  the  superin- 
tendent told  him  to  put  it  somewhere 
else. 

The  "Crystal  Sulphur  Water"  was 
still  piped  to  a  place  outside  the  house, 
and  every  day  he  could  be  seen  going 
over  to  get  his  drink  of  it,  frequently 
carrying  a  glassful  to  some  one  else,  say- 
ing, in  a  cracked  voice,  but  with  some- 
thing of  his  old  manner,  "Don't  forget 
that  you're  here  to  drink  Crystal  Sul- 
phur Water."  And  the  person,  as  the 
case  happened  to  be,  would  reply  vol- 
ubly, leading  him  on  to  talk  more,  or 
good-humoredly  take  the  water  with  a 
thank-you,  or  snicker,  or  maybe  say, 
"What  you  givin'  us?" — in  which  case 
he  would  go  to  Mrs.  Peters  and  talk  of 
ways  of  getting  a  better  class  of  people. 

It  went  on  that  way  for  two  years. 
People  would  come  down  from  town  to 
see  him.  There  were  a  few,  a  very  few, 
of  his  old  friends  left,  and  a  number  who 
as  younger  people  had  known  him  slight- 


ly, and  he  would  receive  them  in  a 
courtly  way,  tell  of  improvements  he  was 
going  to  make,  show  them  around  the 
place,  ask  them  to  stay  to  dinner.  By 
this  time  the  inmates,  instead  of  calling 
the  place  "The  Farm,"  called  it  the  sani- 
tarium— giving  the  word  various  inflec- 
tions; their  little  jokes  about  the  good 
that  Crystal  Sulphur  Water  was  doing 
them,  and  how  soon  they  thought  they 
would  be  able  to  get  away,  enlivened 
life  for  them.  And  all  the  while  the  old 
man — he  was  over  seventy-five  now — 
grew  more  feeble;  the  times  were  in- 
creasingly frequent  when  some  one  had 
to  run  fast  for  the  drops  that  would  per- 
suade his  heart  to  go  on  beating. 

And  then  the  Boosters'  Committee, 
or  at  least  the  spirit  of  boosting,  at  last 
struck  the  Poor-farm.  There  were  more 
people  than  Bert  Groves  who  talked 
about  things  being  run  down.  Super- 
intendent Peters's  easy-going  "What 
harm  does  it  do?"  with  which  he  hu- 
mored Bert  Groves  in  the  idea  that  he 
was  running  the  place,  was  his  policy,  it 
seemed,  about  too  many  other  things. 
It  was  a  time  when  a  great  deal  was  be- 
ing said  about  efficiency,  and  the  dis- 
covery was  made  that  Hen  Peters 
didn't  so  much  as  know  the  meaning  of 
the  word  efficiency.  And  so  the  upshot 
of  it  was  that  the  Peterses  were  to  be  suc- 
ceeded by  a  man  with  very  efficient- 
looking  red  hair — a  brisk,  shrewd,  deci- 
sive man.  The  Peterses  would  go  back 
to  farming. 

One  sunny  afternoon  in  very  late  fall 
Mrs.  Peters,  after  a  hard  day's  work  in 
the  house  getting  things  in  shape  to 
leave — the  new  superintendent  was  to 
come  the  following  week — walked  out 
across  the  yard,  slowly  pushing  her  feet 
through  fallen  leaves.  She  had  come  out 
for  what  she  called  a  breath,  but  she 
walked  on  over  to  the  far  side  of  the 
yard — just  this  side  of  the  pasture-land 
— and  stood  looking  at  some  fruit  trees 
that  had  been  set  out  a  little  while  be- 
fore. Despite  her  protestations  that  she 
did  not  mind  leaving,  that  it  was  a 
thankless  job,  and  anybody  who  wanted 
to  be  saddled  with  it  was  welcome  to  it, 
she  was  making  a  number  of  little  pil- 
grimages in  these  days.  And  as  she  sat 
now  on  a  bench  by  the  new  fruit  trees 
which  she  herself  had  helped  set  out,  old 


Drawn  by  Worth  Brehm  Engraved  by  Nelson  Demarcst 

"DON'T    FORGET    THAT    YOU'RE    HERE    TO    DRINK    CRYSTAL    SULPHUR  WATER" 


THE  MANAGER  OF  CRYSTAL  SULPHUR  SPRINGS  183 


Mr.  Groves  came  hobbling  across  the 
yard  and  joined  her.  He  was  bent,  and 
trembled  as  he  moved;  it  was  strange 
how,  being  like  that,  he  could  still  seem 
Bert  Groves. 

"I'm  going  to  have  a  lot  more  of  these 
put  out,"  he  began  in  a  shrill,  quavering 
voice.  "There's  no  reason  why  they 
shouldn't  run  all  up  this  line."  He 
pointed  along  where  he  meant,  then  sank 
to  a  seat  and  sat  there  breathing 
with  difficulty,  as  if  he  had  moved  too 
fast. 

"Why,  that  will  be  nice,  Mr.  Groves," 
she  said  in  her  humoring  tone. 

He  fell  into  the  quiescence  of  age,  but 
after  a  minute  roused  to  say:  "Oh  yes 
— and  I've  got  a  lot  of  other  plans.  A 
lot  of  things  I'm  going  to  get  right  at  in 
the  spring." 

"That  will  be  nice,"  she  repeated,  a 
little  break  in  her  voice,  for  she  won- 
dered how  things  would  be  with  Mr. 
Groves  by  spring. 

The  new  superintendent  said  he  was 
not  going  to  have  any  such  fooling  after 
he  took  the  place.  There  was  to  be  an 
end  to  special  privileges;  there  would  be 
rules  and  regulations,  and  people  would 
keep  them — old  man  Groves  as  well  as 
the  rest.  It  was  a  scandal  the  way 
everybody  had  pampered  that  old  man 
in  thinking  he  was  running  the  place! 
It  interfered  with  discipline.  First  time 
he  gave  an  order  he  would  be  told  that 
he  wasn't  giving  orders  there  now. 

And  so  Emma  Peters  sat  there,  sadly 
wondering  how  it  would  be  with  Mr. 
Groves  by  spring. 

She  thought  of  the  day  she  went  to  the 
train  to  meet  him.  He  was  more  feeble 
now  than  then,  and  yet  in  those  two 
years  of  what  the  incoming  superin- 
tendent called  "tomfoolery"  he  had  in 
another  sense  come  back  to  himself.  He 
no  longer  looked  around  in  that  covert, 
frightened  way.  Feeble  though  he  was, 
he  would  give  an  order  quite  briskly. 
And,  as  the  deposed,  too  easy-going 
superintendent  would  say,  "What  harm 
did  it  do?"  when  all  he  cared  about  was 
giving  the  order,  forgetting  it  almost  as 
soon  as  it  was  given.  But  the  power  to 
give  orders  had  somehow  brought  him 
back  to  his  own.  In  the  two  years  he 
had  emerged  from  that  meekness  that 
told  the  story  of  those  years  of  being 


"had."  And  now?  Now,  at  the  very 
last,  was  the  comfort  that  delusion  had 
given  him  to  be  taken  from  him?  Even 
though  the  truth  did  not  actually  come 
home  to  him,  it  would  distress  him, 
spoil  the  poor  little  peace  in  which  he 
rested,  send  him  back  to  that  crushing 
sense  of  dependence.  What  would  he 
think  had  happened  ?  To  whom  would 
he  turn?  Where,  she  wondered,  sudden 
tears  blinding  her,  would  he  think  she 
was?  It  was  the  thing  that  made  it 
hardest  to  go.  She  wished,  for  the  little 
time  that  was  left,  she  could  be  there  to 
shield  him,  just  to  continue  to  say, 
"Yes,  Mr.  Groves."  What  harm  did  it 
do?  she  thought  with  a  rush  of  resent- 
ment against  this  man  with  the  red  hair 
whom  they  talked  about  as  being  so 
"efficient" — whatever  they  meant  by 
that!  Why  not,  as  she  had  always  said, 
just  make  the  best  of  things? 

The  old  man  beside  her  again  broke 
out  in  his  rumination.  "Well,"  he  said, 
in  that  quavering  voice,  and  nodding 
toward  the  house,  "the  old  place  has 
seen  a  good  deal." 

"It  has,  Mr.  Groves,  hasn't  it?"  she 
agreed. 

"Yes — yes,  seen  a  good  deal."  Then, 
after  a  pause,  looking  at  her,  "Why,  I 
was  born  in  that  house,"  he  said,  as  if 
telling  it  to  her  for  the  first  time. 

She  nodded. 

"Yes,  born  right  there  in  that  house. 
My  grandfather  was  living  there  then — 
and  my  father  and  mother — and  Ed." 
He  sat  nodding  over  it. 

But  again  he  roused  himself.  "Yes, 
and  if  it  hadn't  been  for  me — "  He 
nodded  wisely,  leaving  it  unfinished. 
"Why,  do  you  know,"  and  he  made  a 
little  move  as  if  to  nudge  her,  "  my  father 
didn't  want  to  make  the  place  into  Crys- 
tal Sulphur  Springs!" 

"Now,  is  that  jo.?"  she  murmured. 

"Well,  'tis,"  he  chuckled.  "Why,  I 
had  to  talk — and  talk — and  talk — "  He 
stretched  his  legs,  as  if  wearied  beyond 
endurance  just  to  think  of  how  he  had 
had  to  talk. 

Then  he  sank  back,  and  when  once 
more  he  roused,  it  was  as  if  less  of  him 
came,  as  if  a  little  more  of  him  had  been 
claimed.  He  made  a  feeble  motion  as  if 
with  the  idea  of  nudging  her,  and  with  a 
chuckle  whispered:   "And  my  brother 


184 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Ed — he  wasn't  for  it  first,  either.  Well, 
he  wasn't"  he  affirmed,  noddingly,  and 
sat  there  feebly  chuckling  at  the  joke  on 
Edward. 

And  she  sat  there  thinking  of  the 
whole  story:  of  that  house  when  it  used 
to  be  the  Groves  place,  the  gay  doings, 
Bert  Groves  riding  his  fine  horse  down 
the  river  road;  thinking  of  Crystal  Sul- 
phur Water,  of  Bert  Groves  when  he  was 
like  "a  house  afire,"  of  the  way  he  had 
been  able  to  make  people  believe  in 
things.  Her  eyes  were  misty  again, 
thinking  of  the  strangeness  of  life,  of  the 
hard  things  people  had  to  meet.  There 
was  a  wonderful  sunset;  the  color 
flamed  through  the  bare  trees.  It  was 
for  Emma  Haines  Peters  one  of  those 
moments  which  come  to  all  sensitive 
human  beings  of  a  certain  mellowing 
sense  of  the  whole  wonder  of  life. 

When  she  felt  the  chill  of  night  and 
rose  to  her  feet  her  voice  was  gentle  as 
she  said,  "Guess  we'd  better  be  gettin' 
in,  Mr.  Groves." 

He  looked  up  at  her,  his  eyes  a  little 
glassy;  he  started  to  get  up,  but  fell 
back  to  his  seat.  "The  drops!"  she  said, 
under  her  breath,  and  wheeled  as  if  to 
run,  as  if  to  call  to  some  men  raking 


leaves  up  near  the  house.  And  then  she 
did  not  run,  did  not  call.  She  stood 
there  still — stood  mute,  held. 

He  was  gasping;  she  knew  that  his 
head  was  sinking  to  his  chest.  She  had 
seen  it  before;  she  knew  what  had  to  be 
done — what  must  be  done  in  a  hurry. 
She  tried  to  move,  but  something  in  her 
would  not  let  her  move.  Before  her  was 
a  picture — the  picture  of  what  would 
happen  the  first  time  Mr.  Groves  walked 
into  the  dining-room  and  told  the  new 
management  what  to  have  for  supper. 
And  so  she  stood  there  with  her  back  to 
the  gasping  old  man,  stood  there  as  if 
locked,  looking  off  at  the  men — their 
backs  to  her — raking  leaves  up  near  the 
house,  looking  at  the  wonderful  sunset 
streaming  through  the  bare  trees.  Even 
after  there  was  silence — complete  silence 
— behind  her,  she  still  stood  there,  hands 
clenched,  looking  at  the  color  flaming 
through  the  dark  branches.  And  then 
at  last  she  moved — found  she  could 
move — and  her  lips  moved  then,  too. 
"But  it's  better"  she  breathed,  with  pas- 
sion. As  if  imploring  something  off 
there  in  the  color  that  flooded  the  old 
Groves  place,  she  breathed  again, 
"Wasn't  it  better?" 


The  Cloud 

BY  SARA  TEASDALE 

I AM  a  cloud  in  the  heaven's  height, 
The  stars  are  lit  for  my  delight, 
Tireless  and  changeful,  swift  and  free, 
I  cast  my  shadow  on  hill  and  sea — 
But  why  do  the  pines  on  the  mountain's  crest 
Call  to  me  always,  "Rest,  rest"? 

I  throw  my  mantle  over  the  moon 

And  I  blind  the  sun  on  his  throne  at  noon, 

Nothing  can  tame  me,  nothing  can  bind, 

I  am  a  child  of  the  heartless  wind — 

But  oh,  the  pines  on  the  mountain's  crest 

Whispering  always,  "Rest,  rest." 


The  Waterway  to  Dixie 


BY   W.  J.  AYLWARD 


•g^^^^#^^HEN  in  a  spirit  of  tame 
adventure  I  started  out 
u\  x  "jr  T  (Hz  to  make  an  inland  voy- 
JaT  \/\  /  jjS  aSe  down  the  Missis- 
||f81    V  V    §i|  sippi  from  St.  Paul  to 

^^^%^a^^^^  fact  that  confronted  me 
was  that  it  could  not  be  done;  that  the 
traffic  on  the  extreme  upper  river  was 
of  such  a  fugitive  and  excursion-like 
nature  that  it  disappeared  absolutely 
with  the  first  hint  of  coming  autumn. 

There  was  the  river  in  its  best  season, 
placidly  reflecting  the  rich  color  of  a 
glorious  September  day.  There  was 
plenty  of  water,  the  channel  was  clear, 
but,  as  a  steamboat-man  lugubriously  re- 
marked, "It  takes  something  more  than 
water  to  run  a  steamboat."  And,  that 
something  being  lacking,  the  boats  had 
stopped.  Along  the  bank  they  lay  with 
their  stacks  canvased  over  against  the 
still  far-ofF  winter  snows,  hauled  clear 
of  the  ice  that  would  gather  later,  and 
ready  for  their  long  sleep. 

Well  might  the  inhospitable  signs  on 
the  raised  stages  have  read  "Keep  off 
the  river,"  for  it  was  strangely  deserted, 
and  as  I  made  my  way  from  point  to 
point  in  stuffy,  overheated  trains  no 
human  life  disturbed  its  surface  for 
hundreds  of  miles  save  an  occasional 
pearl-fisher,  a  ferry-boat  crawling  crab- 
fashion  from  shore  to  shore,  or  perhaps 
an  excursion-barge  making  its  way  to 
winter  quarters  after  a  season  of  "ex- 
clusive dances"  at  fifty  cents  a  head. 

It  was  significant,  too,  that  the  tow- 
boat  which  had  the  barge  in  its  charge 
was  a  powerful  and  well-known  "raft- 
boat"  whose  trade  had  disappeared 
with  the  rest,  and  the  thrilling  sight 
of  a  million  or  so  logs  floating  to  a 
destination  a  thousand  miles  away  "  as 
peacefully  as  though  each  log  had  a 
propeller  and  rudder  of  its  own  "  is  one 
thing  more  that  has  become  a  river  tra- 
dition. 

All  down  the  river  it  is  the  same  story. 


Impressive,  solid  stone  warehouses 
stand  by  the  waterside,  empty  or 
given  over  to  small  retail  trade.  In 
the  larger  towns  of  the  upper  river  the 
old  landings  have  become  "levee 
parks,"  neatly  covered  with  sod  and 
walks  and  benches  where  once  were 
piled  many  cargoes.  And  in  the  pic- 
tures is  sure  to  be  another  feature — a 
double  line  of  rails,  to  cross  over  which 
you  must  watch  your  chance.  It  may 
be  only  a  switch-engine  shunting  an 
"  empty"  down  to  the  malt-house;  it  may 
be  a  "world-famous"  train  of  Pullmans 
that  has  paused  for  a  moment  in  its 
swift  flight  westward,  a  white-clad  Ethi- 
opian with  his  little  rubber-topped  step 
standing  at  each  entrance  and  saying, 
invitingly,  "Denvah,  sah?"  or  "Los 
Angeles  this  way."  Or  it  may  be  an  in- 
terminably long  freight  rumbling  heav- 
ily along,  loaded  with  cattle,  coal,  logs, 
or  lumber,  flaunted  defiantly  before  the 
gaze  of  the  serene  river  which  has  hith- 
erto always  claimed  these  things  as  its 
own. 

Nor  are  the  railroads  to  blame  for 
thus  encroaching  on  the  water-fronts 
of  towns  that  now  would  like  them 
elsewhere.  Time  was  when  the  towns 
were  glad  to  get  them  on  any  terms, 
and  as  the  roads  knew  exactly  what 
they  wanted  they  took  what  was  offered 
them  as  a  matter  of  course. 

It  so  happened  that  my  first  stop 
on  the  down-river  journey  was  on  the 
St.  Croix,  at  a  typical  mill-town  of 
the  great  lumber  industry.  Back  of 
the  mill,  and  sending  the  logs  in  leis- 
urely fashion  to  the  runway  that  led 
to  where  the  saw  hummed  a  droning 
whine,  was  a  typical  lumber-jack  whose 
name  was  Jim.  He  was  a  big  fellow, 
with  the  easy  grace  of  an  animal  about 
him,  and  he  was  quite  as  sure-footed 
when,  as  occasion  sometimes  demanded, 
he  went  boldly  out  on  the  slimy  logs 
themselves  after  the  next  victim  for  the 
saw. 


186 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


His  strong,  dark  face  seemed  cut  in 
mahogany,  his  black  hair  met  his  shaven 
neck  in  a  sharply  defined  half-circle, 
wide  suspenders  spanned  the  heavy 
checks  of  a  flannel  shirt  that  covered 
his  broad  shoulders,  and  his  woolen 
trousers  were  tucked  into  the  high, 
water-soaked  "corks"  whose  soles  and 
heels  were  a  currycomb  of  spikes. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  contented  purr  and 
steady  activity  of  the  mill,  or  perhaps 
the  long  separation  from  his  native 
wilds,  that  had  tamed  the  savage  in  him, 
but,  whatever  it  was,  he  was  far  from 
seeming  the  semi-wild  man  his  kind  is 
popularly  supposed  to  be.  Quietly  he 
chewed  and  spat  in  the  water  as  he 
followed  a  log  and  gazed  afar  over  the 
river  where  it  widens  into  a  lake,  at 
distant  Stillwater  and  the  great  plume 
of  creamy  smoke  that  hung  above  the 
mills  there. 

George,  his  partner,  was  a  much 
older  man,  lacking  snap  in  his  move- 
ments, with  a  sallow  face  of  the  beard- 
less type.  But  he  was  equally  deft  in 
snatching  a  hopeless  cull  from  the  sedgy 
water,  and  with  a  few  wonderful  strokes 
of  a  woodsman's  ax  reducing  it  in  no 
time  to  suitable  lengths  for  the  furnace. 

"Lumbering  hereabouts  is  about 
played  out,"  he  declared,  and  it  was  a 
patent  fact,  for  they  were  cutting  poor 
enough  stuff  that  day — "hemlock  in 
by  rail  from  'bout  twenty  miles  north 
of  'Yew  Claire' — or  Eau  Claire,  as 
some  on  'em  calls  it." 

No  longer  in  great  spring  drives 
comes  the  prime  white  pine  in  huge 
logs  by  the  million;  the  way  a  once 
despised  stick  of  timber  is  now  shaped 
into  broad  planks,  boards,  edgings,  lath, 
and  kindling  in  bundles  is  a  revelation 
in  modern  economy  and  efficiency.  Out 
in  the  great  yard  they  stood  in  sorted 
tiers  of  fresh-smelling  lumber,  the  gar- 
nered harvest  of  the  forest  seasoning 
for  the  market.  Ruth  would  have  hard 
gleaning  after  reapers  who  had  gathered 
into  neat  piles  everything,  even  to  such 
small  stuff  as  two-foot  lengths. 

A  hoarse  whistle  announced  that  it 
was  twelve  o'clock,  and  with  many 
groans  and  squawks  the  belts  and  pul- 
leys subsided.  In  the  abrupt  silence 
that  ensued,  the  men's  voices  sounded 
strangely  loud  in  the  airy  vastness  of 


the  interior  as  they  leaped  from  their 
stations  and  each  sought  a  chosen  nook, 
where,  with  a  dinner-pail  clasped  firmly 
between  his  knees,  he  settled  himself 
comfortably  for  the  pleasant  business 
of  the  hour. 

I  left  the  red  mill  with  its  clean, 
whitewashed  walls,  bright  machinery, 
the  sweet  odor  of  freshly  sawn  lumber,- 
and  the  pleasant  glimpses  of  the  spark- 
ling river  through  great  yawning  doors, 
and  I  still  carry  the  picture  in  my  mind's 
eye,  with  the  men  laughing  and  joking 
over  their  generous  lunch-pails.  Be- 
fore long,  however,  the  whole  must  be 
a  silent  ruin,  picturesque  and  weather- 
stained  beside  a  small  mountain  of 
stale  gray  sawdust.  And  those  great 
black  stacks,  sending  forth  voluminous 
clouds  of  creamy  smoke  from  wood- 
fires,  red  with  rUst,  will  crash  awkwardly 
through  the  rotting  roof  and  frighten 
the  swallows  nesting  in  the  vast,  echo- 
ing interior.  The  birds  will  gather  in 
alarm  on  the  cross-beams  of  abandoned 
telegraph-poles  and  discuss  excitedly 
what  has  come  over  their  old  home — 
the  empty  shell  of  a  once  great  industry. 

There  were  five  of  them  until  Fred 
came  bounding  in,  a  spry  old  gray- 
beard,  who  announced  gaily  to  the  rest 
that  he  had  run  over  to  see  if  he 
couldn't  "skeer  up  a  game  of  seven-up." 
Presently  six  stalwart  lads,  all  above 
seventy,  were  grouped  comfortably  in 
smoke  around  the  stove  in  the  Com- 
mercial Hotel  in  Hudson.  And  they 
were  discussing  old  times. 

Now  when  six  people  discuss  old 
times  or  anything  else  in  the  room  in 
which  you  are  trying  to  write,  and  if 
one  is  "a  trifle  deef,"  the  situation  has 
its  drawbacks.  And  so  I  gave  it  up, 
and  sat  in  the  glass  front  with  the  dozing 
woodenware  salesman  to  wait  for  the 
'bus. 

While  watching  the  gentle  breeze  toy 
with  the  awnings  across  the  street,  it 
was  impossible  not  to  hear  what  went 
on  near  by. 

"Be  you  or  I  the  oldest,  Sam?"  a 
brown  -  bearded  giant  in  a  Fedora  de- 
manded of  a  comparatively  spare  white- 
haired  man,  the  one  who  was  "hard-o'- 
hearin'." 

It  seems  that  Sam  was  the  elder  of 


Painting  by  W.  J.  Aylward 

A    TIMBER    RAFT    ON    THE    UPPER  MISSISSIPPI 


THE  WATERWAY  TO  DIXIE 


187 


the  two  by  six  weeks,  nearly  seven. 
Six  weeks  in  eighty-two  years!  I  have 
forgotten  how  long  it  was  since  they 
had  come  out  from  York  State,  but  it 
appeared  that  things  had  changed  great- 
ly since  then.  This  remark  was  sec- 
onded by  the  shy  one  called  Tim,  a 
youngster  of  seventy-one,  in  a  rather 
dusty  derby,  whose  gray  eyes  sought 
the  floor  as  he  nervously  rubbed  the 
dark  growth  on  his  chin,  smiled  remi- 
niscently,  and  repeated, 

"Aye,  things  has  changed  lots  since 
thin!" 

The  history  of  St.  Croix  County  hav- 
ing been  disposed  of,  there  bellowed 
forth  in  a  facetious  tone: 

"Got  an  automobile  yit,  Sam?" 

It  seems  that  Sam  had  not — decidedly 
not — by  a  somewhat  profane  long  shot! 
Also  it  was  not  the  automobiles  Sam 
objected  to;  it  was  the  folks  in  'em  that 
r'iled  him.  Only  that  very  day  one  of 
them  had  come  up  behind  him,  "'thout 
makin'  a  sound,  and  so  skeered  Mollie 
she  almost  climbed  a  tree — old  Mollie, 
fourteen  year  old  come  next  June" — 
a  feat  which  somewhat  belied  a  former 
statement  that  "with  a  hoss  you  know 
where  you  be." 

And  then  the  talk  drifted  to  dirigibles 
and  submarines,  whose  activities  the 
man  with  the  G.  A.  R.  button  and 
enormous  mustache  would  not  admit 
constituted  warfare.  Not  the  kind  he 
knew,  anyhow,  which  on  one  particular 
occasion  was  fighting  indeed.  Taken 
altogether,  it  was  a  rather  warm  time 
they  had  had  that  day  at  Cold  Harbor, 
and  if  somebody  "sure  did  git  hell,"  it 
was  not  the  Wisconsin  Iron  Brigade, 
nor  yet  the  something-or-other  Ohio 
Volunteers. 

When  the  'bus-driver  entered  and 
announced  in  a  bellow  that  he  was 
about  to  leave  for  the  2:15  westward- 
bound  local,  big  Dan  of  the  dark  beard 
called  for  the  cards  and  began  to  shuffle, 
and  the  rest  made  way  for  the  table  to 
be  pushed  into  the  circle.  And  so  we 
left  them,  a  cheerful  group  of  men  who 
had  known  toil,  but  who  had  neither 
toiled  in  vain  nor  so  laboriously  that 
they  could  not  enjoy  its  fruits.  There 
was  no  trace  of  the  sour,  hard-scrabble 
farmer  of  stony  Eastern  fields  in  that 
group.    They    were    intelligent  men, 


keenly  alive  to  the  moment,  interested 
not  only  in  what  went  on  about  them, 
but  far  afield  as  well. 

On  the  jolting  drive  to  the  station, 
through  a  valley  drowsy  in  the  hour 
just  after  lunch  and  musical  with  the 
merry  shouts  of  school-children  at  play 
and  the  soft  drone  of  the  mill,  I  thought 
over  what  I  had  seen  and  heard,  and 
how  back  of  the  school,  back  of  the  mill, 
and  fire-house,  and  domed  court-house, 
above  the  dark,  furzy  wood  where  the 
flag-pole  cuts  the  sky,  you  can  see 
thirty  miles  of  rolling  countryside 
heavy  with  Minnesota's  famous  harvest. 
And  for  thirty  times  thirty  in  almost 
every  direction  you  know  that  the  wood- 
topped  hills  are  checkered  with  just 
such  fields  of  shocked  wheat  in  great 
stacks  or  in  countless  rows  like  soldiers 
on  parade. 

And  hill  after  hill  will  be  dotted  with 
those  comfortable  white  farm-houses 
and  great  red  barns,  and  cut  with  roads 
that  climb  and  wind  through  a  fully 
settled  and  thoroughly  prosperous  sec- 
tion— to  me,  at  least,  the  greatest  of 
this  wide  land. 

How  differently  it  must  have  looked 
to  the  old  fellows  playing  "seven-up" 
in  the  hotel  when  they  first  saw  it  sixty 
years  and  more  ago!  They  were  not 
explorers,  who,  after  all,  were  apt  to  be 
missionaries  zealous  for  souls,  or  traders 
equally  zealous  for  the  red  man's  skins. 
Nor  were  they  the  frontiersmen,  almost 
as  migratory.  They  were  the  men  who 
blasted  out  the  stumps,  planted  the 
crops,  built  homes,  fenced  the  fields, 
and  reared  families — they  were  the  real 
pioneers  of  the  great  Northwest,  the 
First  Settlers. 

Quite  unexpectedly  an  opportunity 
came  to  pursue  my  down-stream  journey 
afloat.  It  so  happened  that  on  enter- 
ing a  good-sized  town  I  saw  from  the 
car  window  two  steamers  on  the  oppo- 
site bank.  There  was  nothing  unusual 
in  this,  but  the  smoke  was  pouring  out 
of  the  filigreed  stacks  of  one  of  them. 
It  needed  no  Sherlock  Holmes  to  fathom 
such  a  clue.  And  so,  at  a  little  past 
one  that  same  afternoon,  I  made  my 
way  down  the  bank,  happily  aware 
that  I  was  about  to  embark  on  my 
first  trip  in  a  Mississippi  River  packet. 


188 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


A  negro  roustabout,  languidly  rolling 
a  cigarette,  paused  in  the  operation 
long  enough  to  remark  that  the  land- 
ing was  on  the  other  side,  meaning  the 
other  side  of  an  empty  coal-cart  with 
its  off  wheels  in  the  water.  Here  a 
greasy  plank  led  up  to  the  stage,  mo- 
nopolized for  the  time  being  by  wagons 
unloading  freight  in  a  steady  stream  of 
boxes  and  barrels  and  crates.  With  a 
breathless  old  lady  leading,  and  a  blue 
barrel  of  kerosene  following,  I  made 
my  entry  upon  the  lower  deck  of  the 
Helen  Blair.  There  was  coal-dust  un- 
derfoot, the  heat  of  the  boilers  full  in 
our  faces,  innumerable  darkies  racing 
past  with  package  freight,  and  yelling 
" Muscatine,"  "Nauvoo,"  or  "Keokuk." 

But  in  the  cabin,  on  the  deck  above, 
all  was  as  it  should  be:  the  long,  narrow 
interior  flooded  with  light  from  above, 
and  flanked  with  white  state-room  doors 
on  which  were  painted  sentimental 
landscapes  and  horse-shoes  grouped  in 
water-lilies;  hunting  scenes,  and  a  Land- 
seer  dog  watching  with  approving  eye 
children  romping  about  a  May-pole. 
At  the  far  end  of  the  art  collection  was 
the  "Ladies'  Cabin,"  with  carpeted  deck 
and  rattan  furniture  instead  of  red  plush, 
and  above  the  piano,  stretched  boldly 
across  the  full  width  of  the  bulkhead, 
the  name  of  the  ship  in  gold.  Close  at 
hand  was  the  purser's  office.  He  as- 
signed me  a  room  and  carried  my  bag 
thither. 

Here  was  the  rare  luxury  of  space  on 
shipboard,  with  running  water  and  a 
commodious  bunk,  and  a  screened  door 
opening  directly  upon  the  promenade- 
deck,  through  which  you  could  watch 
the  shores  and  shining  river  reflecting 
the  sunny  sky. 

The  steamer's  soft  whistle  admonished 
belated  ones  to  hurry;  the  last  piece  of 
freight  was  being  stored  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  mate.  The  big  bell  forward 
tolled  the  parting,  the  engine-room  bell 
jangled,  and  with  a  gentle,  wheezy  cough 
the  steamer  backed  out  and  we  were  off. 

We  had  not  gone  far  when  the  whistle 
sounded  again,  and  we  paused  to  take 
on  the  "Hoosier  Girl  Company,"  and 
some  more  passengers  and  freight,  in- 
cluding a  piano  and  an  aristocratic 
equine  family  of  three. 

The  sire  came  aboard  as  though  he 


rather  fancied  a  trip  on  the  river,  but 
the  mare  came  up  to  the  point  of  put- 
ting her  foot  on  the  stage  and  balked. 
Farther  she  would  not  go — not  she. 
They  coaxed  and  petted  and  cajoled  to 
no  purpose.  Soon  she  was  surrounded 
by  all  hands,  with  the  captain  in  charge. 
The  other  horse  was  brought  back  to 
show  her  how  easily  it  could  be  done; 
she  was  led  around  and  up  to  it  smartly, 
as  though  the  momentum  would  carry 
her  past  the  dread  spot.  But  the  stalk- 
ing horse  stalked  in  vain;  the  reluctant 
one  would  go  anywhere  else  gladly,  but 
put  her  foot  on  that  stage  she  would 
not.  Finally,  blindfolded  and  com- 
pletely surrounded  by  darkies,  they  got 
her  aboard,  while  the  little  colt  came 
trotting  after. 

Barring  the  loss  overboard  of  a  keg 
of  beer  out  of  a  consignment  billed  to 
a  dry  town  in  Iowa,  nothing  further 
happened,  and  soon,  with  whistle  blow- 
ing and  bell  tolling,  we  were  again  back- 
ing out  to  the  accompaniment  of  rag- 
time pounded  out  on  the  piano  down 
among  the  freight,  where  our  black- 
skinned  virtuoso  puffed  joyfully  at  a 
pipe  while  his  mates  lolled  about  lux- 
uriously in  true  African  enjoyment. 

Through  an  idyllic  landscape  we  jour- 
neyed on,  pausing  briefly  now  and  then 
at  either  bank  in  the  hazy  mellow  light 
of  a  warm  September  day,  which  deep- 
ened as  the  afternoon  waned,  until  the 
setting  sun  found  us  headed  directly 
toward  it  down  a  path  of  beaten  gold. 

"Looks  pretty,  doesn't  it?"  said  a 
pleasant  voice  from  the  pilot-house, 
where  a  man  in  shirt-sleeves  smoked  a 
cigar  and  spun  the  big  wheel  that  kept 
the  steamer  in  the  channel.  It  did,  I 
had  to  admit,  and  just  then  a  blue 
heron's  languid  flight  gave  a  Japanese 
touch  to  the  whole  as  the  bird  drifted 
slowly  across  the  big  red  disk  now  about 
to  dip  below  the  horizon. 

"Come  on  up  if  you  like,"  was  an  in- 
vitation not  to  be  overlooked,  and, 
climbing  into  the  glass  house,  I  met 
Captain  Blair,  acting  pilot  and  manag- 
ing owner  of  the  line,  a  ruddy,  clean-cut 
man  of  erect,  athletic  figure,  close- 
cropped  white  mustache  and  hair. 

"Taking  the  place  of  Brown.  Had  a 
good  chance  for  a  steady  job  for  the 
winter  if  he  took  it  now,"  he  briefly  ex- 


IN  WINTER  THE  RIVER  BECOMES  A  GREAT  PLAYGROUND 


plained,  and  from  the  vantage  of  the 
pilot-house  we  watched  the  last  of  the 
sunset  and  caught  our  first  glimpse  of 
the  rising  moon.  Drinking  in  these 
splendors,  I  listened  to  Captain  Blair 
as  he  talked  of  the  river  that  he  loved 
and  the  people  whose  world  it  contained, 
in  the  mean  time  spinning  the  big  wheel 
this  way  and  that,  and  calmly  smoking 
a  long  cigar  while  he  kept  the  steamer  in 
the  way  she  should  go.  And  then  came 
the  hazy  night. 

I  have  never  had  any  experience  just 
like  that  watch  I  stood  with  Captain 
Blair.  The  sun's  parting  glow  faded 
and  disappeared,  while  the  moon's  rich 
radiance  grew  and  flooded  all  with  a 
silvery  light  that  crept  into  the  darkened 
pilot-house  and  stole  across  the  floor 
in  criss-cross  squares.  It  filtered  through 
woods  which  we  sometimes  fairly  brushed 
against,  turning  them  into  a  sort  of 
elfin-land  in  which  startled  feathered 
creatures  settled  down  to  roost  after 
we  had  swept  by.  The  deep  shadows 
awoke  and  softly  repeated  the  steamer's 
gentle  cough;  the  crickets  chirped,  and 

Vol.  CXXXI  — No.  782.-24 


the  sudden  scurrying  of  a  scared  animal 
or  the  drowsy  tinkle  of  a  cow-bell  told 
us  we  were  disturbing  slumbers  that 
were  not  deep. 

And  then,  headed  for  a  light  so  distant 
it  could  scarcely  be  seen,  we  made  a 
"crossing"  that  took  us  out  into  an 
expanse  of  waters  so  vast  that  it  seemed 
like  the  open  sea.  Farther  on  the 
whistle  spoke  again — "Nice  voice,  hasn't 
she?" — and  the  steamer  drifted  down 
to  a  spot  where  a  merry  party  of  young 
folk  awaited  us  and  trooped  aboard  to 
fill  the  decks  with  gay  laughter.  Again 
under  way,  when,  with  the  suddenness 
of  the  tap  of  a  drum,  the  piano  struck 
up,  and  happy  faces  tangoed  by  the 
windows,  making  one  wish  to  be  eighteen 
again. 

Roughly  speaking,  the  difference  be- 
tween a  river  and  the  sea  is  that  if  you 
keep  off  the  latter  you  are  reasonably 
safe  from  its  dangers.  Not  so  the  Mis- 
sissippi, which  at  times  breaks  all  re- 
straints, beats  down  every  barrier,  and 
turns  a  peaceful  valley  into  a  watery 
wilderness  for  hundreds  of  miles,  over- 


THE  EMPTY  SHELL  OF  A  ONCE  GREAT  INDUSTRY— AN  ABANDONED  SAW-MILL 


whelming  with  disaster  families  who  had 
never  been  within  a  score  of  miles  of  its 
banks,  and  drowning  cattle  by  the 
thousands. 

The  record  of  disaster  is  appalling, 
the  rage  of  the  stream  unbounded,  the 
devastation  truly  terrible.  Millions  have 
been  spent  to  redeem  it,  to  coax  it  in  the 
way  it  should  go,  to  keep  it  in  any  chan- 
nel it  chose  to  follow,  but  in  vain.  The 
Federal  Government  and  a  dozen  states 
have  joined  forces  to  fight  it.  Every 
bale  of  cotton,  every  piece  of  land,  pays 
its  tax,  but  the  river  is  as  untamed  as 
ever,  and  when  once  reared  up  in  anger 
the  swollen  giant  laughs  at  wing-dams, 
undermines  rip-rapped  banks,  brushes 
aside  levees,  and  wreaks  its  will  over  a 
vast  territory  and  a  terror-stricken 
population. 

But  it  was  not  of  these  things  we 
talked  when  once  more  back  in  the 
pilot-house,  with  Captain  Blair  again 
at  the  wheel,  but  of  the  better  side  of 
the  river,  its  people  afloat  and  ashore, 
and  of  other  days  "when  steamboating 
was  good."   Here  was  a  town  site  long 


deserted;  there  a  railroad  had  tried 
again  and  again  to  cross;  yonder  island, 
once  a  great  farm,  is  now  overgrown 
with  willows.  On  this  one  right  abreast 
an  old  hermit  lives  who —  " By  George! 
there  he  is  now!  Wait  a  minute,  and 
you'll  hear  something." 

Some  distance  ahead  there  was  a 
lantern,  and  by  it  a  man  dimly  seen  on 
the  bank.  The  captain  crossed  over 
to  the  other  side  of  the  pilot-house,  and 
with  one  hand  on  the  wheel,  with  the 
other  drew  back  the  sliding  window 
and  hailed. 

"Hello,  Jim!    What  time  is  it?" 

Promptly  came  the  surprising  answer, 
"Go  to  hell!" 

The  captain  laughed,  said  "Good-by, 
Jim,"  closed  the  window,  and  chuckled 
as  he  told  the  story. 

It  seems  that  Jim,  from  raising  gar- 
den truck  and  tending  a  government 
beacon  for  a  considerable  period,  and 
having  on  his  island  absolutely  no  means 
of  spending  his  accrued  wealth,  amassed 
what  is  vulgarly  and  expressively  called 
"a  roll,"  and  with  this  in  his  pocket  he 


THE  WATERWAY  TO  DIXIE 


191 


had  gone  to  Burlington  in  the  Blair  on 
a  Fourth-of-July  excursion  some  years 
ago.  On  the  return  trip  he  was  reti- 
cent— glum,  in  fact — and  the  captain 
with  considerable  effort  drew  from  him 
the  reason.  It  was  the  old  tale  of  too 
much  faith  in  four  kings  in  a  game  with 
strangers.  And  so,  minus  roll  and 
minus  watch,  a  sadder  and  wiser  Jim 
was  going  home. 

About  midnight  we  came  to  a  place 
strangely  named  East  Boston,  a  wild- 
looking  spot  in  the  woods,  with  not  a 
vestige  of  life  or  human  habitation  in 
sight  save  a  man  who  stretched  and 
yawned  before  the  tiny  warehouse  with 
a  lantern  in  his  hand,  which  threw  a 
stagy  light  up  in  his  face  and  a  grotesque 
image  on  the  wall  against  which  he 
stood.  There  were  the  usual  few  pieces 
of  freight  coming  and  going  and  no 
passengers.  But  the  captain's  watch  was 
up.    We  said  good  night,  and  turned  in. 

Perhaps  it  is  because 
of  the  fresher  vision  that 
I  prefer  morning  on  the 
river.  But  I  like  to  think 
it  is  because  it  then  seems 
to  awaken  and  roll  back 
the  shadowy  blanket  of 
night  and  smile  in  the 
sun's  warm  caress.  It  is 
then,  too,  that  the  heads 
of  the  creamy  limestone 
bluffs  appear  most  im- 
pressive as  they  peer  from 
their  eerie  posts  in  wooded 
copse  and  resume  watch- 
ful guard  over  their 
charge  with  the  caution 
of  masked  fortresses. 

Through  the  vast  soli- 
tude of  open  spaces,  and 
between  densely  tim- 
bered banks  that  tower 
above  and  darken  our 
tortuous  way,  past  wide 
and  unoccupied  areas, 
and  into  narrow  denies 
where  the  mountainous 
hills  melt  down  in  flow- 
ing lines  to  the  placid 
river,  from  a  perfect  wil- 
derness we  suddenly 
emerge  upon  a  bustling 
city  snuggled  at  the  base 
of  a   great   cliff  which 


hurls  impudently  back  in  our  faces  the 
four  blasts  of  our  whistle,  the  snort  of 
a  switch-engineyand  the  resounding  crash 
as  it  sends  three  "empties"  down  upon 
the  string  of  cars  by  the  sheet-iron 
malt-house.  The  Helen  Blair  skids  on 
the  current  as  she  swings  in  midstream 
and  gently  comes  to  rest  alongside  the 
bank. 

But  the  serenity  of  the  river  is  undis- 
turbed by  the  town.  All  unheeding, 
it  pursues  its  calm  way,  reflecting 
placidly  and  impartially  the  majestic 
headland  that  turns  its  flood  and  the 
wharf-rat  washing  his  shirt;  the  switch- 
engine's  great  white  plume  of  steam,  and 
the  swallow's  low,  swift  flight — all  are 
the  same  to  that  great  flood  moving 
like  fate  to  a  mysterious  destiny  and 
carrying  with  it  at  exactly  the  same 
rate  of  speed  the  derelict  log  and  the 
swirling  ring  left  by  the  sudden  leap 
of  a  catfish  from  its  depths. 


A  LUMBER-JACK 


192 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


And  whether  those  depths  are  mys- 
terious in  the  growing  dawn,  cooled 
with  the  fresh  breath  of  dewy  wood- 
land and  newly  plowed  fields,  or  star- 
studded  in  the  perfect  silence  of  a  quiet 
night,  the  ancient  stream  moves  steadily 
along  its  chosen  way  to  the  sea. 

All  the  powers  on  earth  combined 
cannot  stop  it.  They  might  dam  it 
to  the  top  of  its  towering  walls,  lead  it 
this  way  or  that — if  they  can— but  in 
a  short  time  and  within  a  few  miles  it 
will  have  resumed  its  old  ways  and  be 
again  the  wilful  mistress  of  the  valley 
it  has  ruled  eons  of  ages  before  man  dis- 
covered it,  and  continue  to  be — as  al- 
ways— the  All-Powerful  River. 

A  typical  Northern  town  of  the  old 
river  days  is  Prairie  du  Chien,  a  place 
of  importance  once  as  the  western  ter- 
minus of  a  pioneer  road  which  has  since 
grown  into  a  colossus  reaching  to  the 
Pacific  coast.  A  great  future  was  pre- 
dicted for  it.  Men  still  in  active  life 
will  tell  you  of  the  time  when  wheat 
was  hauled  by  wagon-teams  for  as  much 


as  eighty  miles  across  the  Iowa  prairies, 
to  be  transhipped  here  for  a  Lake  port, 
and  thence  to  the  seaboard  and  a  Euro- 
pean market. 

This  meant  a  big  river  traffic  up  and 
down,  and  an  immense  brick  warehouse 
and  elevator,  now  strangely  dispropor- 
tionate to  their  surroundings,  stand  in 
mute  testimony  of  a  prosperity  that 
was  fleeting.  And  the  cargo  doors,  tier 
upon  tier,  like  the  gun-ports  of  an  old 
three-decker,  suggest  a  picture  of  smok- 
ing steamers,  heavy-laden,  crowded  there 
and  pouring  into  those  yawning  portals 
the  rich  treasure  trove  of  the  opening 
west.  The  elevator,  cracked  and  shored 
up,  stands  stark  and  empty,  while  the 
warehouse  serves  as  a  sort  of  garret  to 
a  great  railway  system  which  stores 
strayed  freight  there  to  await  a  periodi- 
cal auction. 

These  buildings,  with  a  hotel  equally 
substantial  and  proportionately  as  large, 
stand  apart  from  the  town  itself,  which 
lies  farther  inland.  It  is  a  pretty  place, 
proud  of  its  Marquette  Park  and  the 
monument  to  the  Discoverer  who  en- 


THE  QUAINT  OLD  FARM  BUILDINGS  OF  ST.  DONATAS — AN  EARLY  FRENCH  SETTLEMENT 


BEYOND  THE  RIVER  LAY  THE  WEST — AN  INCIDENT  OF  PIONEER  DAYS 


tered  the  Mississippi  just  below  here 
from  the  Wisconsin.  There  are  the 
usual  squares  of  business  " blocks''  on 
Main  Street,  flanked  by  tree-shaded 
avenues  lined  with  comfortable  dwell- 
ings, and,  like  all  cities  of  the  valley,  it 
aspires  to  being  "a  manufacturing  cen- 
ter." Riverward,  however,  one  sees 
signs  of  a  once  great  but  fleeting  pros- 
perity in  the  size  and  character  of  the 
business  houses.  For  here  the  buildings 
are  larger  and  built  of  brick  and  stone 
and  iron.  Some  four  stories  high  and 
— empty!  The  drawn  shades  hanging 
in  shreds  but  half  conceal  stores  long 
surrendered  to  the  rats,  and  on  those 
blue  and  fly-blown  pieces  of  rotting 
linen  there  is  something  pathetic  in  the 
once  brave  gilt  legend,  now  scarce  dis- 
cernible, "Latest  Yankee  Notions." 

But  about  the  Dousman  House,  di- 
rectly opposite  the  steamer-landing, 
there  still  clings  some  of  the  glory  of 


days  that  have  flown,  and  one  can 
easily  believe  its  boast  of  having  at  one 
time  been  the  leading  hotel  in  the  North- 
west. There  is  a  good  deal  of  quiet 
dignity  in  the  gray  old  brick  structure 
with  its  porticoed  front  and  the  early- 
Victorian  glass  cupola  on  the  square 
dormered  roof.  What  gay  parties  have 
climbed  the  bank  and  ascended  those 
tin-patched  stairs  with  their  huge  balus- 
trades, now  disappearing  in  dry-rot! 
What  fashion  has  graced  the  lobby,  vast 
as  a  ball-room,  whose  lofty  stuccoed 
ceiling  is  now  criss-crossed  with  wires 
unthought  of  when  the  building  grew! 
What  political  big-wigs  and  real  per- 
sonages have  signed  their  names  at  the 
elaborate  walnut  desk  that  flares  out  of 
its  ample  alcove  into  the  great  room  be- 
neath an  arch  that  spans  it  with  a 
flourish ! 

There  is  still  much  cheer  in  the  place 
and  a  promise  of  winter  comfort  in  the 


A  MISSISSIPPI  PEARL-FISHER 


huge  wood-burner  that  stands  in  the 
middle  of  the  floor,  a  promise  of  good 
store  in  the  great  fuel-box  in  the  cor- 
ner, while  a  broad  staircase  with  flam- 
boyant walnut  balustrades  touched  with 
dim  gilt  and  sweeping  boldly  into  the 
room  seems  to  invite  you  to  stay  over- 
night and  sleep  in  a  room  equipped  with 
walnut  washstand,  bell-pull,  and  inside 
"blinds." 

And  when  the  steamer's  bell  tolls 
"all  aboard, "  and  the  passengers  are 
hurriedly  picking  up  their  traps  in  the 
arched  doorway,  one  gets  beyond  the 
darkly  silhouetted  figures  a  lunette  sug- 
gesting other  days.  At  such  a  time  one 
can  easily  imagine  the  grouped  figures 
to  be  of  another  generation,  when  crino- 
line blocked  that  capacious  entrance, 
and  swaggering  beaus  swept  out  with 
ladies  fair,  followed  by  dusky  servants 
with  Saratogas  and  portmanteaus  on 
brawny  shoulders,  en  route  for  their 
Southern  home. 

As  we  back  away  from  the  old  cara- 
vansary and  swing  around  to  continue 


our  journey,  the  assembled  populace 
straggles  townward  in  scattered  groups 
down  the  dim  road,  the  lights  on  the 
porch  snap  out,  and,  wrapped  in  the 
gathering  dusk,  the  old  place  goes  back 
to  its  humble  role  of  being  "The  Trav- 
eling-Man's Home,"  perhaps  to  dream 
of  other  days  when  steamboat  time 
meant  a  swarm  of  planters  from  the 
rich  South,  and  of  happy  couples  who 
spent  a  joyous  honeymoon  under  its 
hospitable  roof,  and  of  delicate  hands 
long  cold  in  death,  which  have  written 
their  names  in  its  rat-gnawed  records 
in  the  dusty  garret. 

"Good  morning,"  said  I,  and  "Morn- 
in'"  said  he,  as  I  ranged  alongside  in  a 
borrowed  skiff*  and  inquired  of  the  pearl- 
fisher  if  he  were  getting  any  clams. 
He  was  of  large  build,  smooth-shaven 
and  ruddy,  deep-voiced,  and  of  the  age 
which  he  himself  described  as  "gittin' 
along  in  years."  Facing  aft  in  the  stern 
of  his  power-skiff,  he  was  drifting  slowly 
down-stream.    With  the  lines  of  a  sort 


THE  WATERWAY  TO  DIXIE 


195 


of  canvas  drogue  called  a  "mule"  in 
his  hands  he  controlled  the  slow  move- 
ment of  his  craft  as  it  dragged  over  the 
river-bed  a  long  iron  bar,  to  which  were 
attached  the  many  lines  and  leads  for 
the  clams  to  foolishly  close  upon. 

"No,"  he  said;  "don't  expect  much 
this  time  o'  year.  Ain't  any  market, 
anyhow,  on  account  of  this  pesky  war. 
Looks  as  though  that  Dutch  Kaiser  '11 
get  what  he's  been  looking  for,  don't 
it?    Any  news  this  mornin'?" 

But  I  did  not  come  to  discuss  world- 
politics,  and  steered  the  conversation 
to  other  channels. 

"Oh  yes,  get  some  good  ones  some- 
times, but  they're  mostly  'slugs'  or 
'dog's  teeth.'  Get  a  quarter  apiece  for 
'em.  Use  'em  in  this  here  new-fangled 
jewelry.  But  it's  the  shells  we  depend 
on  most.  Brought  twenty  dollars  a 
ton  regular  till  the  war  broke  out.  They 
send  them  to  Germany  for  imitation 
mother-o'-pearl  in  inlay  work. 

"I  got  a  dandy  pearl  once — was  new 
at  the  game  and  lucky.  It  was  as  big 
as  a  pea,  round  as  a  shot,  and  pure  white 
'ceptin*  on  one  side,  where  there  was  a 
tinge  of  pink  like  you  see  on  the  clouds 
at  sunup.    It  weighed  five  grains  and 


was  considered  the  best  stone  ever 
taken  out  of  the  river  around  here. 

"I  didn't  keep  it  long — worse  luck. 
There  was  a  Chicago  chap  up  at  the 
hotel  who  heard  about  it,  and  soon  as  he 
saw  it  he  offered  me  five  hundred  dollars 
for  it.  I  was  green  then,  as  I  say,  and 
I  let  him  have  it,  sayin'  I'd  leave  it  to 
his  honesty  that  it  wasn't  worth  any 
more.  Guess  he  felt  kinder  mean  about 
it  afterward,  as  the  next  time  he  came 
he  brought  me  a  gold  watch.  Could 
afford  it,  I  suppose,  on  my  money." 

We  were  drifting  slowly  toward  a 
wing-dam  and  had  to  shift,,  a  bit  farther 
out  in  the  stream,  when  a  launch  bore 
down  and,  swinging  in  a  sweeping  circle, 
came  close,  while  a  pleasant  -  faced, 
youngish  man  sang  out,  "Hello,  Ben!" 
and  aimed  a  question  at  me. 

It  was  even  as  I  thought;  so,  passing 
him  my  painter,  I  got  my  anchor, 
climbed  aboard,  and  bade  farewell  to 
my  new  acquaintance,  Ben  Williams. 
I  hope  the  god  of  chance  will  send  him 
another  gem  as  rare  as  the  one  he  lost, 
and  a  buyer  rich  as  Croesus  and  gener- 
ous as  the  noonday  sun. 

Tucked  in  among  the  Iowa  hills  near 
here,  a  few  miles  back  of  Bellevue,  is 


WHEN  THE  CIRCUS  COMES  TO  HANNIBAL 


196 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


one  of  the  quaintest  settlements  in 
America,  called  St.  Donatas.  This  little 
French  -  Luxembourg  farming  commu- 
nity, with  its  clustered  row  of  adjoining 
stone  dwellings  facing  the  road,  its  tuft- 
ed, delicate  poplars  so  suggestive  of  the 
Seine  fringing  the  fields,  its  tiny  church 
at  the  foot  and  the  shrine  on  top  of  the 
little  mountain  against  the  sky,  seems 
like  a  bit  of  Europe  transplanted  to  a 
spot  where  least  expected.  And  it  ap- 
pears to  have  been  there  for  centuries. 

From  Burlington  I  made  a  flying 
trip  overland  to  catch  the  St.  Louis 
packet,  giving  up  a  pleasant  trip  in  the 
little  Keokuk  for  a  stuffy  railroad  jour- 
ney.   It  was  a  wild-goose  chase. 

In  course  of  time  I  reached  Hannibal, 
and  in  company  with  "Tom  Allen's 
Great  Shows"  entered  the  boyhood 
home  of  Mark  Twain,  while  a  full- 


powered  calliope  in  charge  of  a  muscular 
operator  broke  the  Sabbath  stillness 
and  surrounding  atmosphere  in  modestly 
announcing  our  approach. 

Almost  the  only  thing  interesting 
about  the  place  is  how  it  could  have 
produced  a  Mark  Twain.  The  town 
itself  seems  to  have  been  surprised, 
and  has  named  almost  everything  in 
sight  after  him,  including  a  good  hotel, 
which  displays  in  its  writing-room  a 
placard  reading,  "Boys — when  have 
you  written  Mother?" 

Dreaming  that  the  white-clad  sage 
of  the  Mississippi  ran  the  place  and  was 
rapping  at  the  door,  I  woke  to  discover 
that  it  was  a  Senegambian  to  announce 
that  the  3:55  Iron  Mountain  Express 
for  St.  Louis  was  reported  on  time  and 
would  leave  in  thirty-five, minutes. 

I  caught  it. 


Dedication 

BY  DANA  BURNET 

A LITTLE  while  to  pass  within  the  throng, 
To  dream,  to  toil,  to  weep,  to  love,  to  die — ■ 
And  then  the  silence,  and  the  closing  Song, 
And  no  more  of  the  riddle  that  was  I ! 

My  Book  shall  stand  upon  the  quiet  shelf 

Like  some  bright  banner  that  the  fates  have  furled. 

My  dust,  that  was  the  symbol  of  my  Self, 
Shall  scatter  to  the  distance  of  the  world. 

Yet  who  in  this  brief  passing  finds  despair 
Denies  the  certain  God  within  his  breast. 

Life  has  a  crown  for  every  man  to  wear, 

Though  'tis  a  thing  of  moments  at  the  best. 

A  thing  of  moments,  scattered  preciously 
Across  the  level  causeway  of  the  years! 

And  yet  what  sudden  Light  may  I  not  see? 
What  Vision  making  glory  of  my  tears? 

Mayhap  if  I  sing  bravely,  true,  and  well, 
My  song  shall  strike  God's  universal  rhyme, 

And  like  the  echoes  of  a  sweet,  stilled  bell 
Live  in  the  heart  of  heaven  after  Time. 


The  Show-down 


BY  II OL WORTHY  HALL 


g3^^^#2|^|E  was  thirty-two,  pleas- 
^"pS  ant  and  impressive  to 
look  at,  and  blessed 
with  as  much  intelli- 
gence as  is  necessary  to 
earn  eight  or  ten  thou- 
sand a  year  by  selling 
clever  lithographing  for  a  New  York 
corporation.  He  had  transient  friends  in 
every  city  east  of  St.  Louis;  he  called  a 
number  of  "merchant  princes"  by  their 
first  names;  and  in  his  time  he  had 
bought  cigars  for  a  full  regiment  of  cap- 
tains of  industry.  It  follows  that  he 
enjoyed  an  unlimited  expense  account, 
and  justified  it  by  his  welcome  habit  of 
bringing  home  the  orders.  So,  when  his 
sales-manager  received  an  inquiry  from 
the  Iroquois  Biscuit  Company,  mention- 
ing half  a  million  six-color  catalogues, 
he  naturally  selected  Kendall  to  run  up 
the  state  for  a  solicitation  on  the  ground; 
and  because  the  health  and  humor  of 
good  salesmen  is  almost  as  tangible  an 
asset  as  bankable  funds,  he  told  him  to 
stop  over  at  Buffalo  on  the  way,  and 
be  sure  to  get  a  good  night's  sleep. 

Accordingly,  Kendall  stopped  at  Buf- 
falo; and  when  the  hotel  clerk  saw  him 
he  ran  a  pen  through  a  reservation  just 
made  by  telegraph  from  the  West,  and 
assigned  him  the  best  room  in  the  house. 
The  porter  who  carried  the  bags  took  a 
grin  and  a  dime  as  cheerfully  as  a  quar- 
ter from  a  stranger;  and  the  head  waiter 
respectfully  declined  to  accept  a  de- 
mand for  fried  oysters,  and  told  why. 
He  said  that  they  weren't  exactly  up 
to  Mr.  Kendall's  standard,  and  sug- 
gested a  steak.  Later  the  billiard-room 
marker  greeted  Kendall  with  great  cor- 
diality, rang  the  bell  himself,  and  even 
as  the  victor  in  a  little  session  at  three- 
cushions  refused  to  allow  his  friend  to 
sign  the  check.  This  wasn't  simply  be- 
cause it  was  Buffalo.  The  same  pro- 
cedure would  apply  anywhere  on  the 
main  line,  proving  that  Kendall  was  a 
good  salesman. 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782.-25 


Having  finished  his  billiards,  Kendall 
went  out  to  the  cafe,  where  he  found 
a  young  man,  in  the  correct  dress  for 
young  men,  discoursing  fluently  upon 
the  futility  of  human  endeavor.  And  as 
Kendall  seated  himself  at  a  small  table 
and  prepared  to  profit  from  the  free 
lecture,  the  young  man  paused,  hesi- 
tated, and  then  came  smilingly  over  to 
him,  holding  out  his  hand. 

"Hello!"  he  said.  "iW-lo!  I'm  Bobby 
Huntington.    Who  are  you?" 

Kendall  laughed.  He,  too,  he  remem- 
bered, had  once  been  young  and  irre- 
sponsible. 

"I'm  only  a  spectator,"  he  admitted, 
"and  an  admirer  of  logic." 

Within  the  quarter-hour  they  were 
friends;  or  at  least  Huntington  was. 
Beginning  with  a  summary  of  the  defi- 
ciencies in  his  education,  he  passed  on 
to  the  nature  of  society  in  the  small 
town,  to  the  essentials  of  heroism,  and  to 
the  qualities  which,  if  he  were  ever  mar- 
ried, he  should  require  in  his  wife.  If 
he  should  sometime  condescend  to  marry 
one  of  the  sex,  he  should  choose  a  rather 
plump  one,  fond  of  dancing  and  light 
wines,  and  not  a  suffragist.  There  was 
no  chance  of  his  marrying  the  wrong 
girl;  ...  he  was  invariably  most  diplo- 
matic in  his  correspondence.  And  that 
reminded  him — wasn't  Mr.  Kendall  go- 
ing to  New  York?  To-morrow  night? 
Excellent!  Would  he  be  kind  enough  to 
mail  a  letter  in  New  York?  Many 
thanks,  and  no  hurry  at  all. 

They  were  friends,  or  at  least  Hun- 
tington was,  for  another  quarter-hour  be- 
fore Kendall  could  escape  him;  and  the 
opportunity  came  with  the  arrival  of  a 
big,  boyish,  clean-skinned  man  in  fre- 
quently-worn cheviot.  At  sight  of  this 
man  Mr.  Huntington  leaped  from  his 
chair  and  advanced. 

"Take  him;  he's  yours,"  said  Ken- 
dall, generously.  "He's  doing  thirty 
minutes  of  refined  monologue,  and  the 
second  show  is  about  to  commence." 


198 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Mr.  Huntington  turned  to  the  new- 
comer. "I  was  bored  !"  he  said.  "I 
was  bored,  .  .  .  and  I  talked  to  him,  and 
now  he  thinks —  Oh,  what  do  /  care 
what  he  thinks!  You  sit  down  and 
talk  to  me!" 

On  his  way  up-stairs  Kendall  dropped 
into  the  billiard-room  to  ask  the  marker 
what  manner  of  kindergarten  the  hotel 
had  adopted  as  a  side-line. 

" Huntington?  He's  a  rare  bird,  isn't 
he?" 

"He  isn't  the  best  advertisement  in 
the  world,  Pa." 

"Oh,  he  doesn't  have  a  room  here," 
said  the  marker,  contemptuously.  "He 
just  comes  in  to  use  the  stationery.  I'd 
shoot  you  another  game  if  I  wasn't  so 
busy — " 

"That's  all  right,  Pa.  Happen  to 
know  when  the  Iroquois  trains  run?  The 
clerk  says  they've  shifted  the  schedule." 

"Somebody  asked  me  that  once  be- 
fore to-night.   It  changed  yesterday." 

"Nobody  from  Continental  Litho, 
was  it  ?" 

"No,  I  don't  recollect  who  it  was,  .  .  . 
but  the  first  train  is  six-forty-seven — 
gets  there  about  noon.  And  the  next  is 
eight-forty.    Here's  a  folder." 

"Fine!"  said  Kendall,  appreciatively. 
"Get  up  for  a  six-forty-seven?  I'll  be 
ashamed  to  look  my  watch  in  the  face! 
Well,  there's  one  consolation,  Pa.  .  .  . 
I'll  sell  ten  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
printing  to-morrow,  if  I  ever  get  there." 

"In  Iroquois?    Go  on!" 

"Bet  you  the  cigars." 

The  marker  shook  his  head. 

"Gosh!"  he  said.  "I  didn't  know 
there  was  that  much  money  in  the 
whole  town.  Hello!  Here's  the  Duke 
again!  Maybe  you  can  get  a  game  with 
him." 

Young  Mr.  Huntington,  cherubic  but 
dim  of  eye,  was  leaning  comfortably 
against  the  frame  of  the  nearest  door. 

"  Sorry,"  he  alleged.  "I  can't  afford  it." 

"Oh,  come  on.  We'll  play  for  the 
check  and  the  smokes." 

"Sorry.  The  only  indoor  sport  I  can 
stand  to-night  is  conversation." 

"Then,"  said  Kendall,  "you'll  have  to 
shoot  me  a  game,  Pa." 

They  played  until  midnight;  so  that 
it  wasn't  until  he  was  in  his  room  that 
Kendall   read   the   folder  thoroughly. 


Iroquois,  he  found,  was  a  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  distant,  and  the  schedule 
called  for  five  hours  each  way. 

"That,"  said  Kendall  to  himself,  as 
he  instructed  the  office  to  call  him  in 
season  for  the  eight-forty,  "is  what  we 
call  service  plus!" 

So  he  got  out  the  dummy  and  estimate 
he  had  brought  along,  and  raised  the 
price  five  per  cent. 

The  time  given  herein  [stated  the  folder] 
shows  when  trains  may  be  expected  to  arrive 
and  depart,  but  it  is  not  guaranteed,  nor  does 
this  company  assume  any  responsibility 
therefor. 

Kendall  called  the  attention  of  the 
conductor  to  this  paragraph. 

"What  I  want  to  know,"  he  said,  "is, 
if  anybody  expects  this  train  to  arrive 
anywhere?  It  seems  to  spend  all  its 
time  departing.  Of  course  I  know  the 
tracks  are  slippery  when  it  rains,  but — " 

"We're  pulling  in  now,"  apologized 
the  conductor.  "We're  only  an  hour 
late." 

"Pulling  in  where?" 
Iroquois. 

"I  wouldn't  have  believed  it,"  said 
Kendall,  staring  at  the  dripping  land- 
scape. "I  thought  it  was  Venice. 
What's  the  best  hotel?" 

"The  best?  I  should  say  the  Union 
House." 

Kendall  went  to  the  Union  House  in 
the  hack.  He  found  it  a  structure  built 
when  the  guests  liked  to  look  at  engrav- 
ings of  Niagara  Falls,  and  considered 
white  marble  a  very  tasty  material  for 
the  surface  portions  of  ordinary  furni- 
ture. But  there  was  a  dining-room,  and 
a  special  dispensation  for  cash  customers 
even  at  three  in  the  afternoon;  and 
there  was  a  waitress  wearing  a  coifTure 
which  would  have  been  fashionable  on 
Fifth  Avenue — in  1906;  and  there 
was  roast -beef  and  Irish  stew  and 
ham  and  eggs  (choice  of  one).  After- 
ward Kendall  telephoned  to  the  biscuit 
company,  and  learned  that  the  presi- 
dent would  see  him  immediately. 

The  rain  had  stopped;  the  sun  was 
trying  to  shine;  and  Kendall  needed  ex- 
ercise. The  clerk  said  it  was  about  a 
mile.  Ten  minutes  later  a  passer-by 
opined  that  it  was  about  a  mile.  "But 
now,"  he  said,  grimly,  to  himself,  as  he 


DAZEDLY  HE  SAT  DOWN,  AND  THE  PRESIDENT  SMILED  UNDERSTANDINGLY 


lifted  his  feet  out  of  the  water  to  put 
them  down  in  the  mud,  "I'm  going  to 
sell  these  people."  And  mentally  he  in- 
creased his  prices  by  five  per  cent. 

He  was  little  heartened  by  his  impres- 
sion of  the  Iroquois  Biscuit  Company. 
It  wasn't  a  factory;  it  was  more  like  a 
ruin — a  vast,  shambling  building,  fifty 
yards  from  the  road  and  ten  feet  above 
it,  surrounded  by  unkempt  trees,  and 
set  off  by  the  terraced  and  weed-grown 
conceptions  of  an  inefficient  landscape 
surgeon.  The  entrance  was  by  way  of 
a  narrow,  jig-saw  stoop,  with  galvanized 
iron  crenelations  along  the  ridge;  and 
twin  lions  of  terra-cotta  panted  amiably 
at  each  other  from  the  foot  of  the  steps. 
Behind,  a  swale  of  a  thousand  acres  lay 
steaming  peaceably;  and  a  spur  track 
with  a  lonely  freight-car  on  it  came 
creeping  out  of  the  marshes  to  take  the 
company  by  surprise  in  the  rear. 


Inside,  the  building  was  cold  and  de- 
pressing. There  was  a  sort  of  lobby, 
thrust  like  a  poor  relation  into  the  cold- 
est and  dimmest  corner,  and  here,  at  an 
ancient  desk,  Kendall  perceived  a  small 
girl  chewing  gum  and  checking  invoices. 
She  took  his  message,  and  giggled,  and 
departed,  leaving  him  to  gather  what 
inspiration  he  could  from  the  clatter  of 
typewriters  and  of  sharp  voices  floating 
over  the  ceiled  partitions;  and  from  the 
dull  rumbling  of  machines  overhead. 

Incontinently,  he  sneezed.  "Now" 
he  said  to  himself,  ''I've  got  a  cold!" 

The  small  girl  reappeared. 

"Go  right  up-stairs,"  she  said.  "First 
door  to  the  right.  Walk  right  in."  And 
she  giggled  intelligently. 

Kendall  went  up  a  bare,  disconsolate 
chute,  rapped  at  a  door  with  his  knuckles, 
and  turned  the  knob.  Before  him  a  tiny 
office  sprang  into  perspective:   a  most 


200 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


unbusiness-like  little  office,  with  a  rag 
rug  on  the  floor,  dimity  curtains  at  the 
windows,  and  a  chintz-covered  sofa  be- 
tween them;  geraniums  in  red  pots  along 
the  sill;  a  mahogany  flat-top  desk 
with  nothing  on  it,  not  even  dust;  and 
to  one  side  a  little  mahogany  table,  at 
which  sat  a  woman  of  perhaps  forty, 
knitting. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said.  "I 
was  looking  for  the  president — " 

"I'm  the  president,"  said  the  woman, 
smiling.  "Won't  you  sit  down?"  Her 
tone  was  rather  more  hospitable  than 
executive;  and,  too,  she  kept  on  knitting. 
She  made  Kendall  feel  both  intrusive 
and  lazy.  And  she  was  a  wonderfully 
sweet-faced  woman. 

Dazedly  he  sat  down,  and  the  presi- 
dent smiled  understandingly. 

"A  good  many  people  are  astonished," 
she  said.  "But  I've  been  here  for  two 
years  now.  Ever  since  Dr.  Roberts 
died."  She  understood  the  expression  he 
was  wearing,  and  smiled  again.  "Peo- 
ple are  astonished  at  my  office,  too.  .  .  . 
But  why,  when  I  spend  two-thirds  of  my 
waking  hours  here,  should  it  be  any  less 
livable  than  a  room  in  my  own  house?" 

"It's  very  charming,"  he  murmured. 
"And  .  .  .  are  you  the  manager  of  the 
company  —  "  he  hesitated.  "Is  it 
Mrs.  Roberts?" 

She  inclined  her  head,  graciously. 
"Mrs.  Roberts.  Yes,  I'm  the  titular 
head,  .  .  .  and  I  supervise  nearly  every- 
thing. Of  course  I  have  competent  as- 
sistants and  department  heads — I  don't 
pretend  to  be  omniscient — " 

"Would  you  naturally  talk  about 
printing?" 

"Not  naturally,"  said  the  president 
with  a  wry  little  smile.  "It's  a  devel- 
oped taste.  And  the  absolutely  final 
word  I  always  leave  to  my  treasurer,  Mr. 
Gaylord;  but  I'm  interested." 

"I  came  up  here,"  he  told  her,  "on 
account  of  an  inquiry  sent  to  my  firm. 
It  mentioned  a  very  large  number  of 
catalogues  in  several  colors,  and  so  I 
came  prepared  to  plan  with  you,  and 
show  you  what  we  can  do,  and  agree  on 
prices,  and  ...  in  the  first  place,  I 
want  to  be  constructive.  I  want  our 
service  department  to  work  for  you.  I 
want  not  simply  to  manufacture  a  lot 
of  booklets,  but  to  be  an  actual  link  in 


your  campaign.  And  so  before  we  go 
very  deeply  into  the  mechanical  part  of 
it  I'd  like  to  know  what  the  catalogues 
are  for.  Who's  to  get  them,  and  under 
what  circumstances?  Are  they  sent 
broadcast,  or  only  to  those  who  ask  for 
them  ?  Are  they  included  in  packages  of 
your  goods,  or  mailed?  What  effect  do 
you  want  to  produce?   What — " 

"Why,  I  want  them  to  help  sell  our 
biscuit  for  us!"  said  the  president,  sur- 
prisedly.  "You  see,  we've  never  adver- 
tised. We're  going  to  advertise  very 
soon,  and  then,  when  people  are  kind 
enough  to  write  to  us  for  catalogues,  we 
must  have  something  attractive  to  send 
them." 

"Attractive,"  he  agreed,  "but  consist- 
ent. It  all  depends  on  the  effect  you're 
aiming  at.  It  might  be  the  best  plan 
for  you  to  let  me  know  the  exact  nature 
of  your  campaign.  It's  just  possible 
that  I  might  be  able  to  make  a  new  sug- 
gestion or  two.  For  instance,  these 
booklets  are  to  be  sent  to  prospective 
customers — consumers,  I  take  it,  and 
not  dealers.  Well,  what  sort  of  peo- 
ple are  they  likely  to  be?  That  is,  will 
their  names  come  from  country  news- 
paper advertising  or  from  literary  maga- 
zines  r 

The  president  regarded  him  earnestly. 

"I  don't  see  what  difference  that 
makes,"  she  puzzled.  "Biscuit  are  bis- 
cuit— eaters  are  eaters.  We've  made 
an  appropriation  of  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars for  advertising,  and  now  we  must 
have  some  good  printed  matter."  Across 
the  swales  a  train  whistled  mournfully. 
Through  the  window  Kendall  could  see 
it  picking  its  way  through  the  miasmatic 
swamps;  and  he  saw,  too,  a  handker- 
chief fluttering  from  a  car  platform. 
The  president  raised  the  window  a  foot, 
and  allowed  her  own  handkerchief  to 
snap  crisply  in  the  freshening  breeze. 
"I  always  wave  to  them,"  she  said, 
apologetically.    "Don't  you?" 

"Usually,"  he  said.  "Here,  let  me 
put  that  down  for  you.  I  was  just 
going  to  ask  if  you  have  an  advertising 
agent." 

"No,"  said  the  president,  putting  her 
knitting  away  in  a  drawer  of  the  table. 
"I  don't  see  the  advantage  in  having 
one,  Mr.  Kendall,  because  I  use  my  own 
judgment.   You  see,  I  won't  let  any  one 


THE  SHOW-DOWN 


201 


share  the  responsibility  of  this  business 
with  me.    If  it's  to  fail — " 

"Fail!"  he  echoed.  "Why,  that  isn't 
the  way  to  talk — " 

"Let  me  explain — then  you  can  judge 
how  important  this  campaign  is.  The 
recipe  for  our  crackers  was  invented  by 
Dr.  Roberts,  primarily  for  a  patient  of 
his;  then  he  decided  to  put  them  on  the 
market.  He  built  this  plant;  he 
financed  it  himself.  It  was  a  one-man 
enterprise.  He  didn't  want  to  involve 
anybody  else.  And  it  was  never  success- 
ful, .  .  .  although  sometimes  it  paid  ex- 
penses. The  doctor  was  hampered  by 
lack  of  capital,  and  then  by  credit,  .  .  . 
and  finally,  just  when  it  seemed  as 
though  the  road  were  clear,  he  died,  .  .  . 
and  I'm  trying  to  realize  his  dream  for 
him — a  national  product  made  in  Iro- 
quois. I  said  he  was  hampered  by  lack 
of  capital.  .  .  .  I  had  some  money  which 
he  wouldn't  touch,  and  I  put  that  in. 
We've  doubled  our  sales,  but  the  over- 
head is  greater.  And  competition  is 
keen,  you  know.  So  we're  trying  out 
this  advertising  as  very  nearly  the  last 
resort;  and  obviously  the  catalogues, 
the  circulars,  the  advertisements  them- 
selves, will  have  to  be  very  convincing. 
If  we  make  any  arrangement  with 
you,  it  will  have  to  be  for  the  best  pos- 
sible work,  Mr.  Kendall,  .  .  .  and  at  the 
very  lowest  price."  She  paused,  and 
caught  her  breath.  "I'll  put  the  last 
atom  of  my  energy  into  this  business," 
she  said,  "and,  if  it's  necessary,  my  last 
cent,  but  for  the  doctor's  sake,  if  for 
nothing  else,  it  must  go." 

"You've  taken  a  big  contract,  Mrs. 
Roberts." 

"You  mean  for  a  woman,  don't  you? 
It  wouldn't  seem  very  big  for  a  man." 

"Do  you  really  mean  that  this  one 
splurge  in  advertising  is  your  final  word, 
Mrs.  Roberts?" 

She  smiled  ruefully. 
"Last  year,"  she  told  him,  "we  came 
out  exactly  even.  This  year  we're  falling 
off.  The  money  we'll  spend  for  adver- 
tising is  my  own  money — it's  all  there 
is.  But  I'm  absolutely  confident!  I'm 
confident  in  our  biscuit,  and  I'm  confi- 
dent in  my  advisers.  And  I'm  confident 
in  good  printing.  Unfortunately,  I  don't 
know  much  about  it.  So  for  the  details 
you'll  have  to  see  Mr.  Gaylord,  our 


treasurer.  I  trust  him  implicitly.  It 
would  simply  be  a  waste  of  time  for  you 
to  show  me  your  samples — and  Mr.  Gay- 
lord  is  in  New  York.  He'll  be  back  to- 
morrow, if  you  can  wait." 
"In  New  York?" 

"Yes.  He  went  down  to  superintend 
the  opening  of  our  New  York  office. 
My  nephew  will  be  in  charge  of  it.  I'm 
very  fortunate  in  having  two  men  to 
depend  on  in  these  emergencies." 

"And  he'll  be  back  to-morrow?" 

"Quite  early.  I  hope  it's  worth  your 
while  to  stay." 

To  himself  he  said  that  he  intended  to 
get  this  order  if  it  took  a  month;  to  the 
president  he  intimated  that  his  time  was 
as  nothing.  And  so,  after  a  few  more 
sentences,  he  accepted  her  eager  invita- 
tion to  inspect  the  factory. 

When  he  left  it,  he  was  troubled;  and 
his  perplexity  wasn't  quieted  by  the  fact 
that  a  fine  mist,  singularly  dank  and 
penetrating,  was  beginning  to  creep  in 
from  the  marshes.  On  his  walk  to  the 
Union  House  he  reflected  that  rarely  had 
he  seen  such  a  splendid  woman  so  enthu- 
siastic over  so  unpromising  a  situation. 
He  decided  that  she  must  have  money; 
and  that  it  was  none  of  his  concern  how 
she  spent  it. 

"Well,"  he  said  to  the  hotel  clerk, 
"I've  got  to  stay  with  you.  What  is 
there  to  do  in  this  town?  I  don't  mean 
when  it's  normal  and  lively — I  mean 
when  it's  raining." 

"Not  much,"  conceded  the  clerk,  fin- 
gering his  scarf-pin,  which,  if  genuine, 
would  have  been  worth  three  Union 
Houses.  "There's  not  much  doing  this 
time  of  year. 

"Any  old  thing.    Moving  pictures?" 

"Yes;  but  they  only  run  on  Monday, 
Wednesday,  and  Friday." 

"Where's  the  news-stand?"  he  de- 
manded, brusquely. 

"Three  blocks  north." 

"For  the  love  of  Mike!"  exploded 
Kendall.  "I  can't  go  out  in  this  rain 
again.  It's  a  regular  cloud-burst.  You 
can  send  a  boy,  can't#you?" 

"He's  sick,"  said  the  clerk,  shooting 
his  cufTs.    "I'd  go  myself,  but  I  can't." 

"Well,  you  can  call  a  hack,  or  a  truck, 
or  something,  can't  you?" 

The  clerk  wound  up  the  local  tele- 
phone, and  spoke  languidly: 


202 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


" Hello,  Aggie!  .  .  .  Yes,  dear.  .  .  . 
You're  feeling  fine  to-day;  how  d'you 
look?  .  .  .  Any  news?  .  .  .  No?  .  .  . 
Oh,  I'm  able  to  sit  up  for  a  little  nourish- 
ment. .  .  .  Yes,  one  feller  from  town. 
.  .  .  Guess  he  likes  our  cooking;  he's 
going  to  stay.  .  .  .  Say,  call  up  the 
stable,  will  you?  I  want  a  rig.  .  .  . 
Sure,  I  want  a  covered  rig!  What  d'you 
think  he  is,  a  trout?  .  .  .  A' right,  Aggie. 
.  .  .  A'  right  Goo'-by!" 

He  hung  up  the  receiver,  grinned  vic- 
toriously, and  said,  "  Forty  minutes." 

But  the  livery  also  failed  to  guarantee 
its  schedule.  It  was  an  hour  before  Ken- 
dall buttoned  his  coat,  turned  up  his 
collar,  and  fled  through  the  downpour 
from  the  curtained  surrey  to  the  haven 
of  the  leading — and  only — stationer  in 
Iroquois.  The  stationer  was  both  sym- 
pathetic and  second-sighted. 

"You  don't  want  no  light  fiction,"  he 
declared.  "Oh,  I  c'n  tell  all  right.  I 
c'n  tell  by  your  looks.  I  c'n  tell  any- 
body's looks.  Half  the  time  I  c'n  tell 
what  folks  want  when  they  don't  know. 
Now  you  like  heavy  stuff.  .  .  .  Lamb's 
Essays  from  Shakespeare  .  .  .  Here's 
a  book  you'd  like.  It's  on  the  power 
of  the  will!"  He  selected  a  volume  from 
the  shelf  of  plugs,  and  spun  it  across  the 
counter.  "You're  a  drummer,"  he  said. 
"You  need  this.  Listen!  What  makes 
the  lion  cringe  before  the  trainer?  What 
makes  the  criminal  dodge  the  cop?" 

"An  automatic  seven-shooter — " 

"No!  The  power  of  the  will!  This 
book  teaches  you  how  to  be  master  of 
yourself — how  to  get  a  resistless  will — 
how  to  concentrate — how  to  throw  off 
troubles  like  a  duck  throws  water  off  its 
back — how  to  bend  men  to  your  purpose 
— how  to  remember  everything  and  any- 
thing. The  price — "  He  examined 
CVX  on  the  inside  cover.  "Two-fifty, 
net.  Seeing  's  it's  you,  I'll  say  two 
dollars,  net.  Wrap  it  up  with  the 
magazines  ?" 

"Hello!"  said  Kendall.  "Here's  a 
chapter  on  salesmanship!  Ever  read 
this  yourself?   Or  are  you  an  eclectic?" 

"I'm  a  Progressive,"  said  the  sta- 
tioner, cautiously,  "and  a  Methodist, 
and  an  Elk." 

"It's  funny,"  pondered  Kendall,  "but 
I've  been  selling  things  all  my  life,  and 
I  never  read  how  to  do  it.  If  I  buy  this, 
you'll  guarantee  it,  of  course?" 


"Er  .  .  .  how's  that?" 

"You'll  stand  back  of  the  warranty?" 

"I  act  only  as  agent,"  said  the  sta- 
tioner, quickly.  "But — well,  seeing 
's  it's  you,  I'll  say  yes.  If  you  don't 
get  your  money's  worth  out  of  it,  bring 
it  back.  Anyway,  you'll  find  it  deep- — 
and  that's  what  you  asked  for." 

Kendall  bought  it;  bought  clean  linen 
at  the  best — and  only — haberdasher's; 
said  "Home,  James!"  to  the  ruminating 
youth  who  drove  the  surrey;  added,  on 
perceiving  the  charioteer's  blank  uncer- 
tainty, "Let  go  their  heads!"  and  went 
back  to  the  Union  House,  where  he  reg- 
istered, bargained  for  a  room,  and 
weighed  its  disadvantages  against  those 
of  the  lobby.  There  was  a  fireplace  in 
the  lobby.  Kendall  risked  all  on  a  single 
cast,  and  mentioned  a  fire. 

The  clerk,  according  to  his  ability, 
was  generous.  He  caused  hickory  to  be 
brought,  and  kindled  a  cheerful  blaze. 

"There!"  he  said.  "I  been  cold  all 
day.  Why  didn't  I  think  of  that  be- 
fore!" 

Yes,  the  clerk  was  generous.  He  went 
away,  and  left  Kendall  with  the  two 
magazines  and  the  book  and  the  fire. 

The  magazines  were  beneath  con- 
tempt; for  although  they  were  literary, 
they  were  badly  printed,  and  it  hurt 
Kendall  to  look  at  them.  So  eventually 
he  came  to  the  book;  and  as  he  sur- 
veyed its  smooth  sides  he  wondered 
dumbly  why  he  had  bought  it. 

At  any  rate,  he  tempted  the  sortes 
Vergiliance.  He  allowed  the  volume  to 
open  where  it  listed,  and  a  maxim  to 
seep  slowly  into  his  innocent  conscience. 

Carry  always  with  you  a  strong  sense  of 
resolution. 

"It's  a  chestnut!"  said  Kendall,  dis- 
gustedly. "I  know  I'll  sell  these  people! 
What's  next?" 

Remember  with  whom  you  come  in  contact. 
Consider  no  one  as  your  superior. 

"Well,"  said  Kendall,  reminiscently, 
"I  don't  exactly  hate  myself,  anyway!" 
He  tried  a  third  time. 

Gaze  steadily  at  an  object  eight  or  ten  feet 
away.  Count  fifty.  Keep  the  mind  wholly  on 
the  thought.  Put  back  of  it  the  mood  of  a  strong 
will.    1  will  I    I  am  forcing  will  into  the  eye  I 

Kendall  laughed  immoderately.  He 


THE  SH< 

put  the  book  down  and  yawned.  He 
picked  it  up  again,  and  re-read  the  in- 
structions.   He  read  further: 

The  soul  in  the  eye  is  -power  to  man.  Prac- 
tise III 

Out  of  sheer  ennui,  he  practised.  He 
focused  on  a  door-knob,  and  exerted  his 
resistless  will  to  the  utmost. 

"Bring  me  a  criminal  and  a  half-por- 
tion of  lions !"  he  requested  of  an  imagi- 
nary servitor. 

He  reduced  the  door-knob  to  pitiable 
subjection;  and  then  he  quailed  the 
bellows,  and  waited  for  the  andirons  to 
cringe. 

"If  this,"  he  said  to  himself,  "is  an 
element  of  salesmanship,  I'd  better  go 
home  and  save  money!" 

At  this  juncture  the  door  opened  and 
a  man  in  an  expensive  raincoat  came  in. 


V-DOWN  203 

He  was  a  big,  healthy,  clean-skinned 
man  with  twinkling  gray  eyes — gray 
eyes  which  covered  Kendall  and  the  fire 
and  the  psychology  in  one  volley. 

"Well,"  said  the  big  man,  shedding 
his  soaked  raincoat  to  the  nearest  mar- 
ble-top and  dropping  his  hat  on  it, 
"this  is  the  best-looking  place  I've  seen 
to-day!"  He  approached  the  fire,  rub- 
bing his  hands.  "Is  this  a  private  con- 
flagration, or  is  it  an  open  game?" 

"Free  to  the  public  on  Tuesdays," 
welcomed  Kendall.  "Unless  I'm  mis- 
taken, I  saw  you  in  Buffalo  last  night. 
Didn't  I?" 

The  man  shook  his  head  imperturb- 
ably.    "I  hardly  think  so." 

"No?    Weren't  you  the  man — " 

"Not  in  Buffalo,"  he  denied. 

Kendall  rubbed  his  eyes.  Then  he 
shrugged  his  shoulders. 


"if  i  didn't  throw  the  order  to  you,  you  wouldn't  make  a  cent,  would  you?  " 


204 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Oh,  very  well.  Sit  in  and  smoke  a 
cigar,  anyway." 

"If  you  don't  mind,"  demurred  the 
stranger,  "I'll  give  you  one — I  notice 
you're  working  on  a  Union  Special." 

"Typographical  error;  should  have 
been  Onion,"  said  Kendall.  "Thank 
you. 

The  big  man  straddled  a  splint-bot- 
tomed chair  close  to  the  fireplace,  and 
took  Kendall's  psychological  treatise 
from  the  floor. 

"Greetings!"  he  exclaimed.  "Where'd 
you  find  this?  I  thought  I  was  the  only 
man  in  the  world  who  ever  read  it." 

"I  got  it  at  a  shop  up  the  line." 

"So?  You'll  enjoy  it!"  He  puffed 
contentedly.  "We  need  more  philoso- 
phy, .  .  .  especially  ethics.  Mighty  few 
of  us  have  any  will  power;  none  at 
all  when  it  comes  to  dealing  with  the 
other  fellow.  Everybody  ought  to  be- 
lieve in  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and 
then  be  his  brother's  keeper." 

"The  part  I  happened  to  be  reading," 
said  Kendall,  "seemed  to  refer  to  the 
cowing  of"  wild  beasts." 

"It's  possible  to  develop  anything," 
declared  the  stranger  —  "magnetism, 
virtue,  or  a  taste  for  George  Eliot.  Why 
not  suggestive  influence  by  the  eye? 
I  take  it  you're  traveling?" 

"Why  in  thunder  is  it,"  protested 
Kendall,  aggrievedly,  "that  everybody 
spots  a  salesman!  I'm  with  the  New 
York  Litho." 

"Oh,  you  are!"  His  voice  wasn't  al- 
together so  cordial;  Kendall  reasoned 
that  it  was  the  natural  result  of  the 
damning  revelation.  He  had  encoun- 
tered that  particular  brand  of  exclusive- 
ness  before.    Stiffly  he  presented  a  card. 

"I  haven't  one  with  me,  but  my 
name's  Gaylord.  I'm  with  a  manufac- 
turing company  up  here.  You  weren't 
calling  on  us  by  any  chance,  were  you?" 

"Gaylord!  Treasurer  of  the — 
Why,  I  came  up  simply  to  see  you!" 

^You  did?" 

"Yes;  I  was  staying  over  to-night  to 
see  you  in  the  morning.  Mrs.  Roberts 
said  you  were  in  New  York." 

"A  probable  explanation  for  your  not 
seeing  me  in  Buffalo — but  you  saw  her, 
did  you?" 

"I  certainly  did,  and — " 

"And  she  referred  you  to  me?" 


"Precisely.  I  came  up  in  answer  to 
a  letter — I  suppose  it  was  a  form- 
letter — " 

"I  don't  know  about  that;  I  hadn't 
anything  to  do  with  it.  All  I  do  is  to  buy 
the  printing.    I  know  your  firm. " 

"I  brought  up  some  stuff  for  you  to 
look  over — " 

"The  first  thing  I  want  to  know  is 
the  terms." 

"Why,  the  usual  terms — three  per 
cent,  ten  days,  thirty  days  net." 

"No,  no,"  said  the  treasurer,  smiling 
quickly.  "Wake  up,  young  man!  Get 
aboard!  I  started  in  the  premium  busi- 
ness on  Canal  Street!  What  we're  talk- 
ing about  is  some  thirty-two-page  cata- 
logues, with  one  eight-page  color-form, 
printed  on  both  sides,  about  five  by 
eight — half  a  million  of  'em,  with  ten- 
sion envelopes,  all  good,  coated  stock; 
tint  block  running  all  the  wa}^  through 
the  text  pages  with  our  trade-mark. 
You  can  get  up  an  estimate  and  then 
we'll  talk  terms." 

Kendall  obligingly  got  out  his  samples 
and  a  scratch-pad,  and  together  the  two 
men  came  to  an  agreement. 

"That's  different  from  what  I'd  ex- 
pected," said  Kendall,  thoughtfully. 
"But  the  price,  delivered  to  your  fac- 
tory, will  be  thirteen  thousand  and  a 
half." 

"Eighteen  and  a  half — " 

"I  said  thirteen  and  a  half." 

"I  heard  you.  Eighteen  and  a  half— 
and  it's  all  right." 

"Say,"  said  Kendall,  apprehensively, 
"this  is  no  place  to  talk  like  that!" 

Mr.  Gaylord  grinned. 

"This  is  the  safest  place  in  Iroquois," 
he  said,  reassuringly.  "Except,  of 
course,  around  meal-times." 

A  dull  flush  spread  slowly  over  Ken- 
dall's cheeks.  "Remember"  he  said  to 
himself,  "with  whom  you  come  in  con- 
tact /" 

"And  the— the  rake-off—" 

"Twenty-five  per  cent,  to  you  and 
seventy-five  to  me;  .  .  .  and,  pardon  me 
for  suggesting  it,  but  as  I  said — or  should 
have  said — I  was  born  on  Nineteenth 
Street,  west  of  Third  Avenue.  Your 
check  with  the  order!" 

Kendall  looked  hard  at  him. 

"It  doesn't  listen  awfully  well — " 

"You  want  fifty-fifty,  I  suppose.  .  .  . 


THE  LAVENDER  SALTS  SOON  REVIVED  THE  PRESIDENT 


It  can't  be  done.  See  here,  man — who's 
taking  the  risk?  Take  it,  or  leave  it. 
Figure  it  this  way:  if  I  didn't  throw 
the  order  to  you,  you  wouldn't  make  a 
cent,  would  you?  I'm  offering  you 
twelve  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  velvet. 
And  if  it  doesn't  take  you  too  long  to 
make  up  your  mind,  you  can  catch  the 
last  train  back  to  Buffalo  to-night." 
"But  .  .  .  your  president — " 
"President!"  snorted  Mr.  Gaylord. 
"Leave  her  out  of  it,  please,  /'m  the 
buyer." 

"But  .  .  .  double-crossing  a  wom- 
an — 

"It  isn't  her  fault  she's  a  woman,  is 
it?  And  you'll  have  to  run  faster  than  I 
think  vou  can  if  you  want  to  catch  that 
train! 

"Hang  the  train !" 

"You  don't  need  to  camp  here  with 

Vol.  CXXXI— No.  782.-26 


the  idea  of  getting  a  better  split  out  of 
me,"  warned  Mr.  Gaylord,  "  because  you 
can't  do  it;  but  if  we  should  do 
any  business  this  next  season,  there 
might  be  a  good  bit  more  coming  your 
way.    You  never  can  tell." 

"  It  wasn't  that.  .  .  .  Frankly,  I  never 
made  my  money  that  way,  Mr.  Gaylord. 
.  .  .  Naturally,  I  want  your  order,  but  I 
want  it  straight — " 

"  I've  told  you  the  only  way  you  get  it. 
You  bill  us  at  eighteen  five,  and  I'll  look 
after  the  readjustment  so  that  your 
house  won't  get  wise,  and — " 

"But  a  woman!  It's  double-crossing 
a  woman!" 

"If,"  said  the  treasurer,  mildly,  "you 
were  thinking  of  tipping  this  off  to  her, 
let  me  tell  you  something.  This  is  only 
a  tank-town,  and  there  isn't  much  ex- 
citement in  the  streets;   but  if  you  let 


206 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


this  idea  once  get  to  Mrs.  Roberts,  I'll 
promise  to  hand  your  mentality  the 
worst  jolt  it  ever  got.  And  in  the  next 
place,  she  wouldn't  believe  you."  He 
looked  at  his  watch.  "You've  missed 
your  train,  anyway.  We'll  go  over  the 
proposition  again  to-morrow  —  maybe 
you'll  feel  better  after  you've  slept  on 
it."  He  rose  and  picked  up  his  raincoat. 
"I'll  see  you  later,  then." 

"You  certainly  will,"  agreed  Kendall. 

After  the  treasurer  had  gone,  he  sat 
gazing  stupidly  into  the  remnants  of  the 
fire. 

"He  thinks  we  need  more  ethics,  does 
he?"  he  declaimed  fiercely  to  himself. 
"And  we  ought  to  be  our  brothers'  keep- 
ers, ought  we?  Well — suppose  I  begin 
to  carry  that  strong  sense  of  resolution 
around  with  me!  Double-cross  a  widow? 
Not  if  she's  .  .  .  pretty!" 

And  then  he  read  doggedly  the  rules 
for  becoming  a  master  of  men;  and  he 
quitted  them  only  when  the  gong  rang 
for  the  evening  meal  and  the  soup  hush 
settled  over  the  Union  House. 

Mrs.  Roberts  looked  even  less  busi- 
ness-like than  she  had  the  day  before. 

"I  came  in,"  said  Kendall,  resolutely, 
"to  make  sure  that  we  understand  each 
other.  And  I  certainly  don't  mean  to 
be  impertinent,  but  I  wish  you'd  answer 
a  few  questions.    Will  you?" 

Categorically  she  told  him  of  the  past, 
present,  and  future;  and  when  she  had 
finished,  Kendall  moistened  his  lips  and 
called  her  treasurer  an  unpleasant  name. 
In  the  midst  of  his  elucidation  she 
paled  and  began  to  slide  gently  out  of 
her  chair.  Without  much  effort  he 
helped  her  to  the  chintz-covered  sofa; 
and  then  he  hurried  out  to  the  adjoining 
workroom,  selected  a  gray-haired  and 
capable-looking  forewoman,  and  told  her 
to  come  in  and  be  capable.  The  fore- 
woman glanced  once  at  the  figure  of  her 
employer,  calmly  opened  a  compartment 
of  the  sewing-table,  produced  a  bottle 
of  lavender  salts,  and  held  it  under  the 
president's  nose. 

"Open  the  window,"  she  ordered, 
"and  tell  those  girls  I'll  fire  every  one 
who  isn't  at  her  desk  inside  of  ten 
seconds."    Kendall  obeyed  briskly. 

The  lavender  salts  soon  revived  the 
president,  and  she  sat  up  and  talked  of 


lithographed  cartons  and  trade  organi- 
zations until  the  forewoman  felt  obliged 
to  depart. 

"Mr.  Kendall,"  she  said,  "we  can 
make  short  work  of  this;  .  .  .  there  are 
only  two  alternatives.  What  can  you 
prove: 

" Prove ? "  he  repeated .  "I  can't  prove 
anything.  Only — "  He  thrust  his 
hand  in  his  pocket  and  touched  the  let- 
ter which  the  young  man  in  Buffalo  had 
given  him  to  mail.  "Well,"  he  said, 
"the  boy  who  gave  me  this  is  the  only 
one  in  the  world  who  saw  us  there  at 
the  same  time.  If  it's  vitally  impor- 
tant, I  suppose  we  could  look  him  up. 
He  said  his  name  was  Huntington — " 

"Huntington!" 

"Bobby  Huntington — yes." 

He  thought  she  was  about  to  faint 
again,  but  she  didn't.  After  a  moment 
she  reached  out,  took  the  letter,  and 
deliberately  slit  the  envelope  with  a  hair- 
pin. She  read  a  few  lines,  and  looked 
up. 

"He  gave  you  this  in  Buffalo?" 

"Night  before  last,"  said  Kendall, 
wonderingly.    "Does  it  matter?" 

"Only  that  Bobby  Huntington  is  my 
nephew,  .  .  .  and  I  thought  he  was  in 
New  York,  too,  .  .  .  opening  our  office 
there."  She  leaned  back  and  gripped 
the  arms  of  her  chair  tightly. 

"Dear  lady,"  said  Kendall,  "I  had  to 
tell  you.    I'm  sorry — " 

The  president  tried  to  laugh. 

"Do  you  know,"  she  managed  to  say, 
"perhaps  I'm  lucky,  after  all.  I've  just 
lost  the  last  of  my  illusions  .  .  .  and 
I'm  forty-one  years  old!  I  guess  it's 
time  for  me  to  retire." 

"I  lost  mine  ten  years  earlier.  ...  Is 
there  anything  on  earth  I  can  do  for 
you? 

"This  much.  Mr.  Gaylord  hasn't 
come  in  yet  this  morning.  Would  it  be 
a  source  of  satisfaction  to  you  to  stop  at 
his  house — you  pass  it  on  the  way  to 
town — and  tell  him  that  you've  told 
me?"  She  sighed  dispiritedly.  "Would 
you  care  to  do  that?" 

"Why  don't  you  send  for  him,  and 
let  me  be  here  when  he  comes?" 

"No,  no,"  demurred  the  president. 
"You  forget,  Mr.  Kendall;  he  was 
a  friend  of  the  doctor's.  But  if  you'll  be 
where  I  can  call  you  if  I  need  you — " 


I  CAME  UP  TO  THIS  TOWN  TO  GET  AN  ORDER,  AND  I  VE  GOT  IT.     NOW  I  M  GOING  TO  GET  YOU 


"I'll  be  at  the  hotel  until  the  after- 
noon train,  anyway — " 

"Wait!"  she  exclaimed.  "You  haven't 
taken  the  order  with  you." 

"My  dear  lady—" 

"No,"  she  insisted.  "It  belongs  to 
you  by  rights.  "I'll  sign  it  myself." 
She  telephoned  for  a  stenographer  and 
dictated  a  brief  letter  in  accordance  with 
the  specifications  which  Gaylord  had 
approved  and  Kendall  had  shown  her. 

"There,"  she  said,  when  the  epistle 
was  ready.  "There  is  the  smallest  re- 
ward I  can  give  to — to  a  very  gal- 
lant gentleman."  She  signed  it  and 
gave  it  to  him. 

"And  that,"  said  Kendall,  inspecting 
it  without  joy,  "is  very  gratifying." 
He  suddenly  remembered  the  two  in- 
creases in  price  he  had  made  to  balance 
his  personal  inconvenience.  "Of  course," 
he  added,  "there's  ten  per  cent,  off  for 
cash !" 

"Ten  per  cent.!"  she  stammered. 


"That,"  said  Kendall,  "is  the  least 
consideration  I  can  give  to  a  very  brave 
woman.  And  now,  will  you  be 
kind  enough  to  describe  Mr.  Gaylord's 
house  to  me?" 

The  house  was  easier  to  find  than  to 
miss.  It  was  a  hideous  little  clapboard 
house,  full  in  the  blazing  sun,  which  had 
blistered  great  patches  of  paint  from  its 
battered  sides.  There  was  a  graveled 
walk  leading  to  the  doorway,  but  the  re- 
cent rains  had  escorted  the  greater  part 
of  the  gravel  to  the  adjacent  grass. 

Kendall  was  admitted  by  a  slatternly 
Amazon  who  left  him  standing  in  the 
hall  while  she  held  converse  with  the 
master.  Later,  with  a  gesture  of  pro- 
nounced antipathy,  she  bade  him 
enter  the  library.  Her  manner  inferred 
that  she  dared  him. 

Gaylord  was  seated  at  a  roll-top 
desk  in  one  corner  of  a  room  so  bare  that 
it  chilled  his  visitor  almost  before  he  had 


208 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


crossed  the  threshold.  The  treasurer 
had  in  front  of  him  a  pile  of  papers  and 
documents  arranged  in  orderly  piles; 
and  on  the  flanking  blotter  were  keys 
and  a  check-book. 

"Hello!"  he  said.  "I  thought  you'd 
be  along  about  this  time.  .  .  .  Didn't 
know  I  was  a  mind-reader,  did  you? 
Have  a  seat  and  a  cigar." 

"Thank  you,  no,"  said  Kendall.  "I'm 
a  little  particular  this  morning.  I  came 
in  to  tell  you  that  I've  seen  Mrs.  Rob- 
erts. 

"Indeed!   What  did  you  tell  her?" 

Kendall  took  a  step  forward.  His  face 
was  whiter  than  usual,  and  his  eyes 
blazed  in  cold  anger. 

"You  know  what  I  told  her!" 

"My  dear  fellow,  .  .  .  I've  read  the 
same  book!  You  don't  need  to  glare  at 
me  like  that.  Sit  down  and  be  reason- 
able." 

"You'll  excuse  me.  Look  here!  I 
came  up  to  this  town  to  get  an  order,  and 
I've  got  it!    Now  I'm  going  to  get 

you! 

"Don't  be  absurd.  It  may  be  I  have 
something  to  say — " 

"Yes — and  I'd  like  to  hear  you  say 
it!  I'd  like  to  hear  you  say  it  to  the 
woman  you —  Oh,  what's  the  use? 
Canada's  in  the  other  direction.  Any- 
way, she  knows!  Get  that,  do  you  ?  She 
knows  !  She  knows  you  weren't  in  New 
York.  She  knows  you  were  in  Buffalo, 
padding  your  expense  accounts.  She 
knows  the  deal  you  tried  to  put  over 
with  me.  She  knows  you  for  the  crook 
you've  been  for  God  knows  how  long — " 

"Kendall,"  said  the  treasurer,  sorrow- 
fully, "what  a  merry  little  world  this  is!" 
He  decapitated  a  cigar  and  lighted  it. 
"There's  not  much  to  be  gained  by 
subterfuge  now,  is  there?  I'm  a  grafter, 
you  say.  Very  well.  There's  the  graft!" 
He  indicated  the  papers  and  the  docu- 
ments and  the  check-book.  "The  Iro- 
quois Biscuit  Company  never  had  a 
chance,  Kendall.  It  never  had  one 
chance  in  a  million.  And  there  was  a 
woman  at  the  head  of  it —  Do  you 
realize  what  that  means?  Lots  of  heart, 
dear  fellow,  and  no  head.  And  the  bis- 
cuit— they're  something  fierce.  They're 
the  vilest  crackers  in  the  universe.  But 
she  wanted  to  carry  out  the  doctor's 
dream.    And  I  had  to  sit  by  and  watch 


her  throw  her  money  away.  A  very 
pretty  little  situation,  Kendall.  Most 
amusing!  And  her  last  bit  was  going 
in  one  wallop  into  an  advertising  cam- 
paign that  would  have  been  the  most 
terrific  frost  in  all  the  history  of  adver- 
tising. She  thought  it  would  turn  the 
tide,  but  it  wouldn't.  It  would  have 
left  her  stranded,  with  a  decrepit  shack 
of  a  plant,  good-will  worth  nothing,  a 
formula  worth  less  than  nothing — "  He 
stopped,  blew  a  great  cloud  of  smoke  at 
the  ceiling,  and  peered  at  Kendall 
through  the  haze.    "That's  all." 

"And  you — you  greased  the  tracks! 
And  you  have  the  nerve  to  sit  there 
and  tell  me — " 

"No  argument,  my  dear  chap,  no  dis- 
cussion. Why,  she  wanted  to  open  a 
branch  office  in  New  York!  Think  of  it! 
Bobby  Huntington  in  charge!  Could  I 
stand  for  that?  Of  course  I  couldn't! 
I  sent  Bobby  over  to  Buffalo  to  stay 
until  we  could  work  out  a  scheme.  We 
gave  letters  to  people  to  mail  as  though 
we  were  en  route — one  at  Syracuse,  one 
at  Albany,  one  to  New  York — " 

"That  one  he  gave  to  me.  And  I  gave 
it  to  Mrs.  Roberts  this  morning." 

"Oh,  I'm  sorry.  That's  too  bad.  I 
hoped  I  could  keep  Bobby  out  of  it. 
The  night  you  saw  him  he'd  finished  a 
week  in  a  second-rate  boarding-house, 
and  it  was  too  stiff  for  him.  We're  part- 
ners in  iniquity,  Kendall.  I've  lived  in 
this  bungalow,  and  Bobby's  done  a  num- 
ber of  things  to  save  money — just  wait- 
ing for  the  crash  —  waiting  for  the 
crash." 

"And  the  crash,"  said  Kendall,  "has 
arrived." 

"Exactly.  You  couldn't  reason  with 
her — she  went  ahead  in  a  straight  line. 
I  had  to  do  as  she  said.  And  so  .  .  . 
it's  a  long  time  since  a  contract  went 
out  of  our  office  without  something  stick- 
ing to  my  fingers." 

"As  a  crook  you're  interesting — " 

"Yes,  I  am — I'll  admit  it.  But  what 
else  was  there  to  do?  I'm  telling  you 
this  because  I  want  to  put  myself  square 
with  you — " 

"  Square  /" 

"Certainly.  I  did  my  darnedest,  Ken- 
dall, to  save  the  ship,  but  it  couldn't  be 
done.  As  soon  as  I  saw  it  couldn't,  I 
started  out  to  save  what  I  could  out  of 


THE  SHOW-DOWN 


209 


the  wreck.  I  imagine  we'll  close  down 
any  minute  now.  Strictly  between  our- 
selves, when  they  come  to  an  audit 
they'll  find  that  the  president's  last  fifty 
thousand  will  just  about  balance  the 
books.  And  that  leaves  only  what  I've 
got  here — not  a  great  deal,  but  still  .  .  . 
enough  to  provide  a  little  income  until 
I  can  start  in  something  else.  And,  I 
repeat,  it  was  the  only  way." 

"And  do  you  imagine  I'm  going  to 
let  you  get  away  with  that?"  demanded 
Kendall,  his  voice  shaking. 

"Get  away!  What  do  you  think 
you're  talking  about?" 

"Well,  what  do  you  think  you  are 
going  to  do?" 

The  treasurer  flushed. 

"Not  that  it's  any  of  your  blamed 
business,  Kendall,  .  .  .  but  you're  a 
pretty  good  scout.  ...  I  had  a  hunch 
last  night  you'd  be  the  man  to  queer  the 
whole  game.  .  .  .  I'm  going  to  marry 
her!" 

Kendall  fell  back  in  horror  and  amaze- 
ment. 

"You!  Why,  you  miserable  hypo- 
crite!— " 

"Wake  up,  wake  up!"  said  the  treas- 
urer, mildly.  "Haven't  you  any  intelli- 
gence? I've  been  telling  you  how  I've 
saved  forty  thousand  dollars  for  her — in 
spite  of  herself!  It  isn't  mine,  you 
idiot!" 

"You  —  you're  taking  it  back  to 
her — " 

"If  a  hundred  salesmen  still  think  I'm 
a  thief,  Kendall,  you  and  I  and  the 
president  won't.  .  .  .  By  the  way,  noth- 
ing else  under  the  sun  could  have 
stopped  that  fool  advertising.  What  are 
you  going  to  do  about  that  order?" 

Kendall  produced  it,  scrutinized  the 
figures,  and  suddenly  tore  the  sheet  into 
a  dozen  pieces. 

"A  man  who'll  throw  away  a  per- 
fectly good  contract  for  more  than  thir- 
teen thousand  dollars  doesn't  need  any 
books  on  will  power!"  said  the  treasurer, 
quizzically.    "Thanks,  old  fellow!" 

"Will  power!    And  you've  let  every 


man  you  do  business  with  think  you're 
a  common  grafter!"  He  coughed 
aside.  "I'm  not  going  to  apologize — it's 
too  big  for  that." 

The  door-bell  rang  impatiently,  and 
Gaylord  leaped  to  his  feet. 

"Do  me  a  favor?"  he  asked,  excitedly. 
"I'd  like  to  have  you  talk  to  the  presi- 
dent again  before  you  go.  You  wait 
here  about  half  an  hour — I'll  telephone 
you  when  to  come,  and  where."  Here 
the  Amazon  entered  with  a  small  parcel. 
"You  see,"  said  the  treasurer,  as  he 
jammed  his  hat  over  his  eyes,  "I  figured 
this  all  out  last  night — this  is  a  ring  from 
the  jeweler's.  Instead  of  apologizing, 
you  can  come  along  and  be  a  witness — 
maybe!" 

In  going  from  the  Union  House  to  the 
station,  Kendall  was  suddenly  prompted 
to  stop  at  the  book-store,  where  he  re- 
moved the  philosophical  treatise  from 
his  bag  and  laid  it  on  the  counter. 

"I  want  to  return  this,"  he  said,  "and 
I'd  like  my  money  back." 

"I'm  afraid  I  can't  do  it." 

"You  said  you  would." 

"Yes,  but  I've  had  to  pay  some  bills, 
and  I  'ain't  got  much  cash  left." 

"But  I've  bought  some  silverware, 
and  I've  got  to  get  to  Buffalo.   I'll  be  all 
right  when  I  get  there." 
1  m  sorry. 

Kendall  backed  him  into  a  corner. 

"Look  here,"  he  said.  "That  was  a 
book  on  will  power.  It's  no  good.  It's 
rotten!  You  said  you'd  take  it  back 
if  it  wasn't  satisfactory,  .  .  .  and  it 
isn't.  You  come  up  with  the  money,  or 
there'll  be  trouble.  It  isn't  worth  a 
nickel.    Hand  out  that  two  dollars." 

His  manner,  his  bulk,  and,  above  all, 
his  determined  and  unwavering  eyes, 
were  conclusive  evidence.  The  stationer 
wilted  visibly,  and  reached  for  the  cash- 
drawer. 

"Well,"  he  protested,  mournfully,  "I 
will  if  you  say  so,  .  .  .  but  it  seems  to 
me  you  must  have  got  something  out 


Compensation  and  Business  Ethics 


BY  ROBERT  W.  B  RUE  RE 


MERICAN  public 
opinion  is  grappling  in 
strange  new  ways  with 
the  problems  of  busi- 
ness as  they  affect  the 
well-being  of  the  masses 
of  the  people.  The  pub- 
lic mind  seems  to  have  been  convinced 
that  in  a  country  of  our  enormous  wealth 
and  relatively  sparse  population  the  ex- 
istence of  poverty  with  all  its  ugly  at- 
tendant evils  is  not  only  inhuman,  but 
stupidly  wasteful. 

So  long  as  the  belief  prevailed  that 
poverty  was  merely  a  symptom  of  in- 
herent viciousness  and  a  thing  for  which 
the  pauper  was  directly  and  solely  re- 
sponsible, the  public  took  thought  of 
Adam's  sin,  shrugged  its  shoulders,  and 
resignedly  left  the  individual  to  face  his 
penalty,  tempering  the  rigor  of  sin's 
discipline  the  while  with  the  mercy  of 
penitentiaries,  reformatories,  jails,  poor- 
houses,  charity,  and  training-school  hos- 
pitals. But  when  one  scientific  investi- 
gation after  another  conclusively  showed 
that  children  born  in  poverty  are  pe- 
culiarly subject  to  early  death  or  to  in- 
curable defects  of  mind  and  body,  that  a 
large  proportion  of  all  apprehended  crim- 
inals are  boys  and  girls  whose  criminal- 
ity is  directly  traceable  to  their  adverse 
economic  environment,  that  a  large  ma- 
jority of  the  unemployed  are  idle  be- 
cause there  is  no  work  for  them  to  do, 
then  public  opinion  began  to  perceive 
that  to  penalize  the  poor  for  their  pov- 
erty was  to  impair  the  productive  power 
of  the  nation  and  thus  to  transfer  the 
penalty  to  the  nation  itself.  Poverty 
came  to  be  regarded  not  so  much  as  an 
indictment  of  the  individual,  but  rather 
as  prima  facie  evidence  that  as  a  people 
we  were  not  making  the  most  intelligent 
use  of  our  resources,  that  there  was 
something  wrong  with  the  management 
of  both  public  and  private  business. 

Among  the  first  and  most  conspicuous 
reactions  to  this  changed  conception  of 


the  causes  of  poverty  was  a  sensational 
and  indiscriminate  attack,  not  only  upon 
public  officials,  individuals  of  great 
wealth,  and  the  leaders  of  organized  la- 
bor, but  upon  the  essential  structure  of 
business  itself.  For  a  time,  muck-raking 
was  widely  popular,  and  when  it  had 
run  its  course  in  the  popular  press  it  was 
taken  up  by  reform  clubs,  political  par- 
ties, state  and  federal  commissions.  No 
doubt  all  this  planless  agitation  had 
value  in  arousing  the  sluggish  mind  of 
the  masses.  But  the  American  public 
indulged  in  a  veritable  debauch  of  scan- 
dal-mongering  and  personal  vitupera- 
tion before  it  began  to  realize  that 
business  and  economic  problems  cannot 
be  settled  by  impassioned  talk  and  wind- 
jamming,  but  must  be  adjusted  through 
patient,  unbiased  scientific  inquiry.  To- 
day signs  are  multiplying  that  American 
public  opinion  has  gathered  itself  to- 
gether, not  in  petulant  determination  to 
wreak  vengeance  upon  individuals  or  to 
destroy  the  essential  framework  of  our 
business  life,  but  to  discover  means  by 
which  business  may  be  strengthened, 
not  as  an  irresponsible  instrument  of 
individual  aggrandizement,  but  as  an 
instrument  under  social  control,  for  the 
promotion  of  the  general  welfare,  the 
elimination  of  human  waste,  and  the 
ultimate  abolition  of  poverty. 

The  greatest  of  our  initial  experiments 
in  this  direction  is  the  widening  applica- 
tion of  workmen's  compensation  to  pro- 
tect the  industrial  fiber  of  the  nation 
against  the  insidious  consequences  of  un- 
requited industrial  injuries.  Besides  the 
federal  government,  twenty-four  states, 
containing  fully  two-thirds  of  our  indus- 
trial population,  have  written  compensa- 
tion laws  into  their  statutes. 

The  American  people  entered  upon 
this  experiment  with  grave  misgivings. 
It  was  generally  recognized  at  the  time 
when  the  first  compensation  law  was 
enacted  that  it  marked  a  radical  de- 
parture from  our  traditional  economic 


COMPENSATION  AND  BUSINESS  ETHICS 


211 


policy.  For  the  first  time  in  our  history 
the  public  stepped  in  between  the  em- 
ployers as  a  group  and  the  wage-workers 
as  a  group,  and  definitely  restricted  the 
ancient  freedom  of  contract  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  general  welfare.  Through 
this  action  all  industry,  and  not  the  so- 
called  public  utilities  only,  was  declared 
to  be  "effected  with  a  public  interest." 
At  one  stroke  industry  was  called  upon 
to  set  aside  millions,  not  as  a  tax,  but  as 
a  supplement  to  wages.  For  the  first 
time  American  public  opinion  envisaged 
poverty,  in  so  far  as  those  made  depend- 
ent by  industrial  injuries  were  con- 
cerned, not  as  a  problem  for  charity, 
but  as  a  problem  of  business  manage- 
ment, and  fixed  a  minimum  standard 
below  which  industrial  workers  must  not 
be  permitted  to  fall. 

The  principle  of  compensation  is  based 
upon  the  fact  that  in  machine-driven 
industry  an  overwhelming  proportion  of 
all  injuries  are  due,  not  to  the  deliberate 
fault  of  either  employer  or  workman,  but 
to  the  risks  inherent  in  machine  opera- 
tion. In  the  simple  days  of  hand-made 
goods  it  was  fair  to  assume  that  if  a  man 
was  hurt,  he  owed  his  injury  either  to 
his  own  negligence  or  to  some  act  of 
another  due  either  to  negligence  or  mal- 
ice. The  relation  of  the  workman  to  his 
employer  in  this  matter  of  accident  or 
injury  was  a  simple  personal  relation,  in 
no  way  different  from  the  relation  be- 
tween any  two  other  individuals.  An 
injured  man  had  either  himself  to  blame, 
or  another;  and  if  another,  whether  em- 
ployer or  stranger  or  fellow-workman, 
he  might  obtain  redress  by  seeking  dam- 
ages at  common  law,  precisely  as  he 
might  in  case  of  assault  and  battery. 
But  when,  at  the  behest  of  steam,  wheels 
began  to  fly,  pulleys  to  whirl,  buzz-saws 
to  spin  at  the  rate  of  hundreds  of  revo- 
lutions a  minute,  fingers,  arms,  eyes, 
legs,  lives  were  lost  through  no  fault  of 
the  employer,  through  no  fault  of  the 
employee,  but  as  an  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  man's  struggle  to  harness  and 
drive  the  impersonal  forces  of  nature. 
Men  were  exposed  to  wounds,  disease, 
and  death  in  the  interest  of  the  general 
welfare  just  as  definitely  as  soldiers  are 
so  exposed  in  the  interest  of  a  warring 
nation. 

And  precisely  as  a  nation  at  war 


makes  every  effort  to  restore  the  wound- 
ed soldier  to  the  line,  and  to  protect 
his  dependents  in  case  of  death,  so 
society  has  come  to  believe  in  the  resto- 
ration of  the  injured  workman  to  his 
place  at  the  machine  and  the  protection 
of  his  dependents  in  case  of  his  death  as 
measures  not  only  of  justice  but  also  of 
self-protection.  How  to  do  this  without 
placing  too  great  a  burden  upon  private 
employers,  who  could  no  more  be  held 
responsible  for  machine-produced  in- 
juries than  the  workers  themselves,  was 
for  a  long  time  a  seriously  debated  ques- 
tion. It  had  always  been  supposed  that 
the  risks  of  industry  were  covered  by 
wages,  and  that  it  was  the  duty  of  wage- 
workers  by  thrift  to  forestall  the  possi- 
bilities of  accident.  Various  European 
governments,  acting  upon  this  theory, 
established  national  insurance  funds  to 
encourage  workmen  to  protect  their 
families  by  carrying  insurance.  In  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  in  Europe,  fra- 
ternal societies,  trade-unions,  and  well- 
disposed  individual  employers  attempted 
to  meet  the  situation  by  organizing  sys- 
tems of  voluntary  accident  insurance 
and  benefit  funds.  But  these  attempts 
failed  almost  completely,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  the  wages  of  a  large  ma- 
jority of  wage-workers  is  at  a  bare  sub- 
sistence level.  Even  in  the  United 
States  a  recent  authoritative  analysis  of 
the  best  available  data  has  shown  that 
while  "two-thirds  to  three-fourths  of  all 
productive  workers  depend  upon  wages 
or  small  salaries,  from  four-fifths  to  nine- 
tenths  of  the  wage-workers  receive  wages 
which  are  insufficient  to  meet  the  cost  of 
a  normal  standard  of  health  and  effi- 
ciency for  a  family,  and  about  one-half 
receive  very  much  less  than  that."  And 
gradually,  as  the  human  wreckage  re- 
sulting from  industrial  injury  and  death 
grew  into  a  public  menace,  society  deter- 
mined that  in  its  own  interest  and  in  the 
interest  of  our  industrial  future,  it  must 
itself  assume  the  burden.  In  one  nation 
after  another,  therefore,  and  in  state 
after  state,  schedules  of  compensation 
were  fixed  by  law,  to  be  paid  by  the  em- 
ployer in  behalf  of  the  public  to  the  in- 
jured workman  irrespective  of  all  ques- 
tions of  fault,  with  the  understanding 
that  the  employer  might  charge  the  cost 
of  compensation,  like  the  cost  of  wear 


212 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


and  tear  to  his  machinery,  in  the  selling- 
price  of  his  goods.  In  other  words, 
society  resolved  to  get  at  this  one  cause 
of  poverty  and  human  waste  through  the 
normal  channels  of  industry,  instead  of 
relying  upon  the  slow  and  ineffectual 
methods  of  charity. 

The  demand  for  compensation  came 
at  the  height  of  the  muck-raking  fever, 
and  it  may  not  have  been  unnatural 
that  many  business  men,  while  believing 
in  the  principle,  should  yet  have  doubted 
the  public's  ability  to  apply  it  with  re- 
straint. In  the  light  of  this  widely 
expressed  apprehension,  the  actual  tem- 
per of  public  opinion  in  its  approach  to  a 
difficult  administrative  problem  is  an  in- 
valuable commentary  upon  democracy 
in  action. 

From  the  first,  prevailing  public  opin- 
ion was  manifestly  free  from  class  bias. 
Its  interest  was  emphatically  a  social 
interest.  There  was  not  the  slightest 
evidence  of  any  desire  to  penalize  one 
class  in  the  interest  of  another;  public 
opinion  had  been  aroused  not  so  much 
by  sympathy  or  pity  for  the  wage- 
workers  as  a  class,  as  by  the  fact  that 
uncompensated  industrial  injuries  in- 
crease the  burden  of  pauperism  which 
must  be  borne  by  the  taxpayer  while 
detracting  from  the  productive  efficiency 
of  those  upon  whom  society  depends  for 
its  commodities.  And  for  this  same 
reason  it  gave  careful  heed  to  the  warn- 
ings that  compulsory  compensation 
might  put  an  intolerable  burden  upon 
industry  unless  industry  were  given  time 
to  adjust  itself  to  the  new  requirements. 
As  a  result  of  this  extreme  caution, 
though  we  had  the  experience  of  prac- 
tically every  European  nation  to  draw 
upon  in  determining  the  scale  of  compen- 
sation which  might  safely  be  established, 
the  scale  fixed  by  the  majority  of  our 
first  twenty-four  laws  was  on  the  aver- 
age the  lowest  in  the  world. 

The  experience  of  Europe  had  abun- 
dantly shown  that  two-thirds  of  average 
weekly  wages,  supplemented  by  reason- 
able medical  attendance,  was  the  lowest 
amount  that  could  effectively  protect 
the  injured  wage-worker  and  his  family 
from  pauperism.  Even  this  has  been 
considered  inadequate  by  the  nations 
that  have  most  recently  adopted  the 
compensation  principle.    The  Nether- 


lands fixed  seventy  per  cent,  of  average 
weekly  wages  as  the  minimum;  and  the 
Swiss  law,  the  latest  to  be  enacted,  has 
raised  this  to  eighty  per  cent.  Our  own 
American  Association  for  Labor  Legisla- 
tion has  given  the  weight  of  its  unques- 
tioned authority  to  the  view  that  wise 
economy  would  dictate  one  hundred  per 
cent,  of  lost  wages  if  it  were  not  for  the 
possible  danger  that  full  compensation 
might  encourage  malingering.  But  the 
majority  of  our  legislatures,  taking  ac- 
count of  the  experimental  nature  of  the 
new  policy  under  American  conditions, 
and  as  eager  to  safeguard  business  as  to 
protect  the  injured  from  permanent  dis- 
ability and  pauperism,  adopted  one-half 
of  average  weekly  wages  as  the  maxi- 
mum. And  in  order  that  this  might  not 
in  any  case  prove  disastrously  high,  a 
majority  of  the  states  further  limited  the 
maximum  amount,  irrespective  of  the 
injured's  actual  loss  of  wages,  to  $10  a 
week,  balancing  this  with  a  minimum  of 
$5.  The  principal  departures  from  these 
limits  are  the  maxima  of  $9.30  in  Wis- 
consin, $12  in  Illinois,  and  $15  in  Kansas 
and  Texas;  and  minima  of  $6  in  Kansas 
and  Minnesota,  and  $4  in  Michigan, 
Massachusetts,  and  Rhode  Island.  And 
that  these  tempting  sums  might  not  lead 
wage-workers  to  inflict  self-injury  or 
magnify  the  seriousness  of  their  honor- 
ably acquired  wounds,  most  of  the  laws 
provide  that  no  compensation  beyond 
medical  attendance  shall  be  allowed  dur- 
ing the  first  two  weeks,  that  no  compen- 
sations shall  be  paid  where  the  injury 
has  resulted  from  "the  intoxication  or 
wilful  misconduct  of  the  employee,"  and 
that  the  payment  of  compensation  shall 
be  suspended  "so  long  as  the  injured 
shall  fail  or  refuse  to  submit,  upon  the 
written  request  of  the  employer,  to  ex- 
amination by  a  practising  physician  or 
shall  in  any  way  obstruct  the  same." 
There  are,  no  doubt,  employees  who 
would  feign  injury  for  the  sake  of  idle- 
ness even  at  the  rate  of  $4  a  week, 
just  as  there  are  citizens  in  good  stand- 
ing who  will  dodge  their  taxes;  but  the 
safeguards  established  by  our  laws  are 
so  comprehensive  and  stringent  that  suc- 
cessful malingering  has  been  made  prac- 
tically impossible.  I  have  examined  the 
records  of  many  states,  and  found  no 
complaint  by  the  employers  on  this  score. 


COMPENSATION  AND  BUSINESS  ETHICS 


213 


The  first  of  our  state  compensation 
laws  was  enacted  in  191 1,  and  already 
it  has  become  apparent  that  the  allow- 
ances for  compensation  are  insufficient 
to  accomplish  the  purpose  that  led  pub- 
lic opinion  to  the  experimental  adoption 
of  the  compensation  principle.  A  recent 
analysis  of  the  records  in  New  Jersey 
shows  that  a  very  considerable  number 
of  the  families  of  injured  men  have  had 
to  beg  for  charity  to  keep  them  from 
starvation,  and  there  are  trustworthy  in- 
dications that  the  fifty-per-cent.  scale 
has  had  the  same  results  in  other  states. 
The  Boston  Provident  Association,  for 
example,  reports  that  in  the  cases  of 
thirteen  per  cent,  of  the  families  aided 
during  the  year  1913,  accident  or  occu- 
pational disease  was  an  important  con- 
tributing cause  of  dependency.  A  com- 
pensation law  that  does  not  provide 
minimum  subsistence  for  injured  work- 
ers and  their  dependent  children  is  a 
socially  inefficient  law. 

In  recognition  of  this  fact,  a  definite 
upward  tendency  appears  in  the  amend- 
ed drafts  of  the  earlier  experimental 
laws  and  in  the  compensation  bill  that 
was  favorably  reported  to  both  houses 
of  Congress  last  winter.  The  Federal  bill, 
which  has  the  approval  of  representative 
employers  as  well  as  of  the  representa- 
tives of  organized  labor,  is  a  serious  at- 
tempt to  embody  the  best  experience 
of  the  various  states,  and  may  be  taken 
as  a  fair  expression  of  the  standard 
toward  which  public  opinion  is  tending. 
It  covers  all  civil  employees,  clerical 
workers  under  certain  grades,  as  well  as 
workers  engaged  in  the  trades;  it  pro- 
vides compensation  for  occupational  dis- 
eases as  well  as  for  industrial  injuries; 
it  reduces  the  waiting  period,  during 
which  the  injured  are  entitled  to  no 
money  compensation,  from  the  two 
weeks  of  most  of  our  state  laws  to 
three  days;  it  provides  for  disabled 
workers  two  -  thirds  of  their  wages 
throughout  the  period  of  disability,  so 
that  a  permanently  disabled  man  and 
his  dependent  family  shall  not  be  ex- 
posed to  pauperism  after  a  period  which 
the  laws  of  most  of  the  states  now  limit 
to  a  few  hundred  weeks;  it  guarantees 
reasonable  payments  to  widows  and 
orphans  and  a  small  number  of  others 
who  may  have  been  dependent  upon  the 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782.-27 


wages  of  the  worker  at  the  time  of  his 
death;  and  finally,  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant of  all,  it  creates  intelligent  and 
well-tested  machinery  for  preventing  in- 
dustrial accidents  and  occupational  dis- 
eases. The  recognition  of  occupational 
diseases  like  lead  poisoning,  phossy  jaw, 
certain  forms  of  tuberculosis  as  tanta- 
mount to  injuries  is  especially  signifi- 
cant. The  supreme  court  of  Massachu- 
setts recently  held  that  tuberculosis 
contracted  in  the  course  of  employment 
was  as  properly  subject  to  compensation 
as  the  loss  of  an  arm  or  finger  or  eye. 
Certainly,  a  lung  would  seem  to  be  quite 
as  necessary  a  part  of  the  worker's 
equipment  as  a  finger  or  toe.  But  the 
importance  of  this  decision  lies  in  the 
question  it  raises  as  to  whether  our 
compensation  laws  as  now  drafted  can 
carry  the  weight  of  insurance  against 
sickness,  or  whether  we  shall  soon  be 
confronted  by  the  necessity  of  develop- 
ing some  specific  form  of  social  sickness- 
insurance  to  supplement  compensation. 

This  tendency  to  widen  the  scope  of 
compensation  and  to  standardize  the 
laws  to  a  scale  of  compensation  that  will 
protect  the  injured  and  his  dependents 
from  pauperism  is  largely  due  to  the  fact 
that  business  has  found  it  surprisingly 
easy  to  adjust  itself  to  the  new  condi- 
tions. Those  who  feared  that  so  conser- 
vative an  extension  of  public  control 
would  prove  disastrous  strangely  under- 
estimated the  resourcefulness  of  Amer- 
ican business  men.  The  industry  that 
has  gone  into  bankruptcy  because  of  the 
weight  of  enforced  compensation  has  still 
to  be  heard  from,  neither  has  any  state 
suffered  from  the  terrified  flight  of  cap- 
ital to  states  where  such  laws  do  not  yet 
obtain.  On  the  contrary,  the  persuasive 
pressure  of  the  laws  has  stimulated  new 
and  universally  welcome  practices  that 
have  actually  increased  the  prosperity  of 
business  wherever  they  have  been 
adopted.  The  ablest  and  most  resource- 
ful of  our  business  men  have  proved  that 
just  and  certain  compensation,  like  high 
wages,  where  these  are  accompanied  by 
executive  efficiency,  not  only  provide  the 
greatest  incentive  against  malingering 
on  the  part  of  the  workers,  but  pay 
large  cash  returns.  And  this  demon- 
stration that  reasonable  social  demands 
justify  themselves  on  economic  grounds 


214 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


is  profoundly  modifying  the  ethical  pos- 
tulates upon  which  American  business 
has  heretofore  been  usually  conducted. 

An  illustration  in  point  may  be  found 
in  the  recently  published  records  of  the 
Wisconsin  Industrial  Commission  which 
administers  the  compensation  law  of 
that  state.  The  moment  public  opinion 
in  Wisconsin  decided  that  injuries  to 
wage-workers  must  be  charged  in  the 
cost  of  production,  precisely  like  injuries 
to  machines,  employers  were  immedi- 
ately stimulated  to  take  every  precau- 
tion against  accidents.  Individual  em- 
ployers retained  safety  engineers,  and 
the  Industrial  Commission  created  a 
staff  of  experts  in  accident-prevention 
which  was  put  at  the  service  of  all  the 
employers  of  the  state.  The  results  have 
been  such  as  would  have  been  called 
Utopian  and  impossible  a  few  years  ago. 
A  steel  company  has  made  a  reduction 
of  sixty-eight  per  cent,  in  its  accident 
record  since  1910.  A  large  stove  manu- 
facturing concern  during  the  past  two 
years  has  made  a  reduction  of  more  than 
sixty-five  per  cent,  in  the  number  of  days 
for  which  compensation  has  had  to  be 
paid.  A  coke-and-gas  company,  whose 
industry  has  always  been  regarded  as 
"extra  hazardous, "  reduced  the  cost  of 
compensation  in  1914  under  1913  about 
sixty-five  per  cent.  Out  of  two  hundred 
and  forty-five  industries  employing  two 
hundred  or  more  wage-workers  each, 
two  hundred  and  nineteen  have  so 
greatly  reduced  the  time  lost  on  account 
of  accidents  that  the  average  during 
the  year  ending  July  1,  1914,  was  less 
than  one  day  per  employee  per  year. 
This  means  less  than  thirty  cents  on  one 
hundred  dollars  of  pay-roll  for  compen- 
sation and  medical  service.  And  the 
measures  required  to  produce  these 
amazing  results  are  so  simple  that  it 
seems  unbelievable  they  should  never 
have  been  adopted  before  compensation 
identified  the  economic  with  the  ethical 
motive. 

Recently  a  boy  in  a  certain  factory 
was  sent  up  a  ladder  to  cross  a  dark 
platform,  ran  into  a  belt,  and  was 
whipped  around  the  pulley  and  killed. 
Three  or  four  old  fence-boards  nailed  to- 
gether and  placed  in  front  of  the  belt,  or 
a  single  light,  would  have  prevented  this 
accident. 


The  manager  of  a  foundry  sent  for  one 
of  the  commission  experts.  He  said 
that  he  had  had  to  lay  off  thirty  men  in 
a  single  day  because  of  burned  feet; 
burned  feet  seemed  to  be  the  will  of  God 
with  respect  to  the  men  who  worked  in 
that  foundry,  and  it  seemed  unfair  to 
him  that  the  law  should  require  him  to 
pay  damages.  The  expert  suggested  the 
purchase  of  a  lot  of  foundrymen's  shoes 
and  their  sale  to  the  men  at  cost.  After 
six  months  the  records  showed  a  reduc- 
tion of  eighty-five  per  cent,  in  the  burns 
suffered  in  that  foundry. 

What  ecstatic  preaching  and  profes- 
sion of  abstract  brotherly  love  had  not 
been  able  to  accomplish  in  thousands  of 
years  the  compensation  law  accom- 
plished in  three  years  by  allying  the 
economic  motive  with  socially  advan- 
tageous aims.  It  is  not  that  manufac- 
turers were  less  well-intentioned  before 
the  law  was  enacted;  only  they  had 
never  before  been  spurred  to  inquire 
whether  their  own  interests  could  be 
safely  reconciled  to  the  interest  of  their 
neighbors  in  this  matter  of  accident  pre- 
vention. In  this  particular  field,  at 
least,  it  has  been  proved  that  human 
conservation  through  the  normal  chan- 
nels of  enlightened  business  may  do 
more  to  prevent  poverty  than  all  the 
charities  in  the  world  can  do  to  remove 
poverty,  once  poverty  has  been  allowed 
to  become  a  fact. 

And  in  its  bearing  upon  the  future 
development  of  business  practice,  an  in- 
cident in  this  work  of  accident  preven- 
tion is  quite  as  rich  in  promise  as  the 
resourcefulness  of  the  business  men  who 
have  demonstrated  that  safety  can  be 
made  to  pay.  Out  of  five  years'  experi- 
ence in  the  industries  which  have  made 
the  largest  reductions  in  accidents,  says 
the  supervising  expert  of  the  Wisconsin 
Commission,  has  come  this  striking  fact, 
that  not  more  than  one-third  of  the 
reductions  actually  made  have  been 
accomplished  or  could  have  been  accom- 
plished by  the  use  of  mechanical  safe- 
guards, while  two-thirds  of  the  reduc- 
tions have  been  brought  about  through 
the  organization,  education,  and  active 
co-operation  of  the  wage-earners  them- 
selves. 

By  far  the  most  important  feature  of 


COMPENSATION  AND  BUSINESS  ETHICS 


215 


organized  safety  work  [this  expert  writes] 
has  been  the  workmen's  inspecting  commit- 
tees. In  each  department  three  rank-and-file 
workmen  are  usually  appointed  to  serve  two 
or  three  months  and  are  authorized  and  en- 
couraged to  make  a  thorough  inspection  of 
their  department  once  a  week,  or  at  least 
once  a  month.  In  many  plants  they  also 
investigate  serious  accidents. 

I  have  made  a  careful  investigation  of  a 
number  of  plants  in  which  workmen's  com- 
mittees have  been  appointed,  and  in  every 
case  they  have  been  successful.  The  experi- 
ence of  all  factories  with  which  I  am  familiar 
reveals  the  fact  that  from  ninety  to  ninety- 
five  per  cent,  of  the  suggestions  which  these 
workmen's  committees  make  are  practical 
and  are  accepted  by  the  company.  The  eight 
hundred  workmen  serving  on  the  committees 
of  the  Chicago  and  Northwestern  Railroad 
during  the  first  three  years  of  safety  work 
reported  more  than  six  thousand  points  of 
danger,  with  suggestions  for  their  removal. 
All  but  two  hundred  of  these  suggestions 
were  found  to  be  practical  and  were  adopted 
by  the  officers  of  the  company. 

This  demonstration  of  the  executive  and 
inventive  ability  latent  in  the  common 
rank  and  file  of  the  workers,  who  have 
so  long  been  thought  to  have  nothing 
but  their  brute  labor  power  to  justify 
their  existence,  raises  the  question  as  to 
whether  the  extension  of  such  co-opera- 
tion in  the  administrative  control  of 
business  might  not  open  unsuspected  re- 
serves of  initiative  and  leadership.  In- 
cidentally, it  gives  welcome  confirmation 
to  our  faith  in  democracy. 

And  quite  as  impressive  as  this  new 
attitude  of  business  toward  the  wage- 
workers  is  the  changing  attitude  of  busi- 
ness toward  business  itself.  One  of  the 
most  spectacular  outgrowths  of  the  old 
legal  system  was  the  employers'  liability 
insurance  company.  With  the  introduc- 
tion of  power  machinery  injuries  multi- 
plied and  damage  suits  came  to  be  a 
harassing  menace  to  the  free  evolution 
of  enterprise.  It  is  an  interesting  fact 
that  in  the  early  days  of  machine  produc- 
tion public  opinion  was  much  more 
deeply  interested  in  the  free  develop- 
ment of  the  machine,  with  its  promise  of 
abundant  and  cheap  goods,  than  it  was 
in  workmen  whose  injuries  were  com- 
monly regarded  as  an  inevitable  sacrifice 
to  the  general  prosperity.  There  was  a 
disposition  on  the  part  of  the  public,  as 
reflected  in  the  verdicts  of  juries,  to 


frown  upon  the  injured  man  who 
brought  suit  for  damages,  much  as  it 
would  have  frowned  upon  a  soldier  who 
should  claim  damages  from  his  captain 
on  the  ground  that  the  captain  was  re- 
sponsible for  his  wounds.  And  this  atti- 
tude was  in  turn  reflected  in  the  deci- 
sions of  the  courts,  which  took  vigorous 
and  in  some  instances  startlingly  arbi- 
trary steps  to  safeguard  industry  from 
the  importunities  of  the  industrially 
crippled. 

As  early  as  1837  the  courts  had  decreed 
that  an  employer  was  not  to  be  held 
liable  where  an  injury  of  a  worker  was 
attributable  to  the  fault  of  another  em- 
ployee. This  so-called  fellow-servant 
rule  was  the  first  of  three  defenses  which 
made  recovery  of  damages,  except  in 
cases  where  the  employer  was  grossly  at 
fault,  almost  impossible.  For  in  order 
that  the  menace  to  which  industry  was 
exposed  should  be  reduced  to  a  mini- 
mum the  courts  reinforced  this  fellow- 
servant  defense  by  declaring  that  a 
workman  who  had  knowingly  assumed 
the  risk  of  his  employment — and  to  ac- 
cept employment  at  all  was  evidence 
that  he  possessed  such  knowledge — had 
no  legal  ground  for  complaint;  and,  fur- 
ther, that  he  might  not  recover  damages 
in  cases  where  it  could  be  shown  that 
his  own  negligence  had  contributed  to 
his  injury. 

With  the  increase  of  production,  in- 
dustrial injuries  in  this  country  began  to 
number  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  even 
millions,  each  year.  Industrial  cripples 
cumbered  our  hospitals,  and  thousands 
of  families  were  rendered  destitute  be- 
cause the  workers  upon  whom  they  were 
dependent  had  lost  their  earning  power. 
The  organized  protest  against  the  injus- 
tice of  this  situation,  and  against  the 
legal  system  which  aggravated  its  evils, 
was  led  by  the  railway  workers,  and 
originally  took  the  form  of  an  attack 
upon  the  employers'  three  defenses.  In 
1887  the  railroad  men  of  Massachusetts, 
with  the  support  of  a  considerable  body 
of  far-sighted  employers,  carried  through 
the  legislature  a  law  which  made  the 
employer  liable  for  damages  in  cases 
where  it  could  be  proved  that  the  injury 
had  resulted  either  from  the  negligence 
of  the  employer  himself  or  of  his  agent, 
the  superintendent,  or  by  reason  of  any 


216 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


defect  "in  the  ways,  works,  or  machin- 
ery connected  with  or  used  in  the  busi- 
ness of  the  employer."  And  this  law 
specifically  provided  that  in  the  case  of 
railway-workers  the  fellow-servant  rule 
was  abrogated. 

The  enactment  of  this  law,  which, 
while  not  the  first,  was,  up  to  1887,  the 
most  effective  of  its  kind,  was  a  signal 
for  similar  action  upon  the  part  of  the 
better  organized  groups  of  labor  in  all 
parts  of  the  country.  In  view  of  the  fact 
that  it  was  now  universally  recognized 
that  a  large  majority  of  all  industrial 
injuries  were  suffered  by  workmen 
through  no  fault  of  their  own,  public 
opinion  came  in  the  course  of  time  to 
sympathize  with  the  injured  workman, 
not  only  on  his  own  account,  but  because 
of  the  increasing  burden  which  uncom- 
pensated injuries  were  placing  upon  the 
taxpayers.  In  one  state  after  another 
laws  similar  to  that  of  Massachusetts 
were  enacted,  extending  the  grounds  of 
recovery  not  only  to  railroad-workers, 
but  to  all  industrial  employees  whatso- 
ever. The  changed  temper  of  public 
opinion  appeared  in  the  fact  that, 
whereas  formeriy  an  injured  workman 
who  sued  for  damages  was  likely  to  be 
regarded  as  an  enemy  of  society,  and 
dealt  with  accordingly  by  juries,  the  ta- 
bles began  with  equal  unfairness  to  be 
turned  against  the  employers,  and  ver- 
dicts in  the  sum  of  five,  ten,  twenty,  and 
even  twenty-five  thousands  of  dollars  be- 
gan to  be  awarded.  And  in  some  states — 
notably  in  Ohio — the  later  liability  laws 
went  so  far  as  to  provide  "that  the  en- 
tire question  as  to  the  amount  of  dam- 
ages was  to  be  decided  by  the  jury,  the 
jury  action  being  final  in  this  respect." 
Deprived  of  the  defenses,  threatened 
with  a  limitation  of  their  right  to  appeal 
from  the  decision  of  juries,  all  except  the 
very  wealthiest  of  employers  found 
themselves  perpetually  confronted  by 
the  nightmare  of  a  catastrophe  beyond 
human  control  which  might  plunge  them 
with  the  injured  and  their  families  into 
utter  ruin. 

To  protect  themselves  against  this 
danger,  the  employers  encouraged  the 
organization  of  the  Employers'  Liability 
Insurance  Companies  which  before  1887 
were  practically  non-existent  in  the 
United  States.   The  total  premiums  col- 


lected by  all  such  companies  in  the 
United  States  amounted  in  1887  to  only 
$203,132.  But  for  the  ten  years  from 
1887  to  1896,  inclusive,  their  total  pre- 
miums had  risen  to  $21,000,000,  or  at 
the  rate  of  something  over  $2,000,000  a 
year;  while  during  the  ten  years  ending 
with  1906  these  premiums  had  increased 
to  the  enormous  total  of  $110,183,588,  or 
at  the  rate  of  $11,018,358  a  year.  The 
new  laws  were  putting  an  enormous  bur- 
den upon  industry,  but  the  expenditure 
of  these  millions  did  nothing  to  check 
the  evils  that  were  a  growing  menace  to 
the  productive  efficiency  of  business. 
Instead  of  approaching  the  situation  in 
the  spirit  of  justice  and  conciliation,  the 
liability  companies  capitalized  the  pre- 
dicament of  the  employers  and  used  it 
not  only  to  mulct  the  employers  but  to 
defeat  the  reasonable  claims  of  the  in- 
jured. Every  case  was  fought  to  the  limit 
of  the  law  by  an  army  of  legal  retainers, 
and  all  manner  of  trickery  was  resorted 
to  in  settling  claims  out  of  court.  The 
total  premiums  reported  by  the  fourteen 
leading  employers'  liability  insurance 
companies  for  the  ten-year  period  ending 
December  31,  1910,  amounted  to  $181,- 
276,782;  the  total  amount  paid  out  on 
account  of  injuries,  as  reported  by  these 
companies  themselves,  was  $37,142,355. 
That  is  to  say,  only  one-fifth  of  the 
money  paid  by  employers  on  account  of 
injuries  to  their  workmen  reached  the 
injured;  four-fifths  went  to  solicitors, 
claim-agents,  attorneys,  managers,  and 
stockholders. 

As  these  facts  became  generally 
known,  they  released  a  flood  of  resent- 
ment which  focused  upon  the  insurance 
companies  as  the  arch-villains  of  a  sys- 
tem for  whose  evils  they  were  no  more 
responsible  than  any  other  section  of  the 
public.  As  a  result,  the  moment  the 
old  employers'  liability  system  gave 
way  to  compulsory  compensation  the 
companies  had  to  fight  for  their  very  ex- 
istence. The  workers  in  whose  eyes  all 
the  evils  of  the  old  system  were  hate- 
fully embodied  in  the  agents  of  the 
companies  whose  business  it  had  been  to 
defeat  their  claims,  were  everywhere  de- 
termined upon  the  companies'  destruc- 
tion, and  demanded  the  establishment 
of  state  monopolies  of  the  compensa- 
tion-insurance business.     In  Washing- 


COMPENSATION  AND  BUSINESS  ETHICS 


217 


ton  and  Ohio  such  state  monopolies 
were  actually  created,  and  they  have,  on 
the  whole,  worked  well.  The  employers 
were  in  many  states  only  less  hostile 
than  the  workers.  The  state  monopolies 
of  Washington  and  Ohio  could  not  have 
been  established  without  the  assent  of  a 
large  number  of  employers;  and  in 
Massachusetts,  where  the  law  provided 
for  the  creation  of  an  employers'  mutual 
insurance  company,  by  which  the  whole 
business  was  to  have  been  turned  over  to 
the  employers  themselves,  it  was  only  at 
the  last  moment,  and  by  extremely  ener- 
getic lobbying,  that  the  companies  suc- 
ceeded in  securing  the  inclusion  of  a 
clause  that  permitted  them  to  remain  in 
the  field. 

But  in  the  majority  of  the  states  fear 
of  a  state  monopoly  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  our  civil  service  outweighed 
hostility  to  the  companies.  It  was  gen- 
erally recognized  by  the  workers  that  for 
them  the  first  conditions  of  a  good  com- 
pensation law  were  definite  amounts  of 
compensation  and  certainty  of  payment. 
The  employers  quickly  saw  that  their 
first  interests  were  to  secure  insurance  at 
the  lowest  reasonable  cost  and  effective 
machinery  for  the  prevention  of  acci- 
dents. To  accomplish  these  ends,  most 
of  the  laws  created  some  form  of  indus- 
trial commission  with  jurisdiction  over 
disputed  claims  and  with  power  to  or- 
ganize an  accident-prevention  service. 
From  the  workman's  point  of  view  the 
existence  of  such  a  commission,  devoting 
its  entire  time  to  industrial  questions 
and  freed  from  the  technical  rules  of  the 
courts,  is  indispensable;  but  such  a  com- 
mission in  itself  gives  the  employers  an 
insufficient  guarantee  that  they  will  get 
either  the  best  accident-prevention  ser- 
vice or  the  lowest  reasonable  rates  of 
insurance.  Most  of  the  laws,  therefore, 
provide  that  an  employer  who  can  give 
adequate  guarantee  may  carry  his  own 
insurance;  or  that  employers  may  band 
together  to  form  mutual  insurance  com- 
panies; or  that  they  may  insure  with  a 
state  fund  established  for  the  purpose. 
In  those  states  where  state  funds  or 
employers'  mutuals  have  been  organized 
— and  they  are  steadily  growing  in 
favor — they  are  being  used  by  the  em- 
ployers as  "regulators"  of  the  liabil- 
ity insurance  companies,  now  generally 


distinguished  as  "stock  companies."  In 
other  words,  the  employers  have  virtu- 
ally said  to  these  companies:  The  public 
in  its  own  interest  has  interfered  with 
our  old  freedom  in  the  conduct  of  our 
business  by  compelling  us  to  provide  for 
compensation  in  all  cases  of  industrial 
injury.  We  in  turn  are  compelled  to 
take  steps  to  restrict  your  freedom.  If 
you  can  provide  us  with  insurance  as 
cheaply  as  the  state  or  our  own  mutual 
organizations,  we  are  ready  to  do  busi- 
ness with  you.  If  not,  we  shall  create 
insurance  companies  of  our  own,  or, 
much  as  we  are  opposed  to  the  idea  of 
public  ownership,  we  shall  resort  to 
state  insurance. 

The  effect  of  this  challenge  upon  the 
stock  companies  has  been  immediately 
to  bring  to  the  surface  capacities  for  so- 
cial service  which  had  been  supposed  to 
be  entirely  foreign  to  their  nature.  "The 
fundamentally  important  fact,"  their 
leading  spokesman  has  recently  declared, 
"was  that  the  law  of  employers'  liability 
was  a  bad  law.  No  agency  can  admin- 
ister a  law  that  is  based  on  wrong  social 
principles  and  get  good  effects.  The 
situation  to-day  is  entirely  changed. 
Workmen's  compensation  is  now  domi- 
nant; the  stock  companies  are  no  longer 
in  opposition  to  public  sentiment,  and 
their  aggressiveness  now  finds  its  place 
in  developing  the  good  effects  of  a  good 
law  instead  of  the  bad  effects  of  a  bad 
law."  For  many  years  these  companies 
had  found  it  necessary  to  conduct  their 
business  along  the  lines  of  the  worst  type 
of  cut-throat  competition.  Their  poli- 
cies were  frequently  placed  at  rates  far 
below  the  level  warranted  by  sound  in- 
surance principles  on  the  apparent  the- 
ory that  they  could  recoup  their  losses 
in  certain  cases  by  overcharging  in 
others  and  by  defeating  the  claims  of 
the  injured  all  along  the  line.  For  a 
workman  rarely  had  money  to  fight  his 
claim  through  layer  upon  layer  of  courts; 
lawyers  had  to  take  such  cases  on  "con- 
tingency fees" — that  is,  on  a  gambling 
chance  of  winning  their  suits  and  getting 
their  pay  out  of  the  recovered  damages, 
so  that  unless  the  injury  was  serious  and 
of  a  nature  to  appeal  to  the  emotional 
sympathy  of  the  jury  it  was  usually 
necessary  for  the  injured  to  let  his  claim 
go  by  default  or  to  take  whatever 


218 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


pittance  the  companies'  claim-agent  of- 
fered to  keep  the  case  out  of  court.  But 
when  laws  made  the  payment  of  fixed 
scales  of  compensation  compulsory,  this 
system,  which  had  placed  a  premium  on 
fraud  and  legal  trickery,  was  destroyed 
at  a  stroke,  and  as  a  matter  of  sound 
business  policy  the  companies  began  to 
direct  their  "aggressiveness  toward  de- 
veloping the  good  effects  of  a  good  law 
instead  of  the  bad  effects  of  a  bad  law." 

A  group  of  the  largest  companies,  rep- 
resenting more  than  a  billion  of  capital, 
formed  a  co-operative  alliance  under  the 
designation  of  the  Workmen's  Com- 
pensation Service  Bureau.  They  are 
naturally  opposed  to  monopolies  either 
in  the  form  of  state  insurance  or  employ- 
ers' mutuals.  They  maintain  that  the 
best  social  results  will  be  secured  where 
the  law  provides  for  fair  competition 
among  state  funds  and  employers'  mu- 
tuals and  themselves,  by  which  they 
mean  that  the  states  shall  not  subsidize 
the  state  funds  or  the  funds  of  the  em- 
ployers' mutuals  out  of  general  taxation, 
but  shall  establish  scientifically  deter- 
mined non-competitive  insurance  rates. 
Under  such  conditions,  they  assert,  that 
organization  would  prove  its  right  to  do 
the  business  which  was  most  aggressive 
and  efficient  in  preventing  accidents. 
For  by  non-competitive,  scientifically 
determined  rates,  they  do  not  mean  in- 
flexible rates,  but  rates  that  may  be 
modified  not  only  in  the  light  of  the 
accident  experience  of  a  given  employer, 
but  also  with  reference  to  the  safeguards 
against  accidents  which  the  employer 
adopts.  With  "fair  competition,"  state- 
controlled  non  -  competitive  rates,  in- 
cluding a  definite  schedule  of  "individ- 
ual-merit rating,"  the  only  remaining 
field  for  competition  would  be  "compe- 
tition in  service";  the  organization  best 
equipped  to  help  the  employer  in  reduc- 
ing accidents  would,  under  these  condi- 
tions, be  able  to  furnish  insurance  at  the 
lowest  rates,  and  would  naturally  secure 
the  business. 

In  recognition  of  this  fact,  the  leading 
companies,  through  their  Compensation 
Service  Bureau,  have  actually  done  more 
than  the  state  funds  or  the  mutuals  in 
discovering  what  the  true  scientific  rates 
are,  and  they  have  created  an  accident- 
prevention  service  which,  while  not  su- 


perior to  the  best  state  services  like  those 
of  Wisconsin  and  Massachusetts,  is  do- 
ing more  for  the  reduction  of  accidents 
in  the  country  at  large  than  any  other 
body — almost  as  much,  it  is  fair  to  say, 
as  all  other  organizations,  exclusive  of  a 
few  very  large  corporations,  put  to- 
gether. "Objection  may  be  raised,"  says 
the  manager  of  this  Service  Bureau, 
"that  this  is  commercializing  safety. 
Exactly!  It  is  the  height  of  genius  to  be 
able  to  produce  ethical  results  on  eco- 
nomic grounds — to  make  safety  a  paying 
proposition." 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  more  strik- 
ing lessons  provided  by  our  initial  ex- 
periences with  workmen's  compensation. 
Their  character  is  such  as  to  warrant  the 
belief  that  American  public  opinion  will 
be  encouraged  to  extend  its  experimenta- 
tion with  social  insurance-  beyond  in- 
dustrial injuries  into  the  province  of 
sickness,  old  age,  and  unemployment. 
For  if  compulsory  insurance  against  the 
evil  consequences  of  industrial  injuries, 
by  identifying  the  economic  with  the 
ethical  motive,  has  succeeded  in  reduc- 
ing injuries  and  increasing  the  produc- 
tive efficiency  of  business,  is  it  not  a  fair 
assumption  that  social  insurance  against 
sickness,  old  age,  and  unemployment 
will  have  similar  beneficial  results?  Such 
experiments  are  not  free  from  grave 
economic  and  administrative  difficulties, 
but  the  experience  of  the  most  highly 
developed  nations  of  Europe  has  shown 
that  the  difficulties  are  well  overbalanced 
by  the  social  gains.  And  America  is  in 
the  advantageous  position  of  being  able 
to  profit  by  the  mistakes  of  the  pioneers 
in  the  field  of  social  insurance.  Most 
of  the  defects  of  the  too  elaborate  ad- 
ministrative machinery  of  Germany,  for 
example,  have  been  avoided  in  our  com- 
pensation laws,  which  were  largely  in- 
spired by  German  experience.  And  it 
is  well  to  remember  that  the  criticism 
of  the  German  system  by  Dr.  Ferdinand 
Friedensburg,  which  has  received  such 
wide  publicity  in  the  United  States 
through  the  zeal  of  American  liability 
insurance  companies  opposed  to  state 
insurance,  is  directed  against  its  ad- 
ministrative defects  and  not  against  its 
underlying  principle. 

"On  the  basis  of  a  service  of  twenty 
years  on  the  governing  board  of  the  Im- 


"I  SHALL  NOT  CRY  RETURN" 


219 


perial  Insurance  Office,"  Dr.  Fried  ens- 
burg  says,  "I  have  sought  to  set  forth 
the  operation  of  our  working-men's  in- 
surance, not  as  it  might  appear  to  the 
superficial  observer,  or  its  juristic,  eco- 
nomic, or  political  foe,  or  even  to  the 
blind  fool  who  fails  to  recognize  that  the 
blessings  of  this  insurance  cannot  be 
adequately  described  even  by  the  usual 
phrases  of  unconditional  laudation.  I 
have  written  in  the  hope  that  I  might 
render  some  aid  to  this  great  achievement. 
What  is  next  to  be  done?  .  .  .  First  of 
all  the  organization  must  be  simplified, 
and  simplified  essentially." 

The  only  declared  opposition  to  social 
insurance  in  principle  comes  from  the 
groups  that  our  industrial  evolution  has 
segregated  at  the  opposite  extremes  of 
the  economic  scale — the  violent  con- 
servatives and  the  violent  revolutionists. 
The  violent  conservatives  believe  that 
all  life  is  a  fateful  struggle  between  in- 
dividuals, and  that  any  attempt  to  inter- 
fere with  this  struggle  through  legislation 
is  nothing  more  than  a  sentimental  effort 
to  protect  the  unfit  and  thus  to  poison 
the  blood  of  the  fit  in  their  heroic  battle 
with  nature.  The  violent  revolutionists 
believe,  too,  that  the  law  of  life  is 


war,  but  in  their  minds  the  struggle  is 
not  between  individuals,  but  between 
groups,  and  they  preach  the  predestined 
dominion  of  the  working-class.  Any  at- 
tempt to  avert  the  proletarian  revolution 
by  ameliorative  legislation  they  scorn  as 
an  attempt  to  blunt  the  fighting  edge  of 
the  workers  and  a  subversion  of  the  revolt 
through  which  alone  the  "wage-slaves" 
can  break  their  chains. 

Between  these  extremes  stand  the 
great  heterogeneous  masses  of  the  people 
whose  common  thought  is  prevailing 
public  opinion,  equally  opposed  to  the 
violence  of  the  militant  individualist  and 
the  militant  revolutionist;  instinctively 
holding  all  life  sacred;  perpetually  pre- 
occupied with  the  healthy,  just,  and  nor- 
mal development  of  the  whole  nation; 
striving  to  curb  the  centrifugal  militancy 
of  the  extremes  and  to  lead  all  groups  to 
subordinate  their  special  interests  to  the 
common  interests  of  all.  Social  insur- 
ance is  a  part  of  this  effort.  It  is  inspired 
by  faith  in  the  possibility  of  a  peaceful 
approach  to  wisdom  and  justice  in  hu- 
man affairs.  It  is  an  appeal  from  vio- 
lence to  constructive  human  intelligence 
— an  attempt  to  substitute  mutual  aid 
for  war. 


44 1  Shall  Not  Cry  Return " 

BY  ELLEN  M.  H.  GATES 

|  SHALL  not  cry  Return!  Return! 
a    Nor  weep  my  years  away; 
But  just  as  long  as  sunsets  burn, 

And  dawns  make  no  delay, 
I  shall  be  lonesome — I  shall  miss 
Your  hand,  your  voice,  your  smile,  your  kiss. 

Not  often  shall  I  speak  your  name, 

For  what  would  strangers  care, 
That  once  a  sudden  tempest  came 

And  swept  my  gardens  bare, 
And  then  you  passed,  and  in  your  place 
Stood  Silence  with  her  lifted  face. 

Not  always  shall  this  parting  be, 

For  though  I  travel  slow, 
I,  too,  may  claim  eternity 

And  find  the  way  you  go; 
And  so  I  do  my  task  and  wait 
The  opening  of  the  outer  gate. 


The  Battle  of  Frogtown  Harbor 


BY  HOWARD  BRU BAKER 


J'AKEVILLE,  like  that 
territory      of  which 
Caesar  wrote  in  a  de- 
servedly dead  language, 
was  divided,  for  educa- 
tional   purposes,  into 
three  parts.    These,  in 
ascending  order  of  importance,  were  the 
West  Ward,  which  had  nothing  but  a 
wooden  school-house;   the  East  Ward, 
which  boasted  one  of  brick,  but  only  two 
stories  high;    and  finally  the  Center 
Ward,  with  its  vast  three-story  brick 
building  and  all  modern  improvements, 
including  a  high  school  and  a  janitor. 
Randolph  Harrington  Dukes  was  of  that 
privileged  class  which  attended  the  Cen- 
ter building.    On  this  balmy  Saturday 
morning,  however,  he  was  not  doing  so, 
but  along  with  the  rest  of  the  rising 
generation  was  giving  homage  to  "Frog- 
town,"  which  was  enjoying  a  spring 
flood.   It  was  a  time  of  rare  prestige  for 
the  short  street  between  the  railroad  and 
the  marsh.  The  spring  rains  had  swollen 
the  lake,  which  had  "backed  up"  over 
the  low  ground  and  finally  crept  up  the 
street  and  entered  people's  yards.  The 
transportation  system  of  "Frogtown" 
now  consisted  of  a  raft  and  a  flat-bot- 
tomed boat  navigated  by  the  fortunate 
youth  who  lived  there,  while  the  envious 
outside  world  begged  rides  in  exchange 
for  valuable  consideration.    Ranny,  un- 
able for  the  moment  to  purchase  a  posi- 
tion as  mariner,  was  enjoying  a  quarrel 
between  "Fatty"  Hartman  and  a  mem- 
ber of  the  submerged  third  who  went  to 
the  East  Ward  school. 

"We  got  eight  rooms  in  the  Center 
Ward,"  said  "Fatty,"  who  was  one  of 
the  leading  boasters  of  Lakeville  and 
environs,  "an'  a  high  school,  an'  a  jani- 
tor, an'  steam-pipes  that  crack  like  the 
dickens." 

"Tug"  Wiltshire  made  gestures  indi- 
cating contempt.  "Yeah,  high  school!" 
he  said.  "  Fellas  with  high  collars,  carry- 
in'  books  for  girls!" 


"Fatty,"  who  could  not  deny  this  ac- 
cusation, fell  back  upon  the  delights  of 
steam  heat.  "They  go  crack,  crack, 
crack!" 

"You  sound  like  a  duck." 

"The  Center  Ward's  three  stories 
high,  ain't  it?"  asked  Ranny,  argu- 
mentatively. 

"The  Center  Ward's  got  no  marsh," 
said  "Tug";  "the  marsh  b'longs  to  the 
EastWard." 

"What's  the  matter  with  ya?"  "Fat- 
ty" now  returned  to  human  speech. 
"The  marsh  don't  belong  to  nobody." 

"I  s'pose,"  "Tug"  said,  sarcastically, 
"a  fella  don't  know  that  b'longs  to  the 
Supprise  Hose  Company!  I  s'pose  he 
didn't  tell  me  his  own  self." 

"What  'd  he  say?"  asked  Ranny, 
somewhat  impressed. 

"He  said  like  this:  The  East  Ward  is 
by  rights  the  Second  Ward.  He  said  the 
marsh  b'longed  to  the  Second  Ward — 'nd 
'Frogtown,'  too." 

"Are  you  crazy?  Don't  the  'Frog- 
town'  fellas  go  to  our  school?"  This 
from  "Fatty." 

"The  marsh  b'longs  to  us,"  said 
"Tug,"  stubbornly.  "If  you  don't  be- 
lieve it,  we'll  fight  you  for  it — East- 
Wards  an'  Centerses." 

"Ya  mean  a  war?"  asked  Ranny — 
"like  snowball  fights  or  green  apples?" 

"Not  on  land,"  said  '/Tug";  "the 
marsh  is  all  water,  ain't  it?  We  gotta 
have  a  navy." 

"Yeah,"  said  Ranny;  "where'd  we 
get  a  navy?"  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Ran- 
ny had  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  what  a 
navy  was. 

"Tug,"  with  the  superior  wisdom  of 
one  who  was  already  past  ten,  instead  of 
merely  eight-going-on-nine,  knew  all 
there  was  to  know  about  navies — in  fact, 
owned  a  book  called,  With  Perry  on  Lake 
Erie.  He  now  told  the  assembled  Cen- 
ter-Warders what  little  he  thought  them 
worthy  to  know  about  naval  warfare. 

"The  East -Wards,"  he  concluded, 


THE  MARSH  B  LONGS  TO  US.     IF  YOU  DON  T  BELIEVE  IT,  WE  LL  FIGHT  YOU  FOR  IT 


"will  come  over  with  a  navy  nex'  Satu'- 
day.  We'll  show  you  who  owns  the 
marsh!" 

"We  c'd  lick  ya  with  our  eyes  shut," 
said  "Bud"  Hicks,  another  person  who 
was  enthusiastic  about  the  Center  build- 
ing— outside  of  school  hours. 

"They's  a  place  in  our  marsh  where 
they's  no  bottom,"  said  "Tug,"  tanta- 
lizingly.    "It  goes  clear  down  to  China." 

"How  could  it?"  demanded  "Fatty." 
"The  water 'd  all  run  out  and  drownd 
the  Chinymen." 

"Maybe  it  does  sometimes.  How'd 
you  know?   You  never  been  to  China." 

Ranny's  eyes  shifted  from  the  desi- 
rable inland  sea  to  a  "Frogtown"  crew 
which  had  stopped  seafaring  to  investi- 
gate this  delightful  clamor. 

"This  kid  here,"  Ranny  proclaimed, 
"  says  the  East  Ward  owns  the  marsh  an* 
'Frogtown,'  an'  they'll  fight  us  with 
boats  nex'  Satu'day — us  Centerses." 

"Us  Centerses"  now  constituted 
themselves  a  committee  on  abuse  and 
vituperation,  and  "Frogtown"  promptly 
succumbed  to  the  interesting  idea  that 
the   East   Ward    and    its  inhabitants 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782—28 


should  be  abolished.  It  was  rather  a  tri- 
umph of  diplomacy,  for  if  "Tug"  had 
first  proposed  an  alliance,  no  doubt 
"Frogtown"  would  just  as  eagerly  have 
taken  up  arms  against  the  lordly  Center. 
Educational  matters  did  not  interest 
them  in  the  least;  they  would  not  fight 
and  bleed  for  a  three-story  brick  building 
and  a  janitor. 

"All  right,"  one  hardy  mariner  said  at 
last,  "but  you  can't  use  our  navy;  you 
gotta  make  one  your  own  self." 

All  proper  Center- Warders  now  re- 
paired, upon  invitation,  to  the  barn  of 
Tom  Rucker,  Ranny's  particular  crony. 

"They's  lotsa  room  to  make  a  navy," 
said  Tom;  "we  'ain't  got  no  horse  now." 

At  Rucker's  barn  plans  were  made  and 
quarreled  over;  the  East  Ward  was  thor- 
oughly denounced;  and  there  were  some 
thrilling,  if  irrelevant,  gymnastics  in  the 
haymow.  But  by  noontime,  except  for 
Tom's  getting  the  hammer  from  his  fa- 
ther's tool-chest,  nothing  had  actually 
been  accomplished  in  the  way  of  making 
the  Center  Ward  mistress  of  the  seas. 

At  the  dinner-table  Ranny,  without 
going  into  needless  details,  took  up  the 


222 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


merits  of  the  inter-ward  crisis  with 
father.  "'Tug'  Wil'shire  says  'Frog- 
town'  an'  the  marsh  an'  ever'thing  be- 
longs by  rights  to  the  East  Ward.  That 
ain't  so,  is  it?" 

"Well,  yes — kind  of,"  said  father. 
"You  see,  Ranny,  it's  like  this:  There 
are  three  wards  for  electing  councilmen. 
What  you  call  the  East  Ward  is  really 
the  Second  Ward;  the  one  in  the  middle 
is  the  First,  and  the  one  on  the  west  is 
the  Third.  Water  Street — you  mustn't 
call  it  'Frogtown' — belongs  to  the  Sec- 
ond Ward.  So  does  the  marsh,  but  that 
doesn't  matter,  because  frogs  and  turtles 
can't  vote." 

"But  the  fellas  from  'Frog' — Water 
Street  goes  to  our  school." 

"That's  because  it  is  too  far  around 
the  marsh  to  the  East  Ward  school,  and 
it  wouldn't  be  right  to  make  the  children 
swim.    They'd  get  their  books  wet." 

"And  their  feet,"  said  mother,  drag- 
ging in  a  favorite  topic  of  hers. 

This  novel  method  of  going  to  school 
occupied  Ranny's  thoughts  for  a  mo- 
ment to  the  exclusion  of  more  important 
questions. 

"You  see,  lots  of  boys  and  girls  do  not 
go  to  school  in  their  own  wards,"  father 
continued.  "Now  there's  a  young  fel- 
low I  know — let's  see,  what  is  his  name, 
now? — well,  no  matter.  He  and  his 
family  live  west  of  Jefferson  Street,  so 
they  belong  to  the  Third  Ward.  But  he 
goes  to  the  Center  building  because  it  is 
nearer.  Oh  yes,  I  remember  his  name 
now — Randolph  Harrington  Dukes." 

"Do  we  live  in  the  West  Ward?" 
asked  Ranny,  in  dismay. 

"Yes;  I  vote  in  the  Third  Ward.  But 
you  don't  have  to  go  to  the  West  Ward 
school.    Don't  worry." 

But  Ranny  did  worry;  not  because  he 
doubted  father's  assurance  that  he  need 
not  attend  the  poorest  of  all  possible 
school-houses,  but  because  his  pride  was 
shaken  and  his  naval  career  threatened. 
He  could  not  understand  why  his  par- 
ents had  so  far  forgotten  themselves  as 
to  live  west  of  Jefferson  Street.  .As  he 
made  his  way  back  to  the  ship-yard 
after  as  small  a  dinner  as  mother  would 
let  him  off  with,  he  resolved  to  defend 
his  shameful  secret  at  all  costs. 

Other  Center-Warders  had  taken  up 
the  geographical  question  with  their  el- 


ders and  had  received  similar  replies. 
When  they  found  that  "Tug"  Wiltshire 
was  right  in  his  contention,  all  parties 
were  very  angry  at  the  East  Ward.  If 
they  had  found  that  "Tug"  was  wrong 
they  would  have  been  equally  angry.  In 
military  matters  the  rights  and  the 
wrongs  are  of  less  importance  than  the 
we's  and  the  they's. 

"Anyhow,"  said  Ranny,  "it's  where 
ya  go  to  school  that  counts." 

This  sentiment  was  heartily  approved, 
though  it  did  not  cover  the  case  of  the 
marsh;  if,  as  father  had  said,  the  turtles 
and  frogs  could  not  vote,  neither  could 
their  young  go  to  school. 

On  this  Saturday  afternoon  there  was 
laid  down  in  Rucker's  roomy  carriage- 
shed  the  keel  of  the  largest  and  only 
fighting  craft  that  the  land-loving  Cen- 
ter Ward  had  ever  known.  Ted  Blake, 
a  pugnacious,  able-bodied  youth  a  little 
older  than  Ranny,  had  joined  the  group 
and  appointed  himself  manager  of  con- 
struction. "Fatty"  Hartman  boasted  a 
great  deal  about  what  he  would  person- 
ally do  to  the  presumptuous  Easterners, 
but  did  very  little  actual  physical  work, 
owing  in  part  to  a  certain  vagueness  as 
to  what  a  navy  was  like.  Ranny  and 
Tom  and  such  willing  but  undersized 
fighters  and  bleeders  were  chiefly  useful 
for  bringing  boards  and  nails,  and  re- 
sponding quickly  when  Ted  said:  "Hey, 
hand  me  that  hammer.  What's  the  mat- 
ter with  ya?" 

Ted's  knowledge  of  naval  construction 
was  founded  upon  an  illustrated  book 
describing  the  contest  of  the  Monitor 
and  the  Merrimac. 

"We  gotta  have  a  Monitor"  he  said. 

"I'm  a  monitor  in  school,"  Clarence 
Raleigh  suggested,  helpfully. 

The  work  of  building  the  navy  was 
delayed  while  Ted  heaped  scorn  upon 
the  youth  who  thought  this  matter  had 
anything  to  do  with  school  work. 
Ted  then  explained  what  a  Monitor  was. 
There  would  be  a  large  raft — the  largest 
in  Lakeville,  and  probably  in  the  world. 
In  the  center  there  would  be  a  barrel 
containing  sticks  and  such  ammunition. 
As  the  throwing  of  stones  was  forbidden 
by  the  accepted  rules  of  warfare,  any 
stones  should  be  concealed. 

"How  we  gonta  make  it  go?"  asked 
"Fatty." 


THE  BATTLE  OF  FROGTOWN  HARBOR 


223 


"We'll  push  it  with  poles,  you  crazy." 

Displays  of  ignorance  now  ceased  and 
Ted  was  given  his  masterful  way.  It 
was  Ranny,  however,  who,  while  search- 
ing for  nails,  made  an  important  dis- 
covery. 

"Oh,  lookee!"  he  cried.  "We  could 
use  'em  for  bullets !"  He  indicated  a 
heap  of  half-burned  carbons  from  an 
electric  arc-light. 

"Ya  can't  throw  away  my  carbons; 
it  took  me  a  long  time  to  get  'em,"  said 
Tom. 

"What  do  ya  use  'em  for?"  asked 
"Bud"  Hicks. 

As  they  were  of  no  conceivable  value, 
Tom  had  to  fall  back  upon  the  time- 
honored,  "Oh,  somepin."  At  this  point 
Ted  took  enough  time  from  his  work  to 
rule  that  all  carbons  be  requisitioned  for 
war  purposes. 

When  the  afternoon  had  waned  and 
Tom  had  twice  been  invited  to  supper, 
the  Monitor  presented  a  tangible  form. 
The  outside  framework  had  been  laid 
down,  based  largely  upon  the  ruin  of 
Mr.  Rucker's  board  pile.  "Fatty"  had 
taken  upon  himself  the  task  of  guarding 


the  door  against  spying  enemies.  As  no 
spies  had  come  near,  this  was  pleasant 
and  easy  work,  well  suited  to  his  temper- 
ament. He  thought  it  best,  however, 
not  to  forbid  Tom's  father  from  entering 
his  own  barn  when  he  came  to  coerce  his 
son  in  to  supper. 

"What  are  you  kids  making  there?" 
Mr.  Rucker  asked. 

"We're  makin'  a  raft — f'r  'Frog- 
town,'"  said  Ted. 

"Now,  look  here,  Tom;  you  can't — " 
Mr.  Rucker  had  stepped  inside  the  shed 
and  was  examining  the  ambitious  struc- 
ture upon  the  ground.  It  was  a  critical 
moment  for  the  rising  young  navy,  and 
all  the  tars  fell  silent. 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Rucker,  with  a  face 
that  seemed  trying  to  be  grave  against 
heavy  odds,  "don't  bung  yourselves  all 
up.    Skip  along  home  now." 

Even  Tom  did  not  understand  his 
father's  sudden  change  of  attitude.  The 
Center  Ward  went  home  to  supper  with 
light  hearts  and  high  hopes. 

At  Sunday-school  the  next  day  Ranny 
explained  to  a  youth  (who  belonged  to 
the  lowest  order  of  society  and  attended 


THERE  WAS  LAID  DOWN  THE  KEEL  OF  THE  LARGEST  FIGHTING  CRAFT  THAT  THE  CENTER  W  ARD 

HAD  EVER  KNOWN 


224 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  West  Ward  school)  that  there  was 
going  to  be  an  "awful  war  nex'  Satu'day 
between  the  Centerses  and  the  East- 
Ends." 

"Who  wants  the  old  marsh?"  said  this 
fellow,  in  the  approved  sour-grapes' 
formula.    "We  gotta  lake." 

This  was  presumption  to  which  even 
the  Easterners  had  never  risen.  The 
West  Ward  did  abut  on  the  lake,  but  so 
did  the  Center  and  the  East;  so  did 
people  of  every  nation  and  every  clime, 
including  farmers.  The  fact  was  that 
the  Westerners,  deprived  of  the  consola- 
tion of  a  marsh,  had  made  the  most  of 
their  share  in  the  lake.  They  swam  and 
fished  and  rowed  boats;  when  the  softer 
races  farther  east  were  venturing  timidly 
upon  the  pond  ice,  these  hardy  Occi- 
dentals were  skating  upon  the  precarious 
rim  of  the  lake. 

As  the  teacher  at  this  point  demanded 
order,  Ranny  could  only  say,  "Yeah, 
you  gotta  wood  school-house — that's 
what  ya  got." 

But  he  hoped  more  than  ever  that 
nobody  would  discover  JefFerson  Street's 
peculiar  place  in  geography. 

In   the   days   that  followed,  navy- 
building  was  confined  to  the  late  after- 
noons, owing  to  the  unfortunate  neces- 
sity of  attending,  as  well  as  defending, 
the  Center  school.    Although  most  of 
this  activity  concerned  the  pupils  of 
Miss  Edith  Mills,  the  patriots  did  not 
consult  with  that  instructor;  the  teach- 
er's interest  in  geography  was  confined 
to  such  remote  matters  as  the  course  of 
the  Kennebec  River  and  the  principal 
products  of  Uruguay.     Several  times 
there  were  verbal  encounters  between 
representatives  of  the  hostile  powers. 
On  Wednesday  afternoon  "Bud"  Hicks, 
who  had  a  roving  soul,  safely  penetrated 
the  fastnesses  of  the  Orient  and  reported 
that  the  East-Enders  were  resurrecting 
the  old  sail-boat.    The  pretenders  were 
shoveling  mud  out  of  this  ancient  vessel 
and  patching  up  its  holes.    It  had  long 
since  ceased  to  have  a  mast,  and  would 
have  to  be  propelled  by  poles  or  paddles, 
but  it  was  a  veritable  dreadnought  for 
size.     With   this  news,  work  on  the 
Monitor  went   forward   with  renewed 
vigor.    Meanwhile  the  high  water  con- 
tinued, and  "Frogtown"  still  ruled  the 
wave  and  its  soggy  environs.    The  low- 


landers  never  mentioned  the  Center 
Ward  in  this  connection,  but  seemed  to 
proceed  on  the  theory  that  the  marsh  be- 
longed to  "Frogtown"  down  to  where 
China  began. 

The  better  to  conceal  his  dark  secret, 
Ranny  worked  with  great  zeal.  Posi- 
tions in  the  navy  were  in  demand;  if  his 
title  were  proved  faulty  Ted  might  give 
Ranny's  place  to  some  taller  patriot. 
And  some  outspoken  person  like  "Bud" 
would  surely  say: 

"Why  doncha  go  to  the  wood  school- 
house  ?  Ya  belong  to  the  Wes'  Ward  by 
rights." 

But  up  until  Friday  night  nobody 
apparently  had  discovered  the  skeleton 
in  Ranny's  closet.  The  Monitor  stood 
complete,  the  barrel  in  the  middle  filled 
with  legal  and  illegal  ammunition.  Ted 
Blake  had  chosen  the  exact  spot  on  the 
deck  at  which  he  was  to  stand  (with  feet 
far  apart)  and  give  his  commands.  Two 
boys'  express-wagons  had  been  requisi- 
tioned to  take  the  navy  to  its  ocean  at 
eight  the  next  morning.  Everything  was 
in  readiness  except  a  slogan — somebody 
had  discovered  that  it  was  necessary  to 
have  "somepin  to  holler."  Ranny  pro- 
posed his  favorite  sentiment,  "It's  where 
ya  go  ta  school  that  counts,"  but  aroused 
no  enthusiasm  in  Ted's  breast.  Finally 
Tom  suggested,  "Monitor  for  ever!"  and 
Ted  Blake,  on  behalf  of  the  Center  Ward 
and  civilization  generally,  accepted  this 
as  "somepin  to  holler." 

It  still  lacked  a  few  minutes  of  eight 
on  the  morning  of  the  war  when  Ranny, 
having  supplied  mother  with  a  censored 
statement  of  what  he  intended  to  do 
with  his  holiday,  set  out  for  the  place  of 
mobilization.  It  was  a  glorious  morning 
of  balmy  breezes  and  spring  sunshine, 
an  ideal  day  for  slaughter  and  pillage. 
Under  the  mental  stimulus  of  great  deeds 
about  to  be  performed,  Ranny's  short 
legs  twinkled  and  skipped,  and  now  and 
then  treated  their  owner  to  a  brief  run. 
One  of  these  runs  carried  him  to  the  en- 
trance of  an  alley  at  which  three  boys 
appeared  with  rather  startling  sudden- 
ness. Ranny  saw  at  once  that  they  were 
neither  enemies  nor  friends,  but  timid 
neutrals  from  the  West. 

"Goin'  to  see  the  war?"  he  asked,  so- 
ciably. 

For  answer,  Ranny  was  seized  and 


THE  BATTLE  OF  FROGTOWN  HARBOR 


225 


pulled  into  the  alley.  There,  while  one 
timid  neutral  on  each  side  held  an  arm 
and  attempted  to  control  a  leg,  the  third 
tied  a  handkerchief  over  his  eyes.  Ran- 
ny's  hands  were  then  fastened  behind 
him  and  he  was  requested  in  a  hoarse, 
unnatural  voice  to  "come  along  now  and 
don't  git  smart." 

"Wha's  the  matter 
with  ya?"  Ranny 
asked.  "You  kids 
ain't  in  this  war." 

Ranny  was  informed 
that  persons  who  did 
not  obey  invariably 
died  in  "horbulag- 
ony."  An  unmilitary 
snicker  from  one  of 
his  captors  mitigated 
the  forceof  this  threat; 
buthe  wasintimidated 
into  silence  by  that 
long  and  unfamiliar 
word.  After  a  long 
journey  he  was  led 
through  a  gate,  felt 
soft  grass  underfoot, 
and  was  permitted  to 
stumble  over  a  sill. 
A  brand  -  new  voice 
asked  him  for  the 
countersign. 

When  his  bandage 
was  removed  he  found 
himself  in  a  dim  and 
unfamiliar  barn  sur- 
rounded by  Western- 
ers who  threatened 
him  with  lath  swords. 
One  of  his  captors 
whispered  in  the  sen- 
try's ear,  and  Ranny 
was  requested  to  climb 
a  ladder.  At  the  top  of  the  ladder  he 
found  an  inclosure  banked  high  with 
hay. 

"Crawl  into  that  there  hole,"  said  his 
escort.    "We  can't  stand  here  all  day!" 

It  is  one  thing  to  make  a  rmnel  in  a 
haymow  and  traverse  it  at  will,  but  it 
is  quite  another  to  enter  a  totally  un- 
familiar tunnel  in  an  alien  barn.  Thus 
at  the  very  moment  when  Ranny  should 
have  been  helping  to  move  a  navy  he 
was  crawling  painfully  through  a  pitch- 
dark  hole,  followed  by  a  person  with  a 
tendency  to  jab,  and  going  to  some 


unknown  fate.  The  choky  blackness 
removed  what  little  heart  Ranny  had 
left. 

It  was  with  vast  relief  that  he  at  last 
saw  faint  daylight  ahead.  As  he  crept 
out  of  the  hole  he  was  jerked  to  a  stand- 
ing position  by  the  proper  authorities 
and   hustled   toward   injustice   at  the 


wha's  the  matter  with  ya?    you  kids  ain't  in  this  war 


lighter  end  of  the  hay-loft.  The  impor- 
tant personage  who  sat  there  was  a 
stranger  to  Ranny,  but  it  was  evident 
that  he  was  a  monarch  of  some  sort,  for 
he  sat  upon  a  throne  composed  of  a  small 
box  placed  upon  a  larger  one;  he  wore  a 
pasteboard  crown,  and  brandished  a 
scepter  which  in  humbler  days  had  been 
part  of  a  broom.  This  autocrat  was 
several  sizes  larger  than  Ranny.  He 
was  as  dark  as  a  pirate.  Beneath  the 
trappings  of  royalty  there  was  something 
vaguely  familiar  in  his  face  and  figure. 
When  he  spoke  it  was  in  that  grufT,  im- 


226 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


personal  voice  so  common  among  poten- 
tates: 

"Wha's  the  charge  a  g'inst  this  here 
pns  nerr 

"He  said,"  reported  one  of  the  guards, 
"the  Wes'  Ward  only  had  a  wood  school- 
house." 

His  Majesty  rumbled  and  kicked  the 
throne. 

"An'  he  said  the  Wes'  Ward  didn't 
own  the  lake." 

"When  did  he  say  that?" 

"He  said  it  las'  Sunday  in  Sunday- 
school,  'Butch.'  " 

The  monarch  brandished  his  scepter, 
not  at  Ranny,  but  at  the  witness. 
"Don't  git  fresh  with  the  king!" 

The  varlet's  ill-advised  remark  solved 
the  problem  which  had  been  troubling 
Ranny  ever  since  he  had  entered  the 
Presence.  He  thrilled  a  little  at  the 
revelation.  This,  then,  was  "Butch" 
Willet,  heir  of  Willet's  meat-market,  and 
known  far  and  wide  as  the  bully  of  the 
West  End.  He  had  been  pointed  out  to 
Ranny  one  day  on  the  lake  skating  far 
beyond  his  fellows,  'way  out  toward  open 
water.  His  name  was  a  commonplace, 
yet  Ranny  had  never  seen  him  at  close 
range.  "Butch"  had  never  wasted 
much  time  upon  the  effete  civilizations 
farther  east;  therefore  he  had  become  a 
tradition — an  amazingly  straight-throw- 
ing, hard-hitting,  long-winded  boy;  an 
amphibious  animal,  a  prodigious  swim- 
mer and  skater.  And  it  was  generally 
admitted  that  he  ate  raw  meat  at  his 
father's  emporium. 

"Lemme  go,  ' Butch,'"  said  Ranny, 
sullenly.    "I  gotta  go  to  the  war." 

"Lookee  here,  young  fella,"  said  the 
monarch;  "if  ya  want  ta  go  ta  the  war, 
ya  gotta  go  with  the  Wes'-Wards.  Ya 
live  west  of  JefFerson  Street,  don't  ya? 
Answer  me  that." 

"The  Wes'  Ward  ain't  in  this  war." 

"Listen  to  that,  would  you?"  said  the 
king  to  his  court.  "Oh  no;  not  at  all. 
Proba'ly  nobody  can't  have  a  war  ex- 
cept the  Centerses." 

"The  Centerses  thinks  they're  smart," 
said  a  flunkey. 

"I  won't  fight  against  the  Centerses," 
said  Ranny.  "It's  where  ya  go  ta  school 
that  counts." 

"Is  the  dungeon  ready?"  asked  the 
king. 


A  dungeon  specialist  replied  that  all 
was  prepared,  including  "horbulagony." 
Of  course  no  person  wants  to  go  to  jail 
and  miss  a  war,  so  what  could  Ranny  do 
but  agree  to  go  with  his  captors?  A  few 
minutes  later  the  king  and  his  cohorts, 
with  their  prisoner  carefully  guarded, 
took  their  way  lakeward,  Ranny  angry 
and  disappointed,  chagrined  that  his 
West-Wardism  had  become  public  prop- 
erty, but  under  it  all  yielding  a  grudging 
admiration  for  the  scientific  way  he  was 
being  mistreated. 

At  the  shore  they  were  welcomed  by  a 
body  of  fighters  and  bleeders  equal  in 
numbers  to  their  own.  Three  rowboats 
were  filled  with  throwable  sticks.  Every 
jolly  tar  had  a  lath  sword  in  his  belt  and 
carried  a  lifelike  wooden  gun.  Ranny's 
admiration  for  his  captors  rose  another 
notch. 

The  fleet  was  soon  under  way,  Ranny 
in  the  flag-ship  with  the  king,  who,  by 
changing  his  crown  for  a  cap,  had  now 
become  an  admiral.  As  the  navy  sped 
along  the  coast  its  commander  cleared 
up  a  few  points  that  were  hazy  to  the 
prisoner.  It  seemed  that  "Butch"  had 
made  speech  with  "Tug"  Wiltshire  of 
the  East  Ward  and  had  agreed  to  aid 
in  the  laudable  enterprise  of  removing 
the  Center  Ward  from  the  map.  The 
West  Ward  expected  every  man,  includ- 
ing prisoners,  to  do  his  duty.  Ranny's 
capture  had  been  a  challenge  to  the 
arrogance  of  the  lordly  Centerses;  any 
misconduct  on  his  part  would  be  dealt 
with  by  means  of  marlinspikes  and  be- 
laying-pins.  While  they  were  navigating 
the  shoal  that  separated  the  lake  from 
the  marsh,  "Butch"  was  pointing  out 
the  disadvantages  of  walking  the  plank. 

"Butch"  now  rose  to  his  impressive 
four-feet-three.  "Hardaport,  you  lub- 
bers!" he  cried,  pointing  toward  "Frog- 
town"  harbor  in  order  to  make  his 
meaning  perfectly  clear. 

The  first  thing  that  caught  Ranny's 
anxious  eye  was  the  East  Ward  dread- 
nought we'll  in  toward  shore  and  brist- 
ling with  belligerents.  Soon  he  saw  the 
raft  and  flat-bottomed  boat  of  the  low- 
landers  vigorously  defending  their  altars 
and  their  fires.  But  where  was  the 
Monitor? 

Where  was  the  Monitor?  Ranny's 
hope  that  it  was  hiding  behind  the 


THE  BATTLE  OF  FROGTOWN  HARBOR 


227 


dreadnought  was  dispelled  when  he  dis- 
covered Ted  Blake  and  his  command 
standing  on  the  shore,  trying  to  bombard 
the  Easterners  with  sticks,  shouting, 
"Monitor  for  ever!"  but  not  stating 
where  it  might  be  found.  Had  Mr. 
Rucker  at  the  last  minute  refused  to 
allow  them  to  bring  the  navy? 

As  they  drew  into 
the  harbor  Ranny  saw 
a  moving  -  picture  of 
defeat.  "Fatty" Hart- 
man  was  attempting 
to  launch  what  looked 
like  an  abandoned 
cellar  door,  but  the 
minute  it  struck  the 
water  it  was  occupied 
by  eager  mariners,  and 
sank  with  universal 
feet -wetting.  With- 
out the  aid  of  the 
Center  Ward  navy, 
"Frogtown's"  fight 
was  hopeless.  The 
Eastern  dreadnought 
was  creeping  steadily 
toward  shore — and 
"  Butch  "  Willet's  re- 
inforcements would 
complete  the  sad  work. 

With  an  impulse 
that  was  three  parts 
anger  and  one  sheer 
desperation,  Ranny 
arose  and  hurled  a 
stick  a  t  the  dread- 
nought. It  was  a  little 
stick,  ragged  and  water-soaked,  but  it 
changed  the  course  of  history. 

Ranny  aimed  at  the  East  Ward  in 
general,  but  what,  by  some  miraculous 
chance,  he  hit,  was  the  left  ear  of  the 
inventor  of  naval  warfare.  "Tug,"  cut 
off  in  the  midst  of  an  important  com- 
mand, turned  in  surprise  to  the  flag-ship. 

"Hey!  What's  the  matter  with  ya, 
' Butch'?"  he  demanded. 

Without  waiting  for  orders,  one  of  the 
Easterners  fired  a  shot  in  return.  The 
stick  bounded  off  of  the  knee  of  no  less 
a  personage  than  "  Butch."  In  that 
instant  the  unnatural  alliance  between 
the  East  and  the  West  was  dissolved. 

"Give  'em  one,  men!"  shouted  Ad- 
miral "Butch."  The  flag-ship  responded 
with  a  shower  of  sticks,  and  the  play- 


boys of  the  western  world  were  soon 
closing  in  upon  the  unwieldy  craft. 
That  is,  two  of  the  three  boats  were  clos- 
ing in;  the  third,  not  yet  aware  of  its 
country's  change  of  policy,  was  exchang- 
ing missiles  and  insults  with  the  "Frog- 
towners."  For  a  few  moments  the 
world  was  presented  with  the  confusing 


IS  THE  DUNGEON  READY?"  ASKED  THE  KING 


spectacle  of  one  navy  fighting  on  oppo- 
site sides  of  the  same  war;  but  presently 
the  admiral  put  a  stop  to  this  illogical 
slaughter  and  summoned  all  patriots 
against  the  Eastern  dreadnought.  Soon 
the  lighter  vessels  had  it  completely 
surrounded. 

Admiral  "Butch,"  well  versed  in  the 
literature  of  piracy,  now  ordered  his  vas- 
sals to  board  her,  and  at  the  cost  of  a 
few  bruised  fingers  and  one  splash  in  the 
shallow  water  this  was  accomplished, 
Ranny  being  among  the  first  invaders. 
Meanwhile  the  Center  Ward  shore  bat- 
teries had  located  the  dreadnought  with 
the  long-range  Rucker  carbons,  and  were 
inflicting  slight  but  impartial  damage 
upon  friend  and  foe.  It  is  a  curious  fact 
that  the  only  missile  which  actually 


ADMIRAL  "  BUTCH  "  NOW  ORDERED  HIS  VASSALS  TO  BOARD  HER 


struck  Ranny  during  the  engagement 
was  one  of  those  carbons  which  he  had 
himself  discovered. 

Admiral  "  Butch"  now  demanded  that 
"Tug"  and  his  crew  surrender;  this 
they  naturally  refused  to  do. 

"Ya  said  ya  was  comin'  here  to  help 
us!"  Tug  shouted,  "  and  then  ya  turned 
around  and  fought  for  the  Centerses!" 

"Yeah,  help  you!  Why  did  your  fella 
sling  at  me?" 

This  argument  never  reached  its  log- 
ical conclusion  in  a  personal  encounter 
between  the  two  commanders,  for  at  that 
moment  the  dreadnought,  which  had 
been  leaking  increasingly  during  the  en- 
gagement, now,  under  the  weight  of 
the  buccaneers,  began  to  sink,  the  water 
pouring  through  its  bottom  in  little 
geysers.  It  required  the  combined  ef- 
forts of  the  mariners  of  all  nations  to  run 
the  craft  close  to  the  shore  where  its  old 
bones  could  rest  comfortably  upon  the 
mud,  and  to  get  its  occupants  safe  to  dry 
land. 

This  event  was  regarded  by  the  West- 
erners as  equivalent  to  surrender.  On 


the  strength  of  it  they  claimed  all  terri- 
tory in  sight.  The  Far  East  declared  the 
proceedings  null  and  void  because  King 
"Butch"  had  gone  back  upon  his  royal 
word.  The  Center  Ward  boasters 
proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  one  another 
that  if  they  had  only  got  their  navy 
there  they  would  have  defeated  all  com- 
ers, and  therefore  the  marsh,  as  always, 
belonged  to  them.  The  "Frogtown" 
tars,  having  no  interest  in  political  dis- 
cussion, swarmed  upon  the  sunken  craft 
and  marked  it  for  their  own.  Thus,  hap- 
pily, the  war  had  not  settled  anything, 
and  it  would  be  necessary  to  have  an- 
other one  next  Saturday,  weather  per- 
mitting. 

Because  of  the  fortunate  turn  of 
affairs,  Ranny  could  now  meet  his  old 
Center  Ward  cronies  without  shame. 

"  Wha's  the  matter  with  the  Monitor?" 
he  asked.    "Why  didn't  ya  bring  it?" 

"Aw,"  said  Ted  Blake,  "they  made  it 
too  big.  They  couldn't  get  it  outa  the 
barn." 

"You  was  bossin'  everything,"  said 
Tom  Rucker,  hotly.   "You  thought  you 


THE  OP 

was  smart.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  Ranny 
bringin'  help,  them  East-Wards  would 
won." 

"If  I  could  only  got  my  boat  afloat- 
in',"  said  "Fatty,"  "I'd  'a'  showed 
'em."  This  ridiculous  remark  restored 
everybody  to  good  humor. 

The  Westerners  having,  by  their  own 
admission,  added  a  vast  amount  of  sub- 
aqueous territory  to  their  realm,  now 
embarked  for  home,  Admiral  "Butch" 
standing  up  in  the  boat  in  that  com- 
manding, perilous  way  in  which  Wash- 


^  DOOR  229 

ington  is  supposed  to  have  crossed  the 
Delaware.  They  made  a  brave  appear- 
ance as  they  sped  away,  the  three  boats 
racing  side  by  side,  bristling  with  black 
gun-barrels  and  waving  swords. 

"Them  guns  wouldn't  shoot,"  said 
"Bud"  Hicks,  with  ill-concealed  admi- 
ration. 

"They  got  the  best  navy  of  all,"  said 
Tom.  "Howja  come  to  be  with  'em, 
Ranny?" 

"By  rights,"  said  Ranny,  proudly. 
"I  belong  to  the  Wes'  Ward." 


The  Open  Door 

BY  MARY  SAMUEL  DANIEL 

NOW  choristers  are  on  the  wing, 
Blackbird  and  thrush  and  soaring  lark; 
Now  all  the  rapture  of  the  spring 
Breaks  forth  from  winter's  dark: 

All  set  against  a  peerless  sky, 
A  radiant  arch  of  stainless  blue; 

Lilac  and  gold-green  poplars  high, 
Apple  and  pear  bloom,  too. 

All  intermixed  with  warm  brown  thatch, 
Or  set  by  lichened,  mossed  brown  stone; 

Crowding  round  many  a  cottage  latch, 
Or  sweet,  apart,  alone. 

0  breaking  joy  of  sun-kissed  bloom, 
O  bridal  earth  and  blissful  sky! 

How  is  there  any  aching  room 
For  sin,  or  tear,  or  sigh? 

For  sigh,  or  tear,  or  evil  thing, 

When  Heaven's  door  is  flung  so  wide, 

When  all  the  angels  dance  and  sing, 
Bidding  us  look  inside? 

Give  me  a  homely  cottage  latch, 

Four  lichened  walls  of  mossed  brown  stone, 
A  heart  that  primrose  peace  to  match, 

Serene,  apart,  alone. 

Then,  though  I  tread  an  earth-bound  floor, 
Fettered  by  many  an  earth-bound  thing, 

1  still  can  lean  against  the  Door 
And  hear  the  angels  sing. 


Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782.— 20 


Current  Literature  and  the  Colleges 


BY  HENRY  SEIDEL  CANBY 


Assistant  Professor  of  English  in  Yale  University 


^|0T  long  ago  I  saw  a 
college  professor  drop 
into  a  chair  at  his  club, 
glance  over  the  table 
of  contents  of  a  well- 
known  periodical,  and 
fling  it  down  in  disgust, 
can't  read  the  magazines,"  he 
snorted.  "What  is  the  matter  with 
American  literature  ?" 

In  the  trolley  that  night  I  sat  next  to 
a  business  man  who  was  studying  the 
pictures  in  the  same  monthly.  "Do  you 
read  that  magazine?"  I  asked. 

"Part  of  it,"  he  said,  indifferently;  "I 
suppose  all  of  it  is  trash." 

I  cannot  see  that  such  critics  have  a 
right  to  ask,  What  is  the  matter  with 
American  authors?  Superciliousness  and 
indifference  were  never  friends  to  criti- 
cism or  to  literature.  The  worst  way 
to  improve  a  national  literature  is  not 
to  read  it;  and  the  next  is  to  read  it 
badly. 

I  bought  the  magazine,  and  read  it, 
all  but  the  advertisements.  It  was  not 
great  literature — some  of  it  was  not  even 
good  literature — but  it  was  certainly  not 
"trash."  A  task  in  research  once  led 
me  to  read  with  thoroughness  the  mag- 
azines of  the  mid-nineteenth  century, 
when  English  literature  was,  so  the 
critics  say,  greater  than  now.  They 
were  not  so  good  as  this  modern  period- 
ical— they  were  not  nearly  so  good  in 
average  of  content,  even  though  here 
and  there  a  poem  or  a  story  or  an  essay 
since  become  famous  lightened  the  toil 
of  reading.  My  professor,  if  he  had  lived 
in  the  mid-century,  would  never  have 
grappled  with  the  diffuse,  sentimental 
writing  that  filled  so  many  pages.  He 
would  have  stopped  with  the  table  of 
contents,  and  missed  perhaps  a  chapter 
of  Vanity  Fair,  a  sonnet  of  Longfellow's, 
a  story  by  Poe,  or  an  instalment  of 
The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table.  And 


my  philistine  business  man  would  infal- 
libly have  skipped  these  good  things, 
read  the  bad,  and  proclaimed  that  most 
modern  stuff  was  trash. 

What  is  it  that  makes  us  contemptu- 
ous when  it  comes  to  current  literature, 
and  especially  to  current  American  liter- 
ature? Is  it  modesty?  I  doubt  it.  Is 
it  hypocrisy?  Do  we  sneer  at  our  read- 
ing (for  most  of  us  do  read  the  magazines, 
and  with  some  interest,  too)  lest  some 
learned  critic  or  scornful  foreigner  will 
laugh  at  our  taste?  Or  is  it  timidity, 
because  we  lack  confidence  to  discrimi- 
nate between  the  good  and  the  bad  in 
current  publications?  Lowell  said  that 
there  would  never  be  an  American  litera- 
ture until  there  was  an  American  criti- 
cism. If  he  meant  that  there  must  be 
great  critics  before  there  are  great  writ- 
ers, the  history  of  many  literary  periods 
is  against  him.  But  it  is  certain  that 
until  we  are*ready  to  stand  by  our  books 
and  periodicals — to  be  honest  in  our 
praise  and  blame,  and  intelligent  in  our 
discrimination — American  literature,  in 
spite  of  occasional  achievement  of  dis- 
tinction, must,  as  a  whole,  remain  sec- 
ond-rate. 

To  sneer  at  contemporary  literature, 
whether  native  or  foreign,  because  most 
of  it  must  disappear  in  the  test  and  trial 
of  time,  is  more  than  ridiculous — it  is 
dangerous.  Of  the  hundred  short  stories 
of  the  month,  ninety  poor  ones  are  less 
important  than  a  single  paragraph  from 
Fielding  or  Thackeray,  and  yet  the  ten 
remaining  may  mean  more  to  us  than 
all  but  the  best  works  of  earlier  cen- 
turies. We  are  partners  in  the  literary 
speculations  of  our  own  age — mere  in- 
vestors in  the  established  enterprises  of 
earlier  periods.  In  the  works  of  our 
best  writers  the  speech  is  our  speech, 
the  mode  of  thought  our  mode,  the 
clothes,  the  streets,  the  events,  the  phi- 
losophy, our  clothes,  our  streets,  our 


CURRENT  LITERATURE  AND  THE  COLLEGES  231 


remembered  history,  our  philosophy.  If 
it  is  to  the  so-called  "classics"  that  we 
must  go  for  eternal  human  nature  and 
perfection  of  expression  tried  and  sure, 
it  is  in  the  "newest  books,"  in  the  news- 
paper on  its  way  from  the  press  to  the 
kindling-box,  in  the  supposedly  ephem- 
eral magazine,  that  we  must  seek  a 
record  of  ourselves  as  others  see  us,  and 
find  the  self-expression  of  our  age.  If 
literature  is  to  be  taken  seriously  at  all, 
current  literature  is  in  some  respects  the 
most  serious  part  of  it — even  the  photo- 
play, even  the  comic  supplement.  It  is 
like  the  breakers  on  the  shore-front:  the 
ocean  lies  behind,  but  it  is  in  them  that 
motion,  energy,  and  life  are  concen- 
trated and  made  manifest.  Few  take 
seriously  our  current  literature,  and  that 
is  why  the  bilious  query  of  the  super- 
cilious and  the  indifferent,  "What  is  the 
matter  with  American  literature?"  is  so 
irritating.  It  is  because  I,  for  one,  do 
take  it  with  enormous  seriousness  that 
I  dare  to  ask  the  question  myself. 

That  there  really  is  something  wrong 
— at  least  with  current  American  writing 
— the  evidence  proves  only  too  readily. 
A  comparison  of  American  stories,  arti- 
cles, plays,  poetry,  with  the  product  of 
Europe  need  not  inspire  a  native  reader 
with  the  despair  which  English  critics 
profess  to  feel  for  us.  Our  writers  are 
the  cleverest  in  the  world,  barring  only 
the  French;  and  in  their  special  field  of 
fiction  and  journalism,  the  most  skilful 
and  most  vigorous.  They  have  energy, 
versatility,  promise;  and  for  the  most 
part  are  free  from  the  marks  of  de- 
cadence visible  in  English  paradox  and 
French  morbidity.  But  depth,  truth, 
sincerity,  are  not  so  evident;  nor  is  the 
craftsmanship  which  completes  a  perfect 
work.  The  best  foreign  plays  are  better 
made  than  our  best  native  drama.  The 
best  English  fiction  strikes  deeper,  means 
more,  is  truer,  than  what  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  put  forward  as  our  most  repre- 
sentative work, — although  one  must  ex- 
cept three  or  four  of  our  chief  writers 
if  the  scale  is  to  tip  against  us.  English 
poetry,  on  the  whole,  is  more  vital,  more 
beautiful,  more  perfect  than  ours.  And 
the  cultivated  American  reader  not  only 
recognizes  these  differences,  he  exagger- 
ates them.  Much  of  the  humor  that 
he  laughs  at  he  believes  to  be  cheap, 


even  when  it  is  not — unless,  like  Mark 
Twain's,  it  comes  in  book  form  with  its 
prestige  stamped  on  the  cover.  Short 
stories,  more  clever  than  anything  being 
written  in  England,  he  delights  in  but 
does  not  wholly  admire.  Plays  that 
hold  his  interest  he  damns  with  a  "good 
melodrama,  I  suppose,"  at  the  end;  and 
he  calls  the  best  sellers  "virile,"  "whole- 
some," "stirring,"  or  "sweet,"  without 
supposing  for  an  instant  that  they  are 
true.  Current  literature  may  tickle  the 
current  American  reader,  and  it  often 
plays  successfully  upon  his  emotions  and 
his  sentiment;  but,  like  current  religion, 
it  seldom  stirs  him  to  faith.  Its  roots 
are  not  about  his  mind  and  his  heart. 

There  are  two  fairly  well-marked 
extremes  in  American  literature — the 
strenuous  and  the  delicate.  Between 
them  is  to  be  found  that  writing  of  the 
first  order  which,  in  despite  of  critical 
sneerers,  we  have  for  a  century  been 
producing,  and  the  mass  of  featureless 
publication  which  has  neither  form,  con- 
tent, nor  significance.  The  bulk  of  our 
circulating  library  and  news-stand  litera- 
ture belongs  to  the  first  extreme — that 
which  I  have  called  the  "strenuous" 
order.  It  is  loud-voiced,  aggressive, 
exuberant,  and  appeals  frankly  to  the 
multitude.  In  articles  and  editorials 
it  affects  the  positive  and  the  pictu- 
resque. It  deals  in  paragraphs  of  three 
lines'  length;  its  subject-matter  is  in- 
teresting, but  it  has  little  accuracy 
and  a  minimum  of  thoughtfulness.  In 
fiction,  it  acquires  such  head-lines  as  "A 
Virile  American  Conquers  the  Love  of  a 
Beautiful  Balkan  Princess,  and  Wins 
Her  by  a  Method  which  must  be  Read 
to  be  Appreciated."  Its  stories  are  built 
like  cantilever  bridges,  and  their  con- 
struction is  quite  as  evident.  The  char- 
acters are  like  the  clothes  they  wear  in 
the  illustrations — ready-made;  and  the 
advertising  pages,  devoted  to  the  ideal 
American  as  he  dresses  in  New  York, 
presents  them  quite  as  fittingly  as  the 
picture  in  color  on  the  cover.  Sometimes 
the  theme  is  adventure,  in  which  case 
the  pace  is  rapid  beyond  hope  of  realiza- 
tion in  this  jaded  world;  sometimes  it 
is  business,  and  then  we  learn  how  lu- 
ridly romantic  are  the  lives  of  our 
bankers  and  brokers;  sometimes  it  is 
pathos — then  the  tears  are  never  far 


232 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


from  the  surface,  and  the  honest  Amer- 
ican heart,  be  it  never  so  practical,  is 
touched,  or  your  money  back;  some- 
times it  is  humor,  and,  as  the  quotation 
from  the  press  notice  describes  it,  "you 
roll  in  excruciating  delight  upon  the 
library  rug,  and  only  save  yourself  by 
herculean  self-control  from  falling  into 
the  fireplace." 

I  do  not  intend  to  be  sarcastic.  On 
the  contrary,  one  must  admire  the 
abounding  vitality  of  this  literature  of 
the  democracy.  It  may  not  be  "virile," 
but  it  certainly  is  vigorous.  It  may  not 
be  "  literary,"  but  what  remains  when 
you  skip  the  "dramatic  openings,"  the 
"happy  endings,"  with  "uplifts,"  the 
mere  adventures,  and  the  conventional 
characterizations — what  is  left  after  this 
contains  much  real  literature,  in  which 
American  conditions  are  mirrored  with 
humor  and  with  genuineness,  and  with  a 
shrewdness  that  almost  makes  up  for 
depth.  The  magazine  that  advertises, 
"This  is  the  best  number  ever  published 
in  America,"  may  be  as  disappointing 
as  certain  "boosted"  towns  of  the  West, 
but  it  is  likely  to  contain  passages  that 
really  do  depict  America;  and  this  is 
something  that  the  merely  "literary" 
may  never  accomplish. 

In  fact,  the  strenuous,  extravagant, 
aggressive  school  of  American  litera- 
ture— the  popular  school— is  as  full  of 
strength  and  confidence  and  promise 
for  the  future  as  American  business. 
But  it  is  far  cruder  than  American  busi- 
ness. It  has  less  brains  behind  it.  It  is 
a  plant  that  runs  to  vigorous  stems 
and  over-abundant  leaves.  It  is  lush  in 
growth  and  not  highly  productive  of 
valuable  fruit,  because  as  yet  it  is  defi- 
cient in  roots. 

The  strenuous  school  is  certainly  pref- 
erable, however,  to  the  other  extreme — 
the  delicate,  scented  variety  of  writing, 
which,  though  not  hardy  in  our  practical 
America,  is  replanted  annually  in  aston- 
ishing abundance.  This  is  a  flower  of 
art  that  the  multitude  who  make  popu- 
larity are  ignorant  of,  and  yet  it,  too, 
is  typically  American.  In  occasional 
contributions  to  the  general  magazines, 
in  a  hundred  "  paid-for-by-the-author" 
books,  and  in  thousands  of  essays,  sto- 
ries, and  poems  read  before  clubs  or 
printed  for  the  few,  there  is  a  gentle, 


highly  personal,  highly  polished  style  of 
composition  which,  if  not  literature,  is 
certainly  literary.  People  with  no  story 
to  tell  write  it  excellently  and  call  it 
art;  people  with  nothing  to  say  polish 
their  style  and  call  it  literature.  As  if 
by  some  survival  of  the  curse  of  Babel, 
careful  writing,  discrimination  in  words, 
restraint,  grace,  beauty — all  that  goes  to 
make  a  style — have  become  associated 
in  America  with  the  privately  printed 
or  the  sparingly  read. 

It  would  be  invidious  and  merely  con- 
fusing to  single  out  examples.  The  kind 
of  writing  I  have  in  mind  is  not  restricted 
to  individuals,  nor  to  given  essays  or 
stories.  It  is  a  tendency  rather  than  a 
method,  and  shows  its  empty,  graceful 
head  as  unmistakably  when  the  com- 
mercial writer  turns  the  spotlight  upon 
his  purple  patches,  or  breathes  soft  senti- 
ment, as  in  the  labored  mannerisms  of 
the  cultured  dilettante.  Nevertheless, 
there  is  an  astonishing  production  of 
American  work  whose  only  recommenda- 
tion is  its  "literary"  form,  though  it  is 
not  literature  in  substance.  In  poetry, 
especially,  the  vice  is  prevalent;  in 
truth,  there  seem  to  be  as  many  poets 
as  there  are  readers  of  new  poetry;  and 
a  discouraging  percentage  of  their  verse 
is  mere  graceful  flower  and  leaf.  The 
scribbling  itch,  of  course,  is  common  to 
all  nations;  but  the  depressing  factor 
here  is  that  so  much  of  what  is  real- 
ly well  written,  artistically  written,  so 
much  of  the  thoroughly  civilized  writing 
in  our  current  literature,  is  of  this  fragile 
order;  so  much  of  what  has  real  juice 
in  it,  real  promise — fresh  thought,  keen 
observation,  cogent  truth — is  slipshod, 
vulgar,  ugly,  or  warped  by  sensational- 
ism and  the  fear  of  reality  into  a  senti- 
mental or  exaggerated  imitation  of  what 
the  public  is  supposed  to  consider  life. 
The  one  school  runs  to  lush  and  wasteful 
growth,  because  it  sends  no  roots  down 
into  the  heart  of  America.  The  other, 
for  all  its  grace  and  perfect  form,  is  not 
hardy,  is  not  at  home  among  us,  because 
it,  too,  is  not  well  rooted  in  our  soil. 

No  one  will  deny  that  we  lose  by  this; 
those  least  who  know  and  admire  the 
work  of  the  many  American  writers  who, 
in  the  face  of  discouraging  conditions, 
are  earning  more  discriminating  praise 
than  has  yet  been  given  them.  Only  the 


CURRENT  LITERATURE  AND  THE  COLLEGES  233 


supercilious  can  fail  to  regret  the  vigor- 
ous imagination  running  waste  in  our 
"popular''  productions — so  little  of  it 
directed  to  any  end  which  may  serve 
art  and  truth.  Only  the  indifferent  can 
see  without  regret  that  the  study  of  per- 
fection which  leads  to  art  is  bestowed 
chiefly  upon  subjects  which  contain  little 
promise  and  no  hearty  life.  Let  us  take 
from  the  comparison  the  few  writers  of 
whom  we  may  well  boast;  let  us  confine 
ourselves  to  pure  literature;  and  then 
admit  that  in  the  drama,  in  fiction,  and 
in  poetry  we  are  just  neither  to  our 
talents,  to  our  needs,  nor  to  our  desires 
in  literature. 

Excuses  are  as  plentiful  as  black- 
berries —  and,  to  a  critic  with  some 
national  pride,  as  sour.  The  commonest 
of  them  take  the  form  of  that  ogre 
which  lurks  in  all  the  dreams  of  culture: 
commercialism.  It  is  a  fallacy.  Venice 
was  commercial  and  had  Giorgione  and 
Titian.  The  Florence  of  Boccaccio  was 
the  center  of  fourteenth-century  com- 
mercialism. The  Holland  of  Rembrandt 
was  commercial  to  the  core.  There  is 
sure  to  be  a  vast  output  of  low-grade 
literary  ware  when,  as  with  us,  the  vast 
majority  of  readers  are  money-makers 
necessarily  intent  on  their  gains,  and 
deprived  of  the  leisure  necessary  to  form 
a  taste;  exactly  as  there  is  an  enormous 
production  of  the  common  conveniences 
of  life — shoes,  newspapers,  collars,  and 
phonographs.  But  this  is  no  necessary 
deterrent  to  high-grade  work.  The  more 
money,  the  more  chance  for  the  artist 
with  high  ideals  to  live.  Surely  our 
industrial  development  since  the  Civil 
War  has  brought  us  to  the  level  of  old 
New  England  of  seventy  years  ago,  when 
the  exploitation  of  the  seaboard  states 
had  ended  in  an  accumulation  of  wealth 
and  a  freeing  of  time  and  energy  for  our 
one  great  literary  period.  Commercial- 
ism may  be  a  proffered  excuse,  but  it 
certainly  is  not  a  necessary  cause  of  our 
mediocrity  in  literature. 

America  is  too  heterogeneous,  too 
shifting,  for  mature  literature,  say  oth- 
ers; it  is  so  various  in  blood,  so  tran- 
sitional in  its  civilization,  as  to  offer  few 
subjects  for  finished  work.  This  is  the 
critics'  excuse.  The  thousands  of  writers 
who  are  satisfying  the  growing  clamor 
for  "something  to  read"  do  not  present 


it.  They  are  not  troubled  by  lack  of 
subjects,  nor  are  they  confused  by  the 
complexity  and  movement  of  our  na- 
tional life.  It  is  true  that  they  do  not 
seem  to  get  to  the  heart  of  this  life;  and 
it  may  be  that  they  rush  in  where  the 
wiser  and  less  vigorous  fear  to  tread. 
But  what  arrant  nonsense  it  would  be 
to  hold  off  until  New  York  and  Chicago 
and  the  Pacific  coast  are  "finished,"  as 
an  Englishwoman  put  it,  asserting  that 
they  would  be  worth  looking  at  when 
that  time  came.  The  scientist  nowadays 
does  not  wait  for  his  specimen  to  be  full- 
grown  or  dead  before  he  begins  his 
examination.  Nor  should  we.  There  is 
no  greater  lack  of  homogeneity  among 
races  here  than  among  classes  in  Ger- 
many. There  is  as  much  significance  in 
our  mental  and  material  development 
as  in  English  pessimism  or  Russian 
melancholy.  I  admit  the  difficulty  of 
making  literature  from  towns  that 
change  their  populations  as  they  change 
their  pavements,  and  a  country  still 
largely  unassimilated.  But  if  we  lose 
one  way,  we  gain  another.  Forests  and 
mountain  wildernesses,  emigration  and 
immigration,  the  clash  of  racial  habits 
and  ideals  in  an  amalgamating  society; 
industrial,  moral,  social  transformation — 
these  are  assuredly  subjects  for  litera- 
ture; and  that  they  challenge  originality 
and  the  interpretative  imagination  does 
not  make  them  less  interesting.  And  yet 
American  literature  does  not  live  up  to 
its  opportunities.  It  is  not  so  good  as 
American  machinery.  And  the  trouble 
is  neither  commercialism  nor  a  dearth  of 
subjects;  it  is  a  lack  of  proper  soil.  It 
is  the  fault  of  the  soil  that  our  novels, 
plays,  poetry,  articles — unrefined  and 
over-refined — lack  the  roots  which  would 
make  them  better  literature. 

The  soil  from  which  good  books  grow 
is  intelligence.  Our  current  writing  is 
clever,  it  is  shrewd,  and  it  is  not  wanting 
in  imagination;  but,  with  due  and  grate- 
ful exception,  it  falls  short  in  the  med- 
itated experience  and  thoughtful  ob- 
servation that  spring  from  intelligence. 
Its  art  is  less  bracing,  less  vital  than  the 
best  in  our  lives.  The  best  English 
novelists  are  superior  to  any  group  of 
Americans;  England  has  better  drama- 
tists than  we  have;  her  poets  are  better 
than  ours — not,  I  think,  because  they 


234 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


have  more  brains,  more  art,  more  imagi- 
nation, but  because  they  use  more.  They 
strike  deeper,  perhaps  because  it  is 
easier  to  do  so  in  old  soil,  but  also  be- 
cause deeper  striking  is  required  of  them. 

The  deficiency,  however,  is  not,  I 
believe,  primarily  with  the  writers.  By 
all  the  laws  of  probability,  we  should 
have  more  than  our  share  of  literary 
genius.  The  American  has  shown  him- 
self more  fertile  in  literary  talent  than 
in  any  other  of  the  arts;  and,  further- 
more, wave  after  wave  of  restless  intel- 
lect has  moved  with  successive  immi- 
grations across  the  sea  to  us.  One  of  the 
great  Welsh  poets,  says  George  Bor- 
row, died  in  New  Brunswick  in  North 
America.  If  the  soil  had  been  right, 
Henry  James,  Whistler,  Sargent — to 
look  at  the  matter  differently — might 
have  flourished  here.  If  the  soil  were 
right,  there  would  be  genius  to  grow 
here. 

What  we  chiefly  lack  is  intelligent 
readers.  Good  readers  make  good  soil. 
No  actor  can  act  his  best  to  a  cold  audi- 
ence or  an  empty  house.  Nor  can  a 
writer  write  his  best  when  there  are  none 
or  few  who  will  read  him.  It  is  true 
that  there  have  been  independent  ge- 
niuses, such  as  Browning  and  Shelley,  who 
seem  to  have  defied  the  neglect  of  the 
reader.  If  we  could  call  forth  such  men, 
might  we  not  make  an  American  litera- 
ture, regardless  of  what  America  wants? 
Unfortunately,  rare  spirits  like  theirs  do 
not  come  at  call;  and  even  they  are 
not  entirely  independent  of  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  they  must  write. 
Shelley,  it  is  true,  did  his  best  work  for 
an  audience  which  was  few  as  well  as 
fit;  but  then  his  best  work  is  the  purest 
of  lyric  poetry,  the  most  personal  form 
of  literature,  the  least  dependent  upon 
a  circle  of  readers.  As  for  Browning,  his 
isolation  was  a  prime  cause  of  his  obscu- 
rity when,  as  so  often,  he  was  needlessly 
obscure.  Great  writers  do  not  come 
ready-made.  Good  readers  help  to 
make  them. 

We  are  the  greatest  readers  among  the 
nations.  Everybody  in  America  reads — 
from  the  messenger-boy  to  the  corpora- 
tion president.  It  never  was  so  easy  to 
read  as  now  in  America.  A  journey  is 
measured  by  discarded  newspapers  and 
magazines.    Fifteen  minutes  on  a  trol- 


ley-car without  something  to  read  has 
become  a  horror.  We  read  so  much  that 
the  publishers,  who  do  not  expect  us 
to  think  of  what  we  are  reading,  crowd 
their  magazines  with  explanatory  illustra- 
tions in  order  to  save  us  from  embarrass- 
ment. This  hunger  and  thirst  for  the 
printed  page  has  resulted  in  a  flood  of 
writing  that  is  good,  but  not  too  good; 
clever,  but  not  too  witty;  emphatic,  but 
not  too  serious,  lest  the  unintelligent 
reader  be  confused;  lest  the  intelligent 
reader  have  to  waste  his  reading-time 
in  thinking.  A  year  of  such  indiscrimi- 
nate perusing  and  a  man  of  good  natural 
taste  will  swallow  anything  rather  than 
be  left  without  something  to  read.  And 
we  have  been  doing  it  for  a  generation. 

Hence  it  has  come  about  that,  while 
we  are  the  greatest  readers  in  the  world, 
we  are  also  the  worst.  We  read  too 
much  to  read  intelligently.  We  are  bad 
readers,  some  of  us,  because,  like  Bene- 
dick, we  have  "a  contemptible  spirit" 
for  the  books  we  spend  our  time  over; 
but  most  of  us  because,  if  we  have  intel- 
ligence, we  fail  to  use  it  when  we  read. 
If  as  great  an  exercise  of  sheer  brain 
power  were  demanded  from  our  novelists 
and  our  playwrights  as  from  our  engi- 
neers, superintendents,  architects,  and 
lawyers,  a  real  literature  would  follow. 
But  we  cannot  stop  reading  long  enough 
to  make  such  a  demand.  We  have  no 
time  for  a  great  creative  literature. 
"People  want  to  be  made  happy  by 
their  novels.  They  don't  care  about 
truth."  "Any  old  stuff*  in  a  play  will 
please  the  public,  if  there  are  laughs 
enough."  So  long  as  this  can  be  said  of 
the  intelligent,  educated  men  and  women 
who  determine  true  popularity,  good 
writing  in  America  will  come  only  by 
accident.  We  are  bad  readers;  and  that 
is  what  is  the  matter  with  American 
literature. 

I  do  not  mean  to  excuse  either  author 
or  publisher.  The  author  —  so  many 
think — underestimates  the  quality  of  his 
audience.  Like  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes, 
he  does  not  dare  to  be  as  funny  as  he 
can.  Often  he  is  unwilling,  often  unable, 
to  pass  the  mark  of  "good  enough." 
The  publisher  is  certainly  over-timorous, 
and  much  prefers  the  rear  to  the  van 
of  progressing  taste.  Nevertheless,  the 
root  of  the  difficulty  lies  elsewhere. 


CURRENT  LITERATURE  AND  THE  COLLEGES  235 


Supply  in  literature  may  not  be  cre- 
ated, but  it  is  inevitably  conditioned, 
by  demand. 

In  the  past  a  number  of  circumstances, 
social  and  economic  rather  than  intel- 
lectual, have  made  the  American  vora- 
cious and  superficial  in  his  reading.  And 
this  is  true  to-day,  with  the  addition 
that  France,  England,  and  Germany  are 
threatened  by  the  same  evil.  There  is 
only  one  remedy:  education.  How  else 
can  you  prepare  for  intelligence?  Edu- 
cation in  the  broadest  sense  makes  a 
good  reader.  In  one  of  its  departments 
— knowledge  of  life,  shrewdness,  com- 
mon sense — we  Americans  are  abun- 
dantly competent  to  read.  It  seems  that 
in  another  department — the  will  to 
think,  to  interpret,  to  appreciate — we 
lag  behind.  Our  colleges  are  blamed  for 
their  failure  to  turn  out  the  authors  of 
a  great  American  literature.  The  charge 
is  unjust,  for  not  the  most  Utopian  of 
universities  could  produce  a  great  litera- 
ture before  it  was  wanted.  Let  them  be 
blamed  rather  for  their  failure  to  produce 
good  readers.  Great  writers  they  can, 
at  best,  train  and  encourage.  Good 
readers  they  can  make. 

In  our  society  it  is  the  college  gradu- 
ates who  must  make  the  soil  for  litera- 
ture. Thanks  to  sheer  numbers,  they 
will  form,  in  the  generation  now  under 
way,  the  majority  of  those  who  by  com- 
petence or  opportunity  become  readers 
of  good  writing;  they  will  determine  the 
policy  of  the  better  newspapers,  the 
quality  of  the  best  magazines,  the  suc- 
cess of  most  books  worthy  of  considera- 
tion. Are  they  reading  better  books 
than  men  and  women  who  have  never 
been  to  college?  Are  they  asking  that 
their  fiction  shall  be  truer,  their  plays 
more  dramatic,  their  wit  wittier,  their 
articles  more  intelligent,  than  all  that 
is  purveyed  for  those  without  a  degree? 
In  some  measure,  yes,  especially  among 
the  women;  in  the  proper  measure,  em- 
phatically no.  And  the  reason  is  that  the 
college  graduate,  while  in  college,  was 
too  busy  with  other  things  to  acquire 
intellectual  interests. 

The  undergraduate  of  to-day  is  cer- 
tainly possessed  of  a  reasonable  amount 
of  intelligence;  the  criticism  most  justly 
made  is  that  in  intellectual  matters  he 
often  fails  to  use  it.   It  is  easy  to  pre- 


sent him  with  information,  and  get  it — 
not  seriously  damaged — back  again.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  make  him  compre- 
hend theories,  developments,  conclusions, 
ideas.  But  it  is  hard  to  make  him  think. 
He  will  spend  enormous  sums  on  tutor- 
ing; he  will  memorize  whole  pages; 
sometimes  he  will  even  forego  his  degree, 
rather  than  think.  And  as  good  reading 
demands  a  certain  amount  of  thinking  as 
a  prime  requisite,  his  books  suffer  in 
proportion  to  the  laziness  of  his  mind. 
If  he  enters  business  in  after-life,  this 
defect  in  thoroughness  is  remedied  by 
a  stern  necessity,  and  what  intelligence 
has  accrued  to  him  he  rapidly  puts  to 
work  at  full  efficiency.  In  preparation 
for  law  and  the  professions  generally,  he 
passes  through  a  period  of  higher  train- 
ing, when  thinking  is  forced  upon  him. 
But  when  it  comes  to  reading  for  pleas- 
ure, there  is  no  such  compulsion.  If  he 
was  lazy-minded  in  studying  in  college, 
he  will  be  lazier  in  reading  afterward. 
If  he  was  content  with  a  sixty-per-cent. 
efficiency,  he  will  scarcely  seek  a  higher 
ratio  of  appreciation  when  there  is  only 
his  own  pleasure  to  consult.  And  how 
can  a  considerable  literature — how  can 
a  really  first-rate  newspaper — be  run  for 
a  man  who  does  not  care  to  comprehend 
more  than,  say,  sixty  per  cent. 

It  is  not  a  duty  I  am  urging.  I  sup- 
pose that  we  have  a  moral  obligation  to 
become  better  readers,  but  such  an 
argument  is  quite  unnecessary.  If, 
crossing  the  hotel  corridor  to  the  man 
who  is  reading  a  novelized  photo-play  to 
rest  his  mind,  I  should  say,  "Dear  sir, 
ought  you  not  to  be  reading  good  litera- 
ture?" I  should  expect  the  retort  that 
Francis  Thompson  made  upon  the  shoe- 
maker who  asked  if  he  were  saved.  I 
have  neither  the  right,  nor  the  desire, 
to  put  such  a  question.  I  am  more 
concerned  with  the  pleasure  and  inspira- 
tion which  the  man  in  the  hotel  corridor, 
and  his  hundred  thousand  companions, 
are  losing.  What  stories  the  really  able 
American  authors  might  write  for  him, 
if  he  were  sufficiently  interested  in  life 
to  read  them!  What  plays  they  would 
produce,  if  he  would  take  the  trouble  to 
discriminate  between  drama  and  melo- 
drama; between  sentiment  and  senti- 
mentality; between  wit  and  horseplay! 
What  essays  they  would  compose  if  they 


236 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


believed  he  could  be  interested  by 
thought! 

And  I  repeat,  I  do  not  know  how  this 
is  to  develop  except  through  the  colleges 
— unless  it  is  to  begin  in  the  schools  and 
the  homes  that  send  us  an  undergradu- 
ate already  predisposed  to  regard  mat- 
ter as  more  important  than  mind.  Every 
modern  nation  has  depended  upon  its 
schools  and  universities — not,  it  is  true, 
to  create  literature,  for  genius  has  never 
required  a  degree,  but  to  spread  that 
intelligence,  and  still  more  that  interest 
in  intelligence,  by  whose  warmth  good 
books  ripen  into  literature.  We  shall 
get  a  distinctive  literature  when  we  are 
willing  to  appreciate  one.  We  shall  be 
willing  and  able  to  appreciate  one  when 
our  education  arouses  intellectual  inter- 
ests as  well  as  trains  character  and  dis- 
ciplines the  mind.  And  this  will  hap- 
pen when,  among  other  things,  boys  and 
girls  are  sent  to  college  to  become  in- 
telligent. 

I  shall  probably  be  scoffed  at  by  the 


professional  writer  who  has  learned  his 
trade  in  the  school  of  experience,  and 
condemned  by  the  esthete  who  is  more 
interested  in  culture  than  in  life.  The 
one  will  laugh  at  the  idea  that  upon 
education  can  depend  so  unacademic  a 
thing  as  creative  literature.  The  other 
is  too  contemptuous  of  the  masses  to 
believe  that  our  artistic  welfare  is  bound 
up  with  theirs.  But  the  facts  are  against 
them.  The  lack  of  art  which  foreign 
critics  urge  against  our  professional  liter- 
ature is  due,  in  part  at  least,  to  the  lack 
of  an  audience  that  will  demand  it. 
The  lack  of  vitality  which  is  evident  in 
our  merely  literary  compositions  is  the 
result  of  writing  for  the  sake  of  writing, 
in  despite  of  those  who  will  not  read. 
No  author  is  independent  of  his  readers. 
He  can  distance  them,  but  he  cannot 
escape  their  influence.  I  have  no  form- 
ula for  genius.  But  when  we  have  good 
readers,  we  shall  get  that  American  lit- 
erature of  which  now  we  have  no  less 
and  no  more  than  we  deserve. 


Herb  of  Grace 

BY  AMELIA  JOSEPHINE  BURR 

I DO  not  know  what  sings  in  me — 
I  only  know  it  sings 
When  pale  the  stars,  and  every  tree 
Is  glad  with  wakening  wings. 

I  only  know  the  air  is  sweet 

With  wondrous  flowers  unseen — 

That  unaccountably  complete 
Is  June's  accustomed  green. 

The  wind  has  magic  in  its  touch, 
Strange  dreams  the  sunsets  give. 

Life  I  have  questioned  overmuch — 
To-day,  I  live. 


The  Royal  Way 


BY  MRS.  HENRY  DUDENEY 


HEN  the  time  comes  to 
die,  and  when,  as  you 
know  very  well,  the 
journey  must  be  taken 
alone,  you  reach  out  for 
the  hand  that  you  best 
love.  With  your  last 
glance,  ever  so  vague  though  it  may  be, 
you  seek  to  search  into  the  compassion- 
ate depths  of  those  other  eyes — the  best- 
loved  ones.  For  some  there  has  never 
been  any  companion  glance  nor  any 
hand  that,  through  its  holding,  could 
index  desire.  Perhaps  these  lonely  ones, 
those  with  the  heart  unopened,  depart 
more  placidly. 

Mehetabel  was  not  one  of  these.  She 
had  been  lovely  and  fierce,  blazing  up  in 
an  instant,  attracting,  compelling,  all  the 
time.  Now  she  was  old  and  widowed — 
just  a  gipsy  lying  on  her  bed  alone, 
under  a  roof,  and  very  slowly  dying. 
Yet  at  her  going,  when  the  time  came, 
there  would  be  no  grief,  but  only  joy; 
for  she  had  lived  and  she  had  accom- 
plished.  What  more  do  you  ask? 

But  under  a  roof!  That  was  what 
hurt  her  and  delayed  her,  for  how  could 
she  die  unless  with  the  sky  for  a  canopy? 
— that,  and  the  hand  of  the  loved  one 
to  hold!  She  would  think  upon  it  bit- 
terly, lying  alone  in  the  small  room,  her 
bed  close  to  the  wall,  while  her  two  sons 
were  at  work  through  the  long  May 
days.  Her  keen  eyes  would  travel  scorn- 
fully round  the  room.  Yet  once  she  had 
been  proud  of  it,  inordinately  proud. 
She  had  been  so  glad  to  get  into  this  cot- 
tage, square  and  thin  like  a  cardboard 
box,  which  was  all  her  very  own. 

It  was  built  at  the  foot  of  the  great 
hills,  and  it  assaulted  them  with  its  fool- 
ish peaked  roof  coming  to  a  silly  point 
in  little  chimneys.  Mehetabel  had  not 
thought  so  once;  she  would  have  flown 
at  the  throat  of  any  one  who  had  dared 
to  say  it.  In  her  middle  life — that  sleek 
time  of  the  settled  emotions — she  had 
been  proud  of  this  four-roomed  place 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  782.-30 


with  its  yellow  walls,  its  red  roof,  and  its 
bit  of  vegetable-ground.  Her  husband 
built  it  in  his  prosperity  and  they  had 
both  felt  ashamed  of  their  gipsy  birth 
and  vagrant  early  days.  Mehetabel  had 
tried  to  take  her  place  among  those 
other  wives  and  mothers  who  had  lived 
under  a  roof  all  their  lives.  It  was  a 
serious  and  quite  unavailing  effort. 
When  she  had  been  born,  her  mother's 
bed  was  bracken — bracken  in  the  spring- 
time, with  juicy  fronds  just  uncurling. 
They  had  uncurled;  the  swarthy  baby 
girl  had  opened  her  black  eyes.  That 
had  been  her  beginning.  Now,  under  a 
roof,  she  was  dying.  Every  day  the  doc- 
tor came  to  feel  her  pulse  and  survey  her. 
Every  day  the  nurse  came  to  make  her 
bed  and  feed  her.  Then  they  went 
away.  Hers  had  been  a  poetic  begin- 
ning; it  was  to  be  an  inglorious  end. 

If  her  bed  had  been  near  the  window 
that  might  have  been  better,  but  those 
who  tended  her  would  not  hear  of  this. 
Near  the  window  she  would  have  felt 
closer  to  Morris,  and  it  was  Morris  she 
wanted.  He,  fifteen  years  ago,  had 
dropped  dead  in  the  triangular  patch  of 
meadow  which  was  theirs — and  from  the 
window  she  could  have  marked  the  very 
place.  Fate  had  been  kind  and  had 
spared  him  the  slow  fretting  of  a  sick- 
bed. It  was  June  when  he  fell  dead,  and 
the  meadow  grass  had  been  high,  just 
ready  for  cutting.  Wild  purple  orchids 
had  lifted  royal  heads,  and  his  dear 
body,  falling,  crushed  them.  The  two 
boys  had  found  him  and  come  to  tell  her. 
She  remembered  that  he  had  been  car- 
ried back  to  the  house  and  laid,  a  ghastly 
burden,  upon  this  bed.  Beside  it  she 
flung  herself  then,  in  a  deep  rebellious 
passion  of  inconsolable  weeping;  for  she 
loved  him,  and  she  yearned  now,  herself 
dying  upon  the  bed,  for  his  hand — some- 
thing to  hold  at  the  last  and  to  steady 
her. 

Every  day  she  lay  glaring  at  the 
primly  curtained  window.   She  had  been 


238 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


proud  of  it — of  white  curtains,  of  a  Sun- 
day parlor,  of  all  those  things  which  pale, 
tame  women  strive  for,  clutch  at,  and 
keep.  Now  she  was  ashamed  of  herself 
and  ashamed,  altogether,  of  that  dead- 
ened, opulent  time  thirty  years  ago 
when  Morris  had  saved  money  and 
bought  the  bit  of  land  and  built  the  place 
and  started  a  greengrocer's  shop  in  the 
town. 

In  doing  this  she  and  Morris  had  been 
not  only  fools,  but  traitors.  She  saw  it 
very  clearly  now.  They  had  been  false 
to  the  quality  of  their  blood  and  to  the 
strength  of  their  tradition.  For  her  peo- 
ple and  his  had  all  been  gipsies  from  the 
beginning.  The  name  they  bore  was  a 
royal  name — in  Romany  dynasty!  What 
had  they — the  Lees  and  royal — to  do 
with  little  houses  and  little  trading  ways? 
This  prosperity  of  theirs  she  had  been 
fool  enough  to  consider  attainment,  and 
it  was  nothing  but  a  slur.  Jehu  and  his 
brother  Silas,  her  two  sons,  they  still 
were  proud  of  it.  Yet  they  were  gipsies, 
too,  and  some  day  they  would  see,  as 
she,  lying  so  long  alone,  was  seeing. 

What  little  dark  rogues  they  had  been 
as  babies! — just  dewberries,  ragged,  sun- 
kissed  things.  Her  daughter,  too,  Ro- 
sina — such  a  slim  queen  of  a  creature! 
She  had  flashing  eyes  for  crown  jewels 
and  sleek  plaits  of  hair  as  a  diadem. 
And  she  was  dead. 

When  Jehu  and  Silas  grew  old  and 
when  they  came  to  die — perhaps  without 
the  hand  that  they  best  loved  to  hold — 
then  they  would  learn,  too,  as  she  upon 
this  bed  lay  learning.  Then  they  would 
revert  to  their  sense  of  a  royal,  free 
lineage;  they  would  cast  aside  all  com- 
mon cares  and  thoughts.  They  would 
long — as  she  with  all  her  soul  was  long- 
ing, every  hour  of  each  slow  day — for 
some  majestic  passing,  away  out  on  the 
hills. 

This  was  really  what  Mehetabel 
wanted — not  to  have  the  bed  set  near 
the  window,  looking  at  a  corner  of  the 
meadow  where  Love  dropped  dead,  but 
to  stretch  herself  out  upon  the  aromatic 
grass  of  the  great  sheep-down.  She 
wanted  to  die  as  the  rest  of  her  race  did; 
not  here,  prisoned  in  cheap  brick,  but  in 
a  sea  of  open  space.  Those  who  loved 
her  best,  Jehu  and  Silas,  they  would 
watch  her;  they  would  keep  guard  until 


the  last.  When  her  spirit  burst,  glorious, 
through  her  tattered,  her  time-fretted 
body,  then  they  would  burn  her  clothes. 
Purging  flames  would  blaze  very  near 
her  cold  feet  as  she  lay  motionless  at 
last  upon  the  hillside. 

She  longed  for  this  and  she  would  cer- 
tainly have  it.  Gipsies,  of  her  tribe,  died 
in  this  royal  way  always.  It  was  tradi- 
tional with  them. 

It  was  not  much  to  ask  when  it  was 
one's  last  request.  Yet  she  dreaded 
that,  because  they  loved  her,  Jehu  and 
Silas  would  refuse — just  as  they  had  re- 
fused to  put  her  bed  near  the  window  in 
a  draught.  Love  was  a  queer  thing,  for 
it  sometimes  cheated  you. 

She,  for  her  part,  had  in  the  same  way 
certainly  cheated  Rosina  when  she  was 
dying.  There  had  been  some  wild  light 
in  the  girl's  eyes  through  her  last  mo- 
ments which  her  mother  had  not  under- 
stood. She  understood  now.  Death,  the 
angel,  coming  close,  slipped  the  key  of 
knowledge  into  her  hands. 

Rosina,  tossing  upon  the  bed,  follow- 
ing her  mother  about  the  sick-room  with 
her  eloquent,  haunting  glance,  had  been 
wanting  to  die  out  of  doors.  This  desire 
was  in  the  blood  of  them  all.  She  had 
cheated  her  daughter  at  the  last,  just  as 
Jehu  and  Silas  would  try  to  cheat  her. 
But  they  should  not.  She  gave  a  savage 
chuckle.  Now,  alone,  in  the  ugly,  square 
room,  she  meant  to  have  her  way. 

Lying  here,  coming  to  dying,  Meheta- 
bel longed  for  her  daughter — that  wom- 
an half  yourself,  flesh  of  your  flesh, 
token  of  your  wedded  love.  No  other 
woman  could  ever  be  the  same.  Sons! 
What  were  they?  She  felt  the  subtlety 
of  the  tie  between  mother  and  daughter 
as  she  had  never  felt  it  while  Rosina 
lived. 

Jehu  and  Silas — they  were  men,  and 
blunt,  with  the  man's  ardor  for  fighting 
and  with  very  little  else.  Yet  now  they 
only  fought  tamely  for  a  respectable  liv- 
ing. At  this  moment  Silas  was  very 
likely  in  the  fields  hoeing  long  rows  of 
cabbages.  He  had  said  this  morning, 
before  he  went  out,  that  he  would  do  it. 
Jehu  was  at  the  shop,  selling  fruit  and 
vegetables.  He  had  said  when  he  came 
up  to  kiss  his  mother  good-by  that  he 
loved  selling  fruit  best.  He  had  laughed 
and  looked  sheepish.    He  said  that  fruit 


THE  ROYAL  WAY 


239 


— those  apples,  just  delicately  flushed — 
were  like  a  sweetheart's  cheek.  He,  of 
the  two,  had  a  sweetheart.  Silas  was 
heavy  of  mind,  with  his  eyes  on  the  hoe 
and  his  thoughts  not  rising  above  the 
price  of  cabbages.  Yet  he  was  a  faithful 
son. 

To  say  that  apples  were  like  Susan's 
cheek,  that  was  fine  of  Jehu;  and  it  was 
a  thing  which  Morris,  his  father,  might 
have  said.  What  a  tongue  Morris  had 
had — a  golden  tongue. 

Mehetabel,  lying  in  the  bed,  was  a 
young  woman  again  when  she  remem- 
bered everything!  One  May-day,  woo- 
ing, she  had  flung  her  head  back  until  it 
lay  in  the  grass,  mocking  her  lover  with 
her  dark  eyes,  luring  him.  And  she 
could  feel  now — yes,  here  and  dying  in 
the  limited  house — the  way  he  had 
leaned  over  her,  fire  in  his  returning 
glance,  flame  through  his  quick  kisses. 
Bluebells  had  been  tangled  in  her  loos- 
ened hair.  They  had  driven  him  mad, 
and  he  had  called  her  his  goddess  and  a 
queen  of  the  woods.  Now  that  wood 
was  only  just  over  there  on  the  other 
slope  of  the  great  hill.  And  it  was  upon 
the  open  hill  and  within  sight  of  this 
secretive  wood  that  she  would  die;  there 
and  nowhere  else  at  all.  She  made  up 
her  mind,  lying  alone  and  fretting  in  the 
tidy  bed. 

That  night  when  her  two  sons  came 
home  and  had  eaten  their  supper  she 
called  down  to  them,  and,  as  they  came 
lumbering  up  the  creaky  stair,  her  heart 
was  beating  very  fast.  She  thrilled — 
she  was  young  again.  When  they  came 
in  and  stood  by  her  bed  she  signaled  to 
the  ugly  window.  The  blind  had  not 
been  drawn  down  and  the  moon  looked 
in,  a  yellow  one  to-night. 

"Like  a  big  fruit  and  a  girl's  cheek," 
said  Mehetabel,  quizzically,  to  her  son 
Jehu. 

By  his  returning  look  of  comprehen- 
sion, of  softness,  and  of  fire,  she  almost 
imagined  him  a  daughter  and  no  mere 
son — an  understanding  woman,  and  not 
a  blunt  man  with  his  heart  absorbed  in 
getting  his  living. 

She  looked  at  her  two  children  elo- 
quently: at  Jehu,  flushing  with  the  ten- 
derness which  her  words  had  aroused;  at 
Silas,  sullen,  as  he  always  seemed,  and 
thinking,  without  doubt,  just  of  cab- 


bages or  of  rabbits.  For  he  grew  the 
one,  bred  the  other,  and  sold  both  at  as 
high  a  price  as  he  could  get. 

"I  shall  die  to-night,"  she  said  simply; 
"I  feel  it — here."  And  her  hand,  so 
thin,  so  ugly,  nothing  but  a  pucker  and  a 
claw,  pressed  hard  against  her  breast. 
"Lift  me  out;  carry  me  up  on  the  hill, 
dearies.  I  can't  go  else,  and  it's  a  long 
while  waiting  for  me  and  for  you.  I'm 
better  dead,  for  my  time's  over." 

She  spoke  solemnly  in  the  high  man- 
ner of  a  priestess,  and  in  the  deep, 
mellifluous  voice  which — of  all  her  early 
graces — she  still  kept. 

They  listened.  They  looked  at  her — 
Silas  in  his  ox's  way,  Jehu  with  the  alert 
brightness  of  a  bird.  To  her  amaze- 
ment, to  her  joy,  they  entered  no  pro- 
test, nor  did  they  mean  to.  This  was 
clear,  she  saw  that  at  once.  They  mere- 
ly stood  attentive. 

"A  warm  night,"  she  cooed,  "and  I 
can  smell  the  hills.  And  I  can  smell  the 
wild  campion.  It's  like  a  hundred 
honey-pots  overset,  my  darlings.  She 
looked  delighted  and  laughed  like  a 
child.  "Wrap  me  in  the  old  shawl  that's 
hanging  there  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and 
carry  me  out — now,  quick!" 

She  took  her  hand  from  her  breast  and 
with  it  made  a  martial  tap,  a  regular 
tattoo,  upon  the  side  of  the  mattress. 
She  addressed  herself  to  Jehu,  her  first- 
born, and  she  let  her  old  head  with  the 
scanty  hair — all  desolate  gray  and  black, 
a  magpie  flutter — fall  deep  upon  the  pil- 
low, revealing  her  throat  with  all  its 
dreadful  ravages  of  time  and  sickness. 
Just  so  had  she  as  a  young  woman, 
glorious  in  the  full  tide  of  beauty  and  de- 
sire, flung  back  her  head,  tangling  her 
hair  with  bluebells,  that  day  years  back 
upon  the  slope  of  the  hill,  deep  in  the 
wood. 

That  had  been  Love,  then,  and  that 
had  been  Youth.  This  was  a  son,  merely, 
and  Death  was  near.  But  the  com- 
pelling power  of  the  wild,  free  woman 
with  warm  gipsy  blood  had  not  departed. 
You  could  not  ignore  the  command  of 
those  dark  eyes,  yet  bright,  that  showed 
beneath  the  wrinkled,  half-closed  lids. 
In  this  mood  she  could  still  do  as  she 
chose  with  a  man.  "Carry  me,"  she 
repeated,  majestically;  "I'm  thin;  it 
'ull  be  a  featherweight,  Jehu." 


240 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


He  was  won.  She  read  response  on 
his  face,  and  eager,  quick  consent.  With 
Silas  one  never  needed  to  reckon,  for  he 
would  do  as  he  was  told. 

"You  to  carry  me" — she  held  out  her 
arms  to  the  elder  one — "Silas  to  bring 
two  guns  and  my  bundle  of  clothes  to  be 
burned  when  I'm  gone.  We  all  die  that 
way,  dears,  when  our  time  comes — all  of 
the  tribe;  and  I  won't  be  false  to  it." 

Her  voice  was  faint  and  she  could 
hardly  speak  at  all.  Both  men  looked 
hard  at  her,  and  they  drew  their  breath 
hard,  too.  She  had  aroused  in  her  sons 
the  sleeping  sense  of  blood  and  tradition. 
They  were  honorably  fired  to  do  the 
thing  that  she  wished;  and  all  the  other 
things  of  daily  life  seemed  now,  through 
this  ecstatic  moment,  only  attributes, 
and  quite  unworthy.  Just  building  a 
little  house  to  assault  the  solemn  hills, 
just  keeping  a  shop  and  selling  things  by 
pennyworths — what  was  it  all  to  them! 

Yet  Mehetabel  had  loved  it  once  and 
been  elated  with  it.  Morris  had  loved 
it  and  striven  for  it  and  attained  to  it. 
They  had  been  proud  of  it  and  ashamed 
of  their  gipsy  fiber.  But  treachery  had 
not  lasted  long.  He  had  fallen  dead  in 
wild  orchis  and  the  meadow  sorrel;  she 
was  to  be  carried  out  now  to  die,  royally, 
as  all  their  race  did. 

So  these  three  to-night,  in  the  neat 
room  with  its  tiresome  air  of  small  pros- 
perity, were  as  lawless  and  as  regal  as 
could  be.  They  were  gipsy  through  and 
through;  nothing  else  in  the  world — 
each  one  reckless,  wild,  and  free,  trounc- 
ing out  at  settled  things  and  small  ways. 

Silas  went  down-stairs  and  got  their 
guns,  while  Jehu,  always  more  of  the 
woman,  gathered  together  his  mother's 
clothing;  not  so  very  much  of  it  to 
collect.  She,  by  fast-moving  eyes, 
by  twitching  hands  upon  the  upper 
sheet,  by  mumbling  lips  from  which 
came  very  little  sound,  instructed  him. 
He  gathered  it  together  from  drawers 
and  cupboards  and  hooks.  When  he 
had  it  all  he  tied  it  in  a  bundle  and 
called  out  to  Silas  to  fetch  it  down. 

Then  he  lifted  Mehetabel  from  the  bed 
and  carried  her.  She  was  a  frail  burden. 
With  her  peaked  nose  and  chin,  with  her 
keen  eyes  and  her  tufts  of  old  hair 
pinned  into  a  crest  at  the  top  of  her  head, 
she  was  just  an  emaciated  eagle.  She 


tucked  her  cheek  beneath  her  son's  thick 
beard.  Jehu  had  a  flaming  beard  and 
Silas  had  a  black  one.  Jehu  wore  it 
pointed,  but  Silas  cut  his  square. 

For  the  last  time,  she  went  down  the 
narrow  flight  of  stairs,  and  she  listened 
to  their  creaking. 

As  Jehu  took  her  up  the  hill  she  was 
alert  to  everything — she  was  chuckling, 
even,  and  it  pleased  her  to  think  that 
his  footstep  was  blithe  as  he  went  so 
easily  up  the  steep,  setting  his  feet  in  a 
track.  She  remembered  that  track. 
Once  wild,  quite  uproariously  young, 
she  had  sat  down  and  slid  from  the  top 
to  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  on  a  smooth 
part.  Morris  had  stood  at  the  foot, 
laughing  and  idolizing.  When  she  came 
down  he  had  caught  her  in  his  arms,  and 
then,  letting  her  free,  he  had  run  a  bit 
of  the  way  up  the  hill  again  to  kiss  the 
faint  track  that  she  made  as  she  slid. 
That  was  Morris  all  over;  a  strong  man 
and  yet  nothing  but  a  worshipful  child. 
A  creature  who  could  lift  you  up  just  as 
easily  as  if  you  were  a  handful  of  thistle- 
down, and  yet  one  who  would  lie  with 
his  head  in  your  lap.  There  was  a 
husband  for  you! 

Going  up  this  loved,  this  well-known 
hill,  for  the  last  time,  she  was  alert  to 
everything — sound,  smell,  sight.  She 
was  more  alive  than  she  had  ever  been. 
Half-way  up,  she  looked  down  at  her 
house  and  found  it  disfiguring.  It 
snapped  its  fingers  in  God's  eye.  This 
was  how  she  rudely  translated  her  feel- 
ing— since,  to  her  mind,  God  was  merely 
the  sense  of  and  the  center  of  all  beauty. 
Every  one  who  impaired  any  beauty 
mocked  at  Him.  To  Mehetabel,  love  of 
the  hills,  yearning  for  the  wood  upon  the 
other  slope,  all  her  passion  for  Morris, 
her  husband,  and  all  her  tenderness  for 
her  babies  as  they  came — that  had  been 
God.  She  was  going  back  to  Him,  tak- 
ing flight  from  the  peak  of  the  hill. 
So  the  house  which  she  had  been  so 
proud  of  was  her  shame  to-night,  and  to 
build  it  had  been  Morris's  one  great  sin. 
If  there  was  such  a  thing  as  sin  (and  the 
clergyman  spoke  constantly  of  it,  for  in 
her  later  days  she  had  gone  regularly  to 
church),  then  it  had  been  wrong  to  raise 
that  ugly  house  at  the  foot  of  the  charm- 
ing hills.     It  had   encompassed  and 


THE  ROYAL  WAY 


241 


"crushed  her,  the  yellow-built,  four- 
roomed  place.  She  had  lived  in  it,  that 
was  true;  yet  it  had  been  a  blind  life. 
Die  in  it  she  could  not,  since  dying,  like 
loving,  was  a  noble  act. 

All  of  this  she  reflected  upon  in  her 
simple,  downright  way  as  Jehu  carried 
her  higher  and  higher.  When,  by  pain- 
fully lifting  her  face  from  out  of  his 
beard  and  looking  down,  she  could  see 
the  house  no  longer,  she  was  very  glad. 
To  build  a  house,  to  buy  land!  What 
folly,  to  be  sure!  Land  belonged  only  to 
those  with  eyes  to  see.  The  woods  were 
her  own,  and  the  hills,  too.  She  could 
now  see  the  other  slope  of  the  hill,  for 
she  was  on  the  top.  There  was  the 
wood,  and  to-night,  without  doubt,  blue- 
bells were  in  it — the  ground  one  sweet 
blue  nod!  Bluebells  had  been  in  her 
black  hair  years  ago.  Morris's  lips  lay 
upon  her  drooped  lids  then  as  he  mur- 
mured. 

Jehu  carefully  laid  her  down.  Not 
speaking  at  all,  he,  with  Silas,  drew  up 
close  to  her  and  sat  upon  the  grass  in  a 
watchful  attitude,  with  their  guns  in 
their  hands.  They  knew  what  to  do — 
knew  what  was  always  done.  Knowledge 
was  in  their  blood.  Their  mother 
watched  them  gratefully.  She  did  not 
speak,  either,  for,  at  the  very  big  mo- 
ments you  do  not. 

Deep  in  the  wood,  from  some  low 
branch,  a  nightingale  was  singing.  Very, 
very  often  Mehetabel  had  listened  to  the 
nightingale  with  its  pained  recitative, 
the  sound  that  made  you  mournful  even 
in  the  midst  of  your  joy.  She  knew  all 
plants  and  birds  and  outdoor  things; 
they  were  her  friends,  and  once,  for  her 
and  for  Morris,  they  had  made  sole 
company. 

She  knew  the  lark's  boundless  song, 
which  in  her  mind  she  linked  with  the 
cry  of  April's  lambs  upon  the  hills;  the 
rollicking,  bold  blackbird,  the  robin  and 
the  thrush,  the  musical,  persistent  wren, 
and  all  the  finches.  She  knew  all  of 
them;  lots  more!  The  song  of  that 
hidden  bird  to-night  upon  a  bush  down 
there  in  the  wood  burned  away  the  pres- 
ent and  revived  the  past.  So,  lying  upon 
the  hill  at  her  last  she  was  again  young 
and  adored.  Again  she  lived  her  mo- 
ment. She  remembered  Morris  and  their 
wooing  and  their  early  married  days, 


before  they — according  to  their  canons 
of  such  things — became  rich.  She  could 
only  dwell  upon  the  beauty  and  the  per- 
fect joy  and  the  airiness  of  those  days; 
her  spirit,  so  fine  now,  so  near  its  last 
release,  rejected  all  thought  of  the  bodily 
pain  and  weariness  that  there  had  been: 
interminable  trampings  along  dusty 
roads,  beseeching  at  churlish  doors  for  a 
drink  of  water;  being  hungry,  being 
sleepy,  being  wet,  and  being  hot.  She 
remembered  all  this,  yet  she  dismissed 
it  and  ignored  it — since  never  in  spirit 
had  she  suffered  one  pang.  For  Morris 
had  been  close  beside  her  always — a  hus- 
band of  faithfulness  and  mirth  and  fire. 

Shifty  night  sounds  came  as  she  lay 
upon  the  grass,  a  son  on  each  side  as 
sentinel;  sounds  of  small  marauding 
animals,  scurrying  by;  sleepy  twitters 
from  new  nests;  crackings  of  boughs; 
furtive  heavings  of  leaves.  This  was  a 
royal  way  to  die!  For  she  lay  easefully 
upon  grass,  and  it  was  fragrant;  very 
soft  and  springy,  too. 

She  lay  with  her  head  low  and  her 
old  throat  candid  to  the  observant  moon. 
Her  head  fell  back  and  back.  Silas  and 
Jehu,  at  the  last  fearful  moment,  sign- 
ing to  each  other,  not  speaking,  gently 
putting  aside  their  guns,  linked  arms  to 
make  a  rude  cradle  for  her  head.  She 
neither  opposed  nor  yielded,  she  was  so 
very  far  away. 

Jehu  was  staring  brightly  at  that 
white  campion  growing  in  the  inclosed 
field  upon  the  hillside.  She  had  spoken 
of  it  to-night.  In  other  years  she  had 
seen  and  smelled  campion.  That  field 
was  all  moving  silver  stars;  it  rejoiced 
and  consoled  Jehu.  Silas  had  his  eyes 
full  on  his  mother's  face — big  eyes,  black 
and  oddly  dull;  a  tear  or  two  went  down 
his  cheeks.  She  was  dying,  and  she — for 
him  at  least — meant  all  that  he  had. 

Upon  the  faces  of  both  men  was  that 
flicker  of  vagabondage,  the  token  of 
their  race.  Mehetabel  had  purged  her 
sons  by  her  last  desire,  and  very  likely 
they,  when  the  time  came,  would  die 
upon  the  hills  as  she  was  dying,  and  as 
all  of  them  did. 

Just  before  she  died  the  very  earliest 
streak  of  dawn  came;  first  a  thinning  of 
clouds,  then  a  dropping  of  the  moon; 
last,  a  little  line — only  a  pencil  streak  of 
finest  pink.   It  was  that  hour  of  curious, 


242 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


cold  quietness  that  comes  before  the  new 
day.  She  lay  suddenly  rigid.  Jehu  and 
Silas  unlinked  their  arms  and,  shivering, 
withdrew  them.  They  stared  at  each 
other  and,  stiffly,  for  the  first  time 
through  the  long  watch  they  stood  up. 
They  stretched  themselves,  leaving  her 
alone. 

Now  that  she  was  dead,  how  old  she 
looked,  and  vacant- — quite  deleted! 
Those  eyes  below  the  strong  brows,  eyes 
which  forced  you  to  do  things,  were  shut. 
She  looked  a  wasted,  brown  old  creature, 
and  she  was  no  longer  triumphant.  So 
the  spell  that  she  had  cast  was  broken. 

Jehu  and  Silas  stared  down  and,  as 
they  stared  so,  the  wild  torrent  of  their 
gipsy  blood  stopped  racing.  They  were 
sensible  men  once  more  and  they  felt 
ashamed.  They  gazed  askance  at  that 
bundle  of  hers  lying  near,  which  pres- 
ently they  must  certainly  burn  as  she 
had  commanded.  They  would  burn  it, 
then  they  would  carry  her  down  to  the 
house  and  slip  her  back  into  bed  before 
the  world  woke  up.  They  looked  at  her, 
and  in  a  forlorn,  brotherly  way  they 
looked  at  each  other.  Yet  Jehu's  face, 
even  through  his  sorrow,  was  illumined; 
for  he,  thought  of  his  sweetheart,  and  he 
stared  at  the  starry  campion.  Silas  had 
nobody  and  nothing — no  sweetheart,  no 
delicate  gift  of  vision.  He,  indeed,  was 
left  alone.  In  his  dumb  way  he  felt 
heartbroken,  and  presently  he  went 
away  by  himself.  Jehu  knelt  down 
upon  the  grass;  he  took  his  mother's 
hand  and  covered  it  with  kisses.  Down 
there  in  the  wood  he  could  hear  the 
snapping  of  dry  boughs.  When  his 
brqther  came  back,  a  shadowy  figure 
against  the  vague  dawn,  and  framed  in 
feathery  twigs  which  he  carried  upon  his 
back,  Jehu  stood  up.  Feeling  scared,  he 
approached  the  bundle  and  opened  it. 
His  mother's  things  were  scattered  upon 
the  grass;  to  do  this  seemed  an  outrage, 
and  his  face,  fine-cut  and  proud,  quiv- 
ered. Silas,  stolidly,  yet  with  wet 
cheeks,  was  building  the  sticks  into  a 
pyre.  He  did  everything  slowly  and  did 
it  well. 

From  what  one  might  call  the  abiding 
foundation  of  Mehetabel's  more  solid 
possessions — her  gowns  and  cloak — 
there  tumbled  little  trifles — ends  of 
bright  ribbon,  a  couple  of  flowered  hand- 


kerchiefs, a  gaudy  silk  shawl  to  tie  over 
the  head.  Jehu  had  hastily  collected 
everything  and  pitched  it  together,  tying 
it  up  in  the  cloak  before  they  all  left  the 
house. 

Mehetabel's  black  gown,  cloak,  and 
silk  bonnet  which  she  wore  for  best  had 
been  her  pride,  yet  her  heart  had  been 
given  to  the  discarded  gipsy  things — 
those  crimson,  those  green  and  orange 
tags  with  which  once  she  had  decked 
herself — faded,  torn  fineries  and  sorry 
wrecks  of  her  young  splendor.  Morris 
had  loved  them,  and  she  remembered 
just  how  flame  color  had  looked  knotted 
round  her  firm  throat,  and  remembered, 
too,  the  things  that  he  had  whispered 
of  it. 

Jehu  now  took  a  bright  handkerchief 
and  spread  it  over  her  face.  It  lay  like  a 
flower-patch,  and  there  was  not  the  tini- 
est bit  of  a  breeze  to  lift  even  a  corner. 
Nothing  of  her  fluttered  or  was  stirred 
in  the  least.  She  was  royal,  and  even 
the  elements  respected  her. 

She  lay  dead  upon  the  great  hill,  and 
faint,  beginning  scents  of  aromatic  wild 
plants  growing  in  the  grass  stole  up  now 
to  perfume  her  death-bed.  Perfume, 
too,  from  the  resinous  spray  wood  that 
Silas  had  lighted.  He  had  brought  paper 
and  matches  in  his  pocket,  so  very  soon 
they  had  a  big  fire.  Smoke  twisted  in 
lovely  spirals  to  the  dimly  seen  sky; 
flames  curled  round  Mehetabel's  ward- 
robe and  burned  up  everything  together: 
solid  stuff  and  shiny  silk  of  which  she 
had  been  proud;  tawny  flutters  of  old 
rags  of  which  she  had  been  ashamed, 
and  yet  had  romantically  loved,  since 
they  expressed  her  lost  life  of  long  ago 
upon  the  open  road. 

Jehu,  just  in  time  before  the  fire  took 
it,  pulled  out  a  shabby  leather  case.  He 
had  not  noticed  this  when  he  put  the 
things  together,  and  he  said  so  now  to  his 
brother. 

"It  must  have  been  in  a  pocket,"  said 
Silas,  and  he  looked  covetously  over 
Jehu's  shoulder  as  he  opened  the  case. 
Their  mother's  ear-rings  lay  in  it — heavy 
gold  crescents,  handsomely  chased. 

"Pity  to  burn  them,"  said  Silas. 
"Waste  of  money."  He  looked  doubt- 
fully at  Jehu;  for  money  meant  a  great 
deal,  yet  a  mother's  commands  meant 
more. 


THE  ROYAL  WAY 


243 


"We  can't  sell  them."  Jehu  looked 
down  at  the  solid-gold  ornaments. 

"To  bury  her  in  them,  that  would  be 
waste,  too,"  answered  Silas.  He  spoke 
in  his  ponderous  way,  yet  his  mouth 
under  the  full,  square-cut  beard  was 
twitching  and  pursing  like  a  baby's.  He 
blinked  at  his  brother,  who  blinked  back. 
They  drew  together  and  away  from  the 
mother.  They  were  both  thinking  the 
same  thing. 

"They  might  do  for  Susan."  Jehu, 
speaking  their  thought,  slipped  the  case 
into  his  pocket.  "She  might  have 
wished  that,"  he  added,  and  glanced 
timidly  back  at  that  gaunt  shape  upon 
the  grass.    "We  can't  be  sure." 

Yet  he  need  not  have  been  afraid  nor 
doubted.  Mehetable  would  have  under- 
stood his  heart.  How  well  she  would 
have  understood!  And  she  would  have 
loved  her  son  more  than  ever  because, 
even  now,  he  was  rapturously  imagining 
what  those  gold  ornaments  would  look 
like  when  worn  by  his  white  Susan. 

The  fire  burned  well,  and  they  would 
not  leave  the  hill  until  it  was  out.  There 
was  nothing  now  to  say  and  nothing  to 
do  but  to  wait.  Their  hearts  were 
heavy,  yet  also  they  were  in  a  strange 
state  of  excitement  and  of  dread,  for 
they  did  not  wish  the  neighbors  to  know 
anything  of  all  this.  They  did  not  wish 
to  be  laughed  at  or  derided  or  thought 
less  of  than  other  people. 

Presently  Silas  again  lurched  off  and 
went  into  the  wood  with  his  gun.  He 
trod  the  grass  softly,  just  as  down  there 
in  the  little  house  he  had  trod  softly  in 
his  mother's  sick-room,  or  upon  the  stairs 
at  night  when  he  went  to  bed,  for  fear 
of  waking  her.  Jehu,  left  alone,  sat  by 
the  fire,  huddled  up,  and  coaxed  it  into 
a  brighter  blaze  by  pushing  charred 
ends  of  stick  into  its  heart.  There 
was  little  now  to  burn;  everything  lay 
in  gray  ash  or  shapeless  black  flakings. 
When  Silas  returned  they  would  carry 
her  down  and  put  her  into  bed  again 
and  fetch  the  doctor.  Nobody  need 
know  anything. 

Jehu  was  sitting  still,  the  sky  lifting 
visibly  over  there  in  the  east,  the  fire 
fading  out,  when  a  girl  came  up  the  hill, 
stepping  in  the  track  along  which  they 
had  carried  Mehetabel.  She  was  out- 
lined against  the  tender  young  sky,  and 


she  looked  to  Jehu  radiant  and  light, 
delicate  and  angelic.  Every  clammy 
terror  went  away  at  her  appearing,  for 
she  expressed  life  and  hope  and  love.  He 
lifted  his  head,  which  had  been  sunk 
while  he  played  with  the  fire.  He 
jumped  up,  advanced  to  her,  and  said, 
half  in  joy  and  half  in  shame: 
"  Sukey !" 

She  was  a  blond  girl,  with  neat,  small 
features  and  a  narrow  brow,  this  sweet- 
heart of  his. 

"Jess!"  she  returned.  "Jess!" 

She  would  never  call  him  Jehu,  for  it 
was  a  ridiculous  sound  in  her  ears,  and 
it  held  something  both  comic  and  pro- 
fane. She  felt  this  about  Old  Testament 
names,  and  she  associated  them  with 
Sunday-school. 

She  could  see  nothing  but  him  for  the 
present.  Just  he  and  she  stood  alone  to- 
gether upon  this  great  dim  hill,  and  she 
never  even  saw,  at  first,  the  flattened, 
dying  fire,  nor  that  long  body  with  its 
dreadful  air  of  stiffness  that  stretched 
upon  the  grass. 

She  came  up  close  to  Jehu  gladly,  yet 
for  all  that  with  an  element  of  reproof 
and  even  suspicion.  For  she  was  never 
quite  sure  of  his  love  or  easy  about  his 
actions.  He  was  different.  He  was  not 
— by  birth — respectable;  he  was  a  gipsy. 

To-day  at  dawn,  up  here  and  all  un- 
expected, he  appeared  unshaven  and 
slovenly.  He  looked  a  haggard  man, 
unkempt  yet  always  handsome.  He 
held  out  his  arms,  then,  closing  them 
tight  around  her,  he  put  his  head  down 
until  his  chin  touched  her  cheek. 

"Susan!"  he  said.  It  was  a  sob. 
"Why  did  you  come?"  he  asked,  his 
arms  tighter.  "Did  you  know  I  wanted 
you?  Were  you  warned  in  a  dream?" 

"Dream?   Warned?  What?" 

Her  three  words  were  crisp,  you  might 
say  accusing,  and  she  drew  herself  away. 
She  regarded  him,  standing  free  and  a 
pace  off.  She  thought  how  handsome  he 
was  and  that  whatever  he  did  she  would 
feel  proud  of  him,  just  for  his  looks,  if 
for  nothing  more.  And  she  saw  nothing 
upon  this  hill  but  Jehu.  There  was  re- 
proach in  her  shallow  blue  eyes;  yet 
there  was  love,  too,  and  also — this  he 
noted  gladly — she  was  unkempt.  This 
disorder  linked  him  to  her;  it  made  a 
bond — of  the  blood,  almost! 


244 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


" Dream ?"  she  repeated.  "No,  I 
never.  Father  called  me  up  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  night  to  go  after  Dimple.  He 
can't  stir  himself;  he's  got  lumbago,  and 
there  was  nobody  else.  That  old  cow 
will  stray  when  she  wants.  I've  been 
calling  over  the  hills  till  I  am  hoarse. 
Didn't  you  hear  me?" 

"No,"  he  answered,  dully,  "I  never 
heard  you,"  and  he  looked  behind  him. 

Susan  looked,  too.  Then  she  realized, 
and  then,  for  the  first  time,  she  noticed 
the  fire  burning  near  her  feet.  She 
looked  with  apprehension  and  always 
with  suspicion,  with  an  air  of  being 
ready  to  condemn.  For  she  never  forgot 
that  Jehu  was  only  a  gipsy,  while  she 
was  a  farmer's  daughter.  Nor  did  her 
own  people  let  her  forget  it.  Jehu  for 
Susan  was  considered  a  poor  match. 

She  looked  around  her;  then,  glancing 
fretfully  toward  the  wood,  she  heard  the 
cracking  of  twigs  as  Silas  broke  his  way 
through  undergrowth.  She  was  afraid 
and  tired.  Suddenly  she  burst  out  cry- 
ing, petulantly.  For  she  had  been  weary 
and  sleepy  and  cross  for  hours,  calling 
across  the  dark  hills  for  the  stray  cow, 
and  robbed  of  her  night's  rest. 

Jehu  wrapped  his  long  arms  around  her 
again.  His  face  was  heavenly  tender, 
and  no  longer  did  he  sob.  He  had 
sobbed  for  his  loss;  but  for  his  gain,  close 
here  in  his  arms,  he  could  have  laughed 
outright.  And,  holding  Susan,  he  al- 
ready half  forgot  his  mother.  Love  is  so 
heartless  when  it  is  young !  But  Meheta- 
bel,  whose  own  heart  never  grew  old, 
would  have  understood  perfectly.  Per- 
haps she  already  did. 

"My  mother,"  he  whispered,  his 
voice  close  at  Susan's  ear,  "is  dead  on 
the  grass  behind  us,  darling.  Me  and 
Silas  made  this  fire  to  burn  her  clothes 
up  afterward.  It's  the  way  we  all  die 
when  our  time  comes." 

He  spoke  proudly.  Susan  would 
never,  never  understand.  Forlornly  he 
felt  this,  and  he  was  assured  of  it  by  the 
instant,  subtle  retreat  of  her  body  from 
his  as  he  held  her.  Yet  she  loved  him 
wildly,  too — in  her  way.  Well,  that 
makes  everything  clear  and  easy.  When 
his  time  came  to  die  she  would  have  him 
carried  out  upon  the  hill  if  he  begged 
hard  enough.  But  dying  was  a  long  way 
off".   Love,  which  is  Life,  lay  here  in  his 


arms.  Why  be  sorry,  then,  for  any- 
thing? 

"Dead?  Your  mother?"  Susan  flung 
her  head  back,  eyes  and  mouth  opening. 
"You  brought  her  up  here?  Why?" 

"We  all  do.  We  carried  her,"  he  said, 
with  regal  simplicity,  with  sternness. 

This  impressed  her  and  it  burned  out, 
for  once  in  a  way,  her  sense  of  being  his 
superior.  She  looked  humble  as  he  went 
on  speaking;  polite  and  attentive.  She 
carried  an  air  of  rustic  courtesy. 

"I  carried  her,  and  Silas  carried  her 
clothes  and  the  guns.  We  watched  her 
with  our  guns  all  night.  She  died  at 
dawn,  and  we've  burned  her  clothes,  as 
she  commanded.  Our  tribe  does  die  like 
that." 

He  spoke  with  a  magnificent  air,  yet 
quite  unconsciously.  It  was  not  brag- 
gadocio— it  was  too  assured  of  itself  for 
that.  You  do  not  look  for  bluster  in  a 
monarch,  and  Jehu  was  just  a  king  con- 
descending to  a  subject.  Susan  felt  this. 
She  was  in  awe  of  him,  and  she  adored 
him  more  than  she  had  ever  done. 

When  he  said  "our  tribe,"  with  his 
head  held  up  and  his  wild  eyes  flashing, 
it  was  wonderful.  Often  she  had  laughed 
at  him  for  saying  that,  and  twitted  him. 
Out  here  upon  the  hill,  with  the  sun  only 
half  arisen — one  leg  out  of  bed,  as  it 
were — she  was  subservient.  Jehu  was 
doing  to  her  what  his  mother  had  done 
to  him  and  to  Silas.  He  was  imposing  his 
pride  of  race.  And  just  as  his  mother 
had  lashed  herself  in  her  bed,  scorning 
common,  small  prosperities,  so  he,  al- 
though he  loved  her  so,  was  lashing 
Susan,  the  farmer's  daughter,  now. 

"She's  dead — there?"  Susan  pointed 
to  the  figure  upon  the  grass  as  soon  as 
she  recovered  herself,  and  primly  drew 
away  again  from  Jehu's  embrace — they 
went  through  steady  processes  of  ad- 
vance and  retreat.  "It  is  awful,"  she 
proceeded,  coming  again  to  herself;  "it 
isn't  respectable.    Why  did  you  do  it?" 

"It  is  grand,"  Jehu  told  her,  "and  it  is 
our  way.   We  do." 

That,  to  him,  finished  it.  His  sweet- 
heart kept  on  staring  at  the  grass  and  at 
the  rigid  figure  lying  there. 

Jehu  fetched  out  the  leather  case  and, 
opening  it,  revealed  the  heavy  ear-rings. 
"They  were  nearly  burned,"  he  ex- 
plained;  "I  pulled  them  from  the  fire 


THE  ROYAL  WAY 


245 


just  in  time.  I  think  she'd  like  you  to 
have  them,  my  dear." 

He  seemed,  however,  to  weigh  and  to 
speculate,  and  he  looked  behind  him  at 
that  patch  upon  the  grass,  but  one 
would  never  get  any  answer  from  there! 

"Ear-rings?"  ruminated  Susan,  and 
she  took  the  case.  "Funny,  queer,  old- 
fashioned  things!  They  could  be  fas- 
tened together  into  a  brooch,  Jess.  It 
would  be  a  handsome  ornament.  I 
would  wear  it" — she  sounded  properly 
sentimental — "for  her  sake."  Her  eyes 
glittered  and  her  hands  looked  greedy. 

"Would  you  like" — he  turned,  his 
heel  digging  into  the  turf — "to  look  at 
her?" 

He  spoke  with  a  marvelous  softness, 
and  the  expression  upon  his  face  she  did 
not  understand. 

"No,  no,"  she  answered,  quickly.  "I 
could  not  bear  it.  I've  never  seen  a  dead 
person.  Don't  touch  the  handkerchief, 
please.  It  ought  to  be  a  white  handker- 
chief, poor  thing!"  This  seemed  to 
trouble  Susan  more  than  anything  else, 
and  she  began  to  cry  again. 

"Don't  cry,  sweetheart,"  he  said,  sim- 
ply. "She  is  happy  and  we  shall  be. 
There's  nothing  to  cry  about,  that  I  see, 
this  morning." 

He  took  the  case  away  and  returned 
it  to  his  pocket.  "Not  a  brooch,"  he 
said,  staring  at  Susan's  delicate  blond 
beauty — she  was  fragile  as  snow  this 
morning  in  the  early  dawn.  "If  you 
won't  wear  ear-rings,  then  they  shall  be 
made  into  an  ornament  to  hang  round 
your  neck  on  a  gold  chain  and  be  a 
charm.  Something  to  shine  upon  your 
throat,  my  very  dear.  Love  of  my  soul, 
but  I  love  you!" 

He  concluded  with  rapture  and  quick 
fire.  He  seemed  to  pounce  upon  her  in 
one  lithe  movement,  and  he  kissed  the 
throat  around  which  his  mother's  orna- 
ment should  hang. 

Sometimes,  in  this  mood,  he  startled 
Susan,  and  she  drew  herself  away  now, 
blushing,  radiant,  and  very  tender — yet 
with  an  air  of  restraint. 

"I  must  find  Dimple,"  she  said,  "or 
father  will  be  cross.  Oh" — she  quickly 
returned  and  clung  to  her  lover  — 
"what's  that  awful  screaming  in  the 
wood  ?" 


"It's  only  Silas  killing  something — a 
rabbit  most  like.  He  is  half  off"  his  head 
with  our  loss,  poor  lad.  To  kill  something 
will  do  him  good.  That's  his  way.  The 
other  day  he  killed  some  rats  that  we 
caught  in  a  trap;  and  the  last  one,  the 
old  mother  rat — Sukey!  You  are  quite 
white.    I  shouldn't  have  told  you." 

"It  is  awful,"  she  said;  "everything 
is  awful  this  morning,  and  I  shall  be  glad 
to  get  indoors  again.  But  you  didn't 
kiU  the  rat?" 

"No,  not  that  one;  it  would  have  up- 
set me.  But  they've  got  to  be  killed. 
You  know  that  as  well  as  anybody,  liv- 
ing on  a  farm." 

"Oh  yes,  I  know  that,"  said  Susan, 
more  composedly.  "I'll  run  away  now, 
Jess,  before  your  brother  comes  back." 

"If  you  like,  if  you  wish,  dear,  dearest 
one!"  Jehu's  flashing  eyes  devoured 
her,  nevertheless — for  he  was  wild  in 
every  way  this  morning.  He  was  a 
gipsy,  and  as  Morris  his  father  had  been 
when  he  wooed  Mehetabel. 

"Here  comes  Silas  from  the  wood," 
he  added.  "Doesn't  he  look  big  and 
savage,  the  poor  old  fellow?  But  there's 
no  harm  in  him  at  all.  The  hill  is  so 
dark  that  it  makes  things  and  people 
look  very  funny,  and  I'm  light-headed, 
I  think,  with  sitting  up  all  night.  Go 
and  find  Dimple,  Susan,  as  your  father 
said.  Silas  and  I  must  carry  mother 
down  to  the  house  before  people  are 
about.  I  don't  want  any  talk.  Remem- 
ber that."    He  looked  cautious  at  once. 

"You  may  be  sure,"  returned  Susan, 
"  that  /  sha'n't  say  a  word.   Is  it  likely  ?" 

She  slipped  ofF,  sliding  as  it  were  from 
Jehu's  last  embrace.  All  the  shifting 
shadows  absorbed  her  and  she  was  out 
of  sight  before  Silas  came  from  the  wood, 
a  dead  hare  dangling  at  his  strong  wrist. 

She  went  calling  for  the  cow,  making 
that  queer  hooting  cry  which  is  so  un- 
canny when  you  hear  it  sometimes 
piercing  through  the  tender  dawn. 

When  Silas  came  up  to  his  brother 
they  lifted  their  mother,  without  one 
word  passing,  and  carried  her  sol- 
emnly down  the  big  green  hill  to  her 
little  house.  Silas  hid  the  guns  and  the 
hare  in  a  low-growing  bush  of  thorn. 
Later  on  he  would  come  up  the  hill  again 
and  get  them. 


Vol.  CXXXI  — No.  7S2.— 31 


"Landscape:  Pan  and  the  Wolf," 
by  J.  Alden  Weir 

BAUDELAIRE  said  th  at  a  man  without  special 
temperament  ought  not  to  paint,  however  good 
a  craftsman  he  might  be.  Mr.  Weir  is  a  man  of 
special  temperament.  In  a  former  paper  in  this  series 
admiration  was  expressed  for  the  lyrical  suggestiveness 
and  idyllic  charm  of  his  landscape  art,  qualities  which 
distinctly  mark  the  present  work.  Indeed,  a  better  ex- 
ample could  hardly  have  been  chosen  to  show  his  per- 
sonal accent,  the  impress  resulting  from  searching- 
vision.  Our  painters,  more  sensitive  and  more  eclectic 
than  their  predecessors,  unveil  for  us  the  inmost  recesses 
of  Nature.  It  is  only  in  modern  days  that  the  solitary 
regions,  with  their  silence  and  mystery,  have  found 
interpreters  whose  works  afford  Nature-lovers  delight. 
The  painters  who  perceive  these  illimitable  manifesta- 
tions of  Nature  are  the  most  ardent  seekers,  ever  pushing 
fuither  and  further  their  study  of  her  infinite  variety. 
Landscape  in  their  hands  is  vivified  and  personified,  and 
takes  on  a  new  interest,  bearing,  as  it  does,  the  intimate 
accent  of  the  painter's  own  feeling. 

Mr.  Weir,  working  in  this  direction,  has  established 
his  individual  idiom  of  expression.  This  individuality 
is  one  sharply  defined  and  easily  recognizable.  He 
pushes  to  the  extreme  the  assumption  of  the  ability  of 
painting  to  express  the  indefinable  poetry  of  Nature, 
opening  for  our  enjoyment  a  dream-world  full  of  secrets 
and  possibilities.  The  rocky  covert,  haunted  by  the 
woodland  god,  under  the  pale,  glamorous,  moonlit  haze, 
carries  an  atmosphere  of  misty  longing  and  peace. 
There  is  exquisite  harmony  between  his  dreamy,  impres- 
sionable mood  and  the  atmospheric  color  that  awak- 
ens a  haunting  memory  of  things  felt  rather  than  seen. 
His  concern  is  not  so  much  with  the  outward  aspect  as 
with  the  mood  of  Nature,  and  he  leaves  the  result  to 
make  its  own  appeal,  knowing  that  it  must  ever  remain 
uncomprehended  by  the  crowd. 

W.  Stanton  Howard. 


"  LANDSCAPE  :    PAN    AND    THE    WOLF,"    BY    J.   ALDEN  WEIR 


Engraved  on  Wood  by  Henry  Wolf  from  the  Original  Painting 


The  Customs  of  an  Irish  County 


BY  MAUDE   RADFORD  WARREN 


OUTHEAST  in  Ireland 
lies  the  County  Wex- 
ford, a  fair,  serene  sur- 
face that  covers  rich 
treasury  of  the  sorrow 
and  romance  of  the 
many  difFerent  peoples 
who  chose  it  for  a  home,  fought  to  keep 
it,  and  died  yearning  and  dispossessed, 
or  triumphant  but  insecure.  At  first 
blush  the  county  is  like  some  fine  per- 
sonality, inconspicuous  from  its  very 
perfection  of  harmony.  It  lacks  the  bold 
headlands  of  the  north  and  west  of  Ire- 
land, and  the  desolate  loveliness  of  the 
bog.  Its  beauty  has  a  softer,  more  in- 
sinuating quality;  its  lures  get  into  one's 
blood,  and  then  one  understands  why  the 
ancient  peoples  built  their  great  raths 
and  towers  and  churches  on  Wexford 
sod,  and  gave  her  a  fierce  and  loving 
testimony  of  birth  and  living  and  death. 

The  old  peoples  coming  in  from  the 
sea  to  take  Wexford  must  have  been 
struck  by  its  emphatic  definition,  its  pos- 
sibilities as  a  theater  for  partisan  war- 
fare. Its  undulating  surface,  which 
measures  in  miles  fifty  by  twenty-four, 
is  checked  on  the  east  and  the  south  by 
the  sea.  On  the  west  stands  Mount 
Leinster,  which  has  always  marked  the 
boundary  of  the  province,  while  north, 
to  break  the  back  of  the  winter  winds, 
rise  the  Black  Stairs  mountains,  the 
three  sharp  pinnacles  of  which  are  known 
as  the  Leaps  of  Ossian's  Greyhounds. 
Within,  the  beautiful  river  Slaney  di- 
vides the  land  into  two  unequal  parts. 
On  the  side  of  a  well-wooded  hill  is  the 
town  of  Wexford,  which  for  untold  cen- 
turies has  stood  to  the  fierce  races  who 
wooed  the  land  as  a  symbol  of  their 
might.  A  thousand  years  ago  the  race 
then  in  power  built  a  magnificent  city 
wall  to  keep  out  all  invaders,  and  ever 
since  then  the  old  streets  of  Wexford 
have  been  so  narrow  that  two  vehicles 
cannot  pass  without  special  arrange- 
ment.   It  was  there  that  in  the  early 


days  the  great  fair  for  all  Leinster  was 
held,  when  there  was  buying  and  selling, 
and  sports  and  games,  while  the  chiefs 
and  brehons  debated  in  council.  It  was 
there  hundreds  of  years  later  that  the 
gentlefolk  had  their  town  houses  and  the 
narrow  streets  echoed  to  them  riding  to 
the  hunt  or  driving  in  their  splendid 
coaches  to  the  county  balls. 

It  was  after  the  Anglo-Norman  came 
that  the  face  of  Wexford  took  on  its 
present  appearance.  Up  to  that  time 
there  had  been  old  memorial  stones  and 
raths,  and  some  forts  and  castles,  but 
the  stout  new-comers  meant  that  no  one 
should  take  from  them  what  they  had 
taken  from  others,  and  as  a  farmer  sows 
his  seed,  so  they  sowed  Wexford  with 
castles,  forts,  and  abbeys.  The  county 
is  divided  into  ten  baronies,  and  in  four 
of  them  alone  there  remain  one  hundred 
and  twenty  castles  and  towers.  There 
are  fifty-nine  on  a  surface  of  less  than 
sixty-three  square  miles.  The  castles 
were  very  heavily  built,  with  thick 
masonry  and  deep  windows.  They  were 
generally  characterized  by  a  single 
square  tower,  at  one  corner  of  a  square 
battlemented  courtyard.  From  this 
tower  a  warden  could  see  from  two  to 
six  castles;  a  beacon  signal  could  soon 
be  spread.  These  homes  could  not  be 
easily  given  to  the  flame,  nor  the  flesh 
of  the  inhabitants  to  the  eagles. 

And  if  there  are  many  ruins  about 
which  any  Wexford  gossoon  can  tell  you 
the  legends,  there  are  others  of  which 
nobody  knows  anything.  One  is  per- 
haps driving  along  a  road  where  the 
honeysuckle  and  wild  roses  are  delicately 
struggling  for  mastery,  and  one  sees  sud- 
denly a  square  tower  rising  gaunt  and 
high  from  a  grazing-meadow.  On  ap- 
proaching, one  sees  the  marks  of  the 
moat;  one  steps  through  the  arched, 
open  doorway  and  looks  up  at  the  roof- 
less structure.  The  stones  rise  higher 
and  higher;  the  blue,  serene  sky  shows 
above  and  through  the  deep,  narrow 


THE  CUSTOMS  OF  AN  IRISH  COUNTY 


249 


not  going  necessarily  to  be  good  for 
them,  with  the  income  tax  increasing, 
and  with  England  no  longer  helping  with 
the  rates,  but  that  they  dare  not  show 
their  real  feeling  for  fear  of  boycott  from 
their  laborers  and  the  tradesmen.  It  is 
true  that  they  may  eat  more  nowadays 
than  bacon  and  cabbage  and  potatoes; 
and  they  can  have  houses  with  tiled 
instead  of  thatched  roofs.  But  look  at 
the  difficulty  of  getting  laborers!  Nowa- 
days a  government  board  will  build  a 
poor  man  a  cottage  on  an  acre  of  ground 
for  which  he  will  pay  a  weekly  rent  of 
from  eight  pence  to  a  shilling  —  neat 
little  cottages  without  a  taste  of  mud 
about  them!  When  a  laborer  can  live 
in  a  place  like  that,  and  has  a  child  or 
two  in  America  to  send  him  home 
money,  he  is  not  going  to  work  unless  he 
feels  like  it;  and  his  son  will  only  work 
till  he  has  earned  enough  money  to  buy 
a  bicycle  and  a  suit  of  new  clothes  with 
which  to  impress  the  girls. 

Until  something  less  than  a  hundred 
years  ago  the  inhabitants  of  Forth  and  of 
Bargy  spoke  a  language  difFerent  from 
that  spoken  in  the  rest  of  Wexford  or  in 
any  other  part  of  the  country.  It  was 
a  language  that  Chaucer  and  Spenser 
would  have  understood.     To  this  day 


CULLINSTOWN — COTTAGES  BY  THE  SEA 


windows — and  on  the  broken  floor  is 
tethered  a  cow,  who  gazes  blankly  at  the 
intruder.  Another  case  of  usurpation, 
and  no  one  can  tell  whose  was  the  castle, 
and  no  one  is  concerned  with  the  many 
centuries  of  living,  quiet  and  stormy, 
which  went  on  inside  these  walls. 

Old-fashioned  people  are  apt  to  la- 
ment the  past.  There  is  always  some 
one  to  say  that  Wexford  has  degen- 
erated. The  landholder  complains  that, 
with  the  rents  going  down  and  the  in- 
come tax  rising,  people  of  his  class  have 
much  ado  to  keep  going;  that  young 
men  of  good  families  are  forced  to  emi- 
grate to  America,  like  any  gossoon  who 
expects  to  work  with  his  hands;  that 
though  the  rents  go  down,  the  laborers 
and  tenants  who  have  always  depended 
on  the  big  house  for  certain  supplies  do 
so  still.  He  will  say  that  the  farmers, 
since  their  rents  have  been  lowered  and 
they  are  buying  land,  are  becoming  so 
prosperous  that  they  no  longer  have  the 
old  feudal  feeling,  but  educate  their  chil- 
dren above  themselves;  that  the  com- 
mon people  in  general  are  no  longer  as 
respectful  as  they  were,  and  that  while 
home  rule  will  ruin  the  country,  still  it 
would  not  be  surprising  if  it  came. 

The  farmers  say  that  home  rule  is 


250 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


some  of  the  old  words  still  survive,  such 
as  "let"  for  "hindered,"  "kennen"  for 
"known,"  "math"  for  "meadow," 
"fash"  for  "shame,"  "ractsome"  for 
"fair,"  "redesman"  for  "adviser," 
"chour"  for  "giant,"  "lewd"  for 
"ashamed."  An  angry  person  will  still 
say,  "I'll  make  gobbets  of  you!"  Other 
Wexford  expressions,  rarely  to  be  heard 
in  other  parts  of  Ireland,  are  "re- 
negged,"  meaning  "changed  of  mind"; 
"coknowsure"  for  a  knowing  person, 
"ramshogues"  for  "foolish  stories," 
"shandrumdandy "  for  "broken  down," 
"sharoose"  for  "displeased." 

Wexford  conservatism  further  shows 
in  the  keeping  up  of  many  of  the  old 
customs.  In  some  quarters  the  match- 
maker is  still  an  important  personage. 
He  or  she — usually  an  old  bachelor  or 
a  spinster  or  widow — has  a  long  memory 
for  the  marriageable  girls  and  boys 
among  the  peasantry  of  the  county, 
and  even  of  adjoining  counties.  The 
young  people  are  not  at  first  consulted; 
the  parents  of  both  are  approached, 
and  the  talk  is  not  at  all  of  the  in- 
clinations of  those  who  are  to  marry, 
but  of  how  much  dower  is  to  go  with 
the  girl,  and  what  the  young  man's 
father  will  allow  him.  For  all  their 
warm  hearts,  the   Irish   are  practical 


enough;  they  have  to  be.  There  is 
plenty  of  innocent  love-making  which 
never  leads  to  marriage,  because  the 
chances  for  a  living  in  Ireland  are  lim- 
ited, and  a  couple  must  have  a  little 
degree  of  certainty  about  the  future. 
Sometimes  a  young  man  cares  so  much 
for  some  particular  girl  that  he  breaks 
through  custom  and  finds  a  way  of  mar- 
rying her.  One  youth  of  the  barony 
Forth  loved  the  daughter  of  a  Wicklow 
farmer  who  had  two  hundred  acres  and 
corresponding  high  ideals  for  his  daugh- 
ter. The  youth  had  ten  bare  acres  and 
a  bare  cottage.  He  appealed  to  the  sym- 
pathies of  his  neighbors,  who  straight- 
way lent  him  cows  and  horses  and  sheep, 
carts  and  machines  and  furniture,  so 
that  when  the  Wicklow  farmer  came 
down  to  look  over  the  claims  of  his  pro- 
spective son-in-law,  he  saw  such  shining 
prosperity  that  he  gladly  yielded  the 
daughter. 

But  in  general  the  parents  are  very 
keen  about  the  settlements.  More  than 
once  all  negotiations  have  been  stopped 
because  one  father  would  not  set  a  heifer 
against  the  feather-bed  of  the  other 
father.  There  are  not,  as  in  America, 
wide,  hopeful  horizons  which  promise 
sufficient  heifers  and  feather-beds.  The 
young  people,  knowing  this,  are  content 


THE  ANCIENT  CASTLE  OF  FERNS,  STRONGHOLD  OF  DIARMUID,  THE  TRAITOR-KING 


SAGGINSTOWN  CASTLE  BY  THE  SEA 


to  leave  the  settlement  of  their  marriage 
to  older  heads.  The  story  goes  that 
once  a  hearty,  managing  dame  of  Wex- 
ford came  out  to  the  paddock  where  her 
daughter  was  milking  the  cow.  Worn 
out  with  negotiations  which  had  not 
been  entirely  to  her  advantage,  she 
looked  sourly  at  the  girl,  and  remarked: 

"Well,  Maureen,  your  banns  '11  be  put 
up  to-morrow.  You'll  be  married  in 
three  weeks'  time." 

"Who  to,  mother?"  asked  Maureen, 
timidly. 

Upon  which  her  mother  snapped, 
"What's  that  to  you?" 

Doubtless  Maureen's  family  gave  a 
great  dinner,  with  the  priest  sitting  at  the 
head  of  the  table,  and,  at  the  end  of  the 
meal,  blessing  and  cutting  the  bride- 
cake, each  guest  giving  him  some  money 
for  taking  a  slice.  Then  dancing  and 
drinking  would  follow  far  into  the  night, 
and  perhaps  the  cost  of  this  hospitality 
would  cripple  the  bride's  family  for  a 
year.  Nowadays,  if  young  men  or 
women  do  not  like  the  marriages  which 
have  been  arranged,  they  can  borrow 
from  sympathetic  friends  and  slip  away 
to  America.  Almost  invariably  these 
practical  marriages  turn  out  well.  I  he 
young  people  are  pleased  to  be  given 


their  own  speck  of  land  and  their  own 
little  cottage;  they  are  true  to  each 
other,  and  their  habit  of  daily  compan- 
ionship soon  grows  into  a  fine,  deep 
devotion. 

The  Wexford  people  have  not  given 
up  the  old  custom  of  the  brown  shroud. 
When  a  Wexfordian  is  about  to  die  he 
has  brought  to  him  from  his  own  special 
chest  this  shroud  of  brown  cloth,  usually 
made  by  the  nuns,  and  which  has  already 
been  blessed  by  the  priest.  If  he  is  so 
poor  that  he  does  not  own  one,  a  neigh- 
bor lends  him  the  garment.  If  he  is  too 
near  the  end  to  put  on  the  whole  gar- 
ment, some  one  guides  his  arm  into  a 
sleeve  and  helps  him  hold  a  lighted  can- 
dle while  the  prayers  for  the  dying  are 
said  over  him.  In  this  way  he  hopes  to 
escape  the  pains  of  purgatory. 

Almost  equally  impressive  is  the  curse. 
An  Irishman  feels  a  wrong  keenly,  but 
it  must  go  very  deep  indeed  before  he 
will  put  a  curse  upon  one  who  has  in- 
jured him.  The  harm  wrought  must 
have  been  so  heavy  that  there  is  no 
remedy  and  no  chance  of  personal  retali- 
ation; the  matter  must  lie  in  God's 
hands,  and  Him  the  injured  one  invokes. 
He  who  has  done  the  harm  fears  the 
curse,  feeling  it,  at  least  temporarily, 


252 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


almost  as  much  as  the  man  whom  he  has 
made  suffer.  One  would  not  care  to 
witness  twice  such  a  scene — the  wronged 
person,  trembling  with  emotion,  on  his 
knees  on  the  green  sod,  calling  down 
with  passionate,  vibrant  voice  this  age- 
old  curse  upon  another  who  cowers, 
who  cannot  but  dread: 

"May  the  grass 
grow  at  your  door 
and  the  fox  build 
his  nest  on  your 
hearthstone.  May 
the  light  fade  from 
your  eyes,  so  that 
you  never  see 
what  you  love. 
May  your  own 
blood  rise  against 
you,  and  the 
sweetest  drink 
you  take  be  the 
bitterest  cup  of 
sorrow.  May  you 
die  without  bene- 
fit of  clergy;  may 
there  be  none  to 
shed  a  tear  at  your 
grave,  and  may 
the  hearthstone 
of  hell  be  your 
best  bed  for  ever!" 

There  are  some 
Wexford  people 
who  will  tell  you 
that  the  fairies 
went  away  when 
Parnell  was  thrust 
out  of  power,  and 
that  is  the  only 

thing  for  which  they  blame  Parnell. 
The  young  people  do  not  believe  in 
fairies  any  more,  but  many  of  their 
elders  do.  They  know  that  if  the  but- 
ter does  not  come  they  have  done 
something  to  offend  the  Good  Little 
People,  such  as  throwing  out  water 
after  sundown,  or  blessing  themselves 
when  they  put  their  foot  on  a  rath 
where  fairies  live,  for  these  fear  a 
blessing  like  red-hot  iron.  The  old 
men  and  women,  if  they  sneeze,  say, 
"God  between  me  and  harm,"  to  keep 
the  fairies  from  getting  power  over  them. 
Any  young  man  or  woman  who  is  very 
beautiful  or  is  a  good  dancer,  it  is  said, 
is  liable  to  be  stolen  by  the  Good  Little 


WEXFORD  TYPES 


People.  There  aie  many  stories  such  as 
the  one  about  John  Fitz  James,  who 
dropped  dead  as  he  kissed  his  bride  in 
the  church,  and  for  years  the  knowledge- 
able persons  who  are  called  fairy  doctors 
tried  to  bring  him  back  from  fairyland, 
but  they  never  succeeded,  for  his  beauty 
was  too  great  to  be  parted  with. 

Sometimes  a 
fairy  changeling  is 
put  in  the  cradle 
in  the  place  of  a 
new-born  child. 
He  is  to  be  rec- 
ognized because 
he  is  old-looking 
and  ill  to  please, 
with  wise,  watch- 
ing eyes.  Then 
a  fairy  doctor 
should  be  called 
in,  who  will  fill 
a  cup  of  oatmeal, 
and  saying  over 
it  a  prayer  in 
Irish,  and  cover- 
ing it  with  a  cloth, 
he  will  apply  it  to 
the  back,  heart, 
and  sides  of  the 
changeling.  If  it 
be  a  fairy,  half 
the  meal  disap- 
pears, and  the  rest 
is  made  into  three 
small  cakes,  and 
baked  for  the 
mother  to  eat,  one 
each  morning.  On 
the  third  morning 
the  spell  is  broken,  and  the  changeling 
goes  back  to  fairyland,  leaving  the 
rightful  child  in  its  place.  Sometimes 
these  doctors  give  a  prospective  mother 
a  pishogue,  or  charm,  to  keep  the  fai- 
ries out  for  the  fi  st  nine  days  after  the 
baby's  birth. 

Nowhere  in  Wexford  could  you  find  a 
laborer  who  would  disturb  a  fairy  rath, 
as  the  people  call  the  old  forts  made 
by  the  prehistoric  peoples.  These  round 
or  square  mounds  often  occupy  a  good 
many  square  yards  of  space,  and  the  use 
of  them  is  coveted  by  the  landlords,  who 
know  this  unused  land  is  especially  rich 
and  do  not  like  to  see  it  wasted.  But 
they  cannot  contend  against  the  many 


THE  CUSTOMS  OF  AN  IRISH  COUNTY 


253 


stones  of  men  who  dug  into  raths  and 
were  blinded  by  some  sharp  thing  the 
fairies  threw  into  their  eyes,  or  who  put 
down  the  spade  and  went  home  to 
sicken  and  die.  It  is  not  safe  to  work 
near  land  where  the  fairies  have  been 
offended.  The  Good  Little  People  will 
never  be  dispossessed  in  Wexford. 

Many  other  superstitions  still  linger. 
People  no  longer  light  fires  on  May- 
day in  the  milking-yards  and  jump  over 
them,  afterward  driving  the  cattle 
through  the  flame,  following  an  old  cus- 
tom which  is  supposed  to  have  had  some 
relation  to  the  Druid  fire-offe rings  to 
Baal.  Even  now  some  people  watch 
their  cattle  carefully  about  May-time, 
or  even  inclose  them  in  a  paddock,  for 
if  any  evil  one  were  to  milk  a  small  por- 
tion in  the  name  of  the  devil,  there 
would  be  little  butter  for  a  twelve- 
month. People  don't  like  to  meet  a  red- 
headed woman  in  the  morning,  for  that 
betokens  an  ill  journey.  They  often 
count  magpies,  for  one  means  sorrow; 
two,  luck;  three,  a  wedding;  and  four  a 
death.  It  is  said  that  the  blood  of  a 
black  cat's  tail,  laid  on  a  wound  with  a 
raven's  feather,  will  effect  a  cure,  and 
that  the  milk  of  a  white  cow  drawn  by 
a  maiden's  hand  will  ease  heartache. 
Nine  hairs  plucked  from  the  tail  of  a 


wild  colt  and  bound  the  ninth  day  after 
birth  around  a  baby's  ankle  will  make 
him  sure  and  swift  of  foot.  A  hen  that 
crows  should  be  killed.  The  cock's 
warnings  should  be  heeded;  if  one  rises 
early  to  start  on  a  journey,  and  the 
cock  crows,  that  means  it  will  be  unlucky 
to  go  so  soon.  One  should  never  fill  up 
an  old  well,  because  those  who  once  drew 
water  there  will  come  back.  It  is  bad 
luck  to  stumble  in  a  graveyard  or  fall 
from  a  car  at  a  funeral,  and  a  mother 
should  never  go  to  the  grave  of  her  first 
child.  Moreover,  coffins  should  be  un- 
screwed, so  that  the  dead  may  rise  easily 
on  the  last  day.  When  an  old  proprietor 
dies,  the  birds  and  the  bees  always 
desert  the  place.  The  will-o'-the-wisp 
is  the  spirit  of  a  man  who  was  banished 
from  heaven  and  hell  because  he  had 
offended  both  God  and  the  devil.  It  is 
well  to  have  pity  on  a  frog  in  the  road, 
for  once  frogs  were  Christian  people. 

On  Shrove  Tuesday  they  still  practise 
pancake  tossing  in  Wexford.  The  eldest 
daughter  of  the  man  of  the  house  begins. 
Upon  her  success  in  tossing  depends  her 
luck  for  the  year.  If  she  fails  to  toss  the 
pancake  high  in  the  air,  and  turn  it 
neatly,  she  can  have  no  chance  of  mar- 
riage for  a  twelvemonth.  On  St. 
Stephen's  Day,  December  26th,  in  many 


THE  COURTYARD  OF  BANNON  HOUSE 

Vol.  CXXXI  — No.  782.-32 


254 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


places  in  Wexford  they  still  hunt  the 
wren,  because  it  was  the  bird  which  be- 
trayed Christ;  they  impale  the  little 
bodies  on  holly  bushes.  They  keep 
many  feast-days  still;  at  Christmas  and 
Easter  time  especially  they  have  long 
holidays.  In  addition  there  is  Twelfth 
Night,  St.  Bridget's  Day,  St.  Patrick's 
Day,  the  Feast  of  the  Invention  of  the 
Cross;  St.  John's  Day,  when  they  still 
light  fires  on  the  hills;  the  Feast  of  St. 
Luke  the  Evangelist;  the  Feast  of  Our 
Lady,  and  St.  Martin's  Day.  And  they 
still  have  "pattern  days,"  when  they 
pray  at  the  holy  wells. 

The  Wexford  people,  like  all  the  Irish 
who  live  in  the  country,  have  marked 
spiritual  qualities.  Long,  solitary  hours 
of  walking  by  the  roads  that  lead  to  the 
sea,  and  past  their  many  empty  towers 
and  castles,  eloquent  of  other  years  and 


A  WEXFORD  FARM-HOUSE 


other  men — gone,  who  knows  whither? 
— have  brought  them  near  to  unseen 
powers,  religious  and  traditional.  They 
are  as  often  silent  as  talkative  when  they 
sit  about  their  hearth  at  night. 

"Ah,  then,"  says  old  Mogue,  the 
"dark  fiddler,"  perhaps  a  descendant  of 
one  of  the  old  bards  so  reverenced  by 
the  Wexford  people,  "you  are  asking 
me  why  I  smile,  sitting  by  my  lone  in  the 
doorway,  with  only  the  warmth  of  the 
sun  on  my  face  to  tell  me  there  is  light 
at  all.  I  am  smiling  because  I  heard  a 
lovely  thing — the  voice  of  our  blessed 
Lord's  mother.  Grander  it  was  than 
the  whispering  of  the  Little  People  I 
hear  sometimes  back  beyond  in  the 
rath." 

All  the  inhabitants  have  a  deep  love 
for  their  home.  It  is  perhaps  because 
their  ancestors  fought  ,so  fiercely  for 
every  rod  of  the  land  that  their 
descendants  are  loath  to  leave 
their  country.  The  scenes  when 
our  emigrant  says  farewell  to 
his  home  and  his  neighbors 
are  distressing  in  the  extreme. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  the  call  of 
the  sod  is  too  strong  for  the 
prospective  exile. 

"Your  Michael  didn't  go  to 
America,  then,  Mrs.  Murphy  ?" 
a  woman  is  asked  whose  son 
had  a  ticket  for  New  York. 

"Ah  no,  ma'am;  the  yellow 
clay  held  his  feet,  and  his 
mother's  milk  got  about  his 
heart,  and  he  couldn't  go." 

Michael  gives  various  un- 
sentimental reasons  why  he 
remained,  but  he  finally  says, 
"Sure,  I  couldn't  l'ave  my 
mother  alone  with  a  long,  soft 
family  to  bring  up;  and  her 
heart  was  in  me,  and  sure  it's 
hard  to  draw  the  heart  of  a 
woman  back." 

"Ah,  well,"  says  Mrs.  Mur- 
phy, with  vague  religious 
flavor  in  her  tone,  "there's 
many  a  thing  falls  out  be- 
tween the  milking  of  the  cow 
and  the  print  of  butter  com- 
ing to  the  table." 

But  the  Wexford  people 
are  not  all  compact  of  ten- 
derness and  spirituality. 


WEXFORD  HARBOR — A  SEA-HAVEN  SINCE  PREHISTORIC  DAYS 


They  are  many-sided.  At  their  markets, 
when  they  are  haggling  about  prices, 
they  show  the  most  perfect  acting  of  in- 
dignation, despair,  surprise,  and  scorn 
when  they  are  merely  trying  to  over- 
reach their  neighbors.  They  have  keen, 
hard  heads  and  long  memories.  When 
in  an  expressive  mood,  they  can  talk 
by  the  hour  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  from 
folk-lore  two  thousand  years  old  to  the 
current  local  affairs  of  the  parish,  and 
their  talk  reveals  shrewd  observation 
and  a  high,  critical  faculty,  sarcastic 
humor,  exaggeration,  and  even  personal 
attack.  Let  half  a  dozen  of  them  meet 
around  the  fire  after  a  nipping  day,  with 
a  slight  grievance  against  some  neigh- 
bor who  has  ofFended  by  having  secured 
a  widely  desired  appointment  from  the 
county  council,  and  the  fortunate  lis- 
tener will  hear  some  vivid  remarks. 
They  don't  mean  what  they  say,  and 
they  would  do  any  amount  of  kindness 
for  the  neighbor,  but  they  cannot  resist 
giving  play  to  their  tongues. 

"I  saw  Tim  Dugan  coming  up  the 
street  just  now,"  says  one.  "He  was 
not  drunk,  but  he  had  drink  taken,  and 
he  had  a  face  on  him  would  frighten  a 
horse  from  its  fodder." 

"Is  it  that  murderer?"  asks  a  listener, 
though  every  one  knows   Tim  Dugan 


has  never  been  suspected  of  murder. 
"Sure,  he'd  not  stir  a  finger  to  lift  a  red 
herrin'  ofF  a  gridiron,  but  he'd  ask  your- 
self to  lift  the  rock  of  Gibraltar." 

"Ah,"  puts  in  a  third  speaker,  with 
mock  sympathy,  "sure  the  poor  crather 
spends  his  strength  running  about  giv- 
ing advice  to  his  neighbors.  He's  so 
generous  with  his  absence  from  his  own 
field  that  he's  out  of  his  gates  twenty 
times  for  once  he  comes  in.  And  I 
wouldn't  say  he  tosses  his  little  finger 
too  high  [drinks  too  hard];  sure  he  never 
drinks  except  when  he's  alone  or  with 
a  friend." 

This  is  appreciated,  and  then  some 
one  says: 

"I'd  not  be  after  calling  him  a  liar, 
exactly.  Sure,  he  was  complimenting 
Mr.  Carew  on  the  speech  he  made,  and 
says  Mr.  Carew,  'Tell  me,  then,  Tim, 
what  part  of  it  did  you  like  best?'  And 
says  me  bold  Tim,  'Sure,  it  wasn't  a 
particular  part,  so  to  speak,  but  your 
perservarance,  the  way  you  went  over 
it  and  over  it.'" 

After  the  laughter  subsides,  the  same 
man  continues:  "That  one,  if  he  was 
courting,  would  tie  many  a  knot  with  his 
tongue  he  couldn't  untie  with  his  teeth, 
and  if  he  had  to  follow  the  track  of  his 
own  words,  it's  a  grand  hunt  he'd  give 


2f)f> 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


himself.  I'm  thinking  'tis  a  fine  thing 
for  his  wife  he's  single." 

"Sure,"  answers  a  former  speaker, 
"I'm  thinking  marriage  is  on  his  mind. 
For  says  I  to  him,  thinking  I'd  incense 
him  into  a  little  law,  him  being  so  above 
himself  with  his  new  office,  says  I  to  him, 
'Tim,  what  is  the  penalty  for  bigamy?' 
and  he  says  back  to  me,  'Two  mothers- 
in-law. 

Nor  are  smuggling  stories  lacking,  the 
favorite  one  being  about  a  fine  old  land- 
holder of  Barony  Forth  with  more  en- 
terprise than  money.  He  and  his  de- 
voted tenantry  decided  to  cheat  the 
excise.  He  got  a  ship,  and  began  a 
trade  with  Holland  in  tobacco  and  gin. 
When  his  ship  would  arrive  at  night  on 
the  Wexford  coast  he  would  go  out  with 
a  trusty  man  or  two  to  meet  it  in  a  small 
boat,  some  of  his  tenants  guarding  the 
store  with  stones  in  their  hands  to  repel 
all  intruders.  Others  were  standing  in 
their  peat-carts,  ready  to  carry  away  the 
merchandise.  The  landlord,  once  the 
wares  were  landed,  stood  on  an  up- 
turned cart  and  sold  on  the  spot  to  likely 
peasants,  who,  in  their  turn,  would  dis- 
pose of  the  tobacco  and  liquor  to  dealers 
throughout  the  county.  The  authori- 
ties made  the  greatest  efforts  to  trap 
this  business-like  gentleman,  but  he  was 
never  caught.  They  searched  every- 
body who  came  ofF  his  place  except  the 
people  in  the  funeral  processions,  who 
bore  coffins  full  of  tobacco,  the  new- 
comers carrying  loads  under  their  cloaks. 
On  the  occasion  when  the  gaugers 
stormed  the  cottages  of  the  peasants 
they  found  the  whole  community  ap- 
parently ill  with  smallpox,  and  they  fled, 


leaving  the  landlord  to  make  prosperity 
for  himself  and  his  tenants. 

But  despite  old  stories,  Wexford  is 
ceasing  to  live  in  the  past.  Looking  out 
of  some  old  window  in  Wexford  town, 
it  might  not  seem  so,  as  one  sees  the 
irregular  sky  -  lines,  made  of  drooping 
roofs  and  sagging  chimneys,  and,  beyond, 
the  broken  towers  on  seacoast  and  hill, 
while  near  by  the  little  gardens  creep 
inside  walls,  whence  the  stones  and  mor- 
tar are  falling.  About  the  town,  in  such 
a  glance,  there  seems  an  air  of  crumbling 
decay.  It  is  almost  as  if  the  people 
inside  are  holding  together  their  narrow, 
bleak-faced  old  houses.  The  little  alleys 
and  streets  shrink  together,  as  if  it  were 
of  no  use  to  go  very  far,  as  if  it  would 
be  safer  to  stop  inside  those  bounds  still 
marked  by  the  ruins  of  the  great  Danish 
wall  of  Wexford.  Down  on  the  quay 
— on  that  long,  well-built  water-front 
where  the  ships  used  to  anchor — there 
seems  at  first  glance  again  an  atmosphere 
of  decay.  An  old  hulk  lies  in  a  water- 
nook.  A  few  aged  men  talk  in  couples — 
their  work,  too,  past.  But  then,  it  is  seen 
that  the  old  men  are  not  merely  idle; 
they  are  waiting  for  something.  A  little 
sloop  comes  in  and  begins  unloading. 
A  boat  puts  up  a  sail  and  scuds  across 
the  wide  breast  of  the  river  Slaney. 
Over  the  long  Wexford  bridge  above  the 
green  waters  pass  the  young  men  and 
women,  going  to  and  from  their  work  in 
Wexford  town.  In  those  young  faces 
there  is  no  sign  of  crumbling  age,  no 
looking  backward.  It  is  they  who  put 
life  in  the  old  sagging  houses;  it  is  their 
hope  and  spirit  that  goes  marching  up 
and  down  the  narrow,  twisting  streets. 


Patricia,  Angel-at- Large 


A    STORY    IN    THREE    PARTS— II 

BY  MARGARET  CAMERON 


^RS.  YARNELL  was 
playing  a  very  astute 
game.  She  read  clearly 
all  Bob  Chamberlain's 
boyish  doubts  and  fears 
as  to  his  worthiness, 
§  and  knew  that  she  had 
only  to  lower  her  walls  a  little  to  bring 
him  leaping  across  to  her.  But  she  did 
not  underestimate  the  strength  of  the 
forces  that  would  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  him  in  that  trying  period  between 
betrothal  and  marriage,  and  she  wished 
to  make  sure  of  her  power  to  hold  him 
against  any  inducements  to  leap  back 
over  those  lowered  walls  before  escape 
should  be  impossible.  To  this  end  noth- 
ing could  be  more  effective  than  a  little 
active  rivalry — and  what  rivalry  more 
effective  than  that  of  a  middle-aged  and 
attractive  diplomat? 

On  the  other  hand,  Mrs.  Fairweather, 
a  pretty,  faded,  v/orldly  woman,  al- 
though cherishing  no  sentimental  preju- 
dices against  marriage  for  revenue  only, 
felt  strongly  that  for  a  woman  of  Elise 
Yarnell's  age  to  risk  yoking  herself  with 
a  boy  of  twenty-four  would  be  too  peril- 
ous a  venture,  even  with  the  Chamberlain 
fortune  to  lubricate  the  wheels  of  their 
apple-cart.  Therefore  she  hoped  Blais- 
dell's  eagerness  to  see  her  guest  might 
augur  the  renewal  of  an  early  attach- 
ment, and  an  opportunity  for  Elise  to 
make  a  more  suitable  marriage — an  im- 
pression Mrs.  Yarnell  would  have  been 
the  last  to  dispel,  even  had  there  been 
no  undeclared  suitor  whose  chains  it 
might  rivet. 

Consequently,  when  the  American 
Minister  to  Uruguay  and  Paraguay  ar- 
rived at  Fairweather  Hill,  he  was  re- 
ceived with  timbrel  and  dances  and  high- 
sounding  cymbals  by  his  hostess,  with 
coy  cordiality  by  the  engaging  widow, 
and  with  a  chastened  and  rapidly  dimin- 
ishing enthusiasm  by  young  Chamber- 


lain, who  from  the  moment  of  the  diplo- 
mat's arrival  found  himself  inexplicably 
but  quite  definitely  occupying  the  posi- 
tion of  cup-bearer  at  the  feast,  a  service 
for  which  he  had  less  and  less  relish. 

All  that  afternoon  Blaisdell  looked 
and  listened  in  vain  for  any  sign  of  the 
angel-at-large,  and  when  Mrs.  Fair- 
weather  tried  at  frequent  intervals  and 
by  various  means  to  win  from  him  an 
assurance  that  he  would  remain  with 
them  at  least  a  week,  he  temporized, 
pleading  that  official  duties  might  call 
him  away  at  any  moment.  As  he  said 
these  things,  however,  he  invariably 
looked  at  Mrs.  Yarnell,  who  as  invari- 
ably assumed  an  elaborately  unconscious 
expression,  whereupon  the  elder  woman 
astutely  told  herself  that  those  two 
thought  they  were  being  very  artful,  but 
they  need  not  try  to  deceive  her. 

By  night,  when  she  gave  an  impromp- 
tu dinner  dance  in  the  minister's  honor, 
Mrs.  Fairweather  was  sufficiently  sure  of 
her  conclusions  to  confide  them  to  sev- 
eral friends.  Before  the  evening  was 
over  her  guests  were  smilingly  intimat- 
ing to  one  another  that  the  widow  had 
more  than  one  string  to  her  bow  after 
all,  and  the  men  were  laying  bets  as  to 
whether  maturity,  moderate  means,  and 
a  distinguished  position  would  win  out 
against  callow  youth  and  a  large  fortune, 
with  odds  in  favor  of  the  fortune.  When, 
however,  it  was  skeptically  suggested  to 
Mrs.  Fairweather  that  Blaisdell  might 
have  no  more  serious  intention  than  to 
renew  his  acquaintance  with  an  old 
friend,  she  demolished  doubt  with  logic. 

"What  else  could  have  brought  him 
flying  out  here  in  that  precipitate  fash- 
ion? It's  an  old  affair — and  there  must 
be  some  good  reason  why  so  attractive 
a  man  is  still  a  bachelor.  He'd  never 
heard  that  she  was  a  widow  until  just 
before  he  telephoned  yesterday  after- 
noon, and  he  broke  any  number  of  im- 


258 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


portant  engagements  to  come  out  here 
this  morning.  No  merely  friendly  inter- 
est accounts  for  that,  you  know — espe- 
cially in  a  man  of  his  position!" 

Rumors  of  this  even  reached  Mrs. 
Chamberlain  by  telephone,  through  in- 
terested friends,  and  she  immediately 
called  up  Mrs.  Fairweather,  obtaining 
her  promise  to  bring  her  guests  over  to 
High  Haven  for  tennis  and  luncheon  the 
following  day.  That  night,  for  the  first 
time  since  the  beginning  of  Mrs,  Yar- 
nell's  campaign,  Bob's  mother  closed 
her  eyes  with  something  approaching 
thanksgiving  and  a  glimmer  of  hope. 
Not  so  her  son,  who  spent  the  evening 
vainly  trying  to  extricate  himself  from 
the  position  in  which  he  was  placed  and 
skilfully  held  by  the  diplomat's  entirely 
courteous  and  friendly  assumption  that 
the  younger  man  was  very  young  indeed. 
Bob  drove  furiously  home  in  the  small 
hours,  raging,  sore  at  heart,  and  more 
than  ever  determined  to  prove  his  man- 
hood in  the  eyes  of  his  beloved. 

He  was  also  determined  that  he  would 
so  arrange  matters  the  next  morning 
that  Elise  should  be  his  partner  at  ten- 
nis, leaving  the  minister  to  play  with 
whomever  else  his  mother  might  have 
invited.  Great  was  his  consternation, 
therefore,  when  he  lounged  down-stairs 
just  before  the  hour  set  for  the  game,  to 
learn  that  there  would  be  only  four 
players,  the  other  being  Janet  Howard, 
the  fifteen-year-old  daughter  of  their 
neighbor,  the  "water-power  wizard." 
He  was  still  hotly  accusing  his  mother  of 
stacking  the  cards — assuring  her  that  if 
Blaisdell  chose  to  stand  for  that  kid  as  a 
partner,  well  and  good,  but  as  for  him, 
he  wouldn't,  and  she  needn't  try  to  make 
him — when  the  arrival  of  the  party  from 
Fairweather  Hill  put  an  end  to  the  dis- 
cussion. 

High  Haven  was  remarkable  for  its 
many  fine  trees,  and  the  tennis-courts 
had  been  laid  out  near  one  of  the  largest, 
beneath  the  spreading  branches  of  which 
non-combatants  took  their  ease  in  gaily 
cushioned  chairs  while  watching  the 
games.  To  this  inviting  spot  the  Cham- 
berlains had  escorted  their  guests  when 
Janet  exclaimed: 

"Oh,  Bob,  did  you  see  the  monoplane  ?" 

"Monoplane?  Where?  When?"  Blais- 
dell demanded. 


"This  morning — about  an  hour  ago. 
There  were  two  people  in  it,  and  they 
circled  around  here  quite  awhile." 

"Somebody  from  Mineola,  I  sup- 
pose," Chamberlain  explained.  "We  of- 
ten see  them.  Great  sport!  I'm  going 
in  for  it." 

"Now,  Rob!"  his  mother  fretted.  "You 
know  the  one  thing  I  ask  of  you  is  not 
to  take  up  aviation!   It's  so  dangerous!" 

"Sorry,  but  I  can't  always  be  a  per- 
fect lady,  even  to  please  you,  mums. 
Come  on;  let's  get  some  action!  Elise, 
shall  we  do  up  these  people?" 

But  again  Mrs.  Chamberlain  inter- 
posed. "Now,  Rob!  It's  probably  a 
long  time  since  the  minister's  had  Mrs. 
Yarnell  as  his  partner,  and  you  and 
Janet  play  together  beautifully." 

"That  sounds  like  an  excellent  ar- 
rangement," the  diplomat  approved. 
"You're  probably  in  practice,  Chamber- 
lain, but  Mrs.  Yarnell  will  be  indulgent 
to  me  as  an  old  friend.  I  can  ask  her  to 
accept  defeat  with  better  grace  than  I 
can  impose  it  on  Miss  Janet  here.  Do 
you  remember  the  back-hand  stroke  I 
taught  you  once,  Elise?" 

She  said  she  had  thought  of  him  every 
time  she  had  used  it  since,  whereat  Bob 
sent  a  ball  spinning  across  the  court 
with  a  savage  cut,  and  feigned  not  to 
hear  when  she  asked  him  to  fetch  her 
racket  from  the  table  under  the  tree. 
After  they  had  played  two  furious  sets, 
in  which  Blaisdell  gave  no  indication  of 
needing  indulgence,  Mrs.  Chamberlain 
insisted  that  they  must  rest  and  cool  off 
before  beginning  the  third.  They  were 
lounging  under  the  tree  and  the  minister 
was  telling  an  amusing  story,  when  he 
broke  ofF,  asking  sharply: 

"What's  that?" 

"Aeroplane,"  somebody  said,  and 
they  all  looked  up. 

"Jove!"  shouted  Chamberlain,  spring- 
ing to  his  feet.  "It's  right  on  us!  Run! 
Run!"  He  pulled  his  mother  and  Mrs. 
Fairweather  out  of  their  chairs,  and  they 
scurried  away  as  Blaisdell,  making  a 
megaphone  of  his  hands,  roared  a  warn- 
ing to  the  occupants  of  the  flying  car. 

"Look  out  there!    Look  out!" 

Elise  clasped  appealing  fingers  on 
Bob's  arm,  and  he  ran  with  her  down  the 
path  toward  the  house.  Janet,  shriek- 
ing, fled  across  the  courts.   But  Blaisdell 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


259 


stood  transfixed  and  staring,  while  the 
monoplane  swept  on  toward  the  catas- 
trophe he  had  so  lightly  planned. 

The  machine  struck  and  settled  in  the 
broad  top  of  the  tree,  which  swayed  and 
shivered,  dropping  a  crackling  shower  of 
leaves  and  twigs  about  him.  With  an 
ejaculation  he  ran  a  few  steps  and  held 
up  his  arms  as  a  slender,  khaki-clad  fig- 
ure broke  through  the  leafy  thatch, 
clinging  for  a  moment  to  the  yielding 
upper  branches,  apparently  half-con- 
scious and  struggling  for  a  foothold. 
Then  it  dropped  into  the  crotch  of  one 
of  the  high  limbs,  where  it  lodged  pre- 
cariously, inert  and  limp. 

"Patty!  Oh,  Patty!"  he  gasped,  not 
realizing  that  he  spoke.  He  dragged  a 
chair  under  the  lowest  bough,  swung 
himself  into  the  tree,  and  climbed  rap- 
idly toward  that  relaxed  figure,  huskily 
reiterating:  "Patty!  Are  you  hurt? 
Patty!" 

As  this  repetition  of  her  name  reached 
her,  her  drooping  lids  opened  a  little  and 
then  popped  wide,  disclosing  very  bright, 
alert,  astonished  eyes. 

"Good  heavens!"  she  ejaculated,  look- 
ing down  at  him.    "You  go  back!" 

Instead,  he  found  a  firm  footing  on  the 
branch  beneath  her,  and  reached  up  to 
lift  her  from  the  higher  one  over  which 
she  still  hung  lifelessly,  exclaiming: 

"How  could  you  be  so  foolish  ?  You're 
hurt!" 

"I'm  not,  you  idiot!"  she  wrathfully 
whispered.  "  Will  you  go  back  ?  Where's 
Bob?" 

"Oh,  Mr.  Blaisdell!"  called  Janet,  who 
had  ventured  near  enough  to  see  them 
indistinctly  up  among  the  leaves.  At 
the  first  sound  of  her  voice  Patricia's 
eyes  closed  again.    "Is  he  killed?" 

"No,"  was  the  curt  response.  "Tell 
somebody  to  bring  a  ladder." 

"Have  you  got  him?    Is  he  hurt?" 

"I  don't  know.  Don't  stand  chatter- 
ing!   Get  that  ladder!" 

Janet  ran  toward  the  house,  crying: 
"A  ladder!  He  wants  a  ladder!"  and 
Patricia  opened  her  eyes,  demanding,  in 
a  wrathful  whisper: 

"What  are  you  doing  here?" 

"Saving  your  life."  A  glimmering 
smile  relaxed  his  drawn  features  a  little. 

"You  sha'n't!" 

"But  I  have!" 


"Mr.  Blaisdell,  is  he  badly  hurt?" 
whimpered  Mrs.  Chamberlain,  from  the 
edge  of  the  tennis-court  where  she  and 
Mrs.  Fairweather  were  clinging  together 
and  trembling. 

"I  think  not;  but  you  ladies  had  bet- 
ter keep  back,"  he  called.  "You  can't 
help  at  present,  and  this  infernal  thing 
overhead  may  come  down  any  minute." 
Whereupon  the  two  women  retired  pre- 
cipitately. 

"Cheat!"  breathed  Patricia,  hotly, 
trying  to  wriggle  out  of  his  firm  clasp. 

"Careful!  They're  all  watching,"  he 
whispered.  "How  could  you  be  so  reck- 
less?  You  might  have  killed  yourself!" 

"Stop  that!  Let  me  alone!"  she  pro- 
tested, as  he  prepared  to  lift  her. 
"Where  is  Bob  Chamberlain?" 

"Steady!  You're  getting  pretty  ac- 
tive, aren't  you?  Mustn't  recover  too 
rapidly  from  such  a  dead  faint,"  he 
warned,  with  amusement. 

"Hey,  there!"  Bob  was  heard  shout- 
ing in  the  distance. 

"Hullo!"  the  minister  replied.  Pa- 
tricia, who  was  still  resisting  his  efforts 
to  change  her  position,  promptly  col- 
lapsed on  his  shoulder,  to  his  huge  enjoy- 
ment, and  he  seized  the  moment  to  lift 
her  off*  her  branch  and  wrap  one  arm 
firmly  about  her. 

"Anybody  hurt?"  called  Bob. 

"Can't  tell  yet.  Hope  not.  Just  be- 
ginning to  revive."  Blaisdell  stepped 
carefully  down  to  a  larger  branch,  upon 
which  he  seated  his  apparently  uncon- 
scious charge,  propped  her  firmly  against 
the  trunk  of  the  tree,  and  sat  beside  her, 
supporting  her  with  an  encircling  arm. 
"Keep  everybody  back,  Chamberlain. 
I  can  manage  all  right."  Without  turn- 
ing her  head,  Patricia  treated  him  to  a 
baleful  glare,  and  he  chuckled. 

"Mother!  For  Pete's  sake,  somebody 
come  here!"  Bob  entreated.  "Elise  has 
sprained  her  ankle." 

Mrs.  Chamberlain  and  her  friend 
again  approached,  timorously,  and  again 
the  minister  warned  them  off. 

"Better  go  around  the  other  way, 
ladies.  Give  this  thing  a  wide  berth.  It 
may  slide  off  any  time!" 

"But  you!"  twittered  Mrs.  Fair- 
weather.    "You're  in  such  danger!" 

"We're  pretty  safe  against  the  trunk 
here,  but  the  rest  of  you  keep  away." 


200 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


They  were  not  slow  to  act  upon  this 
advice,  and  hurried  off,  Mrs.  Fair- 
weather  ejaculating:  "What  heroism! 
What  wonderful  heroism!"  When  they 
were  out  of  sight,  Patricia  backed  up 
against  the  tree-trunk,  withdrawing  her- 
self as  far  as  possible  from  contact  with 
her  rescuer,  and  remarked: 

"Well,  my  word!" 

"All  right,  Miss  Carlyle?"  asked  a 
cautious  voice  overhead. 

"What?  Oh  yes — yes,  Kate,  all 
right." 

"Who's  that?"  Blaisdell  demanded, 
with  startled  eyes. 

"My  mechanic." 

"But — but  that's  a  woman!" 

"Of  course!"  was  the  laconic  retort. 
"All  firm,  Kate?    No  danger?;' 

"Sure!  Safe  as  safe!  Prettiest  land- 
ing I  ever  saw!" 

"Look  here!"  Blaisdell  burst  forth. 
"Haven't  you  a  man  with  you?" 

"A  man?"  Patricia  repeated.  "Why 
should  I  have  a  man  with  me?" 

"Does  Ned  Davenport  let  you  go  out 
in  that  devilish  thing  without  a  man  ?" 

"My  good  sir,  would  you  have  me 
travel  for  a  week  with  one?"  she  in- 
quired. "And  in  any  event,  what  has 
Ned  to  do  with  it?"  Even  as  she  uttered 
the  words  she  unexpectedly  toppled 
against  him,  nearly  tipping  him  off  the 
branch. 

"Patty!  Patty,  you  are  hurt!"  he  ex- 
claimed, before  he,  too,  caught  sight  of 
Bob  running  toward  them  under  the 
trees.  "Oh,  I  see!"  he  said,  laughing. 
"You  imp!" 

"Can  I  help  you,  Blaisdell?"  Bob 
called,  as  he  drew  near. 

"Yes.  Get  some  brandy,"  com- 
manded the  other.    "Quickly,  please." 

Bob  came  under  the  tree  and  looked 
up,  asking,  "Think  he's  badly  hurt?" 
Then  he  stared.  "Jove!  Is  that  a 
woman?" 

"Yes.  Hurry  up  that  brandy," 
snapped  the  minister,  feigning  great  so- 
licitude for  the  girl  in  his  arms,  who  im- 
mediately developed  symptoms  of  re- 
turning consciousness.  "And  water. 
Pitcher  of  water." 

But  Patty,  her  head  still  on  Blaisdell's 
shoulder,  chose  this  moment  to  unveil 
her  lovely  eyes  and  regard  the  big,  good- 
looking  young  fellow  staring  up  at  her. 


"Jove!"  he  said  again,  "She's  coming 
tor 

"Is  she?  Well,  you  hustle  along  for 
that  brandy,"  advised  the  elder  man, 
whereat  she  lifted  her  head  and  turned 
her  slow  gaze  upon  him. 

"Oh!"  she  faltered.  "I— I  fell,  didn't 
I?    So  sorry!    Is  this  your  tree?" 

"You  bet  it  isn't!"  Bob  informed  her. 
It  s  my  tree. 

"Is  it?"  She  smiled  down  at  him 
faintly.  "It's  a  very  nice  tree.  So — so 
hospitable!"  She  stretched  out  her 
hands  to  Chamberlain,  asking,  "Could 
you  take  me  down,  please?" 

"Sure!"  Straightway  he  swung  him- 
self up  to  the  lower  bough,  but  Blaisdell 
tightened  his  arm  about  the  girl  and 
drew  her  back,  as  he  counseled,  sooth- 
ingly: 

"Better  not.  Not  just  yet.  Hurry 
that  brandy,  Chamberlain.  She'll  faint 
again  in  a  minute." 

"No,  I  won't!  I  want  to  get  down!" 
she  insisted,  more  imperiously,  and  Bob, 
holding  up  ready  arms  to  take  her, 
echoed : 

"She  wants  to  get  down!" 

"Steady!  Steady!" — still  that  sooth- 
ing tone,  in  the  possessive  authority  of 
which  Bob  vaguely  heard  a  challenge, 
but  which  to  Patricia  was  full  of  smooth 
mockery.  "She's  revived  several  times 
and  gone  clear  off  again  when  she  moved. 
Better  be  quiet  a  little  longer." 

"No;  give  her  to  me."  Bob  was  im- 
perious now.  "We  can  get  her  down  all 
right,  and  she  may  be  hurt." 

"She  doesn't  seem  to  be — in  pain, 
exactly."  Blaisdell  smiled  down  at  her 
quizzically,  adding,  with  enjoyment: 
"All  she  needs  is  a  stimulant.  Oh,  by 
the  way,"  he  suggested,  as  Bob  dropped 
to  the  ground,  "there's  another  woman 
up  there.  You  might  come  back  and 
help  get  her  down.  Janet's  gone  for  a 
ladder." 

"All  right."  Bob  ran  toward  the 
house,  angrily  muttering:  "Just  my 
darn  luck!  He's  gone  and  hogged  the 
whole  show  again!  I  never  even  had  a 
look-in!  Heroism!  Huh!  Anybody 
could  have  done  that!" 

After  one  eloquent  glance  at  Blaisdell, 
whose  eyes  alone  betrayed  his  humor, 
Patricia  commanded,  "Kate!" 

"Yes,  Miss  Carlyle?" 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


261 


"Come  down.,, 

"No,  no!"  countermanded  Blaisdell. 
"  Stay  where  you  are.  The  ladder  will  be 
here  presently." 

"You  hear,  Kate?    Come  down." 

"Coming,  Miss  Carlyle." 

"Then  let  me  help  you."  The  min- 
ister scrambled  to  his  feet  and  began  to 
climb  toward  the  figure  already  rustling 
the  upper  branches. 

"Me?"  The  girl  laughed,  descending 
rapidly  and  surely.  "Thank  you,  sir; 
don't  trouble.  I'm  just  as  near  a  mon- 
key as  any  man — when  I'm  dressed  for 
it." 

Patricia  had  seized  the  opportunity, 
while  his  attention  was  diverted,  to 
swing  herself  out  of  the  tree,  and  now 
stood,  erect  and  trim  in  her  khaki  cos- 
tume, watching  his  vain  attempts  to 
help  her  nimble  maid. 

Somewhat  discomfited,  he  finally 
dropped  beside  her,  twitching  his  clothes 
into  shape  and  remonstrating:  "You'd 
have  let  Chamberlain  help  you.  Why 
won't  you  let  me?" 

"Why  should  I  pretend  helplessness  to 
flatter  your  vanity?"  she  asked,  lightly. 
"Offer  me  help  I  really  need,  Billy,  and 
I'll  accept  it  very  gratefully.  Any  dam- 
age, Kate?"  When  she  learned  that  the 
only  visible  injury  to  the  monoplane 
consisted  of  a  hole  or  two  punched  in  the 
canvas,  and  that  the  machine  could 
probably  be  brought  down  without 
much  difficulty,  she  despatched  the 
woman  for  ropes  and  assistance,  and 
then  turned  a  searching  eye  upon  Blais- 
dell, suggesting:  "Now  perhaps  you'll 
be  good  enough  to  explain  this?" 

"With  pleasure.  Mrs.  Fairweather 
kindly  invited  me  down  to  meet  my  old 
friend  Mrs.  Yarnell — and  I  came." 

"You  deliberately  blocked  my 
scheme!" 

"I  had  an  impression  that  this  life- 
saving  business  was  my  scheme,"  he  re- 
minded her,  "and  a  fool  scheme  it  was, 
too!" 

"Is  this  your  idea  of  fair  play?  Of 
loyalty?" 

"Why  not?  I'm  willing  to  admit,  in 
confidence — to  you,"  with  an  air  of  en- 
gaging candor,  "that  the  visit  to  Elise 
was  more  or  less  a  ruse." 

"Are  you,  indeed!" 

"More  or  less.    Of  course,  I'm  very 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782.-33 


fond  of  Elise.   You'll  find  her  charming. 
But  if  the  whole  truth  were  known,  I 
suppose  I  really  came  to  be  a  barrier." 
"To  be  a  what?" 

"I'm  Bill  the  Barrier."  He  nodded  at 
her,  reassuringly.  "You  said  you  ex- 
pected to  erect  a  few  barricades,  and  I 
thought  I'd  save  you  that  trouble.  I 
came  to  be  one." 

"Well,  you  succeeded!" 

"I  feel  that  I've  not  entirely  failed," 
he  modestly  acknowledged.  "And  if 
that  youngster  attempts  to  climb  over 
me,  I'm  prepared  to  give  him  some 
lively  exercise." 

"You  don't  mean — "  she  broke  off  in 
amazement.  "You're  not  planning  to 
stay  here!" 

"Well,  that  depends.  I  hope  not,  but 
— it  depends." 

"On  what?" 

"On  the  length  of  the  game,"  he  told 
her,  slowly.  "I'm  going  to  see  it 
through." 

At  this  moment  Bob  appeared  in  the 
distance,  carrying  a  water-bottle  in  one 
hand  and  a  decanter  of  brandy  in  the 
other.  A  servant  behind  brought  glasses 
and  various  restoratives,  and  Mrs. 
Chamberlain  hurried  in  the  rear. 

Patricia  spoke  quickly,  under  her 
breath:  "You  find  this  very  humorous, 
don't  you?  Amusing!" 

"Do  I?"  He  regarded  her  steadily. 
"Are  you  sure  I  do?" 

"You  think  it's  all  absurd  and  ridicu- 
lous," she  continued,  not  heeding  him. 
"But  please  try  to  understand  that  I'm 
serious  about  it.  I  laughed,  of  course, 
when  we  planned  it,  but  underneath  I'm 
quite  serious.  I  promised  Ned — and  it's 
worth  doing.    It  appeals  to  me." 

"My  dear  girl,  it  may  be  a  sweet, 
generous,  lofty  ideal  you're  following, 
but  it's  utterly  fantastic.  It  can't  be 
realized." 

"It  can  be  realized!"  she  retorted. 
"In  any  case,  there's  no  occasion  for  you 
to  interfere." 

"I  was  protecting  you  to  the  best  of 
my  ability,"  he  offered,  with  specious 
meekness. 

"Protecting  me  from  what,  pray?" 

"From  yourself,  my  dear  child,  and 
your  own  ill-considered  impulses." 

"If  you'd  protected  me  from  yourself 
and  your  wholly  unconsidered  impulses, 


262 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


it  would  have  been  more  to  the  point! 
Anyway,  what  is  it  to  you?  Keep  out 
of  it!" 

"That's  impossible,  you  see,"  he  mur- 
mured, "because  I'm  already  in  it.  And 
I  feel  a  growing  conviction  that  I'm  in  it 
to  stay."  To  this  she  vouchsafed  only  a 
withering  glance  before  she  turned,  an 
indignant  flush  still  tingeing  her  cheeks, 
and  called  to  Bob,  now  quite  near: 

"I'm  so  sorry  to  have  made  so  much 
trouble!" 

"You're  better,  then?  Bully!"  he  ex- 
claimed.   "You're  looking  fine!" 

"I'm  quite  all  right  now,  thanks.  I'm 
afraid  I  frightened  you  terribly!"  she 
added,  glancing  toward  his  mother,  who 
now  joined  them,  panting. 

"Indeed  you  did!  I'm  all  upset  yet. 
But  I  wouldn't  have  gone  away  and  left 
you  if  I'd  known  you  weren't  a  man." 
Mrs.  Chamberlain  gazed  with  obvious 
disapproval  at  Patricia  and  her  costume. 
"It  never  occurred  to  me  any  woman 
would  be  flying  around  like  that! 
Weren't  you  hurt  at  all?"  Her  manner 
indicated  that  if  this  adventurous  young 
person  had  escaped  physical  injury,  jus- 
tice had  miscarried,  and  Bob  made  haste 
to  interpose  with  conventional  phrases. 

"This  is  my  mother,  Mrs.  Chamber- 
lain, Miss — er — " 

"Miss  Carlyle,"  Blaisdell  supplied. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry  to  have  given  you 
such  a  shock,  Mrs.  Chamberlain,"  the 
girl  deplored,  her  manner  a  winning  ad- 
mixture of  grace  and  penitence.  "It 
was  stupid  of  me!  Do  please  forgive 
me!" 

"You  had  the  worst  of  it,"  said  Bob. 
"I  suppose  it's  too  late  to  present  Mr. 
Blaisdell?  He's  probably  introduced 
himself." 

"I  have,"  the  diplomat  admitted; 
whereupon  Miss  Carlyle  fixed  upon  him 
a  clear  glance,  calmly  stating: 

"He  didn't  need  to.  We're  old 
friends." 

"What?  Really?"  Chamberlain  was 
puzzled.  "But — you  didn't  seem  to 
know  him!" 

"Well,  he  was  the  last  person  in  the 
world  I  expected  to  see,"  she  explained, 
truthfully,  "and  just  at  first  I  was  a 
bit  dazed.  Besides,  it  was  years  ago 
that  we  knew  each  other — when  we 
both  lived  in  Detroit." 


Mrs.  Chamberlain  took  the  bait  at 
once.  "In  Detroit!"  she  cried.  "Are 
you  from  Detroit?  I  wonder  whether 
you  ever  knew  my  cousin,  Ned  Daven- 
port, there?"  She  spoke  to  Blaisdell, 
but  it  was  Patricia  who  replied: 

"Oh  yes!  Is  he  your  cousin?  I  know 
the  Davenports  rather  well." 

"Indeed?"  The  response  was  uncer- 
tain. Bob's  mother  had  already  classi- 
fied the  girl  in  her  own  mind  as  a  ques- 
tionable person  of  spectacular  tastes,  and 
this  nonchalant  claim  of  acquaintance 
with  perfectly  reputable,  conventional 
members  of  her  own  family  was  discon- 
certing. "Do  you  know  him,  too,  Mr. 
Blaisdell?" 

"I  used  to  know  him  very  well  indeed, 
but  I've  been  away  too  much  to  see  him 
often  of  late  years.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Patty,  I  think  the  last  time  we  met  was 
at  the  Davenports'.  Wasn't  it?" 

"Was  it?"  she  returned,  thoughtfully. 

All  this  put  rather  a  different  face 
upon  the  situation  from  Mrs.  Chamber- 
lain's point  of  view,  and  she  invited 
Patricia  to  join  her  informal  luncheon 
party  with  less  reluctance  than  she 
would  otherwise  have  felt.  The  girl's 
laughing  protest  that  she  was  not  dressed 
for  the  drawing-room  was  overruled  by 
the  men,  who  argued  that  her  aviating 
costume  was  quite  as  formal  as  their 
tennis  flannels,  and  eventually  they  all 
strolled  over  to  the  house,  where  Pa- 
tricia was  presented  to  the  assembled 
guests,  among  whom  were  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Howard  and  several  other  neighbors. 
Mrs.  Yarnell  was  missing,  but  it  was  ex- 
plained that  her  ankle  had  proved  to  be 
only  slightly  strained,  after  all,  and  that 
she  would  join  them  presently. 

"And  you  really  came  through  that 
awful  accident  quite  unscathed?"  Mrs. 
Fairweather  marveled. 

"Quite,"  Patricia  assured  her,  smiling. 

"Thanks,  I'm  sure,  to  Mr.  Blaisdell! 
A  hero's  wreath,  Mr.  Minister,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  laurels  you  already  wear!" 

"You  give  me  too  much  honor.  I 
really  did  nothing,"  he  deprecated,  while 
Bob  glowered. 

"Oh,  listen  to  the  man!  He  was  won- 
derful— standing  there  so  calmly  waiting 
for  the  crash,  while  we  cowards  all  ran 
away!   I  thought  he'd  be  killed!" 

"It  must  have  seemed  much  worse 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


263 


than  it  was,"  Patricia  said,  with  her  can- 
did smile.  "There  really  wasn't  the 
least  danger.  I  stupidly  lost  my  bear- 
ings, and  the  big  tennis-courts  here 
looked  as  if  this  might  be  the  Country 
Club.  There's  no  very  good  place  to 
land — we  can't  always  be  perfectly  exact 
in  volplaning  —  and  when  I  found  I 
wasn't  going  to  make  that  little  patch  of 
lawn  out  there,  I  took  the  tree.  Rather 
nicely,  if  I  may  say  so." 

"Intentionally?"  asked  Bob,  as- 
tounded. 

"Why,  surely!  I  didn't  want  to  risk 
colliding  with  something  and  smashing 
my  plane.  But  when  I  stepped  out,  I 
missed  my  footing,  somehow.  Perhaps  a 
branch  broke.  Anyway,  I  fell,  and  I  sup- 
pose I  must  have  struck  something  that 
stunned  me  for  a  moment.  That's  all. 
I'm  sorry  to  deprive  you  of  that  wreath," 
she  smiled  in  friendly  fashion  at  Blais- 
dell,  across  the  veranda,  "but  I  cannot 
tell  a  lie." 

"Sincerity  was  always  your  crowning 
virtue,"  he  mentioned,  laughing  a  little. 

"As  generosity  was  yours,"  she  re- 
turned. 

At  this  point  Mrs.  Yarnell  made  her 
appearance  on  the  veranda,  exquisitely 
coifed  and  tailored,  and  limping  ever  so 
slightly.  Several  of  the  party  moved 
toward  her  with  sympathetic  questions, 
among  them  Blaisdell.  Bob,  leaning 
against  the  rail  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  group;  straightened  up  alertly,  but 
before  he  could  take  a  step  Patricia  ex- 
claimed, softly: 

"Oh,  what  a  good-looking  woman! 
Who  is  she?" 

"Elise  Yarnell?"  His  assumption  of 
carelessness  by  no  means  disguised  the 
quick  glow  in  his  eyes.  "She's  a  widow, 
staying  at  Fairweather  Hill.  She  is 
good-looking,  isn't  she?" 

"I  should  think  you'd  all  be  crazy 
about  her,"  she  declared,  youthfully, 
and  he,  laughing  and  flushing  slightly, 
acknowledged : 

"Well — some  people  are — rather.  I 
haven't  known  her  very  long,  but  she 
and  your  friend  the  minister  are  old 
pals,"  he  added,  his  face  darkening  a 
little.  "He  plays  a  corking  game  of 
tennis." 

"He  always  did.  We  used  to  play  to- 
gether a  lot.   I  wonder  whether  he  goes 


in  at  all  for  aviation?"  was  her  next 
move.    "You  do?" 

"N-no,  I  haven't — yet.  I'm  going  to 
take  it  up,  though." 

"Oh,  you  must!  It's  wonderful  sport! 
I'm  sorry  my  plane's  temporarily  out  of 
commission,  but  perhaps  my  mechanic 
will  get  it  in  shape  so  I  can  take  you  up 
this  afternoon  before  I  leave.  That  is — 
would  you  trust  my  driving?" 

"Try  me!  Gee!  I  wish  you  lived  near 
here.  Oh,  by  Jove!"  A  germinating 
idea  suddenly  took  form,  and  he  per- 
ceived it  to  be  of  Machiavellian  subtlety. 
"I  say,  you  don't  have  to  go  back  right 
away,  do  you?  Why  can't  you  stay 
down  a  few  days?" 

"I?" 

"Sure!  Why  not?  There'd  be  four  of 
us  then — you  and  Blaisdell,  and — oh, 
bully  scheme!  Hey,  mums!"  he  called, 
heedless  of  Patricia's  laughing  dissent. 

Mrs.  Chamberlain  had  been  sum- 
moned to  the  telephone,  but  by  the  time 
her  son  allowed  her  to  take  up  the  re- 
ceiver, she  was,  if  possible,  more  per- 
turbed than  ever,  and  it  seemed  to  her 
little  less  than  providential  that  Daven- 
port should  have  chosen  that  particular 
moment  to  call  her  up,  ostensibly  to 
inquire  whether  the  situation  between 
Bob  and  the  widow  had  improved  at  all. 
Fortunately  she  could  not  see  the  grin 
with  which  he  listened  to  her  disjointed 
account  of  Patricia's  amazing  exploit, 
and  his  expressions  of  surprise  sounded 
entirely  sincere.  At  the  first  mention  of 
BlaisdelPs  name,  however,  he  uttered  a 
sharp  ejaculation,  followed  by  rapid 
questions  concerning  the  diplomat,  the 
time  of  his  arrival,  and  his  plans.  When 
she  told  him,  as  a  crowning  calamity,  of 
Bob's  insistence  that  she  must  invite 
Patty  to  stay  at  High  Haven,  he  re- 
turned : 

"Well,  that's  a  perfectly  good  scheme! 
You  do  it!" 
"But— Ned!" 

"No  buts  about  it!  If  the  kid's  that 
much  interested  in  Patty  already,  you 
keep  her  there  as  long  as  she'll  stay  !" 

"  But  suppose  she  tries  to  marry  him  ?" 

"She  won't!    Don't  worry." 

"But  if  she  should?  A  girl  of  that 
sort!" 

"Of  what  sort?"  The  wire  vibrated 
to  a  warning  note.    "Don't  make  any 


264 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


mistake  about  Patricia  Carlyle,  Cousin 
Julia.  Bob  may  be  a  lucky  kid,  but  he's 
not  that  lucky!  She  won't  marry  him. 
And  you  can't  be  too  cordial  to  her. 
She's  all  right  in  every  way — and  a  brick, 
besides!" 

"But — Ned!"  wailed  Bob's  distracted 
parent.  "She'll  be  sure  to  get  him  inter- 
ested in  aviation!" 

"All  right!  Let  him  marry  the  Yar- 
nell  woman,  then." 

"No,  no!  But  Mr.  Blaisdeli's  so  de- 
voted to  her — and  he's  a  diplomat  and 
all —  Oh,  Ned,  don't  you  think  she'll 
marry  him  ?" 

"Give  it  up,"  said  Davenport.  "I 
don't  know  what  Billy's  up  to,  but  it's 
probably  just  pure  deviltry.  I'll  try  to 
find  out.  But  whatever  you  do,  don't 
you  let  Patty  Carlyle  get  away  from 
you!    She's  your  best  card!" 

Meanwhile,  having  been  established 
in  the  most  comfortable  chair  on  the 
veranda,  Mrs.  Yarnell  prettily  declared 
that  she  must  meet  "the  heroine  of  this 
wonderful  adventure,"  and  Blaisdell 
duly  took  Patricia  to  her.  In  the  mo- 
ment that  the  two  women  sat  chatting 
together,  most  of  the  observers  became 
aware  that  Elise  seemed  suddenly  to 
have  lost  freshness.  Notwithstanding 
the  widow's  white  simplicity,  something 
about  the  frank  khaki-clad  girl  made  her 
seem  a  little  artificial  and  over-groomed. 
Nobody  phrased  it,  but  everybody  felt 
it  more  or  less  consciously. 

Presently  Bob  joined  them,  and  a  few 
moments  later,  his  mother — still  beset 
by  doubts  and  misgivings,  but  habitually 
submissive  to  the  dominant  male — came 
out  to  proffer  her  invitation,  which  Pa- 
tricia at  first  declared  she  could  not 
accept.  One  by  one,  however,  she  per- 
mitted her  objections  to  be  overruled, 
and  in  the  end  Mrs.  Chamberlain  hur- 
ried away  toorder  a  room  prepared  for  her. 

"Three  cheers!"  Bob  rejoiced.  "Now 
we're  all  set!" 

"How  delightful!  But  what  of  your 
poor  steed?  Or  does  it  require  neither 
food  nor  stable?"  The  widow's  smile 
was  sweetness  itself.  "  Perhaps  it  habit- 
ually browses  about  on  people's  tree- 
tops?" 

"My  steed,  as  you  may  have  noticed, 
is  winged,  and  moves  rather  rapidly," 
was  the  light  reply.    "It's  never  neces- 


sary— though  it  is  sometimes  convenient 
— that  it  should  roost  on  the  premises." 
Mrs.  Yarnell  still  smiled,  but  she  shot  a 
sharp,  appraising  glance  at  the  girl,  who 
turned  with  a  pleasantly  casual  air  to 
Bob,  adding,  "Before  I  send  it  over  to 
Mineola  this  afternoon,  perhaps  you'd 
like  to  try  a  flight?" 

"Rather!"  he  agreed,  and  in  the  same 
breath  Blaisdell  objected: 

"No,  no!  You  mustn't  attempt  that!" 

"Mustn't  I?"  There  was  a  warning 
gleam  in  Patricia's  eye.  "Why  mustn't 
I  ?" 

"Not  until  it's  been  overhauled  by  a 
competent  mechanic,  anyway." 

"My  mechanic  is  entirely  competent." 

"That  woman?"  he  scoffed.  Then,  to 
the  others,  "She  has  only  a  woman  me- 
chanic!" There  were  exclamations  and 
questions,  as  the  group  gathered  closer, 
and  an  alert-looking  man,  whom  Pa- 
tricia afterward  learned  to  be  Frederick 
Howard,  commented: 

"Excellent!  That's  up  to  date!  I 
hope  she's  making  good,  Miss  Carlyle." 

"She  is." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  Blaisdell  de- 
manded, "that  you  think  running  an 
engine  is  a  job  for  a  woman?" 

"Anything  she  wants  to  do  is  a  job 
for  a  woman,  provided  she  can  do  it  suc- 
cessfully," Howard  replied.  "That's  the 
proof  of  the  pudding." 

"Hear!  Hear!"  cried  two  or  three  of 
the  guests,  laughing;  but  Mrs.  Yarnell 
arched  delicate  eyebrows  and  shrugged 
dainty  shoulders  as  she  smiled  up  at  Bob, 
perceiving  which,  Patty  promptly  flung 
him  a  challenge. 

"Are  you  afraid?" 

"Afraid  nothing!"  he  flouted.  "I'm 
for  it  if  you  are!" 

"Good!  Sensible  man!  Now  will 
somebody  please  take  me  to  a  telephone, 
so  I  can  send  for  some  clothes?  I  really 
can't  dine  in  these!" 

Bob  escorted  her  to  an  instrument  in 
the  library,  and  called  up  her  number, 
but  it  was  Blaisdell  whom  she  found 
awaiting  her  when  she  turned,  after 
hanging  up  the  receiver. 

"  Look  here !"  he  began  at  once,  warm- 
ly, "you  don't  really  intend  to  use 
that  machine  to-day?  It's  a  bluff,  isn't 
it?" 

"Call  it,  and  see,"  she  suggested. 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


265 


"All  right.  Unless  you  withdraw  from 
that  arrangement  before  coffee  is  served 
at  luncheon,  I  shall  gently  explain  to 
you,  in  the  presence  of  several  people, 
that  flying-machines  of  all  sorts  terrify 
Mrs.  Chamberlain  inexpressibly,  and 
that  it  would  subject  her  to  the  most 
acute  suffering  if  her  son  should  go  up  in 
one. 

"My  word!  That's  a  nice,  catty 
trick !"  she  observed.  "May  I  ask  how 
long  you  intend  to  keep  this  up?" 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said.  "How  long 
do  you  ?" 

"I  suppose  by  this  time  you've  per- 
suaded yourself  that  the  whole  scheme 
was  yours,  and  that  blocking  it  is  legiti- 
mate amusement!" 

"Amusement  has  not  been  my  domi- 
nant emotion  this  morning,"  he  told  her. 

"No?  Then  what  are  you  doing  it 
for?  You  must  have  some  object!" 

"That  cub's  more  than  half  in  love 
with  you  already!" 

"He's  nothing  of  the  sort,"  she  con- 
tradicted. "But  even  if  he  were,  what 
of  it?" 

"You're  not  going  to  fall  in  love  with 
him  if  I  can  prevent  it,"  he  asserted, 
doggedly,  and  she  declared: 

"Oh,  there's  no  more  danger  of  my 
falling  in  love  with  him  than  if  I  were 
his  nurse!" 

"That's  all  right.  Lots  of  men  have 
married  their  nurses." 

"Very  well.  Suppose  I  do  marry  him. 
What  business  is  it  of  yours?" 

"Well — this  isn't  just  the  moment  I 
should  have  chosen  to  tell  you,  but  if 
you  must  have  it — I  want  to  marry  you 
myself." 

She  met  his  steady  gaze  with  an  aston- 
ished stare,  and  then  laughed  shortly. 
"Oh,  you're  too  absurd!" 

"It  may  seem  absurd,"  he  quietly 
conceded.  "The  deepest  emotions  fre- 
quently do — to  other  people." 

"The  depth  of  your  emotions  is  about 
equal  to  their  duration,  I  fancy,"  she 
said,  turning  away,  but  he  stopped  her. 

"  Don't  make  that  mistake !  My  emo- 
tions are  not  transient.  But  I'm  accus- 
tomed to  make  quick  decisions,  and  I 
knew  before  we  left  Davenport's  house 
Monday  morning  that  you're  the  only 
woman  in  the  world  I  want  for  my  wife!" 

[to  be  c 


"Still  afraid  the  girl  crop  will  run 
out?"  she  inquired,  lightly. 

"More  than  that,"  he  went  on  with 
increasing  ardor,  not  heeding  her;  "I 
knew  it  had  been  the  unconscious,  un- 
recognized memory  of  you  that  had  kept 
me  all  these  years  from  ever  wanting  any 
other  woman  for  my  wife!  I  know  now 
that  it's  you  I've  been  hungering  and 
thirsting  for  all  these  lonely,  blind  years 
— just  you!  And  when  I've  found  you  at 
last,  do  you  think  I'm  going  to  give  you 
up  without  a  struggle?  Do  you  think 
I'm  going  away  and  leave  that  young 
jackanapes  j/onder  making  love  to  you? 
Do  you  think  it's  fair  that  I  should  have 
no  chance  at  all?" 

"Is  diplomacy  always  as  precipitate 
as  this?"  she  asked,  dimpling. 

"  But  remember,  I've  no  time  to  lose! 
In  two  months  J  must  sail  for  South 
America — and  I'm  going  to  take  you 
with  me!" 

"Does  it  occur  to  you,"  she  suggested, 
with  an  amused  little  grimace,  "that 
your  method  of — attack  is  the  word,  I 
think — savors  somewhat  strongly  of  the 
cave-man  and  his  club?" 

"I  can't  help  that,"  he  retorted. 
"You're  forcing  this  situation — not  I." 

"I!" 

"Do  you  think  I  choose  to  come  at  it 
this  way — hands  down?  Don't  you 
think  I'd  have  preferred  to  approach 
you  more  gently — more  subtly?  Give 
up  this  outlandish  thing  and  go  home, 
and  I'll  woo  you  as  conventionally  as 
you  please.  But,  by  the  Lord  Harry!  I 
will  not  go  away  and  leave  you  here!" 

"Then,  by  the  Lord  Harry!  you'd  bet- 
ter! Do  you  think  I'm  going  to  submit 
tamely  to  this  sort  of  thing?" 

"N-no;  that's  too  much  to  hope." 
He  smiled  a  little.  "What  are  you  going 
to  do?" 

"  Do  you  suppose  for  one  moment  that 
you  can  gain  anything  yourself  by  the 
sort  of  thing  you've  been  doing  this 
morning?" 

"Well — as  between  the  frying-pan  and 
the  fire" — a  dancing  gleam  lit  in  his  eye 
— "I've  decided  to  throw  myself  on  the 
mercy  of  the  cook." 

"Well,  I'll  cook  you!"  she  promised. 

"You'll  marry  me!"  he  asserted,  un- 
der his  breath. 


Pirates!  Pirates! 


BY  LOUISE   CLOSSER  HALE 


iOING  to  the  West  In- 
dies can  never  be  the 
same  as  going  to  Eu- 
rope. They  are  too 
near,  and  a  portion  of 
them  belongs  to  us — 
belongs  to  Indiana  and 
Kansas  and  all  the  rest  of  the  states 
taxed  for  their  upkeep.  But  a  gang- 
way remains  magical,  for,  once  crossed, 
the  sensation  permeates  us  that  we  have 
cut  ourselves  loose  from  gas  bills,  the 
steam-radiator  which  leaks,  the  annoy- 
ing elegance  of  a  neighbor's  fur  coat, 
and,  in  our  case,  the  Illustrator's  cough. 

The  Illustrator  developed  a  cough  af- 
ter careful  observance  of  a  colored  adver- 
tisement in  the  Subway  which  depicted 
an  orange  sunset,  three  palm-trees,  and 
a  steamer.  It  grew  with  practice. 
Brochures  and  cabin  plans  of  ships  made 
heavy  the  morning  mail,  and  within  the 
month  we  were  driving  away  in  two 
taxies  toward  the  steamship  docks. 

It  is  our  custom  to  depart  for  steamers 
in  this  ostentatious  fashion.  I  am  a 
nervous  woman,  and  have  found  no  pleas- 
ure in  arriving  at  the  wharf  within  a 
minute  of  sailing-time.  The  Illustrator 
must  remain  behind  to  do  up  his  sketch- 
ing-materials in  the  "hold-nothing." 
This  elongated  strip  of  canvas  was  desig- 
nated a  "hold-all"  by  the  blond  and 
untruthful  young  man  who  sold  it  to  us 
many  years  ago,  but  usage  had  given  it 
its  rightful  appellation.  Yet  we  have 
never  discarded  it,  for  the  Illustrator  has 
a  belief  that  it  brings  him  luck,  a  deduc- 
tion made  after  its  first  voyage,  when 
several  ladies  admired  him  and  he  won 
the  big  pool  on  the  day's  run. 

I  watched  him  from  the  deck  as  he 
dashed  up  the  gangway  after  the  first 
whistle  had  blown.  He  was  coughing, 
partly  from  habit  and  partly  to  hide 
his  embarrassment  at  the  behavior  of 
the  hold-nothing,  which  was  dripping 
sketching-stools  and  other  belongings  en 
passant.    I  was  accustomed  to  this  be- 


havior, but  took  him  aside  before  we  had 
weighed  anchor,  to  speak  of  his  newly 
acquired  impedimentum — the  cough.  As 
I  pointed  out,  demonstrations  of  this 
kind  are  not  welcome  on  Southern  boats, 
robbing  the  scene  of  its  festivity.  And 
he  agreed  with  me,  declaring  that  he  felt 
he  would  not  cough  once  after  dropping 
the  pilot — which  he  didn't,  proving  all 
that  the  pamphlets  had  to  say  of  the 
benefit  of  the  trip  to  the  Canal  Zone  for 
affections  —  or  affectations  —  of  the 
throat. 

One  must  "begin  right"  on  the  Isth- 
mian cruise.  And  this,  in  my  interpreta- 
tion, is  the  assuming  of  a  friendly  atti- 
tude toward  the  rest  of  the  passengers, 
and  desperately  maintaining  it.  On 
Atlantic  steamers  one  can  be  as  unsocial 
as  one  pleases.  Within  six  or  seven  days 
the  guests  part,  never  to  meet  again,  in 
spite  of  the  passionate  exchange  of  visit- 
ing-cards. But  one  goes  to  the  Isthmus 
and  returns  with  the  same  party,  and 
each  is  as  feverish  as  a  clergyman's  wife 
in  a  desire  to  make  a  good  impression. 

Not  that  all  are  to  my  way  of  think- 
ing. As  we  backed  away  from  the  dock 
I  was  "ousted"  out  of  a  chance  steamer- 
chair  into  which  I  had  dropped  by  a  de- 
termined-looking gentleman  who  said  it 
was  his — labeled  his — and  "we  must 
begin  right."  And  before  the  apologetic 
whinny  which  he  granted  me  had  died 
in  his  nose  I  discovered  still  a  third  man- 
ner of  establishing  oneself  properly. 

This  had  also  to  do  with  chairs,  and 
the  vigorous  uprooting  of  those  belong- 
ing to  absent  holders  while  a  lady  placed 
in  the  choice  positions  fourteen  others, 
evidently  her  own.  It  was  daring  work, 
accomplished  in  spite  of  the  protests  of 
the  deck  steward.  He  was  not  the  man 
he  should  have  been,  for  he  capitulated 
in  a  spineless  fashion,  seemingly  hypno- 
tized by  a  short  black  veil  which  waved 
above  her  like  a  pirate  flag. 

We  had  seen  her  come  on  board 
marshaling  a  troop  of  women.  They 


PIRATES! 

had  carried  a  great  many  books,  and, 
out  of  our  usual  fear  of  consorting  with 
those  bent  upon  self-improvement,  we 
had  agreed  to  give  them  a  wide  berth. 
As  a  punishment  for  this  plan  we  found 
ourselves  at  the  table  with  them;  and 
as  we  rotated  our  chairs  belligerently 
into  the  oblong  of  guests,  the  second 
steward  whispered  that  She  had  insisted 
upon  us.  We  knew  immediately  who 
was  meant  by  "She,"  and  we  attacked 
the  clams  with  mixed  emotions  of  pride 
and  despair — pride  that  we  were  chosen 
by  one  who  exercised  such  a  rare  dis- 
crimination in  steamer-chairs,  and  de- 
spair that  it  must  be  so. 

It  developed,  by  the  time  the  roast 
came  on,  that  the  "Company,"  as  she 
termed  her  specially  conducted  party, 
were  from  Darien,  Connecticut.  And  she 
continued  interesting,  if  not  delectable, 
after  we  had  all  solemnly  exchanged  the 
names  of  our  home  towns,  for  she  was 
not  voyaging  with  any  idea  of  viewing 
the  Canal,  nor  were  her  timid  ladies,  nib- 
bling qualmily  at  their  food.  They  had 
come  down  from  an  interest  in  pirates. 
It  was  only  a  month  ago,  while  delving 
into  the  history  of  her  Connecticut  habi- 
tat for  a  paper  on  "Darien — Its  Past 
and  Future,"  that  she  learned  of  another 
Darien  in  bucaneering  days  which  was 
not  less  than  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 

This  knowledge  had  given  her  "some- 
how, a  sort  of  sympathy  with  this  far 
country,  although  it  was  so  different 
from  New  England  and  its  strict  blue- 
laws."  She  even  quoted,  bursting  into 
it  greedily: 

"  Come  to  the  wide  gray  sea, 
Ye  who  are  brave  and  free! 
Come  to  the  rover's  aid, 
Ye  who  are  unafraid!" 

After  she  finished  I  said,  with  an  at- 
tempt at  modesty,  that  I  was  familiar 
with  the  verse  and  knew  the  author.  At 
which  she  looked  me  over  as  does  the 
guess-your-weight-man  at  Coney  Island. 

"I  knew  you  would,"  she  returned. 
"I  am  interested  in  the  Bohemian  world 
myself." 

She  is  not  alone  in  this.  The  living 
habitant  of  this  strange  artistic  land  ever 
piques  the  interest  of  the  sober-minded 
citizen.  I  was  sitting  on  deck  the  second 
night  out,  wondering  if  lard,  instead  of 


PIRATES!  267 

butter,  really  made  the  better  pastry, 
when  a  sepulchral  voice  boomed  at  me 
from  the  dark,  and  I  discovered  that  a 
very  long  passenger  was  occupying  the 
Illustrator's  chair.  The  voice  was  ask- 
ing me  if  I  did  not  sometimes  miss  a 
home,  and  although  I  assured  him  that 
I  had  never  been  without  one,  and  he 
accepted  this  in  a  heavy  silence,  I  knew 
that  I  could  not  make  him  believe  my 
mind  had  been  at  that  moment  in  the 
kitchen. 

In  the  smoking-room,  one  will  grant, 
hearts  are  opened  immediately,  no  mat- 
ter what  the  destination.  But  on  Eng- 
lish boats  there  is  a  gray  disapproval  in 
the  eyes  of  the  ship's  officers  regarding 
women  entering  this  domain.  On  Ger- 
man and  French  steamers  one  cannot 
tell  the  smoking-room  from  the  saloons, 
except  for  the  smoke.  The  Illustrator 
approves  this  ruling  out  of  the  ladies, 
and  refuses  to  see  that  it  is  less  scandal- 
ous to  talk  with  a  fellow-traveler  sitting 
on  a  leather  couch  in  a  blue  haze  than 
on  two  steamer-chairs  (one  of  them  his) 
in  the  dark.  He  knows  that  a  woman 
whose  circulation  is  not  of  the  best  must 
soon  enter  the  warm  cabin  to  glean  what 
she  can  of  wisdom,  and  so  I  made  my  way 
to  the  knitting  zone  a  little  later,  hoping 
to  intrigue  my  own  sex  into  a  rash  un- 
burdening of  their  affairs.  But  women 
on  shipboard  are  cautious,  and  when  we 
become  circumspect  we  grow  dull.*  Per- 
haps it  is  the  hard,  unyielding  divans  of 
the  saloon  which  give  a  stiffness  to  our 
conversation.  We  remain  impersonal — 
and  talk  Europe. 

They  had  all  been  there,  or  were  going. 
And  one  knows  that  they  will  go,  for  the 
American  is  an  explorer  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave.  What  they  appear  to  de- 
rive from  their  journeyings  is  a  deep 
satisfaction  with  the  home  to  which  they 
return.  Still,  they  can  be  generous:  one 
traveler,  who  was  known  as  Number  22 
in  her  European  party,  summed  it  all 
up  as  she  knitted  a  pink  pocket  on  to 
a  white  sweater:  "We  went  about  every- 
where in  Europe — saw  everything — and 
I've  come  to  the  conclusion  that  they 
are  ahead  of  us  in  just  two  things" — we 
hung  upon  her  words — "flowers  and 
fruit,"  she  completed. 

An  intellectual  atmosphere  was  by  no 
means  lacking.     Whenever  the  Lady 


268 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


from  Darien  joined  us  our  brains  took  on 
a  sort  of  panic-stricken  vigor.  This 
stimulation  was  accompanied  by  some 
bodily  discomfort,  for  she  managed  to 
dispose  her  Company  full-length  on  the 
sofas,  to  the  great  disapproval  of  other 
squeamish  ones,  while  she  slid  easily  up 
and  down  the  long  piano-stool,  thus  de- 
feating the  clergyman's  suggestion  for  a 
concert. 

Although  there  was  no  evidence  in  the 
Subway  advertisement  of  rough  waters, 
the  big  ship  for  the  first  three  days  rose 
and  fell  in  the  trough  like  a  wise  sea-bird 
that  lives  along  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance. Those  of  the  Middle  West  who 
had  spoken  boastfully  of  Lake  Michigan 
storms  and  had  wanted  to  see  the  racks 
on  the  tables,  did  not  feel  up  to  regarding 
them,  after  all. 

It  was,  however,  pirates,  not  diets, 
which  held  the  Lady  from  Darien' s  in- 
terest— and  ours.  And  on  the  third 
morning  one  of  the  Company,  feeling 
too  near  death  to  claim  an  erudition 
that  was  not  hers,  bluntly,  if  feebly, 
asked  just  what  began  piracy,  and  to 
tell  her  before  the  broth  was  passed 
round. 

We  had  already  learned  that  the  high- 
sounding  word  bucaneer  came  from  so 
simple  a  process  as  salting  meat.  Boucan 
was  the  act  of  salting,  and  the  result  was 
the  main  provender  of  the  sea-rovers. 
But  we  had  not  expected  the  trade  of 
bucaneering  to  be  the  outcome  of  so 
homely  an  attribute  as  jealousy. 

It  was  no  doubt  trying  to  nations 
other  than  the  Spaniards  to  find  them- 
selves in  possession  of  what  seemed  to  be 
the  entire  New  World,  and  no  less  a 
person  than  Admiral  Drake  was  the  first 
to  question  forcefully  this  privilege  by  a 
broadside  of  his  guns  and  a  subsequent 
plundering  of  San  Domingo.  He  was 
upheld  in  this  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  who 
declared  that  "she  did  not  understand 
why  her  subjects,  or  those  of  any  other 
European  prince,  should  be  debarred 
from  traffic  in  the  Indies.  That,  as  she 
did  not  acknowledge  the  Spaniards  to 
have  any  title  by  the  donation  of  the 
Bishop  of  Rome,  so  she  knew  no  right 
they  had  to  any  places  other  than  those 
they  were  in  actual  possession  of," — an 
excellent  presaging  of  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine, although  ending  in  a  preposition. 


Yet  evil  came  out  of  good.  Upheld  by 
this  manifesto,  English,  Dutch,  and 
French  merchantmen  trafficked  honest- 
ly, then  dishonestly,  among  the  islands. 
Little  bands  of  shipwrecked  sailors,  mu- 
tineers from  frigates,  failures  in  the  gro- 
cery business,  and  those  crossed  in  love 
went  to  salting  beef  on  the  isles  where 
luck  had  cast  them.  Grown  bolder,  they 
seized  Spanish  ships  come  to  the  shore 
for  water,  hung  out  a  black  flag  in  place 
of  the  red-and-yellow  emblem  of  old 
Spain,  and  developed  into  the  greatest 
menace  the  seas  have  ever  known. 

This  dissemination  from  the  Darien 
lady's  knowledge  gave  a  fillip  to  our  in- 
terest in  the  islands  we  were  now  ap- 
proaching, and  by  the  time  we  reached 
Havana  there  was  a  stirring  in  our  veins 
that  consorted  oddly  with'  a  tightening 
of  our  purse-strings.  Yet  Havana  was 
ever  too  formidable  a  city  to  encourage 
the  attacks  of  the  filibusters.  If  they 
visited  the  capital  at  all  it  was  for  a 
"good  time,"  and  in  some  such  spirit 
the  passengers  clambered  down  the 
gangway  into  the  ship's  small  boats. 

We  were  not  the  first  to  leave  the  ves- 
sel, and  the  Illustrator  resented  this.  He 
welcomed  Havana  for  the  reason  that  he 
had  embarked  four  days  ago  with  the  ex- 
pressed hope  of  never  quitting  the  seas 
again,  and  was  now  most  eager  for  a 
sight  of  land.  Besides,  he  bore  the  hold- 
nothing,  and  was  full  of  that  zeal  which 
attends  the  intention  of  work  and  which 
dies  so  utterly  as  the  task  goes  into 
operation. 

There  was  an  advantage  in  delay.  The 
longer  you  stay  in  Havana  the  shorter 
time  your  letter  of  credit  remains  with 
you.  Actually,  piracy  is  suppressed  by 
gray-clad  police,  who  know  the  tariff  on 
everything,  from  a  red  sea  bean  to  the 
park  drive.  They  hold  court  on  the 
sidewalks,  and  the  case  is  disposed  of 
swiftly.  But  they  have  no  jurisdiction 
over  hotels  which  "take,"  as  the  French 
appropriately  say,  twenty-five  dollars 
for  two  rooms  and  bath.  Nor  do  they 
enter  a  restaurant  and  warn  you  against 
the  price  of  a  Spanish  stew. 

It  is  a  gentle  gibe  of  the  Cubans  that 
they  acquired  the  prices  of  the  United 
States  along  with  the  cleanliness  which 
was  forced  upon  them.  But  there  are  no 
greater  "spenders"  in  Europe  than  the 


MORRO    CASTLE,  SANTIAGO 


Vol.  CXXXL— No.  782.— 34 


SPANISH  TOWN,  JAMAICA 


South-Americans,  and  it  is  their  own 
prodigality  which  doubtless  has  encour- 
aged the  hoteliers  to  fly,  in  figurative 
fashion,  the  skull  and  cross-bones. 

But  one  "  begins  right"  in  first  landing 
here.  It  is  a  real  Spanish  city — with  no 
offense  to  the  nostrils.  It  possesses  all 
the  features  of  Spain.  The  new  arrival 
hurls  himself  into  a  victoria  and  is  driven 
immediately  to  the  Prado.  The  Prado 
is  an  open  space  where  the  citizens  walk 
or  drive,  or  sit  at  cafe  tables  to  watch 
others  walk  or  drive,  and  these  occupa- 
tions embrace  the  primary  life  of  the 
Spaniard. 


In  our  country,  after  a  town  gives  evi- 
dence of  outgrowing  its  short  skirts,  a 
piece  of  property,  later  known  as  the 
park,  is  grudgingly  purchased  by  the 
aldermen.  But  a  Spanish  town  must 
surely  lay  out  its  prado  or  alameda — 
call  it  what  you  will — then  infold  it  with 
shops  and  domiciles  as  humbler  needs 
demand. 

The  West-Indian,  who  is  at  heart  a 
Spaniard,  seldom  extends  his  exercise 
beyond  the  city.  Therefore  only  the 
visitor  may  know  that  there  is  a  fine 
drive  around  the  sea,  which  a  guide- 
book urges  him  to  take  for  the  reason 


PIRATES!  PIRATES! 


271 


that  the  waves  often  break  over  one 
there. 

It  was  a  poor  inducement,  to  our 
mind,  yet  we  made  the  trip  and  were 
rewarded  by  seeing  the  Leader  of  the 
Company  all  but  lifted  over  the  sea-wall. 
She  was  undampened  in  her  ardor,  and 
returned  to  attack  the  coachman,  de- 
ducted a  sum  equivalent  to  laundry 
prices  in  Havana,  and  with  black  veil 
piratically  flying  bustled  her  Company 
into  a  train  for  Santiago. 

We  found  some  delight  in  this  beating 
of  a  system — any  system.  It  recalled 
to  me  inversely  a  lost  Iowan  farmer 
whom  I  personally  led  from  a  Subway 
train  where  he  had  been  riding,  and  who, 
after  gaining  the  light  of  Forty-second 
Street,  asked  me  where  he  should  pay 
his  fare. 

There  were  others  of 
us  who  crossed  Cuba  by 
train.  The  steamer 
proceeds  slowly  around 
the  island  to  take  us  on 
again  in  the  harbor  of 
Santiago,  each  of  us 
wearing  one  Panama  hat 
and  carrying  another 
like  the  prudent  beggar 
with  a  cold  in  his  head, 
and  all  full  of  a  misty 
recollection  of  an  ex- 
c  e  e  d  i  n  g  greenness  of 
herbage.  Indeed,  Num- 
ber 22 — she  who  had 
boiled  down  the  ques- 
tion of  European  su- 
premacy into  flowers 
and  fruit — generously 
admitted  that  Cuba  was 
greener  than  we  were, 
"a  great  deal  greener." 

There  was  nothing 
green  about  Santiago 
when  it  chose  its  loca- 
tion. It  selected  a 
bottle-shaped  bay  to 
hide  behind,  and  added 
to  its  elusiveness  by 
erecting  a  stronghold 
which  our  fleet,  in  1898, 
found  impregnable. 
The  town  then  built 
itself  up  in  warm  reds 
and  yellows,  and  set  a 
band  to  playing. 


Our  community  took  exceptions  when 
the  Lady  from  Darien  boasted  that  her 
pirates  had  captured  Morro  Castle  three 
times  in  one  century,  and  she  didn't  see 
why  the  United  States  couldn't  have 
done  it.  They  were  very  much  annoyed, 
and  when  she  set  sail  for  bed  they  put 
their  little  tables  together — which  is  a 
demonstration  of  perfect  sympathy — 
and  decided  that  the  woman  was  en- 
tirely too  high-handed. 

She  and  her  Company  had  tumbled 
into  the  first  of  the  small  boats  in 
Havana  harbor,  driven  off  in  the  shiniest 
of  the  victorias,  snatched  at  the  most 
coveted  places  on  the  train,  and  were 
pursuing  a  policy  rather  in  proud  emula- 
tion than  depreciation  of  those  pirates 
who  could  storm  a  fortress  which  We 
couldn't.    It  was  the  general  opinion  at 


THE  CATHEDRAL,  PANAMA 


272 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  congress  of  tables  that  something 
ought  to  be  done  about  it. 

The  cruise  continued.  Sweaters  gave 
place  to  white  ducks,  flying-fish  were 
served  for  dainties,  sharks  begged  for 
food  with  the  simplicity  of  the  sea-gull, 
and  the  crocodile — to  quote  from  the 
annals  of  the  pirate  Esquemiling — "ufu- 
ally  come  every  night  to  the  Sides  of 
the  Ship  and  make  refemblance  of  climb- 
ing up  into  the  veffel." 

This  last  statement  was  no  more  true 
in  1600  than  in  the  present  century,  yet 
we  were  willing  to  lend  our  attention  to 
the  story,  for  insidiously  the  color  of  the 
seas  was  clothing  our  sober  selves.  And 
this  investiture  of  old  and  young  alike  is 
worth  all  the  chateaux  of  France.  In 
Europe  we  live  in  the  warm  history  of 
past  lives,  but  every  zephyr  of  the  trade- 
winds  blows  to  us  the  musk  of  enduring 
romances. 

The  occupation  of  Spanish  Island  by 
the  less  glowing  Anglo-Saxon  does  not 
dispel  the  charm — the  sensation  that  the 
experience  of  a  lifetime  is  around  the 
next  street  corner  is  a  matter  of  geog- 
raphy, not  race.  The  Kingston  of 
Jamaica  is  as  provocative  of  gentle  sighs 
as  the  islands  still  under  Latin  rule. 


British  conventionality  is  tempered.  Al- 
ways the  best  of  colonists,  the  English 
condone  that  which  they  cannot  correct, 
and  absorb  such  of  the  customs  as  lend 
ease  to  living. 

We  went  inland  by  train  to  Spanish 
Town  from  the  port  of  Kingston,  and  I 
bore  with  the  reproaches  of  the  Illus- 
trator as  patiently  as  possible — which  is 
an  indefinite  statement,  and  shall  remain 
so — when  the  Company  from  Darien 
seized  all  the  carriages.  The  Illustrator 
felt  that  I  had  gone  over  to  their  side 
since  the  night  the  men  had  put  their 
tables  together.  I  had  never  cared  for 
the  spirit  evoked  from  tables  in  juxta- 
position, and  this,  combined  with  a 
woman's  instinctive  disloyalty  to  man 
(the  Illustrator's  words),  gave  him  an 
uneasy  feeling  that  I  might  at  any  mo- 
ment join  the  Company  itself. 

Yet  a  carriage  was  found  for  us,  and 
at  the  old  negro  coachman's  request, 
made,  with  a  fine  cockney  accent,  we 
drove  Mrs.  Dr.  Blank — who  had  been 
shopping  and  was  tired — to  her  home. 

We  hinted  at  pirates  as  she  accom- 
panied us,  and  she  warmed  to  the  sub- 
ject. She  was  dressed  with  mid-Vic- 
torian respectability,  but  she  was  very 


PORTO  BELLO,  COLOMBIA — A  FORMER  STRONGHOLD  OF  THE  BUCANEERS 


LA  GUAYRA,  VENEZUELA 


proud  of  the  place  Jamaica  held  in 
bucaneering  history.  It  would  seem 
that  this  island  was  their  headquarters. 
Sir  Henry  Morgan — an  Englishman,  and 
of  course  the  best  worst  pirate — had 
lived  in  Spanish  Town,  even  burning  up 
his  wife  there  when  he  wanted  to  get 
away. 

"Ah,  yes;  pirates  have  made  the 
island,"  she  completed,  humorously. 
"They  always  paid  their  debts  here. 
British  influence,  I  suppose.  Very  good 
blood — some  of  them.  Here's  my  house. 
Half  a  crown  is  my  share.  Sir,  I  insist. 
'Spiggiti'  money,  but  it's  all  right." 

She  went  briskly  in,  leaving  us  to  ro- 
tate the  "spiggiti"  piece  in  our  palms 
and  the  meaning  in  our  minds.  We 
solved  the  question  that  night  and 
rushed  back  to  the  boat  to  confute 
others.  "No  speaka  the  English"  was 
the  cry  of  the  natives  when  they  first 
met  their  rulers,  until  in  some  twisted 
fashion  the  coin  of  the  Indies,  less  in 
value  than  ours,  became  "spiggiti" 
money. 


One  of  the  pleasures  of  a  cruise  is  this 
returning  to  the  steamer,  and,  in  the 
exchange  of  shore  escapades,  regret  that 
all  did  not  see  what  we  saw.  The 
Illustrator  maintained  that  he  had  en- 
countered every  joy  that  had  been  ex- 
perienced by  others,  and  topped  all 
dangerous  tales  with  more  deadly  ones. 
This  was  irritating  to  the  others.  The 
weather  grew  hot  after  Jamaica,  and  one 
lady  took  swift  revenge  by  staring  mood- 
ily at  his  sketches  of  various  ports  which 
had'  granted  him  sights  that  had  been 
withheld  from  her.  "For  these  are 
unfamiliar  to  me,"  she  finished  in  a  sort 
of  prickly  heat. 

It  was  well  that  we  reached  Cristobal 
shortly  after  this  flurry.  Once  in  the 
Canal  Zone,  we  again  felt  the  bonds  of 
patriotism,  and  a  serenity  born  from  the 
orderliness  of  military  sway  permeated 
our  being.  The  visitor  who  crosses  the 
Isthmus  is  as  systematically  propelled  as 
are  the  great  engines  which  make  the 
scheme  possible.  All  distracted,  early 
morning  thoughts  as  to  the  responsibil- 


274 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


BRIDGETOWN  HARBOR,  BARBADOS 


ity  of  getting  over  and  back  are  allayed 
at  sight  of  the  first  khaki  uniform,  and 
we  render  ourselves  up  blissfully  to  the 
government. 

To  be  sure,  the  Culebra  Cut  was  not 
as  decorative  as  Number  22  would  have 
had  it.  She  had  expected  it  to  be  laid 
out  in  flower-beds  like  the  terraces  of  a 
cemetery. 

The  bucaneer  Sir  Henry  Morgan 
took  nine  days  to  cut  a  trail  across  the 
Isthmus  and  sack  old  Panama.  The 
trip  through  the  Canal  takes  eight  hours, 
but  the  toll  of  men,  from  the  time  de 
Lesseps  undertook  the  Canal  until  the 
French  abandoned  the  project  will  put 
to  shame  the  murderings  of  all  that 
piratical  crew. 

Morgan  left  the  western  coast  with 
its  beautiful  cedar  houses  in  flames,  and 
carrying  with  him  so  much  gold  that  the 
men  were  weak  from  the  weight  of  it. 
Our  ship's  passengers  quitted  Panama 
with  less  money  than  upon  our  arrival. 

We  also  carried  lighter  hearts  and  a 
lighter  train,  for  at  the  hour  of  departure 
it  was  discovered  that  the  Company 


from  Darien  were  un- 
doubtedly "left." 

We  were  exclaiming 
over  this,  with  suitable 
sympathetic  clucks  in  the 
throat,  when,  half-way 
across,  our  engine  sud- 
denly ground  to  a  stand- 
still, and  before  we  could 
tell  each  other  that  the 
Culebra  Cut  was  sliding 
down  again,  the  lost 
Company  climbed  on. 

This  was  too  much. 
There  was  a  secret  meet- 
ing behind  the  funnel 
that  night  to  discuss 
ways  and  means  of  op- 
posing these  intrepid 
ladies.  That  they  had 
waved  the  American  flag 
to  stop  the  train,  furling 
it  as  they  climbed  aboard 
and  displaying  only  the 
black  pennant  of  their 
leader,  was  proof  pos- 
itive that  their  tactics 
were  entirely  those  of  the 
filibusters  of  other  days. 
And  it  was  generally 
agreed  that  the  best  method  of  competing 
with  them  would  be  Lby  the  method 
of  piracy  also. 

The  men  found  no  lack  of  dignity  in 
this  combination  against  a  band  of  the 
gentler  sex.  One  may  observe  that  on 
shipboard  a  sense  of  the  relative  impor- 
tance of  things  is  lost.  Therefore  it  ap- 
peared not  incongruous  to  yokel  minds 
to  borrow  the  pirate  library  and  search 
for  a  scheme  of  defeating  the  Company. 


IN  THE  DAYS  OF  CAPTAIN  KIDD 


CHARLOTTE   AMALIE,  DANISH  WEST  INDIES 


It  was  at  La  Guayra  that  our  ruse  to 
outwit  the  leader  and  her  crew  signally 
failed.  It  is  related  of  Morgan  that, 
finding  his  fleet  bottled  up  in  a  river  with 
a  well-equipped  fort  threatening  his  exit, 
he  spent  the  day  sending  his  crew  off  in 
boats,  yet  returning  from  the  shore  with 
all  but  the  rowers  lying  flat  under  the 
gunwales.  Under  cover  of  the  darkness 
he  then  slipped  out  into  the  open  seas, 
and  this  had  so  successfully  deceived  the 
garrison,  prepared  for  a  land  attack,  that 
the  committee  behind  the  funnel  made 
an  effort  to  emulate  the  doughty  cap- 
tain. 

It  was  reported  that  the  small  boats 
taking  us  to  the  land  would  touch  upon 
the  port  rather  than  the  starboard  side, 
and  the  ship  passengers  foregathered 
there  with  the  intention  of  watching  the 
Company  from  Darien,  who  were  solidly 
first  against  the  rail,  become  the  last 
when  the  gangway  was  dropped  on  the 
other  side.  It  was  delightful  to  contem- 
plate until  the  officer  on  the  bridge, 
thinking  the  error  universal,  signaled  the 
launches  to  draw  along  the  port  side — 


and  the  Company  trooped  down  the  lad- 
der and  waved  us  au  revoir. 

Then  they  gave  up,  and  were  rewarded 
by  a  sort  of  internecine  strife  among  the 
Company,  precedence  for  which  could 
also  be  found  in  the  borrowed  library, 
had  they  not  been  so  keen  for  strategical 
moves.  It  was  Bucaneer  Lussan  who, 
fearing  to  lose  all  his  gold,  so  great  was 
his  share,  divided  a  portion  among  his 
men  who  were  less  heavily  weighted. 
That  the  men  would  claim  their  burden 
as  their  own  was  his  natural  conclusion, 
but  he  saved  himself  a  dagger  thrust. 

In  view  of  that  historical  episode,  read 
aloud  by  the  leader  herself,  it  is  curious 
that  she  should  have  felt  annoyed  when 
two  of  her  Company  claimed  the  chame- 
leons which  they  carried  for  her  from 
Caracas  to  La  Guayra.  The  two  mem- 
bers went  further.  They  said  they  had 
paid  for  the  chameleons.  And  they  had 
witnesses.  One  lady  who  would  have 
bought  a  monkey  (who,  in  fact,  had  said, 
"I'll  take  it,"  and  would  have  but  that 
the  leader  swooped  it  out  of  her  arms) 
was  ready  to  testify  to  anything.  And 


THE  FORTRESS  OF  THE  HEADLAND — SAN  JUAN,  PORTO  RICO 


another  whose  red  macaw  had  flown 
back  to  its  master,  although  he  insisted 
it  was  not  the  same,  declared  that  she 
hadn't  been  born  in  Darien,  anyway,  but 
in  New  Canaan,  and  was  a  slave  to  no 
one. 

After  this  fearless  statement  it  devel- 
oped that  others  of  the  Company  were 
from  towns  adjacent  to  Darien,  Con- 
necticut, and  as  the  English  diverged 
from  the  French  pirates  they  formed 
themselves  into  an  opposing  faction. 
The  separation  was  not  definite,  at  first, 
beyond  a  steady  contention  between  the 
two  for  the  clergyman.  And  this  bore 
the  unmistakable  stamp  of  the  sea- 
rovers. 

It  was  the  latitude  and  longitude 
that  wrought  this  turmoil.  We  were 
in  a  zone  of  revolutions.  There  is  always 
a  foreign  war-ship  off  the  harbor  at  La 
Guayra  waiting  for  money  for  its  govern- 
ment, or  getting  it,  or  not  getting  it,  and 
the  haze  that  hung  over  the  Spanish 
Main  would  seem  to  be  of  gunpowder. 

As  we  laid  our  course  toward  Trinidad 
we  felt  that  we  would  soon  be  regaining 
our  balance,  and  reclothing  ourselves  in 


sober  thoughts  with  the  resumption  of 
sweaters.  The  change  was  not  imme- 
diate. The  wool  stuck  to  us.  Yet  there 
was  serenity  of  the  spirit,  if  that  of  the 
flesh  was  not  appreciable.  The  scramble 
for  first  place  was  weakened  by  a  lack  of 
team-work  among  the  Company,  and  we 
enjoyed  for  the  first  time  the  monotony 
of  peace. 

We  were  not  satiated  by  this  new 
dominion,  for,  in  contrast  to  our  estate, 
the  life  of  the  islands  was  as  varying  as 
the  opalescent  seas  which  surround 
them.  In  the  markets  of  Port  of  Spain, 
the  most  commanding  town  of  Trinidad, 
are  sold  the  wares  of  Benares,  for  the 
English  found  that  the  East-Indian  can 
labor  better  in  the  wet  heat  than  those 
native  to  the  country.  The  turbaned 
workman  stalks  through  the  Spanish 
parks,  and  his  East-Indian  wife  waddles 
deferentially  a  few  feet  behind  him. 

Bridgetown  of  Barbados  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  known  as  Little  London. 
Although  pirates  cannot  be  denied  a 
place  in  its  annals,  and  parties  are  still 
digging  for  Captain  Kidd's  treasure,  the 
inhabitants  lay  stress  on  the  fact  that 


PIRATES! 

he  was  a  good  pirate,  burying  his  Bible 
before  he  took  to  the  sea,  and  marrying 
on  the  island  with  full  church  ritual  no 
less  than  a  clergyman's  daughter. 

It  was  not  the  usual  attitude  of  the 
tropics,  and  we  embraced  Martinique  in 
the  vain  hope  that  French  rule  would  be 
less  decorous.  It  is  gay  as  to  head-dress 
and  cheerful  with  the  chatter  of  French 
patois,  but  the  island  is  still  bent  under 
the  blow  of  its  seismic  horror  in  1902, 
when  the  hot  breath  of  Mont  Pelee 
withered  the  thirty  thousand  inhabi- 
tants of  St.  Pierre,  and  the  sea  swept  in 
to  complete  the  destruction. 

Fort  de  France  is  now  the  stopping- 
place,  and  that  Josephine  was  born  there 
gives  one  only  a  slight  stimulus.  Her 
statue  rises  from  a  little  park,  a  monu- 
ment not  significant  in  itself,  but  rich 
with  the  thought  that  the  country  which 
she  would  willingly  have  forgotten  was 
the  only  one  eager  to  perpetuate  her 
name. 

The  captains  of  the  tourist  ships  secure 
here  a  permit  to  enter  the  harbor  of  St. 
Pierre.  And  when  we  had  entered  and 
gone  to  the  shore  we  wished  that  we  had 
remained  behind,  for  visiting  St.  Pierre 
is  like  an  unlovely  walk  through  a  grave- 
yard too  recently  made  to  lend  a  beauty 
to  death. 

Our  depredations  there  were  less 
ghoulish  than  the  efforts  of  the  few  re- 
maining inhabitants  to  make  a  living. 
Gruesome  souvenirs  were  exposed  for 
sale,  even  to  a  limited  supply  of  human 
teeth.  We  would  like  to  think  that  they 
were  the  output  of  an  enterprising  dental 
concern,  yet  they  were  all  bought  up  by 
those  who  had  secured  the  first  boats, 
and  as  we  were  not  of  the  first — owing 
to  the  delay  in  doing  up  the  hold- 
nothing — we  escaped  the  most  inconse- 
quential molar. 

The  Lady  from  Darien  was  with  us  at 
the  time.  Abandoned  by  her  Company, 
she  had,  in  a  sort  of  dogged  bewilder- 
ment, taken  to  us.  The  Illustrator  was 
exceedingly  bitter  over  this,  although,  as 
I  told  him  whenever  occasion  permitted, 
he  had  been  among  those  behind  the  fun- 
nel who  declared  for  her  deposition. 
Hoist  by  his  own  petard,  he  now  became 
desirous  of  regaining  for  her  the  scepter. 
He  claimed  that  it  was  for  motives  of 
sympathy,  and  perhaps  the  presence  of 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782.-35 


PIRATES!  277 

the  deposed  leader  recalled  to  him  his 
own  earlier  and  abandoned  dreams  of 
holding  supremacy  in  his  household. 

He  did  not  hit  upon  a  means  of  effect- 
ing this  until  Martinique  slid  down  the 
horizon  and  St.  Thomas  rose  sweetly  up 
to  greet  us,  wafting  the  scent  of  the 
odorous  bay-leaves  far  down  the  harbor 
of  Charlotte  Amalie. 

He  claims  that  the  inspiration  was  his 
own,  but  it  may  have  been  the  leader's 
last  words  gulped  out  with  her  final  tear 
as  we  made  our  way  back  to  the  boat 
after  visiting  St.  Thomas.  For  her  la- 
ment was  not  lost  powTer,  but  her  lack  of 
booty  on  her  piratical  cruise.  The  mon- 
key had  died,  the  parokeets  had  flown 
into  the  forecastle  and  mysteriously  re- 
mained there,  the  chameleons  had 
crawled  into  cracks,  and  she  was  too  late 
in  St.  Pierre  for  anything — she  hesitated 
— of  distinction. 

It  was  immediately  after  this  that  the 
Illustrator  entered  upon  his  diplomatic 
mission  of  welding  the  Company  to- 
gether as  a  unit  and  restoring  the  leader 
to  her  own.  He  consulted  with  them 
behind  the  funnel.  We  were  approach- 
ing our  own  Porto  Rico,  said  the  Illus- 
trator, once  the  last  touching-place  of 
the  Spanish  galleons — if  they  evaded  the 
skull  and  cross-bones — before  they  swept 
on  to  old  Spain.  The  pirates  of  our  ac- 
quaintance had  been  mostly  hanged  on 
the  many  islands  left  behind  us,  and 
with  our  emergence  from  their  sultry 
atmosphere  we,  as  he  phrased  it,  must 
lay  aside  the  passions  of  the  South  and 
return  to  the  clear,  cold  vision  of  our 
countrymen. 

There  were  tears,  and  a  concrete 
wish  among  the  Company  to  ofFer  their 
erstwhile  leader  a  gift  significant  of  their 
concerted  affection.  They  parted  with 
their  trophies  generously,  and  late  that 
night  the  Lady  from  Darien  had  in  her 
possession  a  complete  set — lacking  an 
eye  tooth. 

The  Lady  from  Darien  was  very  hap- 
py. She  again  quoted  the  verse-maker 
of  our  acquaintance: 

"Skull  and  bones  no  longer  fly — 
Steam  and  screw  the  reason  why." 

"I  wonder,"  mused  the  Illustrator,  as 
she  jangled  her  collection  in  her  netted 
purse. 


The  Return  to  Favor 


BY  W.  D.  HOW  ELLS 


)E  never,  by  any  chance, 
quite  kept  his  word, 
though  there  was  a  mo- 
ment in  every  case 
when  he  seemed  to 
imagine  doing  what  he 
said,  and  he  took  with 
mute  patience  the  rakings  which  the 
ladies  gave  him  when  he  disappointed 
them. 

Disappointed  is  not  just  the  word, 
for  the  ladies  did  not  really  expect  him 
to  do  what  he  said.  They  pretended 
to  believe  him  when  he  promised,  but  at 
the  bottom  of  their  hearts  they  never  did 
or  could.  He  was  gentle-mannered  and 
soft-spoken,  and  when  he  set  his  head  on 
one  side,  and  said  that  a  coat  would  be 
ready  on  Wednesday,  or  a  dress  on  Sat- 
urday, and  repeated  his  promise  upon 
the  same  lady's  expressed  doubt,  she 
would  catch  her  breath  and  say  that  now 
she  absolutely  must  have  it  on  the  day 
named,  for  otherwise  she  would  not 
have  a  thing  to  put  on.  Then  he  would 
become  very  grave,  and  his  soft  tenor 
would  deepen  to  a  bass  of  unimpeach- 
able veracity,  and  he  would  say,  "Sure, 
lady,  you  have  it." 

The  lady  would  depart  still  doubting 
and  slightly  sighing,  and  he  would  turn  to 
the  customer  who  was  waiting  to  have  a 
button  sewed  on,  or  something  like  that, 
and  ask  him  softly  what  it  was  he  could 
do  for  him.  If  the  customer  offered  him 
his  appreciation  of  the  case  in  hand,  he 
would  let  his  head  droop  lower,  and  in  a 
yet  deeper  bass  deplore  the  doubt  of  the 
ladies  as  an  idiosyncrasy  of  their  sex. 
He  would  make  the  customer  feel  that 
he  was  a  favorite  customer  whose  rights 
to  a  perfect  fidelity  of  word  and  deed 
must  by  no  means  be  tampered  with, 
and  he  would  have  the  button  sewed  on  or 
the  rip  sewed  up  at  once,  and  refuse  to 
charge  anything,  while  the  customer, 
waited  in  his  shirt-sleeves  in  the  small, 
stuffy  shop  opening  directly  from  the 
street.     When  he  tolerantly  discussed 


the  peculiarities  of  ladies  as  a  sex, 
he  would  endure  to  be  laughed  at,  "for 
sufferance  was  the  badge  of  all  his 
tribe,"  and  possibly  he  rather  liked  it. 

The  favorite  customer  enjoyed  being 
there  when  some  lady  came  back  on  the 
appointed  Wednesday  or  Saturday,  and 
the  tailor  came  soothingly  forward  and 
showed  her  into  the  curtained  alcove 
where  she  was  to  try  on  the  garments, 
and  then  called  into  the  inner  shop  for 
them.  The  shirt-sleeved  journeyman 
with  his  unbuttoned  waistcoat-front  all 
pins  and  threaded  needles  would  appear 
in  his  slippers  with  the  things  barely 
basted  together,  and  the  tailor  would 
take  them,  with  an  airy  courage,  as  if 
they  were  perfectly  finished,  and  go  in 
behind  the  curtain  where  the  lady  was 
waiting  in  a  dishabille  which  the  favorite 
customer,  out  of  reverence  for  the  sex, 
forbore  to  picture  to  himself.  Then 
sounds  of  volcanic  fury  would  issue  from 
the  alcove.  "Now,  Mr.  Morrison,  you 
have  lied  to  me  again,  deliberately  lied. 
Didn't  I  tell  you  I  must  have  the  things 
perfectly  ready  to-day?  You  see  your- 
self that  it  will  be  another  week  before 
I  can  have  my  things." 

"Aweek?  Oh,  madam!  But  I  assure 
you— 

"Don't  talk  to  me  any  more!  It's  the 
last  time  I  shall  ever  come  to  you,  but 
I  suppose  I  can't  take  the  work  away 
from  you  as  it  is.   When  shall  I  have  it?" 

"To-morrow.  Yes,  to-morrow  noon. 
Sure!" 

"Now  you  know  you  are  always  out 
at  noon.  I  should  think  you  would  be 
ashamed." 

"If  it  hadn't  been  for  sickness  in  the 
family  I  would  have  finished  your  dress 
with  my  own  hands.  Sure  I  would.  If 
you  come  here  to-morrow  noon  you  find 
your  dress  all  ready  for  you." 

"I  know  I  won't,  but  I  will  come,  and 
you'd  better  have  it  ready." 

"Oh,  sure." 

The  lady  then  added  some  generalities 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 


279 


of  opprobrium  with  some  particular 
criticisms  of  the  garments.  Her  voice 
sank  into  dispassionate  murmurs  in 
these,  but  it  rose  again  in  her  renewed 
sense  of  the  wrong  done  her,  and  when 
she  came  from  the  alcove,  she  went  out 
of  the  street  door  purple.  She  reopened 
it  to  say,  "Now,  remember!"  before  she 
definitively  disappeared. 

"Rather  a  stormy  session,  Mr.  Morri- 
son," the  customer  said. 

"Something  fierce,"  Mr.  Morrison 
sighed.  But  he  did  not  seem  much  trou- 
bled, and  he  had  one  way  with  all  his 
victims,  no  matter  what  mood  they 
came  or  went  in. 

One  day  the  customer  was  by  when  a 
kind  creature  timidly  upbraided  him. 
"This  is  the  third  time  you've  disap- 
pointed me,  Mr.  Morrison.  I  really 
wish  you  wouldn't  promise  me  unless 
you  mean  to  do  it.  I  don't  think  it's 
right  for  you." 

"Oh,  but  sure,  madam!  The  things 
will  be  done,  sure.  We  had  a  strike  on 
us." 

"Well,  I  will  trust  you  once  more," 
the  kind  creature  said. 

"You  can  depend  on  me,  madam, 
sure." 

When  she  was  gone  the  customer  said: 
"I  wonder  you  do  that  sort  of  thing, 
Mr.  Morrison.  You  can't  be  surprised 
at  their  behaving  rustily  with  you  if 
you  never  keep  your  word." 

"Why,  I  assure  you  there  are  times 
when  I  don't  know  where  to  look,  the 
way  they  go  on.  It  is  something  awful. 
You  ought  to  hear  them  once.  And 
now  they  want  the  vote."  He  rear- 
ranged some  pieces  of  tumbled  goods 
at  the  table  where  the  customer  sat,  and 
put  together  the  disheveled  leaves  of 
the  fashion-papers  which  looked  as  if 
the  ladies  had  scattered  them  in  their 
rage. 

One  day  the  customer  heard  two  ladies 
waiting  for  their  disappointments  in  the 
outer  room  while  the  tailor  in  the  alcove 
was  trying  to  persuade  a  third  lady  that 
positively  her  things  would  be  sent  home 
the  next  day  before  dark.  The  customer 
had  now  formed  the  habit  of  having  his 
own  clothes  made  by  the  tailor,  and  his 
system  in  avoiding  disappointment  was 
very  simple.  In  the  early  fall  he  ordered 
a  spring  suit,  and  in  the  late  spring  it  was 


ready.  He  never  had  any  difficulty,  but 
he  was  curious  to  learn  how  the  ladies 
managed,  and  he  listened  with  all  his 
might  while  these  two  talked. 

"I  always  wonder  we  keep  coming," 
one  of  them  said. 

"I'll  tell  you  why,"  the  other  said. 
"Because  he's  cheap,  and  we  get  things 
from  a  fourth  to  a  third  less  than  we  can 
get  them  anywhere  else.  The  quality  is 
first  rate,  and  he's  absolutely  honest. 
And,  besides,  he's  a  genius.  The  wretch 
has  touch.  The  things  have  a  style,  a 
look,  a  hang!  Really  it's  something 
wonderful.  Sure  it  iss,"  she  ended  in 
the  tailor's  accent,  and  then  they  both 
laughed,  and  joined  in  a  common  sigh. 

"Well,  I  don't  believe  he  means  to 
deceive  any  one." 

"Oh,  neither  do  I.  I  believe  he  ex- 
pects to  do  everything  he  says.  And  one 
can't  help  liking  him  even  when  he 
doesn't." 

"He's  a  good  while  getting  through 
with  her,"  the  first  lady  said,  meaning 
the  unseen  lady  in  the  alcove. 

"She'll  be  a  good  while  longer  getting 
through  with  him,  if  he  hasn't  them 
ready  the  next  time,"  the  second  lady 
said. 

But  the  lady  in  the  alcove  issued  from 
it  with  an  impredicable  smile,  and  the 
tailor  came  up  to  the  others,  and  de- 
ferred to  their  wishes  with  a  sort  of 
voiceless  respect. 

He  gave  the  customer  a  glance  of  good- 
fellowship,  and  said  to  him,  radiantly: 
"Your  things  all  ready  for  you,  this 
morning.   As  soon  as  I — " 

"Oh,  no  hurry,"  the  customer  re- 
sponded. 

"I  won't  be  a  minute,"  the  tailor  said, 
pulling  the  curtain  of  the  alcove  aside, 
and  then  there  began  those  sounds  of 
objurgation  and  expostulation,  although 
the  ladies  had  seemed  so  amiable  before. 

The  customer  wondered  if  they  did 
not  all  enjoy  it:  the  ladies  in  their 
patience  under  long  trial,  and  the  tailor 
in  the  pleasure  of  practising  upon  it. 
But  perhaps  he  did  believe  in  the  things 
he  promised.  He  might  be  so  much  a 
genius  as  to  have  no  grasp  of  facts;  he 
might  have  thought  that  he  could  actu- 
ally do  what  he  said. 

The  customer's  question  on  these 
points  found  answer  when  one  day  the 


280 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


tailor  remarked,  as  it  were  out  of  a  clear 
sky,  that  he  had  sold  his  business;  sold 
it  to  the  slippered  journeyman  who  used 
to  come  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  with  his  vest- 
front  full  of  pins  and  needles,  bringing 
the  basted  garments  to  be  tried  on  the 
ladies  who  had  been  promised  them  per- 
fectly finished. 

"He  will  do  your  clothes  all  right,"  he 
explained  to  the  customer.  "He  is  a 
first  rate  cutter  and  fitter;  he  knows  the 
whole  business." 

"But  why — why — "  the  customer  be- 
gan. 

"I  couldn't  stand  it.  The  way  them 
ladies  would  talk  to  a  person,  when  you 
done  your  best  to  please  them;  it's  some- 
thing fierce." 

"Yes,  I  know.  But  I  thought  you 
liked  it,  from  the  way  you  always  prom- 
ised them  and  never  kept  your  word." 

"And  if  I  hadn't  promised  them?"  the 
tailor  returned  with  some  show  of  feel- 
ing. "They  wanted  me  to  promise  them 
— they  made  me — they  wouldn't  have 
gone  away  without  it.  Sure.  Every  one 
wanted  her  things  before  every  one. 
You  had  got  to  think  of  that." 

"But  you  had  to  think  of  what  they 
would  say." 

"Say?  Sometimes  I  thought  they 
would  hit  me.  One  said  she  had  a  notion 
to  slap  me  once.    It's  no  way  to  talk." 

"But  you  didn't  seem  to  mind  it." 

"I  didn't  mind  it  for  a  good  while. 
Then  I  couldn't  stand  it.    So  I  sold." 

He  shook  his  head  sadly;  but  the 
customer  had  no  comfort  to  offer  him. 
He  asked  when  his  clothes  would  be 
done,  and  the  tailor  told  him  when,  and 
then  they  were  not.  The  new  proprietor 
tried  them  on,  but  he  would  not  say  just 
when  they  would  be  finished. 

"We  have  a  good  deal  of  work  already 
for  some  ladies  that  been  disappointed. 
Now  we  try  a  new  way.  We  tell  people 
exactly  what  we  do." 

"Well,  that's  right,"  the  customer 


said,  but  in  his  heart  he  was  not  sure  he 
liked  the  new  way. 

The  day  before  his  clothes  were  prom- 
ised he  dropped  in.  From  the  curtained 
alcove  he  heard  low  murmurs,  the  voice 
of  the  new  proprietor  and  the  voice  of 
some  lady  trying  on,  and  being  severely 
bidden  not  to  expect  her  things  at  a 
time  she  suggested.  "No,  madam.  We 
got  too  much  work  on  hand  already. 
These  things,  they  will  not  be  done  be- 
fore next  week." 

"I  told  you  to-morrow,"  the  same 
voice  said  to  another  lady,  and  the  new 
proprietor  came  out  with  an  unfinished 
coat  in  his  hand. 

"I  know  you  did,  but  I  thought  you 
would  be  better  than  your  word,  and  so 
I  came  to-day.  Well,  then,  to-morrow." 

"Yes,  to-morrow,"  the  new  proprietor 
said,  but  he  did  not  seem  to  have  liked 
the  lady's  joke.   He  did  not  look  happy. 

A  few  weeks  after  that  the  customer 
came  for  some  little  alterations  in  his 
new  suit. 

In  the  curtained  alcove  he  heard  the 
murmurs  of  trying  on,  much  cheerfuller 
murmurs  than  before;  the  voice  of  a 
lady  lifted  in  gladness,  in  gaiety,  and  an 
incredible  voice  replying,  "Oh,  sure, 
madam." 

Then  the  old  proprietor  came  out  in 
his  shirt-sleeves  and  slippers,  with  his 
waistcoat-front  full  of  pins  and  needles, 
just  like  the  new  proprietor  in  former 
days. 

"Why!"  the  customer  exclaimed. 
"Have  you  bought  back?" 

"No.  I'm  just  here  like  a  journey- 
man already.  The  new  man  he  want 
me  to  come.  He  don't  get  along  very 
well  with  his  way.  He's  all  right;  he's 
a  good  man,  and  a  first-class  tailor. 
But,"  and  the  former  proprietor  looked 
down  at  the  basted  garment  hanging 
over  his  arm,  and  picked  off*  an  irrele- 
vant thread  from  it,  "he  thinks  I  get 
along  better  with  the  ladies." 


The  Wire 


BY  ROBERT  WELLES  RITCHIE 


N  a  convention  -  hall, 
where  representatives 
of  a  national  party  had 
assembled  to  make  a 
platform  and  nominate 
a  candidate  for  the 
Presidency,  many  days 
of  acrimony  and  strain  between  con- 
tending factions  had  surcharged  the 
heated  air  with  a  dangerous  spirit  of 
passion.  Men  who  sat  in  their  shirt- 
sleeves, sullen  and  wilted  under  the  goad 
of  the  sun  and  of  a  strong  opponent's 
domination,  sensed  the  undercurrent  of 
raw  temper  that  played  through  the  in- 
nocent formula  of  the  day's  order  of 
business;  by  barks  of  applause  they 
encouraged  their  leaders  to  push  conten- 
tion to  the  point  of  open  rupture.  Spec- 
tators crowding  the  galleries  to  suffoca- 
tion felt  the  menace  in  the  choked  aisles 
below  them  and  invited  disorder  by 
taunts  and  cat-calls.  Only  the  chatter- 
ing telegraph  instruments  in  the  circle 
of  the  press  benches  before  the  speaker's 
stage  seemed  oblivious  to  the  unmasked 
passions  abroad;  in  the  hushes  between 
the  roaring  and  snarling  of  many  voices 
they  spoke  their  unruffled  monotone. 

A  big  man  in  an  alpaca  coat — he  who 
had  cracked  the  whip  over  the  heads  of 
mutineers  since  first  the  doors  of  the 
convention-hall  opened — rose  from  his 
place  among  the  delegates  of  his  state 
and  started  down  the  main  aisle  to  the 
platform.  His  purpose  was  known. 
Consummate  daring  was  his.  He  was 
going  to  read  out  of  the  party  certain 
men  considered  by  many  to  be  among 
the  party's  leaders.  For  a  minute  there 
was  a  hush,  then — outlawry.  From  the 
solid  bank  of  the  opposition,  massed  in 
the  front  of  the  hall,  many  jumped  from 
their  seats  and  crowded  the  aisle,  set  in 
the  pose  of  fighters,  to  contend  his  pas- 
sage. Banners  were  swirled  into  his  eyes. 
Wadded  newspapers  and  crumpled  paper 
fans  were  hurled  at  his  head.  He  was 
hustled  and  buffeted.    Then  men  of  his 


own  camp,  seeing  their  leader's  humilia- 
tion, leaped  to  his  assistance,  formed  a 
flying  wedge  about  his  body,  and  at- 
tempted to  rush  him  to  the  stage.  The 
affair  instantly  became  a  matter  of  fists 
and  grapples.  A  fragile  railing  about 
the  press  benches  gave  before  the  crush 
of  bodies,  and  the  hurly-burly  swept 
among  the  benches  of  the  correspon- 
dents. 

"Lookout!  The  wire!  The  wire!" 

A  correspondent,  stripped  to  his  shirt, 
jumped  to  his  feet  and  with  fluttering 
hands  tried  to  fend  off  the  fighting  pack. 
He  was  butted  back  into  his  seat.  Over 
his  telegrapher's  shoulder  he  threw  his 
arm;  the  free  arm  of  the  man  at  the 
key  locked  with  his  and  they  bent  their 
backs  protectively  over  the  fragile,  pre- 
cious thing  of  coil  and  armature  that 
linked  the  world  to  them.  They  were 
trampled  and  harried,  but  as  the  wave 
of  bodies  passed  over  them,  carrying  the 
fighting  even  onto  the  floor  of  the  stage, 
they  braced  to  take  the  brunt.  The 
correspondent,  his  lips  to  the  telegra- 
pher's ear,  dictated  the  news  of  what 
was  happening  around  him.  His  words, 
voiced  in  a  torture  of  apprehension,  of 
acute  bodily  pain,  leaped  to  New  York 
with  the  swiftness  of  light,  and  thence 
out  to  the  nation  and  the  world  beyond 
seas. 

The  wire  was  saved  and  serving. 

Seventy  years  ago  a  portrait-painter 
sat  at  a  clumsy  desk  in  Washington  and 
jiggled  a  metal  tab  with  nervous  finger. 
In  Baltimore  an  armature  clacked,  and 
one  understanding  its  untried  speech 
translated  the  click  into  "What  hath 
God  wrought!"  That  day  was  born  the 
wire.  Born  a  creature  of  service.  Born 
to  obliterate  space  and  make  the  earth 
a  back-yard  for  over-fence  chattings 
between  the  peoples.  Two  days  after 
the  first  message  passed  between  Wash- 
ington and  Baltimore  over  the  portrait- 
painter's  stretched  wire  the  Democratic 
convention    in    Baltimore  nominated 


282 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


James  K.  Polk  for  President,  and  this 
fact  was  intrusted  to  the  new  messenger 
for  transmission  to  the  Democrats  of 
Congress  in  Washington.  That  day  the 
wire  was  christened  the  Servant  of  the 
News,  and  bound  by  its  sponsors  to  the 
slavery  of  the  world's  news-hunger.  On 
a  May  day  in  1844  a  dozen  words  of  news 
limped  less  than  a  hundred  miles  through 
the  air  and  pious  people  heard  preachers 
call  the  circumstance  a  revelation  of 
divine  favor  to  man.  One  night  in 
April  not  many  years  ago  a  ship  came  in 
to  New  York  from  the  sea,  carrying  the 
survivors  of  a  great  ocean  tragedy,  and 
between  nine  o'clock  and  an  hour  after 
midnight  more  than  a  million  words 
of  news — the  vivid  narratives  of  those 
snatched  from  death  —  went  out  over 
the  wires  from  New  York,  and  perhaps  a 
third  of  that  number  more  shot  under 
the  ocean.  Yet  not  fifty  people  knew  of 
that  heavy  burden  on  the  slave  of  the 
news;  only  its  masters  were  aware,  and 
they  spoke  casually  of  "extra -heavy 
traffic." 

So  in  the  new  revelation  of  to-day  the 
marvel  of  yesterday  is  forgotten.  An 
aeroplane  soars  upward,  to  the  enchained 
wonder  of  a  multitude;  to-morrow  it 
gains  no  more  notice  than  a  hawk  unless 
its  operator  gambles  his  neck  against 
applause  by  driving  his  machine  upside- 
down.  The  world-hunger  for  news  grows 
more  acute  each  year;  as  China,  Africa, 
and  the  islands  of  the  sea  move  into  the 
back-yard  comity  of  the  peoples,  gossip 
of  their  affairs  must  pass  over  the  back- 
yard fence.  Each  year  the  wire  is  called 
upon  for  sterner  service.  But  no  one 
pauses  to  be  amazed  at  the  increasing 
news  distributing  prodigies  of  the  wire; 
none  considers,  even,  its  existence.  The 
news  is  there  on  the  printed  page, 
propped  between  the  egg-cup  and  the 
coffee-pot;  that  is  the  sole,  satisfying 
fact  the  world  reckons.  Here  is  a  bit  of 
scandal  from  Seward,  Alaska;  there  a 
thrill  from  Teheran,  a  laugh  out  of 
Skiddo,  California.  What  reader  pos- 
sesses the  magic  spectacles  to  read  be- 
hind black  lines  of  type  the  far  more 
human,  more  dramatic  stories  of,  say, 
a  dog-team  post  buried  in  a  blizzard,  an 
imperial  censor  hoodwinked  under  the 
sword,  a  desert  lineman  dying  of  thirst? 

The  wire  must  serve!   The  wire  must 


serve!  Come  flood,  come  fire,  it  must 
not  be  stopped.  An  emperor  prohibits 
its  tattling;  it  tattles,  nevertheless.  An 
earthquake  rends  it  five  thousand  fath- 
oms down  on  the  floor  of  ocean;  it  flings 
its  news  burden  through  the  unwired  air. 
Though  man  made  it  his  serf,  many 
thousands  of  men  are  chained  to  it. 
Though  men  die  and  thrones  are  knocked 
into  scrap,  the  wire  is  eternally  at  ser- 
vice. And  why?  Because  John  Smith 
at  his  bacon  in  a  Harlem  flat  and  Chu 
Fang  over  his  tea  in  a  Cantonese  shop 
must  know  how  men  die — if  their  taking 
is  abnormal — and  why  a  throne  is  knocked 
into  scrap.  If  John  Smith  were  elected 
President  of  the  United  States,  Chu 
Fang  would  be  pleased  to  know  it.  John 
Smith,  by  the  same  token,  would  carry 
a  pleasurable  thrill  to  business  if  the  wire 
told  him  Chu  Fang  had  been  boiled  in 
oil  by  pirates. 

Those  whose  lives  are  given  to  the 
grooming  of  the  wire  estimate  that  twen- 
ty-six hundred  papers  in  the  United 
States  receive  each  day  a  telegraphic  ser- 
vice, either  from  one  of  the  great  news 
associations,  from  their  own  correspon- 
dents, or  both.  At  least  four  hundred 
papers  divide  between  them  each  day  a 
million  words  of  telegraphed  news  from 
their  correspondents  abroad  and  at 
home,  aside  from  the  general  news  re- 
port furnished  by  the  collecting  agencies. 
In  twenty-four  hours  of  an  average  day 
1,190,000  words  of  news  are  sent  over  the 
land  wires  of  this  country.  Enough  more 
pass  over  the  cables  to  and  from  Europe, 
the  Orient,  and  our  insular  possessions 
to  bring  the  daily  average  to  over  two 
millions.  Given  an  event  of  startling 
character  or  of  wide-spread  interest,  and 
the  average  will  jump  by  tens  of  thou- 
sands. A  full  third  of  the  day's  total 
outpouring  may  come  from  a  single  city: 
from  San  Francisco,  burning;  from  Chi- 
cago, in  the  grip  of  a  political  conven- 
tion's hysteria.  A  bulk  of  words  ap- 
proximating a  novel  of  Dickens  went 
under  the  key  fingers  of  operators  each 
day  of  the  Republican  convention  of 
191 2,  and  again  at  Baltimore  almost  as 
many  words  as  Samuel  Pepys  put  into 
his  diary  of  many  busy  and  gossipy 
years  were  flashed  to  readers  the  coun- 
try over  before  Woodrow  Wilson  was 
nominated  for  the  Presidency.  Abroad, 


THE  WIRE 


283 


the  impatience  of  news-hunger  is  not  so 
exacting  as  with  up-to-the-minute  Amer- 
icans. The  slower  agency  of  the  mails 
divides  the  labor  of  transmission  with 
the  telegraph.  Data  lacking,  men  who 
live  with  the  wire  in  this  country  give 
it  as  an  opinion  that  the  day's  average 
news  moving  in  Europe,  exclusive  of 
Great  Britain  and  her  colonies,  is  at 
most  considerably  less  than  in  the  United 
States.  The  impulse  toward  heavier 
wire  traffic  abroad  is  growing,  however, 
and  comes  from  the  insistence  of  Ameri- 
can news  agencies  upon  co-operation  un- 
der the  American  spur  of  speed. 

The  voice  of  the  wire  is  constant  as 
light.  It  rivals  the  speed  of  light-waves. 
On  the  last  day  of  the  year  1910  the 
airmen  were  in  the  sky  above  an  avia- 
tion-field at  Los  Angeles.  Because  then 
the  interest  of  people  in  exhibition  flights 
was  still  keen,  a  news  association  had 
its  "loop"  from  a  direct  wire  circuit 
established  at  the  press  bench  of  the 
grand-stand;  a  correspondent  sat  at  the 
telegrapher's  side  and  through  his  effi- 
cient linger  dictated  the  turn  of  events 
straight  to  the  San  Francisco  office  of  his 
association.  There  an  operator,  receiv- 
ing, sat  at  the  shoulder  of  another  who 
tapped  the  key  of  the  direct  New  York 
circuit.  Events  at  Dominguez  Field 
progressed  without  incident.  The  re- 
porter in  the  press-stand,  his  eyes  aloft, 
droned  a  dull  taleof  "  aerial  Derbies "  and 
passenger-carrying  flights  into  the  ear 
of  the  operator.  An  announcer  mega- 
phoned "a  startling  exhibition  flight  by 
the  world's  most  daring  aviator,"  and  a 
yellow  biplane  leaped  from  the  turf  to 
cut  a  straight,  upward  slash  in  the  blue 
field  of  space.  Up  and  up  the  thin 
sheaves  pushed  their  way  until  they 
hung,  a  buttonhole  in  the  sky.  Folk 
waited,  necks  strained,  for  the  invisible 
master  of  the  air  to  make  his  play  with 
death.  They  saw  the  twin  slivers  pirou- 
ette, double  in  a  dizzy  sweep,  balance 
on  the  brink  of  an  air  precipice,  then — 

"Flash!  Hoxsey  falling!"  the  reporter 
shouted.  "Flash!  Hoxsey  falling!"  an 
operator  three  hundred  miles  away  in 
San  Francisco  flung  over  his  shoulder 
to  the  fellow-operator  at  his  elbow. 
"Flash!  Hoxsey  falling!"  cried  a  man 
at  the  Frisco  key  in  a  big  room  four 
floors  above  New  York's  Broadway. 


Here  was  a  prodigy.  Before  the  bi- 
plane and  the  doomed  airman  had 
plunged  a  thousand  feet  to  destruction, 
men  in  the  New  York  office  of  the  news 
association  knew  that  Hoxsey  was  falling 
from  the  sky — knew  everything  the 
hushed  spectators  three  thousand  miles 
away  could  know.  The  wire  brought  the 
message  in  less  than  thirty  seconds. 
While  men  raced  across  Dominguez 
Field  to  the  yellow  jumble  dropped  from 
above — before  ever  a  hand  was  laid  on 
the  wreck  of  the  biplane — twenty  wires 
out  of  San  Francisco,  Chicago,  and  New 
York  were  humming  this  message  to 
a  score  of  cities:  "Bulletin — Hoxsey  fell 
1,000  feet,  Dominguez  Field,  Los  An- 
geles.   Probably  dead." 

Speed!  Speed!  That  is  the  cry  of 
the  wire  to-day.  Sure  of  its  own  power, 
strong  in  its  might  to  serve,  the  slave 
of  the  news  demands  that  the  human 
agency  which  must  be  co-ordinated  with 
it  shall  be  keyed  to  superhuman  effi- 
ciency. Those  who  tend  the  wire  must 
possess  its  instinct  of  swift  sureness; 
especially  when  the  clamor  of  the  news- 
hungry  makes  a  delay  of  seconds  intol- 
erable. Once  a  year  in  this  country 
comes  a  test  which  cracks  the  nerves  of 
men  who  groom  the  wire;  but  it  finds 
the  wire  itself  fallible  only  in  so  far  as 
its  aides  are  incapable  of  holding  them- 
selves to  its  lightning  pace.  This  is 
when  the  baseball  madness  advances 
into  the  dog-days  of  the  so-called 
World's  Series  games;  when  the  police 
have  to  cleave  a  lane  through  the  pack 
watching  bulletin-boards  and  graphic 
diagrams  before  the  newspaper  offices  in 
a  score  of  great  cities;  and  when,  even 
in  the  smaller  towns,  business  yields  to 
the  lure  of  the  hastily  scrawled  bulletin. 
Tens  of  thousands  witness  the  games 
with  their  own  eyes;  many  millions  de- 
mand to  be  spectators  by  proxy. 

Newspapers  and  news  associations 
prepare  for  these  pennant  games  as  doc- 
tors plan  to  fight  a  fever.  They  are 
under  the  rowel  of  the  mob's  impatience; 
rivalry  forces  them  to  a  fight  wherein 
seconds  lost  mean  prestige — and  dollars 
— lost.  Consider  as  typical  the  strategy 
employed  in  such  crises  by  a  certain 
resourceful  news  association. 

The  deciding  game  between  contend- 
ing teams  is  to  be  played  on  NewYork's 


284 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Polo  Grounds.  Two  wires  are  strung 
from  the  office  of  the  association  to  the 
places  allotted  at  the  press-stand;  one 
is  an  emergency  provision  to  be  used  in 
case  the  other  fails.  In  the  down-town 
operating  office  of  the  news  agency  con- 
nection is  made  between  the  active  wire 
at  the  Polo  Grounds  and  the  Chicago 
"main  trunk";  at  Chicago  a  "visible 
relay"  records  on  an  unwinding  reel  the 
message  that  is  leaping,  reinforced  by 
fresh  current,  onto  the  San  Francisco 
circuit.  In  the  New  York,  Chicago,  and 
San  Francisco  offices  operators  sit  with 
their  eyes  on  the  unreeling  tape,  ready 
to  flash  each  character  appearing  there 
over  subsidiary  circuits  to  Atlanta  and 
the  South,  to  St.  Paul  and  the  North- 
west, to  Los  Angeles  and  all  the  coast. 
In  each  of  the  cities  fed  by  the  circuits 
the  newspapers  subscribing  to  the  asso- 
ciation's service  have  loop  wires  leading 
to  their  offices;  these  c'arry  the  message 
of  the  circuit  automatically.  Such  the 
preparations  of  the  news-distributor; 
and  for  the  telegraph  company  pains 
equally  assiduous.  At  each  relay  point 
— and  that,  in  the  phrase  of  the  craft,  is 
where  an  automatic  "repeater"  rein- 
forces the  carrying  current,  sharpens  the 
timbre  of  the  metallic  chirp  and  chatter 
— a  wire  chief  "rides  the  wire,"  with  his 
ear  to  the  quality  of  the  voice  that 
speeds.  Does  weather  threaten  to  para- 
lyze the  wire  in  his  territory,  he  has 
a  "fall-back,"  or  substitute  circuit, 
through  unaffected  country,  built  in  the 
air  and  ready  for  instant  use.  Over  the 
entire  stretch  of  wire  from  the  Polo 
Grounds  to  San  Francisco  the  circuit  is 
made  "blind";  it  cannot  be  broken  by 
human  agency.  All  is  ready.  From 
Harlem  to  the  Golden  Gate  the  strain 
is  at  maximum;  men  are  tensed  to  ac- 
tion; the  wire  is  alive. 

"Cobb  flies  to  Murphy,"  dictates  the 
baseball  reporter  in  the  press-stand, 
judging  the  trajectory  of  the  batted  ball 
almost  with  the  crack  of  the  bat. 

"Cobb  flies  to  Murphy,"  calls  the 
assistant  sporting  editor  of  the  San 
Francisco  evening  paper,  and  his  voice  is 
megaphoned  to  the  crowd  blocking 
Kearney  Street.  Before  the  high  fly 
batted  by  Cobb  on  the  Polo  Field  has 
smacked  the  glove  of  Murphy  in  the 
outfield,  the  traffic  policeman  standing 


by  Lotta's  fountain  in  the  Pacific  Coast 
city  knows  the  play  is  made. 

.  .  .  "And  is  caught  out,"  the  re- 
porter in  the  press-stand  supplements. 

"Murphy  never  misses  'em,"  com- 
ments the  San  Francisco  policeman  be- 
fore the  outfielder  has  returned  the  ball 
to  the  pitcher's  box. 

Service  such  as  this  must  represent 
the  wire's  ultimate  speed  efficiency. 
Surely,  until  men  become  machines 
charged  with  a  current  of  instantaneous 
reaction,  man's  servant  of  stretched  cop- 
per will  not  do  better  by  him.  Maxi- 
mum speed  obtained,  the  masters  of  the 
talking  spark  still  have  to  face  the  prob- 
lems of  a  constant  warfare  with  the 
wire's  enemy,  the  elements.  However 
cunningly  they  may  contrive  to  drive 
the  lightning  flash  of  intelligence  with 
the  swiftness  of  light,  whatever  the 
magnitude  of  traffic  the  telegraph  may 
be  forced  to  carry,  there  is  the  ever- 
present  menace  of  storm,  fire,  and  flood 
to  threaten  wide-spread  extinction  of  the 
spark.  The  leveling  of  miles  of  wires  in 
the  path  of  a  tornado  or  their  burdening 
by  a  blizzard  taxes  the  fortitude  and 
ingenuity  of  the  telegraph  masters  even 
more  than  does  the  exceptional  call  for 
speed.  Only  when  the  voice  of  the  wire 
is  stopped  does  the  world  come  to  know 
the  tremendous  part  it  plays  in  the 
world's  work. 

In  recent  years  the  failure  of  the  wire 
to  weather  the  assaults  of  storms  has 
twice  brought  a  startling  sense  of  lack 
to  all  the  peoples  in  North  America  and 
many  thousands  abroad.  One  of  these 
instances  was  the  blizzard  that  cut 
Washington  out  of  existence  on  the  day 
of  President  Taft's  inauguration,  March 
4,  1908. 

In  the  news  sense,  an  inauguration  is 
one  of  the  major  events.  It  possesses  a 
strong  human  appeal  for  every  Amer- 
ican. A  "feature"  it  is,  to  be  spread 
over  as  many  columns  of  type  as  possi- 
ble. The  night  before  the  day  Mr.  Taft 
was  to  stand  before  the  nation  as  its 
new  Executive,  a  storm  out  of  the  north- 
west cut  a  white  swath  from  Chicago  to 
the  Capes,  leveled  every  pole  about  the 
national  capital  and  cloaked  with  silence 
the  one  spot  in  the  country  upon  which 
the  interest  of  millions  was  centered. 
Dawn  came  and  Washington  was  not  in 


THE  WIRE 


285 


the  world.  The  nation  was  stunned;  it 
was  being  denied  its  great  show.  Fran- 
tically the  wire  stabbed  at  its  crippled 
arms,  striving  to  drive  the  spark  into  the 
silence.  But  Baltimore  was  mute;  Rich- 
mond answered  not;  Hagerstown  mum- 
bled unintelligibly.  Noon,  and  the  pro- 
cession to  the  steps  of  the  Capitol;  still 
the  country  vainly  hurled  its  demand  for 
news  against  the  barriers  of  the  snow.  A 
wireless  spark  began  to  flicker  feebly, 
carrying  the  bare  intelligence  to  New 
York  that  Mr.  Taft  was  President.  Then 
linemen  plunging  through  the  drifts 
south  of  the  city  contrived  to  string  a 
single  wire  across  the  breach  and  the 
general  manager  of  the  telegraph  him- 
self sat  at  the  key  to  grope  for  the  fron- 
tier of  the  world  outside.  He  "raised" 
Atlanta;  the  Southern  city  had  already 
provided  a  circuitous  route  around  the 
boundaries  of  the  storm  havoc  via  New 
Orleans;  the  long-delayed  news,  pared 
to  the  bone  of  fact,  limped  out  of  the  lost 
capital  hours  after  the  nation's  spectacle 
was  finished. 

Flood-time  in  the  Ohio  Valley,  and  the 
wire  finds  itself  playing  to  all  the  world 
the  "heavy"  role  in  melodrama.  Each 
hour,  bringing  fresh  disaster  with  the 
rising  waters,  snuffs  out,  one  by  one,  the 
living  sparks  of  the  telegraph.  Now 
Columbus,  in  agony,  is  shut  away  from 
the  ear  of  men;  now  Dayton  sends  out 
a  last  despairing  cry  and  is  still.  The 
darkness  and  the  yellow  tides  hide  trage- 
dies all  the  more  poignant  in  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  peoples  beyond  the  zone  of 
the  floods  because  of  the  silence — the 
dreadful  silence.  A  day  passes  and  out 
of  the  water  wastes  comes  not  a  word  to 
tell  of  the  salvation  of  those  in  peril  or 
their  last  bitter  fate.  Then  in  the  hour 
of  greatest  apprehension  the  voice  of  a 
girl — the  clear,  strong  voice  of  a  girl — 
breaks  the  silence.  She  is  an  operator 
in  a  station  on  the  telephone  trunk-line 
a  few  miles  out  of  Dayton  and  above  the 
water's  encroachment.  A  single  live 
wire  out  of  the  miles  of  flooded  territory 
has  come  under  her  groping  fingers,  and 
over  this  she  talks  to  New  York.  A 
writer  in  a  newspaper  office  makes  notes 
of  what  she  has  to  tell.  It  is  as  if  she 
were  in  the  next  room,  so  close  she 
seems,  so  fresh  and  vibrant  is  the  life  in 
her  voice. 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782.-36 


"Good  night,"  she  finishes.  "Ask 
the  people  to  pray  God  for  our  deliver- 
ance." 

Aye,  the  wire  that  carries  tales  of 
romance  must  have  its  own  romances. 
Mysteries  it  whispers  from  land  to  land, 
and  mysteries  of  its  secret  devising  it 
possesses,  too — nor  publishes  them  to 
the  incredulous.  Ask  the  men  who  give 
their  lives  to  the  wire  to  tell  their  tales 
of  the  achievement  of  the  impossible,  of 
miracles  apparently  supernatural.  The 
wire,  they  will  tell  you,  has  a  soul;  it 
is  human.  On  occasions  it  will  lie  and 
cheat. 

Once  the  wire  cheated  when  the  des- 
tinies of  two  nations  were  in  the  lap  of 
chance. 

That  was  during  the  conference  of  the 
Russian  and  Japanese  peace  plenipoten- 
tiaries at  Portsmouth.  The  contending 
armies  faced  each  other  across  the  Sha-ho 
in  Manchuria,  waiting  to  join  again  in 
battle  if  the  negotiations  in  the  American 
city  failed.  Fail  they  must,  it  appeared. 
A  Sunday  came  when  the  deadlock 
between  the  representatives  of  Czar  and 
Emperor  was  hopeless;  even  Count 
Witte  hinted  broadly  to  the  correspon- 
dents that  the  following  day  would  see 
the  definite  rupture  of  all  peace  parleying 
and  a  resumption  of  fighting.  Prayers 
for  peace  were  offered  in  many  church- 
es throughout  America  that  Sunday, 
though  even  the  devout  feared  the  futil- 
ity of  their  appeal.  Over  in  Tokio  a 
correspondent  for  a  London  paper,  who 
had  a  source  of  information  he  consid- 
ered reliable,  heard  on  this  dark  Sunday 
that  the  Emperor  had  cabled  Baron 
Komura  at  Portsmouth  explicit  orders 
to  make  peace,  even  at  a  sacrifice  of 
Japan's  interests.  To  get  that  informa- 
tion to  his  paper  was  for  this  correspon- 
dent a  necessity  as  urgent  as  any  possible. 
But  the  polite,  smiling  censor,  the  Em- 
peror's guardian  set  over  a  babbling 
cable,  stood  immovably  in  the  way.  The 
correspondent  locked  himself  in  his  room 
and  gave  many  hours  to  thought,  then 
he  presented  himself  at  the  cable-office 
and  filed  for  transmission  an  innocent 
despatch  of  commonplaces,  which  in- 
cluded the  words,  "Rev.  Ondit  preached 
to-day;  text,  'Good  will  toward  men.'" 

The  polite  censor  was  not  ac- 
quainted with  the  Gospel  according  to 


286 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


St.  Luke;  he  did  not  remember,  if  he 
ever  knew,  what  the  heavenly  chorus 
sang  on  the  Nativity  morn.  No  more 
did  he  recognize  anything  reprehensible 
in  the  name  of  the  worthy  French  clergy- 
man, the  Rev.  Ondit.  But  the  editor 
of  the  London  paper  into  whose  hands 
the  uncensored  cable  came  knew  the 
full  text  of  the  angels'  chorus,  recognized 
the  beneficent  sponsorship  of  the  myth- 
ical Ondit.  To  him  this  single  voice  out 
of  Tokio  called  in  the  hour  most  threat- 
ening to  peace,  "They  say — peace!" 
His  paper  declared,  alone,  that  peace 
was  in  sight,  and  peace  came  in  forty- 
eight  hours. 

Consider  the  wire  in  its  fabrication  of 
mysteries.   Two  instances  may  be  cited. 

In  March,  1889,  American  and  Ger- 
man fleets  were  at  anchor  in  the  harbor 
of  Apia,  Samoa.  Out  of  a  native  quar- 
rel, known  as  the  Tamasese  rebellion,  a 
grave  international  crisis  had  sprung, 
the  ripples  of  disorder  had  carried  to 
Washington  and  Berlin,  and  affairs  were 
at  such  a  pass  between  the  two  nations 
that  a  single  untoward  incident  down 
in  the  remote  South  Sea  harbor  would 
have  launched  hostile  shots  from  the 
guns  of  the  disputants'  warders.  A 
steamer  connected  Apia  and  the  world 
once  in  every  twenty-eight  days.  There 
was  no  cable.  The  last  steamer  from 
San  Francisco  to  Sydney  had  been  fif- 
teen days  out  of  Apia,  and  the  island 
port  was  as  far  from  the  world  as  a  har- 
bor in  the  moon,  when  from  an  Aus- 
tralian city  this  message  was  flashed 
under  seas  to  London:  "German  and 
American  fleets  at  Apia  both  totally  de- 
stroyed. Battle?"  The  cable  did  not 
reveal  the  source  of  the  rumor.  The 
hazarded  "Battle?"  was  clearly  an  at- 
tempted explanation  of  the  startling  ru- 
mor, based  on  knowledge  of  the  strained 
relations  between  the  fleets.  Great  ex- 
citement and  a  perilous  increase  of  the 
war  fever  were  the  products  of  the 
vagrant  despatch  until  conservative 
judgment  pointed  out  that  it  must  be  a 
canard — there  was  no  way  Apia  could 
have  communicated  with  the  world  after 
the  departure  of  the  last  steamer. 

Just  thirteen  days  from  the  time  the 
cable  cried  its  message  of  disaster,  the 
mail -steamer  from  Sydney  arrived  at 
Apia.   She  passed  many  dismantled  and 


beached  hulks  on  the  way  to  her  anchor- 
age— the  wrecks  of  the  American  and 
German  warships.  Then  her  people 
learned  of  the  hurricane  that  had  raged 
for  three  days  from  March  16th;  and, 
later,  the  world  knew  that  the  wire  had 
not  lied. 

In  1900  disturbing  news  came  out  of 
China,  and  the  Occident  began  to  hear 
of  militant  fanatics  calling  themselves 
"Boxers."  Disorder  spread  with  alarm- 
ing speed,  and,  of  a  sudden,  Peking  was 
isolated,  its  foreign  residents  driven  to 
the  legation  compounds  and  there  be- 
sieged by  a  horde  of  murderous  natives. 
Just  before  telegraphic  communication 
with  the  capital  was  cut  by  the  Boxers, 
the  Hong-Kong  correspondent  of  a  New 
York  paper  cabled  that  Baron  von  Ket- 
teler,  German  minister  to  China,  had 
been  assassinated.  When  this  despatch 
was  published  the  German  Foreign  Of- 
fice made  excited  queries  to  determine 
the  authenticity  of  the  New  York  paper's 
despatch,  and  with  satisfaction  an- 
nounced the  receipt  of  news  from  Peking 
telling  that  the  minister  was  alive  and 
in  no  danger.  Forty-eight  hours  after 
the  correspondent  in  Hong-Kong,  a  thou- 
sand miles  from  Peking,  telegraphed  the 
death  of  the  minister,  von  Ketteler  was 
killed  by  a  Boxer.  The  wire  had  told 
the  truth  two  days  in  advance  of  the 
event. 

The  wire  serves — serves — serves !  En- 
gine of  man's  devising,  it  has  power 
beyond  the  imagination  of  many  men, 
the  physical  capacity  of  any.  It  is 
untiring,  undaunted.  News!  The  wire 
makes  it  and  traffics  in  it.  The  news- 
hunger  of  the  world  it  whets  even  as  it 
satisfies.  No  bit  of  gossip  is  too  small 
to  escape  it;  none  too  momentous  to 
abash  it.  A  king  may  send  an  ulti- 
matum by  the  wire;  but  a  bricklayer 
will  know  he  has  done  so,  for  the  wire 
tattles  it.  Minute  by  minute  the  clock 
around  the  wire  buzzes  and  whispers 
over  all  the  earth  its  many-tongued  prat- 
tle of  comedy  and  tragedy,  of  disaster 
and  rejoicing,  men's  hates  and  women's 
loves.  Perhaps  a  petty,  foolish  babble, 
this;  but  it  is  the  voice  of  humanity — -pi 
humanity  unconscious,  away  from  its 
dignity.  Who  shall  say  the  wire  is  not 
the  present-day  nerve-center  of  all  man- 
kind ? 


Sweet-flowering  Perennial 


BY  MARY  E.  WILKINS  FREEMAN 


>RS.  CLARA  WOODS 
was  in  the  bank,  stand- 
ing in  front  of  the  pay- 
ing-teller's little  win- 
dow, having  one  of 
her  modest  dividend 
checks  cashed.  She  was 
folding  the  crisp  notes  carefully  when 
she  was  startled  by  the  voice  of  a  man 
who  stood  next  in  the  waiting  line  be- 
hind her. 

"May  I  speak  to  you  a  moment  when 
I  leave  the  window?"  queried  the  voice. 

Mrs.  Woods,  turning,  recognized  the 
man  as  the  notable  fixture  of  humanity 
in  Mrs.  Noble's  very  select  boarding- 
house  where  she  herself  lived.  The  gen- 
tleman was  wealthy,  aged,  and  privi- 
leged, since  for  countless  seasons  he  had 
been  a  feature  of  Noble's.  The  fact  that 
Mr.  Allston  boarded  there  was  Noble's 
best  asset. 

"  Certainly,  Mr.  Allston,"  replied 
Mrs.  Woods  almost  inaudibly,  but  em- 
phasizing her  agreement  with  a  nod. 
She  was  a  middle-aged  woman,  with 
nothing  to  distinguish  her  from  a  thou- 
sand other  middle-aged  women. 

She  stepped  aside  and  stood  by  the 
high  circular  structure  fitted  out  with 
paper,  pens,  and  bank  literature  gen- 
erally, and  almost  at  once  Mr.  Allston 
joined  her.  At  a  slightly  perceptible 
gesture — Mr.  Allston,  of  course,  never 
actually  beckoned  a  lady  to  follow  his 
lead — she  went  behind  him  toward  the 
rotary  door  of  the  bank,  where  they 
were  almost  out  of  hearing.  Mr.  Allston, 
in  his  guarded  voice,  spoke  at  once. 

"May  I  ask  at  what  hour  you  left  the 
house,  Mrs.  Woods?"  said  he. 

Mrs.  Woods,  catching  a  vague  alarm 
from  his  manner,  replied  that  she  had 
left  quite  early.  She  had  been  shopping, 
and  was  now  about  to  return  to  the 
house  for  luncheon. 

"I  advise  you  not  to  do  so,"  cau- 
tioned the  old  gentleman.  Mrs.  Woods 
gazed  at  him.    She  was  frankly  alarmed. 


"Why?"  she  began. 

"Noble's  was  quarantined  an  hour 
ago,"  said  the  old  man.  "One  of  the 
Sims  children  has  scarlet-fever.  They 
don't  dare  move  it  in  this  weather,  so 
they  have  nurses,  and  the  sign  is  up  on 
the  front  door.  Mrs.  Noble  is  dis- 
tressed, but  she  can't  help  it.  You 
had  better  not  return  for  luncheon,  or 
you  will  be  quarantined." 

"I  have  not  seen  the  Sims  children  for 
days  and  days,"  declared  Mrs.  Woods 
with  an  air  of  relief.  "I  have  not  even 
seen  Mrs.  Sims.  Mrs.  Noble  told  me 
yesterday  that  little  Muriel  was  ailing 
and  her  mother  was  staying  with  her. 
It  must  have  been  the  fever  coming  on." 

"Of  course,"  replied  Allston.  "I  got 
out,  luckily,  just  before  the  notice  was 
put  up.  Then  I  met  Dr.  Vane,  and  he 
told  me.  He  advised  me  not  to  go  into 
the  house,  as  it  might  mean  being  a 
prisoner  there  for  some  time.  So  I  got 
away  as  fast  as  possible.  I  am  going  to  a 
hotel.  It  is  very  inconvenient,  but  it 
would  be  more  so  being  shut  up  at 
Noble's  for  days,  perhaps  weeks." 

"I  think  perhaps  I  had  better  not  re- 
turn," said  Mrs.  Woods,  hesitatingly. 
She  was  casting  about  in  her  mind  ex- 
actly what  she  could  do.  Then  Mr. 
Allston  inquired  if  he  could  be  of  any 
service,  and  she  thanked  him  and  said 
no.  He  remarked  that  it  would  of  course 
be  very  annoying  and  inconvenient  for 
both  of  them,  and  went  forth  from  the 
bank,  while  she  went  into  the  ladies' 
waiting-room.  She  sat  down  and  re- 
mained quiet,  but  inwardly  she  was 
aware  of  precisely  the  sensations  of  a 
wandering,  homeless  cat. 

It  was,  of  course,  rather  obvious  that 
she  would  either  have  to  go  to  a  hotel — 
a  quiet  hotel  for  those  of  her  ilk — or  re- 
turn to  Noble's  and  remain  in  quaran- 
tine. She  was  even  inclined  toward  the 
latter  course,  as  involving  less  trouble. 
She  considered  that  probably  the  period 
of  isolation  would  be  limited,  and  that 


288 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


she  would  not  seriously  object  to  remain- 
ing house.d  in  her  own  nest  rather  than 
settle  even  temporarily  in  a  new  one. 

Then  she  suddenly  reflected  that  little 
Muriel  Sims  was  not  the  only  child  at 
Noble's.  There  were  the  two  Dexter 
boys.  She  was  almost  sure  that  they 
had  never  had  scarlet  fever.  There  was 
the  Willis  baby.  There  was  little  Anna- 
bel Ames.  Suppose  all  these  came  down 
with  scarlet  fever?  Why,  that  might 
mean  quarantine  for  months.  Then, 
also,  there  was  the  noise  of  so  many  chil- 
dren confined  to  the  house.  Probably 
none  of  them  had  escaped  quarantine. 
The  little  Dexter  boys  were  very  bois- 
terous children.  They  would  probably 
slide  down  the  banisters  all  day.  Mrs. 
Woods  again  vibrated  mentally  toward 
the  hotel. 

Then  Miss  Selma  Windsor  entered. 
She  did  not  notice  Mrs.  Woods.  That 
was  Selma's  way.  She  was  not  apt  to 
notice  people  unless  she  almost  collided 
with  them. 

Selma  entered  and  seated  herself  at 
one  of  the  little  writing-tables,  took  some 
papers  from  her  black-leather  bag,  and 
began  to  examine  them  with  as  complete 
an  air  of  detachment  as  if  she  were  en- 
tirely alone  in  the  world. 

Mrs.  Woods  made  an  involuntary 
movement.  She  half  rose;  then  she  set- 
tled back.  She  was  still  entirely  unno- 
ticed by  the  other  woman,  who  con- 
tinued to  examine  her  papers.  She  was 
probably  about  Mrs.  Woods's  own  age. 
Mrs.  Woods  reflected  upon  that.  "We 
went  to  Miss  Waters's  school,  but  Selma 
was  in  a  higher  class,"  she  told  herself. 
She  wondered,  quite  impartially,  whether 
that  proved  superior  wits  or  superior  age 
on  the  part  of  Selma. 

She  was  not  astute  enough  to  realize 
that  Selma  had  very  few  of  her  own 
ravages  of  time.  Selma  deceived  peo- 
ple, though  not  intentionally.  She  had 
no  desire  to  look  older  than  she  need.  A 
woman  who  does  that  is  almost  mon- 
strous. Selma  simply  considered  that 
certain  clothes  were  suitable  for  a  woman 
of  her  age,  and  she  wore  them.  She  also 
considered  that  a  certain  invariable 
style  of  hair-dressing  must  be  adopted. 
She  adopted  it.  The  result  was  that  to 
most  people  she  did  look  as  old  as  she 
was. 


Casual  observers  did  not  recognize  the 
fact  that  there  were  no  lines  in  her  face; 
that  her  skin  was  smooth,  with  the  ready 
change  of  color  of  youth;  that  her  facial 
contours  remained  very  nearly  intact; 
that  her  hair  had  not  lost  its  youthful 
thickness  and  warm  color.  Selma  was 
regarded  by  most  people,  as  she  was  re- 
garded by  Mrs.  Woods  that  morning,  as 
a  woman  over  the  middle-age  line  of  life. 

She  generally  wore  black,  and  her 
clothes  had  always  a  slightly  hesitant 
note  as  to  the  last  mode.  She  wore 
small  black  hats,  and  her  fair  hair  was 
brushed  very  smoothly  away  from  her 
temples.  None  of  it  could  be  seen  under 
the  prim  brim  of  her  hat.  She  had  re- 
moved her  gloves.  Mrs.  Woods  did  not. 
notice  that  the  hands  were  as  smooth  as 
a  girl's,  and  displayed  no  prominent 
veins.  She  did  notice  the  flash  of  a 
great  white  diamond  on  one  finger,  as 
Selma  handled  the  papers  in  a  tidy,  deli- 
cate fashion. 

She  reflected  that  Selma  was  a  rich 
woman,  and  how  very  fortunate  that 
was,  since  she  had  never  married.  She 
remembered  that  Selma  lived  in  the 
suburbs,  in  a  very  wealthy  town.  She 
had  never  visited  her  there.  She  had 
seen  but  little  of  her — and  that  little  had 
been  through  chance  meetings— for  years. 
They  always  exchanged  cards  at  Christ- 
mas. They  were  on  an  even  level  of 
friendship  which  both  acknowledged, 
but  there  was  no  intimacy. 

Mrs.  Woods  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to 
interrupt  the  other  woman  in  her  scru- 
tiny of  her  papers.  Selma  scrutinized 
very  leisurely.  Evidently  something 
was  perplexing  her  a  little,  but  she  did 
not  frown  at  all.  She  simply  examined 
and  considered,  with  a  serenity  which 
was  imperturbable.  At  last  she  seemed 
contented.  She  refolded  the  papers, 
slipped  the  elastic  band  around  them, 
put  them  in  her  leather  bag,  fastened  it, 
and  began  to  put  on  her  gloves. 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  she  glanced 
about  her  as  if  she  were  capable  of 
sensing  anything  or  anybody  outside  her 
own  individuality.  She  saw  Mrs.  Woods. 
Evidently  not  expecting  to  see  her  in 
that  particular  place,  she  did  not  at  once 
recognize  her.  However,  she  was  aware 
that  here  was  a  woman  whom  she  knew. 
She  calmly  regarded  the  other's  large, 


SWEET-FLOWERING  PERENNIAL 


289 


rather  good-looking,  obvious  face.  Then 
she  rose.  She  extended  her  right  hand, 
upon  which  the  glove  was  now  smoothed 
and  buttoned.  "  How  do  you  do,  Clara  ?" 
she  said,  composedly,  addressing  Mrs. 
Woods  by  her  Christian  name. 

Then  the  two  women  sat  down  to- 
gether on  the  little  leather-covered  divan 
and  exchanged  confidences — or  rather, 
Clara  Woods  volunteered  them.  There 
was  scarcely  an  exchange,  except  for 
the  trifling  inevitabilities  of  health  and 
weather.  Clara  Woods  told  Selma 
Windsor  about  the  scarlet  fever  at  No- 
ble's, and  how  she  was  as  one  ship- 
wrecked without  the  necessities  of  life, 
or  compelled  to  return  to  indefinite  iso- 
lation of  quarantine. 

Selma  disposed  of  the  situation  pleas- 
antly and  gracefully,  and  finally.  "You 
will,  of  course,  return  with  me  to  Laurel- 
ville  this  afternoon,"  she  said.  "I  can 
supply  you  with  everything  you  need. 
I  shall  be  glad  to  have  you  with  me  until 
the  quarantine  is  raised/' 

Clara  Woods  made  only  a  faint  demur. 
The  proposition  seemed  to  her  fairly 
providential.  She  had  not  known  how 
to  afford  that  quiet,  exclusive  hotel.  Her 
income  was  very  limited.  Then,  too, 
there  had  been  the  apparently  insur- 
mountable problem  of  her  belongings 
quarantined  at  Noble's. 

Clara  Woods  was  a  pious  woman,  and 
humbly  inclined  to  a  conviction  of  the 
personal  charge  of  the  Deity  over  her. 
Visions  of  shorn  lambs,  and  sparrows 
fluttering  in  search  of  suitable  sites  for 
nests,  floated  through  her  mind,  which 
was  really  that  of  an  innocent,  simple 
child  in  spite  of  her  ponderousness  of 
middle-age.  There  was  something  rather 
lovely  in  her  expression  as  she  looked  up 
into  Selma's  face.  Clara's  eyes  were 
shining  with  vistas  of  gratitude.  Selma, 
who  was  imaginative,  realized  it.  She 
smiled  charmingly. 

"I  am  so  glad  I  happened  to  come  in 
here  to-day,"  she  said. 

"It  seems  like  a  special  providence," 
returned  Clara,  ardently;  and  Selma 
heard  herself  practically  called  a  special 
providence,  and  rose  above  her  own 
sense  of  humor  because  she  understood 
what  was  passing  in  her  friend's  men- 
tality. 

The  two  lunched  together;  then  Selma 


had  some  shopping  to  do  in  one  of  the 
big  stores  before  they  took  the  four- 
thirty  train  to  Laurelville.  It  was  prob- 
ably that  little  shopping  expedition 
which  started  queer  after-events.  At 
least,  Clara  Woods  always  considered 
them  queer,  although  sometimes  she  was 
divided  between  the  queerness  of  the 
events  and  the  possible  queerness  of  her- 
self for  so  estimating  them. 

Whenever  she  met  Selma,  after  what 
happened,  she  looked  at  her  with  a  ques- 
tion in  her  eyes  which,  if  Selma  under- 
stood, she  did  not  attempt  to  answer. 
Whenever  Clara  Woods  endeavored  diz- 
zily to  understand,  she  always  got  back 
to  the  ready-made  frocks  displayed  in 
that  great  store  on  the  day  of  her  meet- 
ing Selma  in  the  bank. 

Clara  Woods,  when  she  stood  with  her 
friend  in  one  of  the  departments,  had 
something  of  the  sensations  which  one 
might  have  had  in  the  company  of 
royalty — if  royalty  ever  went  shopping 
for  ready-made  clothes!  There  was 
something  about  Selma  Windsor —  It 
was  difficult — in  fact,  impossible — to  say 
what  that  something  was.  She  was  well 
and  expensively  clad,  though  with  that 
slight  flatting  of  the  fashion  key;  but 
there  were  hundreds  of  women  as  well 
clad.  She  had  a  perfect  poise  of  man- 
ner; so  had  other  women  by  the  score. 
Clara  decided  that  it  was  impossible 
to  say  what  it  was  that  awoke  to 
alert  life  and  attention  the  groups  of 
saleswomen.  Selma  had  no  need  to 
stand  for  a  second  hesitating,  as  Clara 
always  did  in  such  places,  feeling  herself 
in  the  role  of  an  uninvited  guest  at 
some  stately  function. 

Selma  was  approached  at  once.  There 
was,  apparently,  even  some  rivalry  be- 
tween the  trim  saleswomen.  Clara  won- 
dered if  Selma  was  known  to  any  of 
these.  She  afterward  learned  that  it  was 
the  first  time  in  her  life  that  Selma  had 
entered  that  department  of  the  store. 

"Anything  I  can  show  you  to-day, 
madam?"  inquired  a  voice,  and  the 
other  women  fell  back. 

Selma  expressed  her  wishes.  She  and 
Clara  were  deferentially  shown  to  seats 
among  the  grove  of  dummies,  clad  in  the 
latest  modes,  and  resembling  a  perfectly 
inanimate  afternoon  -  tea  style.  Clara 
felt   a   reflected   glory,   as   one  thing 


290 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


after  another  was  displayed  to  her 
friend,  not  with  obsequiousness,  but 
with  really  fine  deference  to  that  mys- 
terious something.  Finally  the  pur- 
chase was  made,  and  then  Selma  and 
Clara  were  in  a  taxicab  on  their  way  to 
the  station. 

They  reached  the  suburban  town 
where  Selma  lived  about  five  o'clock. 
Selma  had  a  limousine  waiting  for  her. 
Clara  experienced  an  almost  childish 
sense  of  delight  when  she  sank  into  the 
depths  of  its  luxurious  padding.  Again 
the  innocent,  if  perhaps  absurd,  con- 
viction of  the  special  providence  which 
had  her  in  charge  that  day  illumined 
her  whole  soul. 

"Well,  I  must  say  I  never  dreamed 
this  morning  that  to-night  I  would  be 
here,"  she  remarked,  happily. 

Selma  laughed  softly.  "We  are  both 
encountering  the  very  delightfully  un- 
expected," she  replied. 

"But  when  I  think  of  coming  entirely 
without  baggage!" 

"My  clothes  will  fit  you  perfectly," 
said  Selma.  "I  have  a  new  black  chiffon 
which  I  have  never  worn,  which  you  can 
wear  at  dinner  to-night." 

"You  dress  for  dinner?"  asked  Clara 
with  an  accession  of  childish  pleasure. 

"Sometimes.  When  I  am  entirely 
alone  I  make  no  change,"  said  Selma, 
"  but  to-night  I  am  entertaining — a  very 
unusual  thing  for  me — two  guests,  my 
lawyer  and  his  cousin.  We  have  some 
business  to  discuss,  and  I  thought  we 
might  combine  a  little  festive  occasion 
with  it.  Mr.  Wheeler  is  a  charming  gen- 
tleman. His  cousin  I  have  never  met. 
This  cousin  is  a  Southerner,  visiting  him, 
and  I  included  him  in  the  invitation. 
I  wished  at  the  time  I  had  another  lady, 
and  here  she  is,  provided  most  provi- 
dentially." 

"Are  they  young  men?" 

"  Mr.  Wheeler  is  not.  He  is  of  our  age. 
He  has  an  invalid  wife.  I  suppose  his 
cousin  is  also  middle-aged.  I  did  not 
inquire." 

By  some  law  of  sequence  not  evident 
on  the  surface,  Selma  immediately  began 
to  talk  about  the  costumes  which  they 
had  seen  that  afternoon.  "It  is  very 
strange  how  the  fashions  have  turned 
to  ante-bellum  days,"  said  she.  "How 
much  at  home  the  few  survivors  of  the 


Civil  War  would  have  felt  in  that  crowd 
of  dummies  dressed  in  flounces  and 
fichus  and  full  petticoats!" 

"Yes;  they  even  wore  plaids,"  agreed 
Clara.  Then  she  added  that  she  sup- 
posed there  must  be  many  wardrobes  in 
which  hung  duplicates  of  those  very 
gowns  which  they  had  seen  that  after- 
noon. "I  remember  my  aunt  Clara 
showing  me  one  exactly  like  that 
flounced  plaid  taffeta,  except  hers  was  a 
purple-and-green  plaid,  and  the  one  in 
the  store  was  blue  and  brown,"  said  she. 

Clara  noticed  a  queer  expression  on 
the  other  woman's  face,  which  in  the 
light  of  after-events  she  remembered. 
Selma  nodded. 

"Yes,"  she  replied.  "I  dare  say  you 
are  right." 

Her  blue  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the 
leafless  trees  against  the  sky.  They  had 
such  a  curiously  childish  expression  that 
the  other  woman  laughed  softly.  Selma 
looked  at  her  inquiringly. 

"You  had  a  look  in  your  eyes  which 
carried  me  back  to  our  school-days, 
then,"  said  Clara. 

"A  look  in  my  eyes?" 

"Yes;  there  was  a  sparkle  in  them." 

Selma  herself  laughed.  "I  wonder 
sometimes  if  the  sparkle  of  life  is  really 
all  over  for  me,"  she  said.  "I  cannot  ac- 
custom myself  to  being  old." 

Then  the  limousine  drew  up  in  front 
of  Selma's  rather  splendid  house,  set 
back  from  the  road  in  a  lawn  full  of 
straw-clad  rose-trees.  Clara  looked 
about  her  with  enthusiastic  interest. 

"What  a  beautiful  place!  And  you 
still  like  roses  as  much  as  when  you  were 
a  girl,"  she  exclaimed. 

"Yes,  I  think  the  place  pretty  good. 
I  did  not  hesitate  much  about  buying  it. 
I  had  always  planned  some  day  to  have 
a  country  place  for  the  sake  of  the  roses." 

When  Clara  entered  the  house  her  de- 
light was  increased.  Had  it  not  been 
sinful,  she  could  have  blessed  the  Lord 
for  the  disease  of  scarlet  fever  which  had 
been  the  cause  of  her  coming.  Clara 
had,  although  she  was  commonplace,  a 
love  for  the  beautiful  amenities  of  life, 
whose  lack  had  irritated  her.  She  was 
not  a  woma'n  to  say  much  concerning  her 
emotions.  Fairly  hugging  herself  while 
gazing  about  at  the  soft  richness  and 
loveliness,  she  thought,  "After  Noble's!" 


SWEET-FLOWERING  PERENNIAL 


291 


Selma  gave  her  a  beautiful  room  at 
the  front  of  the  house.  Its  great  win- 
dows commanded  a  view  of  the  drive  and 
the  road  behind  the  rose-trees.  Clara 
thought  afterward  that  Selma  could 
have  had  nothing  planned  at  that  time, 
or  she  would  not  have  given  her  that 
room,  from  whose  windows  she  could  see 
— well,  what  she  did  see. 

Clara  Woods  took  a  bath,  with  a 
secret  awe  before  such  luxury.  The  bath- 
room belonged  to  her  room,  and  was  all 
pink  and  white  and  silver.  Clara  had 
for  years  been  obliged  to  watch  her 
chance  to  sneak  into  the  one  repulsively 
shabby,  although  clean,  bath-room  at 
Noble's,  and  she  had  always  an  uneasy 
impression  of  publicity  in  using  it.  Here 
it  was  perfect.  Everything  was  perfect. 
Her  room  was  done  in  dark  blue  with 
pink  roses.  She  had  a  long  mirror  in 
which  she  could  survey  herself  when  ar- 
rayed in  Selma's  black  chiffon. 

Selma's  maid  assisted  her  to  don  the 
gown,  and,  although  she  was  stouter 
than  her  hostess,  it  fitted  her  well,  be- 
cause Selma's  gowns  were  always  very 
loose.  Clara  Woods  fairly  peacocked 
before  the  mirror.  The  maid  surveyed 
her  approvingly.  She  appreciated  the 
guest's  attitude.  She  had  not  entirely 
approved  of  the  loan  of  the  elegant 
black  chiffon  which  her  mistress  had 
never  worn;  but,  once  the  deed  was  done, 
she  gloried  in  it. 

Selma's  maid  had  been  with  her  for 
years,  and  fairly  worshiped  her.  She 
gazed  at  the  commonplace  guest's  re- 
flection in  the  mirror,  made  for  the  time 
uncommonplace  by  the  elegant  costume 
and  a  little  touch  which  she,  the  maid, 
had  given  her  hair,  and  beamed  with 
admiration  at  the  effect  of  her  mistress's 
kindness. 

After  Clara  had  gone  down-stairs  she 
hung  up  the  visitor's  street  gown,  and 
considered  within  herself  how  Miss  Sel- 
ma was  too  good  to  live,  almost.  How 
many  women  in  the  world  would  despoil 
themselves  of  their  fine  feathers  to  deck 
another  poor  feminine  fowl  who  lacked 
them?  However,  Jane  triumphed  in  the 
knowledge  that  not  all  the  fine  feathers 
could  make  another  such  lady-bird  as 
her  own  mistress. 

That  evening  Selma  in  black  and  silver 
was  adorable.   She  had  failed  to  make  as 


little  of  her  natural  advantages  as  she 
had  innocently  attempted.  What  if  her 
fair  hair  were  brushed  so  severely  back  ? 
Her  delicate  temples  were  worth  reveal- 
ing. The  high  collar  concealed  her  long, 
graceful  throat,  but  did  not  deform  it. 
Selma,  in  a  high  collar  of  silver,  with  a 
silver  band  around  her  head,  was  really 
lovely. 

The  two  gentlemen  evidently  admired 
their  hostess.  The  cousin,  Ross  Wheeler, 
from  Kentucky,  did  not  meet  the  expec- 
tations of  either  Selma  or  Clara.  He  was 
much  the  junior  of  his  cousin,  William 
B.  Wheeler,  who  had  charge  of  Selma's 
affairs.  However,  he  had  been  recently 
made  a  partner  in  business  by  William 
B.,  and  in  spite  of  his  almost  boyish  look 
and  manner  he  was  supposed  to  be  taken 
quite  seriously. 

The  dinner,  which  was  perfect,  passed 
off  triumphantly.  Even  poor  old  Clara 
Woods,  in  her  elegant  black  chiffon, 
shone  in  her  own  estimation.  Years  ago 
dinners  like  that  had  not  been  infre- 
quent for  her.  She  felt  as  if  she  were 
taking  a  blissful  little  trip  back  to  her 
own  youth. 

When  it  was  all  over,  and  the  gentle- 
men had  gone,  and  Selma  was  bidding 
her  good  night  in  her  own  room,  Clara 
waxed  fairly  ecstatic. 

"Oh,  my  dear,"  she  exclaimed,  fer- 
vently, "if  you  knew  what  this  means  to 
me  after  my  years  in  a  boarding-house 
since  my  little  fortune  was  lost  and  my 
poor  husband  passed  away!" 

Selma  regarded  her  with  self-reproach. 
She  reflected  how  easy  it  would  have 
been  for  her  to  give  the  poor  soul  the 
little  change  and  pleasure  before.  It  was 
true,  though,  that  she  had  not  lived  long 
in  Laurelville — only  since  her  mother 
had  died,  some  three  years  before. 

"I  am  glad,  Clara,"  Selma  replied. 
"Now  that  you  have  found  the  way, 
there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not 
come  often." 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  responded  Clara. 
"I  am  enjoying  myself  as  I  never 
thought  to  enjoy  myself  this  side  of 
heaven."  She  sighed  romantically  and 
reminiscently.  "What  a  very  charming 
gentleman  Mr.  Wheeler — the  elder  Mr. 
Wheeler — is!"  said  she. 

"Yes,  I  like  him,"  agreed  Selma.  "I 
have  never  regretted  employing  him. 


292 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


He  forgot  some  papers  to-night,  though, 
and  we  could  not  settle  a  little  matter  of 
business  for  which  he  really  came  out. 
The  dinner  was  hardly  more  than  inci- 
dental, although  he  did  wish  to  introduce 
his  cousin." 

"His  cousin  is  a  beautiful  young 
man,"  declared  Clara. 

"Yes;  and  he  must  be  clever  in  spite 
of  his  youth,  or  Mr.  Wheeler  would  not 
have  taken  him  into  partnership,"  re- 
plied Selma. 

Suddenly  a  change  came  over  her 
face.    Clara  started. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  asked  Selma. 
The  change  had  vanished. 

"Nothing,  only  you — looked  suddenly 
— not  like  yourself." 

"Did  I?"  responded  Selma,  absently. 
She  said  good  night,  hoped  Clara  would 
sleep  well,  and  trailed  her  sparkling 
black  and  silver  draperies  out  of  the 
room. 

Clara  Woods  stood  still  a  moment  af- 
ter the  door  was  closed,  thinking.  "She 
looked  exactly  as  she  did  when  she  was 
a  girl,  for  a  minute,"  said  Clara  Woods 
to  herself. 

Clara  was  almost  asleep  when  she 
heard  the  ring  of  the  telephone,  the  up- 
stairs one,  in  Selma's  room.  She  heard 
Selma's  voice,  but  could  not  distinguish 
a  word.  She  did  not  try  to.  Clara 
Woods  had  a  scorn  for  curiosity.  She 
felt  herself  above  it,  and  her  high  posi- 
tion was  about  to  be  sorely  attacked. 

At  breakfast  the  next  morning  Selma 
announced  that  she  was  very  sorry,  but 
she  would  be  obliged  to  go  to  New  York 
on  business  on  the  noon  train.  Mr. 
Wheeler  had  telephoned,  she  said. 

"I  heard  the  telephone  ring,"  returned 
Clara. 

Selma  started.  "I  fear  the  talk  kept 
you  awake,"  she  said.  "I  held  the  wire 
quite  a  time." 

"Oh  no,"  said  Clara;  "I  could  only 
distinguish  a  soft  murmur  of  voices.  It 
did  not  disturb  me  at  all.  I  fell  asleep 
while  you  were  talking." 

Selma  appeared  strangely  relieved. 
Clara  noticed  with  wonder  that  the  look 
at  which  she  had  started  the  night  before 
was  again  upon  Selma's  face.  Selma,  in 
her  pale -blue  house  dress,  was  rather 
amazing  that  morning.  It  was  not  so 
much  that  she  looked  young  in  color  and 


contour,  but  the  very  essence  of  youth 
was  in  her  carriage  and  her  glance.  She 
looked  alive,  as  only  living  things  which 
have  been  a  short  time  upon  the  earth 
look  alive.  Her  blue  eyes  were  full  of 
challenge;  her  chin  had  the  lift  of  a  con- 
queror; her  very  hair  sprang  from  its 
restraining  pins  with  the  lustiness  of 
childhood. 

Selma  and  Clara  sat  together  iinger- 
ingly  over  their  breakfast,  then  Selma 
excused  herself,  and  Clara  settled  herself 
happily  in  the  library  with  newspapers 
and  magazines.  She  was  conscious,  half 
fearfully,  of  being  in  a  state  of  jubilation 
that  she  distrusted.  She  was  of  New 
England  parentage,  and  involuntarily 
stiffened  her  spiritual  back  to  bear  re- 
verses when  in  the  midst  of  unusual 
delights.  It  did  not  seem  to  Clara 
Woods  that  this  could  last  long.  It 
seemed  to  her  entirely  too  good  to  be 
true. 

It  was  not  a  great  while  before  her 
perturbation  of  soul  began.  It  was,  in 
fact,  that  very  noon.  Selma  had  told  her 
that  she  was  going  to  New  York  on  the 
noon  train,  and  had  apologized  for  the 
necessity  of  leaving  her  guest  to  lunch 
alone.  Clara  was  in  her  room  about  fif- 
teen minutes  before  train-time,  when  she 
heard  the  whir  of  Selma's  car  in  the 
drive.  She  saw  a  figure  step  lightly  into 
the  car,  and  she  gave  a  little  gasp. 

That  was  surely  not  Selma  Windsor! 
That  was  a  lightly  stepping  girl,  with  a 
toss  of  fair  hair  under  a  blue  hat,  over 
which  floated  a  blue  chiffon  veil.  The 
girl  was  clad  in  ultra  style.  She  was  a 
companion,  as  far  as  clothes  went,  of 
that  notable  company  of  dummies  in  the 
New  York  store  where  they  had  been 
yesterday.  Wide  blue  skirts  floated 
around  that  slender  figure.  A  loose  coat 
of  black  velvet,  of  the  ante-bellum  fash- 
ion, was  worn  over  the  blue  gown. 

The  girl  seated  herself.  Clara  could 
not  distinguish  anything  of  her  face  un- 
der the  loose  wave  of  her  veil,  except  a 
vague  fairness  of  color  and  grace  of  out- 
line. The  car  whirred,  and  Adam,  smart 
in  his  chauffeur's  costume,  drove  rapidly 
around  the  curve  of  the  drive.  In  a 
second  Clara  saw  the  car  in  the  road. 
Then  it  was  out  of  sight.  She  wondered 
who  that  girl  was.  She  looked  at  her 
watch  and  wondered  how  Selma  could 


SWEET-FLOWERING  PERENNIAL 


293 


make  her  train,  since  she  was  so  delayed 
by  a  visitor.  Clara  never  doubted  that 
the  girl  was  a  visitor  whom  Selma  had 
sent  home  in  her  car.  Selma  must  know 
some  people  in  Laurelville,  although  she 
had  heard  her  remark  that  she  had  made 
few  acquaintances,  and  no  friends,  there. 
This  girl  must  be  one  of  the  acquaint- 
ances. 

Clara  watched  very  idly  beside  her 
window  for  the  return  of  the  car  and 
Selma's  departure  for  her  train.  Pres- 
ently the  car  returned.  Adam  drove 
directly  past  the  curve  of  the  drive  to 
the  garage.  Clara  looked  at  her  watch. 
There  were  now  only  three  minutes  be- 
fore the  train  was  due. 

When  Clara  heard  the  broken,  hollow 
music  of  the  Japanese  bells  which  an- 
nounced luncheon,  she  went  down-stairs, 
expecting,  of  course,  to  find  Selma  in  the 
dining-room,  and  hear  her  announce  the 
change  of  programme  which  had  kept 
her  at  home.  There  was  one  plate  laid 
in  Clara's  place  on  the  table,  and  Jane 
stood  there  ready  to  wait.  She  had, 
somehow,  the  air  of  a  sentinel  on  duty 
when  Clara  entered. 

Clara  Woods  was  in  one  respect  rather 
a  remarkable  woman.  In  spite  of  what 
she  had  seen,  she  said  nothing.  She  ate 
her  dainty  luncheon,  with  not  as  much 
appetite  as  she  had  eaten  her  breakfast. 
She  asked  nothing.  She  said  nothing, 
except  to  make  the  usual  remarks  due 
from  guest  to  servant.  Then  she  re- 
turned to  her  room.  Therein  she  sat 
down  and  looked  rather  pale. 

"Who,"  demanded  Mrs.  Clara  Woods 
of  her  own  stuttering  intelligence,  "was 
that  girl?" 

For  some  cause  Clara  Woods  avoided 
her  front  windows  that  afternoon.  She 
remained  in  her  own  room  for  some  time, 
writing  letters  at  the  inlaid  desk  between 
the  other  windows  which  did  not  com- 
mand the  road.  Then  she  heard  the 
telephone-bell  in  Selma's  room,  and  Jane 
tapped  at  the  door  and  informed  her  that 
Miss  Selma  wished  to  speak  to  her  on  the 
long-distance  from  New  York. 

Selma's  room  was  beautiful,  but 
rather  strangely  furnished  for  a  woman 
of  Selma's  apparent  character.  It  was 
something  between  a  young  girl's  room 
and  a  bachelor  apartment.  One  survey- 
ing it — knowing  nothing  of  its  occupant 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782.-37 


— might  easily  have  conceived  that 
either  a  young  girl  had  married  a  bach- 
elor settled  in  his  habits,  and  brought 
him  home  to  live  with  her  people,  or  that 
the  old  bachelor  had  yielded  to  a  young 
wife's  girlish  preferences.  Certainly, 
white-silk  curtains  strewn  with  violets, 
looped  back  with  that  particular  shade 
of  blue  which  suits  the  flowers,  white 
walls  with  a  frieze  of  violets  tied  with 
blue  ribbons,  and  a  marvel  of  a  dressing- 
table  decked  with  silver  and  crystal 
were  fairly  absurd  combined  with  a 
great  lion-skin  in  front  of  the  fireplace,  a 
polar-bear  skin  in  the  center  of  the  great 
room,  and  heavy,  leather-covered  divan 
and  easy  chairs. 

"What  a  queer  room!"  thought  Clara. 
The  telephone  was  on  a  little  table 
beside  Selma's  bed.  The  bed  had  a 
leopard  skin  flung  over  the  foot,  and 
the  counterpane  and  pillows  were  of 
heavy  yellow  satin. 

Selma's  voice  came  clearly  over  the 
wire.  "I  am  so  sorry,  Clara,"  said 
Selma,  "but  I  find  I  am  detained.  I 
cannot  be  home  in  time  for  dinner.  I 
probably  cannot  be  home  until  the  ten- 
thirty  train.  Jane  will  take  care  of  you. 
I  am  sorry,  but  you  will  not  mind." 

Clara  replied  that  of  course  she  would 
not  mind,  assured  her  that  she  was  being 
very  well  cared  for,  bade  her  good-by, 
and  hung  up  the  receiver.  She  kept  on 
her  own  dress,  which  was  a  good  one,  for 
her  solitary  dinner.  Jane  waited  on  her, 
as  at  luncheon,  and  she  made  no  attempt 
at  satisfying  any  wonder  or  curiosity 
which  she  might  have  felt.  Jane  at 
times  cast  an  apprehensive  glance  at  her. 
Clara  felt  the  glance,  but  never  met  it. 

After  dinner  she  sat  in  the  library  and 
read  the  evening  paper.  Then  she  found 
a  book  which  interested  her,  although 
she  felt  nervous  and  uneasy,  and  from 
time  to  time  thought  of  her  own  humble 
nest  at  Noble's.  The  hours  passed.  She 
heard  the  automobile  go  out  of  the  yard, 
and  at  the  same  time  Jane  entered  the 
room.  She  asked  Mrs.  Woods  if  she 
could  do  anything  for  her,  and  looked  so 
disturbed  that  Clara  understood.  "She 
wishes  me  to  go  up-stairs,"  she  told 
herself.  With  a  stiff  subservience  to  all 
wishes  of  that  kind,  she  rose  and  went. 
She  realized  that  it  was  not  judged  by 
Jane  as  advisable  that  she  should  be 


294 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


down  -  stairs  when  that  motor-car  re- 
turned from  the  station. 

She  heard  it  as  she  sat  in  the  dressing- 
gown  which  Selma  had  provided,  con- 
tinuing her  letter-writing  (Clara  had  a 
large  circle  of  feminine  correspondents). 
She  expected  to  hear  voices.  She  heard 
none.  She  wondered  if  Selma  had  not 
returned  on  the  ten-thirty  train,  then 
dismissed  the  wonder  as  unworthy.  It 
was  none  of  her  business. 

She  waited  a  long  time  before  she  re- 
turned to  the  library  for  the  book  which 
she  had  been  reading.  She  considered 
that  there  had  been  time  enough  for  all 
mysteries  with  which  she  had  no  con- 
cern to  settle  themselves,  when  she  stole 
down-stairs  and  got  the  book.  Some  of 
the  lights  had  been  turned  ofF,  but  many 
were  on.  It  was  quite  evident  that  Sel- 
ma had  not  returned.  Jane  looked  in  at 
the  library  door  and  asked  if  she  could 
do  anything.  Clara  replied,  in  an  al- 
most apologetic  voice,  that  she  had 
come  down  for  a  book.  Then  she  heard 
a  car  speeding  up  the  drive. 

Jane's  face  became  almost  agonized. 
Clara  sped  out  of  the  library.  It  was 
years  since  her  middle-aged  feet  had 
moved  as  swiftly  as  they  did  along  the 
hall  and  up  the  stairs.  She  gained  her 
own  room,  opened  the  door,  turned  to 
close  it,  and  saw  the  face  of  the  girl 
coming  up-stairs.  Clara  could  not  help 
that  one  glimpse,  but  it  was  so  fleeting 
that  nobody  on  the  stairs — Jane  came 
after  the  blue-clad  figure — saw  anything 
but  the  flirt  of  the  closing  door. 

Clara  sat  down  helplessly.  Always 
before  her  eyes  was  the  face  she  had 
seen,  the  face  of  the  blue-clad  girl  as- 
cending the  stairs.  The  face  was  fair 
and  sweet,  so  sweet  of  expression  that  it 
compelled  admiration  for  that  alone.  It 
was  smiling  radiantly.  Soft,  fair  hair 
tossed  over  the  forehead,  as  innocently 
and  boldly  round  at  the  temples  as  a 
baby's. 

Clara  Woods  remembered  Selma 
Windsor  when  she  looked  like  that,  ex- 
actly like  that.  The  likeness  was  un- 
canny. Clara  had  little  imagination  or 
she  would  then  have  gone  far  in  imagina- 
tive fields.  She  did  tell  herself  that  the 
girl  looked  enough  like  Selma  to  be  her 
own  daughter.    She  went  no  further. 

Clara  went  to  bed.    She  could  not 


sleep.  She  rose  early,  and  after  dressing 
sat  in  her  room  waiting  for  sounds  in 
the  house  to  denote  that  other  people 
were  astir.  At  the  breakfast-hour  she 
went  down-stairs.  She  was  aware  of 
a  queer  unsteadiness.  She  could  not 
analyze  her  perturbation,  but  felt  help- 
less before  it. 

When  Clara  entered  the  breakfast- 
room  Selma  greeted  her  from  a  little 
conservatory  beyond.  She  had  been 
tending  a  few  blooming  plants  which  she 
kept  there.  Selma  said,  "Good  morn- 
ing," and  there  was  nothing  unusual  in 
her  manner.  There  was  nothing  un- 
usual in  Clara's,  although  she  looked 
pale.  Breakfast  was  served,  and  she  and 
Selma  partook  of  it,  and  the  mysterious 
girl  did  not  appear,  and  was  not  men- 
tioned. 

Selma  said  nothing  about  her  trip  to 
New  York,  except  to  express  regrets  that 
Clara  had  been  left  to  dine  alone.  Selma, 
eating  breakfast,  did  not  look  in  the 
least  tired.  On  the  contrary,  Clara 
thought  she  looked,  in  some  strange,  in- 
tangible fashion,  younger  and  fresher. 
Her  voice  rang  silvery.  She  laughed 
easily  and  delightfully. 

"You  seem  just  as  you  did  when  we 
were  girls  together  at  school,"  Clara 
exclaimed,  involuntarily.  Then  Selma 
gave  a  quick  start,  but  recovered  herself 
directly. 

"Those  were  the  happiest  days  of  my 
youth,  those  days  at  school,"  she  said, 
and  there  was  a  sad  note  in  her  voice. 

Clara  did  not  reply.  She  had  known 
very  little  about  Selma,  except  through 
those  days  at  school.  Selma  began  to 
talk  more  freely  than  she  had  ever  done. 
She  told  how  her  home  life  had  been 
saddened,  even  embittered,  by  an  older 
sister  who  was  an  invalid;  one  of  those 
kickers  against  the  pricks  who  drag  all 
who  love  them  into  their  own  abyss  of 
misery.  Selma  and  her  father  and 
mother  had  been  as  beaten  slaves  under 
that  sore  tyranny,  which  had  endured 
until  the  sister  died,  long  after  Selma's 
youth  had  passed. 

"I  never,"  she  said,  "could  have  com- 
pany of  my  own  age.  I  never  could  go 
like  other  young  girls."  She  flushed 
slightly.  "I  could  not  have  a  lover  on 
account  of  poor  Esther,"  she  said.  Then 
she  added,  with  a  curious  naivete,  "I 


SWEET-FLOWERING  PERENNIAL 


295 


have  always  wondered  what  it  would 
be  like/' 

Jane  brought  in  hot  waffles,  and  the 
personal  conversation  ceased.  After 
breakfast  the  two  women  went  up-stairs. 
It  was  a  windy  morning.  Selma's  door 
was  blown  open  as  they  reached  it,  and 
a  sudden  puff  of  wind  caused  a  skirt  to 
flash  out  with  a  sudden  surprise  of  blue, 
like  a  bird  of  spring,  from  an  open  closet 
door.  Selma  did  not  act  as  if  she  saw  it. 
Clara  again  felt  shaken,  and  proceeded 
to  her  own  room,  telling  Selma  she  had 
some  letters  to  write. 

In  her  room  she  sat  down  and  pon- 
dered. She  might  not  own  to  curiosity — 
other  people's  affairs  might  be  sacred  in 
her  estimation — but  she  could  not  ig- 
nore, in  the  privacy  of  her  own  con- 
sciousness, the  blue  flirt  of  that  skirt. 
After  a  while,  however,  she  gained  com- 
mand over  herself,  with  her  usual  in- 
controvertible argument  that  it  was 
none  of  her  business.  She  went  down- 
stairs, and  Selma  provided  her  with 
some  fancy-work,  and  the  two  visited 
serenely  all  the  forenoon. 

After  luncheon  they  separated.  Clara 
had  a  habit  of  lying  down  for  an  hour. 
This  afternoon  she  fell  asleep — the  effect 
of  her  wakeful  night.  She  started  up 
about  four  o'clock.  She  had  heard  a 
motor  in  the  drive.  Against  her  own 
will  she  slipped  down  from  the  divan 
and  peered  out  of  a  window.  There  was 
a  great  touring-car  and  a  magnificent 
chauffeur,  and  Mr.  William  B.  Wheeler's 
handsome  young  cousin  was  assisting 
into  the  tonneau  the  girl — the  girl — clad 
this  time  in  fawn-color,  ruffling  to  her 
waist,  with  a  quaint  velvet  mantle  to 
match,  fitch  furs,  and  a  fawn-colored 
poke  bonnet  with  a  long  feather  curling 
to  her  shoulder. 

The  car  sped  away.  Clara  really  felt 
faint.  She  lay  down  again  on  the  divan. 
It  crossed  her  mind  that  she  might  go  in 
search  of  Selma  and  see  if  she  were  in  the 
house;  then  she  dismissed  the  thought 
as  unworthy.  A  very  soul  of  small  honor 
had  Clara  Woods.  She  immolated  her- 
self upon  that  little  shrine,  which  most 
women  would  not  have  considered  a 
shrine  at  all. 

Clara  finally  dressed  herself  and  then 
hurried  down-stairs  to  the  library, 
whose  windows  did  not  command  the 


drive.  There  she  read  conscientiously. 
Finally  Selma  came  in  smiling.  Clara 
noticed  guiltily  that  her  cheeks  were 
flushed  as  if  by  coming  in  contact  with 
cold,  outdoor  air.  It  was  curious  that 
Clara  was  the  one  who  felt  guilty  before 
all  this.  Selma  seemed  entirely  unruffled 
until  Clara  inquired  if  they  were  to  dress 
for  dinner  that  night,  if  guests  were 
expected.  Suddenly  Selma  flushed.  She 
looked  for  one  second  like  a  young  girl 
trapped  with  some  love-secret,  then  she 
answered  composedly  that  she  expected 
nobody,  and  it  was  not  necessary  to 
dress. 

There  was  a  tap  on  the  door,  and 
Adam  entered.  He  wished  to  see  his 
mistress  with  regard  to  preparing  a  new 
garden-patch.  Selma  excused  herself. 
When  she  returned  she  was  smiling  hap- 

"I  shall  have  a  lovely  new  garden  this 
year,"  she  said.  "I  have  bought  half 
an  acre  at  the  left  of  the  house,  and  I 
am  to  have  a  flower-garden — a  flower- 
garden  with  a  stone  wall  around  it,  a 
wonderful  flower-garden!" 

"What  kind  of  flowers?"  inquired 
Clara,  and  was  surprised  at  the  inten- 
sity and  readiness  of  her  friend's  reply. 

"Perennials,"  she  exclaimed  with 
force.  "Always  perennials.  Always  the 
flowers  which  return  every  year  of  their 
own  accord.  I  like  no  other  flowers.  Al- 
ways the  returning  flowers — roses  and 
lilies  and  hyacinths  and  narcissi  and 
hollyhocks.  There  are  plenty  of  them. 
No  need  for  us  to  trouble  ourselves  with 
flowers  which  demand  taking  up  and 
gathering  and  replanting.  It  is  always 
a  perennial  flower  for  me!  I  love  a  rose 
which  has  returned  to  its  own  garden- 
home  year  after  year.  There  is  faithful- 
ness and  true  love  and  unconquerable 
youth  about  a  flower  like  that!" 

Clara  stared  at  her.  "I  suppose  so," 
she  assented  rather  vaguely.  Selma 
puzzled  her  in  more  ways  than  one. 
However,  a  perfectly  pleasant  little  con- 
versation ensued.  Selma  asked  about 
some  old  school  friends  of  whom  Clara 
had  kept  track  through  the  years. 

The  solitary  dinner  passed  off  happily. 
The  two  separated  rather  early.  Selma 
owned  to  having  a  slight  headache. 
Clara  read  awhile,  then  went  to  bed. 
She  was  just  beginning  to  feel  drowsy 


296 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


when  she  heard  a  motor  in  the  drive,  and 
simultaneously  she  noticed  a  thin  line  of 
light  across  her  floor.  She  had  not  quite 
closed  her  door.  Somebody  had  turned 
on  all  the  hall  lights,  and  they  shone 
through  the  crack.  It  was  too  much 
for  Clara  Woods.  Curiosity  raged  and 
would  not  be  subdued. 

She  slid  noiselessly  out  of  bed  and 
stood  behind  the  door.  She  peered 
through  that  slight  opening  and  saw — 
the  girl,  all  clad  in  rose-color,  a  full 
skirt  blossoming  around  her,  ribbons  and 
laces  fluttering.  She  beheld  the  girl 
fairly  dancing  on  slim,  pointed  feet  along 
the  hall  toward  the  stairs.  At  the  same 
time  the  fragrance  of  roses  came  to  her, 
and  she  remembered  how  fond  Selma 
used  to  be  of  that  perfume,  and  how  the 
other  girls  used  to  make  fun  of  her  for 
using  it  in  such  quantities.  All  the  hall 
was  now  scented  with  roses.  There 
might  have  been  a  garden  of  them. 

Clara  closed  her  door  noiselessly  and 
went  back  to  bed.  That  night  she  was 
so  tired  that  she  slept.  The  next  morn- 
ing she  wondered  if  the  girl  would  appear 
at  the  breakfast-table,  but  there  was 
only  Selma  in  a  lavender  morning  gown, 
sweet  and  dignified  and  serene  as  ever. 

Whatever  there  was  to  conceal,  Selma 
was  careless,  for  again  when  Clara  went 
up~stairs — Selma  had  gone  out  with  her 
gardener  to  give  directions  for  her  gar- 
den of  perennials — Selma's  door  was 
open,  and  over  a  chair  lay  a  fluff"  of  rose- 
pink  and  lace  and  ribbons. 

Clara  shook  her  head.  She  went  into 
her  own  room,  and  she  thought  of 
Noble's.  She  had  lived  there  over  ten 
years,  and  nothing  in  the  least  mysteri- 
ous had  happened.  She  wished  herself 
safely  back,  but  again  she  stifled  her 
curiosity.  She  stifled  it,  and  in  fact 
never  quite  knew  if  it  had  been  gratified 
— if  she  ever  found  out  the  truth  of  the 
case.  Clara  had  always  a  mild  wonder 
if  a  cleverer  woman  than  she  might  not 
have  known  exactly  what  had  happened, 
what  did  happen.  For  the  climax  of  the 
happening  came  very  soon.  And  it  came 
in  an  absurd  sort  of  fashion. 

Selma  had  been  busy  in  her  own  room 
all  the  afternoon.  Clara  had  not  seen 
her  since  luncheon.  Finally  she  dressed 
in  one  of  the  costumes  which  had  been 
placed  at  her  disposal — a  pretty  black 


net  trimmed  with  jet— and  went  down- 
stairs to  the  library.  After  trying  a 
book  which  did  not  especially  interest 
her,  she  settled  herself  comfortably  in  a 
long  lounging-chair  beside  a  window. 
Although  the  day  was  far  spent,  it  was 
not  dark. 

Clara  lay  back,  gazed  out  of  the  win- 
dow at  the  grounds,  and  reflected. 
Where  she  sat  she  could  see,  mirrored  in 
a  picture  facing  the  large  drawing-room 
into  which  the  library  opened,  the  two 
actors  in  the  little  drama  of  mystery. 
She  could  not  help  seeing  them  unless 
she  moved,  which  was  quite  out  of  the 
question. 

Clara  stared  at  the  reflecting  surface 
of  the  picture  facing  the  interior  of  the 
drawing-room,  and  she  saw  Mr.  William 
B.  Wheeler's  cousin — that  charming 
young  man  from  the  South — enter  and 
seat  himself.  She  saw  in  the  picture 
that  he  was  very  pale  and  evidently  ill 
at  ease.  Then  Selma  entered.  To  Clara 
she  looked  much  older  than  usual.  Her 
black-satin  gown  was  very  plain;  her 
fair  hair  was  strained  back  very  severely 
from  her  temples.  She  also  looked  pale 
and  worn. 

Clara  saw  Selma  and  the  young  man 
shake  hands;  then,  with  no  preamble — 
he  was  hardly  more  than  a  boy — he  sank 
down  on  his  knees  before  the  woman, 
buried  his  face  in  her  black-satin  lap,  and 
his  great,  boyish  frame  shook.  Then 
Clara  heard  the  boy  say,  chokingly: 
"Forgive  me,  Miss  Windsor.  I  am — 
hard  hit." 

Clara  saw  Selma's  face  bent  over  the 
bowed,  fair  head  pityingly,  like  the  face 
of  a  mother.    The  young  man  went  on: 

"You  must  know  that  I  understand 
how  very  odd  this  may  all  seem  to  you. 
I  have  only  seen  her  those  few  times. 
But  from  the  very  first  minute  she  en- 
tered Cousin  William's  office  that  morn- 
ing after  we  dined  here — when  he  had 
telephoned  you,  and  you  had  sent  your 
niece  to  represent  you  because  you  were 
-ill — from  that  very  first  minute  it  was 
all  over  with  me.  She  was  so  sweet  and 
kind.  She  stayed  and  went  to  that  con- 
cert with  me,  although  I  know  she  feared 
lest  you  think  she  ought  not.  Every- 
thing happened  so  very  quickly.  She 
was  not  at  fault.  She  never  encouraged 
me,  led  me  on,  you  know.    You  surely 


SWEET-FLOWERING  PERENNIAL 


297 


don't  think  I  am  such  a  cad  as  to  imply 
that,  Miss  Windsor?" 

Clara  heard  Selma's  reply,  "No,  I 
certainly  do  not  think  you  mean  to 
imply  that." 

The  boy  went  on.  "I  know  I  was 
terribly  headlong.  I  have  always  been 
headlong.  It  is  in  my  blood;  and  I  was 
so  sure  of  myself.  She  was  so  wonderful. 
Then  I  wrote  her  that  note.  Did  you 
see  it?  She  showed  it  to  you,  didn't  she? 
I  expected  of  course  she  would." 

Clara  saw  Selma  bow  her  head  in 
assent. 

"Then  she  sent  that  special-delivery 
note  of  refusal.    You  saw  that?" 

Selma  again  bowed  her  head. 

"Do  you  think  it  was — final?  Will 
there  never  be  any  hope?"  cried  the 
young  fellow  with  a  great  gasp. 

Clara  heard  Selma  say  "No,"  in  a 
strange  voice. 

"There  is  no  use  in  my  asking  to  see 
her?"  pleaded  the  boy,  pitifully. 

"She  has — gone,"  replied  Selma. 

"And  she  is  not  coming  back?" 

"I  doubt  if  she  ever  comes  back." 

Clara  saw  the  fair  head  of  the  young 
man  on  Selma's  black-satin  lap.  She 
saw  the  broad  young  shoulders  heave. 
She  saw  Selma  Windsor  put  her  hand 
lovingly  on  the  fair  hair  and  stroke  it, 
and  murmur  something  which  she  did 
not  catch.  But  soon  the  young  man 
stood  up,  and  his  white  face  was  lit  by  a 
brave  smile. 

"Oh,  of  course,  Miss  Windsor,"  he 
said,  "it  is  all  the  fortune  of  life  and  love 
and  war.  Of  course  I  have  courage 
enough  to  take  what  comes.  Of  course 
I  am  not  beaten.  Of  course  I  am  young, 
and  shall  get  over  it.  I  am  not  a  coward. 
I  simply  did  love  her  so,  and  it  is  the 
first  time  I  was  ever  so  hard  hit.  It  is 
all  right.  I  am  sorry  that  I  have  trou- 
bled you.  It  is  all  right,  but — I  am 
going  back  to  Kentucky  to-night.  I  am 
going  into  business  with  a  fellow  of  my 
own  age.  I  have  told  Cousin  William. 
He  was  upset,  and  I  did  not  tell  him 
why  I  was  backing  out  of  the  partner- 
ship so  soon.  He  did  not  like  it  very 
well.  I  am  sorry,  for  he  is  a  mighty 
good  sort.  But  I  have  to  go.  I  have 
plenty  of  fight  in  me  for  everything,  but 
a  fellow  has  to  choose  his  own  battle- 
field sometimes.    I  am  ashamed  of  my- 


self, to  tell  you  the  truth,  Miss  Windsor. 
Your  niece  is  wonderful,  but  I  never 
thought  any  girl  living  could  settle  me 
as  soon  as  this.  She  is  wonderful, 
though." 

Clara  saw  in  the  picture  the  young 
man  gazing  intently  at  Selma  Windsor. 
"You  must  have  looked  much  like  her 
when  you  were  a  girl,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  I  think  I  did,"  replied  Selma. 

Then  Clara  saw  the  two  make  what 
was  apparently  an  involuntary  move- 
ment, and  Selma  had  kissed  the  young 
man,  and  he  had  held  her  for  a  second 
like  a  lover. 

Then  Clara  did  close  her  eyes.  She 
remembered  when  it  was  all  over  except 
the  fervent  "'good-byes  and  kind  wishes 
which  the  two  exchanged.  Clara  heard 
the  door  close  behind  the  boy.  She 
heard  Selma  leave  the  drawing-room, 
and  soon,  in  the  now  fast-fading  light, 
she  saw  her  talking  with  Adam  over  the 
flower-garden  in  which  she  was  to  have 
her  perennial  blooms  when  spring  and 
summer  came  again. 

Clara  seized  her  opportunity.  She 
made  her  retreat,  all  unseen,  to  her  own 
room.  When  later  she  and  Selma  met  at 
dinner  everything  was  as  usual.  After 
dinner  they  had  a  pleasant  evening.  The 
two  ladies  played  a  game  of  Patience. 

Nothing  more  which  savored  of  the 
mysterious  happened  during  Clara's 
visit.  She  remained  until  the  quarantine 
at  Noble's  was  lifted.  She  enjoyed  her- 
self thoroughly. 

She  visited  Selma  again  rather  often, 
spending  week-ends.  They  were  closer 
friends  than  they  had  ever  been,  and 
Clara  never  knew  the  explanation  of 
what  she  had  unwittingly  seen  and 
heard.  It  suited  her  obvious  mind  bet- 
ter to  believe  that  a  niece  of  Selma's  had 
really  been  in  the  house  and  had  a  love- 
affair,  and  for  some  unexplainable  reason 
had  been  concealed  from  her.  She  had 
not  the  imagination  to  conceive  of  the 
other  possibility — that  some  characters, 
like  some  flowers,  may  have  within 
themselves  the  power  of  perennial 
bloom,  if  only  for  an  hour  or  a  day,  and 
may  revisit,  with  such  rapture  of  tender- 
ness that  it  hardly  belongs  to  earth, 
their  own  youth  and  springtime,  in  the 
never-dying  garden  of  love  and  sweet 
romance. 


Heritage 


BY  WILBUR  DANIEL  STEELE 


T  was  an  extraordina- 
rily hot  day  for  the  mid- 
dle of  September.  The 
Vineyard  stretched  out 
smooth  and  blue  and 
hard,  giving  back  per- 
fectly the  hulls  of  the 
idle  coasters  sitting  on  its  surface,  their 
bowsprits  pointing  to  every  quarter  of 
the  compass.  Over  toward  the  Chop, 
two  porgie-steamers  lay  above  their 
slackened  cables,  long  and  low  and 
black,  a  little  thread  of  brown  smoke 
winding  up  from  either  funnel.  Their 
masters  sat  side  by  side  on  the  village 
landing,  matching  wits. 

It  was  the  younger  of  the  two  who 
spoke.  "Roy,  Joe  Wicks  tells  me  he 
seen  color  to  the  south'rd  o'  Handker- 
chief yesterday." 

The  other  was  lean,  of  medium  height, 
his  hair  sandy,  and  the  skin  of  his  face 
very  red  and  brittle-looking  from  long 
exposure  to  the  sun.  He  had  learned 
now  what  he  had  dropped  into  the  Vine- 
yard to  find  out,  and  he  felt  that  the 
other  watched  him  sharply,  awaiting  his 
comment  on  the  news,  for  this  man  was  a 
great  "killer"  among  the  porgie-men. 

"Joe  Wicks  say  if  they  were  running?" 
he  questioned,  still  staring  at  the  toe  of 
his  boot. 

"No.  Playing,  he  told  me." 
"Mm-m-m."  Peters  bit  off  a  quid 
and  turned  to  his  other  hand,  where  an 
ancient  seafarer  mumbled  an  intermi- 
nable tale  about  a  ship.  "What's  that 
you're  saying,  Nunkie?"  he  demanded, 
for  a  diversion. 

The  old  fellow  raised  his  voice  in  a 
shrill  cackle  to  do  justice  to  an  active 
listener.  "I  say  they  been  huntin' 
raound  fer  a  dang  fool  to  put  aboard  her 
fer  three  year.  They've  hed  'em  putty 
fair  dang,  but  not  dang  enough  yit. 
They're  in  the  ma'ket  fer  a  broke-down 
cap'n  thet  likes  good  rum  an'  '11  fill  his 
hide  full  of  it  an'  run  her  onto  Stone 
Horse  some  night  accidental.    Ye've  no 


idee  the  insurance  they  got  piled  onto 
thet  ther  hulk.  Must  be  in  cahoots  with 
the  agent — " 

"Who  you  talking  about?  You  sound 
foolish." 

"Her."  The  old  fellow  jerked  a  black 
thumb  toward  a  dilapidated  lumber- 
schooner  lying  a  hundred  yards  or  so  off 
the  end  of  the  landing.  "Rec'lect  her 
sister,  Fly  in9  Jib,  piled  onto  Little  Round 
last  year?  Same  way.  Skipper  drunk. 
Ma'k  me,  the  whole  Lane  fleet  '11  go,  one 
way  'r  'nother.  Don't  pay  no  more.  .  .  . 
Looky  here.  Her  skipper's  comin'  over 
the  side  now.  Wonder  who  they  got 
this  time — " 

Todd,  on  the  other  side,  had  run 
through  his  stock  of  patience.  "Roy," 
he  broke  in,  "fish  showin'  color  off 
Handkerchief  this  time  o'  year — looks 
like  they'd  be  movin'  south,  eh?" 

Peters  took  off  his  hat,  mopped  his 
brow,  and  wiped  out  the  sweatband. 

"Mm-m-m.  I  should  say  south.  Yep." 

Todd  did  not  speak  out  loud,  but  he 
said  to  himself,  "He  figgers  I  figger  he's 
lyin'  to  me,  so  he's  told  the  truth  for  once 
in  his  life." 

The  old  man's  cackle  rose  once  more 
in  the  sultry  hush,  querulous: 

"By  codfish!  Looks  like  they  got  the 
pa'ty  this  time,  from  the  way  he  totters 
raound.  Keep  an  eye  there,  mate;  ye'll 
rock  the  ding'y  over.  Yeou're  a  ripe 
un,  no  mistake.  Looks  familiar  in  the 
back  of 'im,  he  does,  I  swan.  Say,  looky 
here.  By  codfish!  they  went  to  the 
right — " 

Roy  Peters  looked  up  to  find  the 
ancient  toddling  off  up  the  wharf  as  rap- 
idly as  his  shaky  limbs  would  carry  him, 
one  apprehensive  eye  trailing  over  his 
shoulder. 

Todd,  too,  had  grown  very  red  in  the 
face.  "I  think  I'll  go  buy  a  bit  of  chew- 
in',"  he  muttered,  and  he,  too,  retreated 
up  the  wharf. 

There  came  the  slight  jar  of  a  boat's 
gunwale  against  the  piles  behind  Roy 


HERITAGE 


299 


Peters.  He  turned.  Then  he  got  to 
his  feet  and  said,  "By  God!"  under 
his  breath. 

He  fidgeted  on  his  feet,  took  a  step 
toward  the  shore,  then,  as  though  real- 
izing that  it  was  too  late  for  retreat, 
turned  to  await  the  new-comer  square- 
ly, still  muttering. 

The  man  was  lean  and  of  medium 
height,  his  face  sunburned,  his  thick  hair 
perfectly  white.  One  would  have  fig- 
ured him  at  sixty;  he  was  forty-six.  He 
walked  quite  straight  and  upright,  and 
yet  one  felt,  somehow,  that  he  was  not 
walking  quite  straight  and  upright — 
that  there  was  something  unaccountably 
insecure  and  fragile  about  his  progress, 
like  his  thin,  violet  shadow  that  bobbed 
and  jumped  over  the  inequalities  of  the 
boards.  And  about  him  all  there  was 
an  air  of  the  dandy  of  yesterday  clinging 
with  a  pathetic  desperation  to  his  de- 
parted dandihood.    He  held  out  a  hand. 

"If  it  isn't  Roy  I"  he  said.  "  Roy,  I'm 
glad  to  see  you." 

Roy  Peters  took  the  proffered  hand 
without  fervor.  "Hullo,  Prince!  I — I 
had  an  idea  you  were  south." 

"Didn't  expect  to  see  me,  eh,  Roy? 
Where's  Ed?" 

The  younger  man  waved  his  hand  to 
the  east.  "Down  the  back  side  of  Nan- 
tucket. Ed's  got  a  vessel  of  his  own 
now." 

He  answered  mechanically,  with  the 
feeling  that  his  words  carried  no  sound. 
He  was  uncomfortable.  The  other 
smoothed  out  his  frayed  cravat. 

"You  see  I'm  doing  better  again,  Roy. 
I've  got  a  command." 

Roy  winced.  A  vague  suggestion  of 
whisky  hung  in  the  still  air. 

"And  I'm  going  to  stick  by  this  one, 
Roy." 

An  epitome  of  the  man's  life  lay  in 
that  sentence.  Always  he  had  been  go- 
ing to  "stick  by"  the  next  one.  It  is 
one  thing  for  a  commander  to  take  to 
his  boats  from  a  doomed  vessel;  it  is 
quite  another  thing  when  that  vessel  is 
picked  up  at  sea  three  days  later,  quite 
sound  enough  to  demand  a  large  salvage 
fee.  And  when  the  like  of  it  has  hap- 
pened three  times  running —  And  yet, 
with  all  this  frailty  of  his  there  was  still 
an  inherent  sweetness  and  kindness  in 
this  vagabond  who  had  come  back. 


"You  knew  I  was  married?"  he  said, 
suddenly. 

"Yes,"  Roy  mumbled.    "Sol  near. 

"And — and  Roy,  I've  got  a  boy.  Yes 
— really."  He  reached  out  and  plucked 
at  his  brother's  sleeve.  "Roy —  Say, 
Roy — would  you  mind  just  running  out 
with  me?  Eh?  They're  aboard,  you 
know.  Just  a  matter  of  five  minutes. 
Eh?   What  do  you  say,  Roy?" 

"I —  Look  here,  Prince — "  The 
younger  man  fumbled  at  his  watch  and 
looked  about  him,  a  frown  of  embarrass- 
ment between  his  eyes.  It  was  nothing 
short  of  preposterous,  intolerable.  That 
woman — why,  the  fellow  had  been  be- 
guiled into  it  in  some  water-front  hole 
down  South.    He  grew  angry. 

"Why,  damn  it,  Prince — "  He  found 
himself  staring  at  the  store  at  the  head 
of  the  wharf.  The  sun's  flare  on  the 
small-paned  windows  blinded  him.  Be- 
hind those  windows  the  gossips  were 
watching  to  see  what  he  would  do — he 
and  Prince — the  Peters  boys.  "Come 
along,"  he  said,  abruptly.  "I  haven't  a 
great  deal  of  time." 

Prince  let  himself  over  the  edge  of  the 
landing  slowly  and  with  an  evident  ef- 
fort. Once  in  the  dinghy  he  sat  down, 
gasping  slightly. 

"I  tell  you  it's  a  hot  day,"  he  ob- 
served, unsteadily.  "I'm  not  as  smart 
's  I  might  be,  Roy." 

The  other  regarded  him  sharply. 
"That's  too  bad,"  he  said.  "How 
many  men  ?" 

Prince  nodded  at  the  negro  "  hand  " 
who  was  pulling  them  out  over  the  blaz- 
ing water.  "Him,"  he  said.  "They 
keep  me  short-handed.    It's  an  outrage." 

"I  should  think  it  was."  To  himself 
Roy  said:  "It  wouldn't  make  any  dif- 
ference. She'd  go  to  pieces  in  a  good 
tideway." 

She  was  of  an  ancient  type,  with  a 
high,  square  stern,  "like  a  brick  church," 
a  big  sheer,  and  spindles  in  her  rails  like 
a  staircase. 

Prince  hailed:  "Jenn!     Oh,  Jenn!" 

The  first  answer  was  a  feeble  wail,  and 
then  a  woman  appeared  at  the  rail,  hold- 
ing an  infant  at  her  breast.  She  had 
been  pretty  once,  just  as  she  had  been 
younger  once,  but  now  the  skin  was  a 
little  hollow  under  the  cheek-bones,  and 
its  color  was  not  good.    Her  hair  had 


300 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


been  done  up  carelessly,  leaving  a  few 
long,  straight  strings  hanging  down  her 
neck.  She  stared  at  the  new-comer  in 
the  dinghy  with  a  curious  wonder  min- 
gled with  embarrassment  and  fright. 

"Jenn!"  Prince  called  again.  "It's 
Roy,  Jenn.   You  know  Roy,  Jenn." 

The  woman  colored,  drew  back  in  a 
momentary  confusion,  then  returned  to 
the  rail  to  give  back  the  stranger's  scru- 
tiny.   "I'm  glad  to  meet  you,"  she  said. 

Roy  stared  down  at  his  boots,  fum- 
bled awkwardly  at  the  vizor  of  his  cap, 
and  muttered,  "I'm  glad  to  meet  you." 
He  was  more  uncomfortable  than  ever. 

When  they  had  scrambled  over  the 
rail,  Prince  went  about  busily,  always 
gasping  slightly  and  with  a  hand  pressed 
to  his  chest,  placing  a  broken  deck-chair 
for  Roy,  emptying  a  bucket  of  suds  over 
the  rail,  setting  little  things  straight, 
stopping  now  and  then  in  his  desperately 
contrived  hurry  to  peer  into  the  infant's 
face  and  demand  if  he  were  not  a  fine 
one,  or  if  Roy  would  not  have  a 
nip. 

"No!"  Roy  shook  his  head  angrily  at 
that.  He  felt  that  the  woman  was 
watching  him,  like  a  cat  with  kittens 
watching  a  dog.  His  eyes  wandered  over 
the  frowzy  hulk  and  the  clutter  on  deck 
— a  wash-tub,  a  few  soiled  clothes  in  a 
pile,  a  line  of  undergarments  drying  be- 
tween the  masts,  a  bread-board  with  a 
cut  loaf  on  it  sitting  on  the  main-hatch, 
and  near  it  his  brother  plucking  at  his 
worn  cravat,  smiling  tentatively,  as 
much  as  to  say:  "Look  at  it  this  way — 
at  least  I'm  doing  better.  Am  I  not?" 

It  gave  Roy  a  feeling  of  sickness,  as 
though  he  had  eaten  something  which 
did  not  agree  with  him.  He  was  aware 
of  the  negro,  with  a  white  cloth  over  his 
arm,  emerging  from  the  companionway 
to  place  a  tray  with  a  decanter  and  glass 
beside  his  brother,  and  his  brother's 
deprecating,  "I'm  not  as  smart  's  I 
might  be,  you  know,"  as  he  poured  and 
drank. 

All  the  discomfort  of  the  past  half- 
hour  broke  out.  "Damn  it,  Prince;  this 
won't  do." 

He  caught  a  glimpse  of  his  brother's 
face,  but  he  had  something  to  say  now. 
"This  is  no  business  for  a  fellow,  Prince, 
and  I  tell  you  the  truth.  You  need 
a  fresh  start.    I'm  going  to  get  you  a 


fresh  start.  Don't  say  a  word.  I  hear 
they  need  a  weighmaster  down  to  the 
factory  at  Paradise.  Now  there's  a 
chance,  I  tell  you — " 

He  stopped  and  beat  his  handkerchief 
fiercely  about  his  damp  neck,  still  afraid 
to  look  at  the  other.  Prince  got  up.  The 
expression  of  his  face  had  changed,  los- 
ing its  wistful  deprecation  and  taking  on 
something  of  dignity  and  importance 
which  was  characteristic  of  the  man  at 
such  recurrent  times  in  his  life  when  a 
"fresh  start"  was  under  consideration. 
He  pursed  his  lips  and  hummed. 

"Roy,"  he  speculated,  balancing  his 
hands,  one  against  the  other,  "is  it  a 
man's  job?  That  is,  would  it  be  worth 
my  while,  really — " 

The  woman  had  moved  forward,  un- 
noticed, to  stand  in  front, of  Prince. 

"Will  you  bring  me  his  cap,  dear?" 
she  asked.  "The  one  with  the  red  bow, 
you  know.    I  think  it's  in  my  locker." 

Her  husband  glared  at  her,  unable  to 
understand  immediately  this  intolerable 
breach  of  good  manners.  She  continued 
to  look  squarely  in  his  eyes,  her  free 
hand  pinching  his  arm. 

"But,  Jenn!"  he  expostulated,  still 
blank.  He  shook  his  arm,  without  dis- 
lodging her  fingers.  "But  look  here, 
Jenn,  I  was — " 

"Please,  dear — I'm  afraid  of  the  sun. 
In  my  locker,  you  know." 

The  man  opened  his  lips,  then  closed 
them  tightly,  turned  and  descended  the 
ladder,  his  head  shaking  with  a  sense  of 
outrage.  Roy  stared  at  his  brother's 
wife,  his  own  lips  half  open.  What  did 
the  woman  mean  by  this  unaccountable 
behavior?  He  thought  to  himself  that 
he  might  have  expected  it.  She  was 
simply  insolent — the  natural  thing.  Now 
that  she  had  packed  one  of  these  Peterses 
out  of  the  way,  she  ignored  the  other. 
She  looked  down  at  the  baby's  face, 
fumbled  at  the  neck  of  his  shawl,  held 
him  close.  He  should  have  seen  that 
she  was  in  distress. 

"Keep  out!"  she  said  at  last. 

"How's  that?"  he  asked.  He  did  not 
understand.  She  came  nearer  and  re- 
peated her  words  with  passion. 

"I  say,  keep  out!  Oh,  give  Prince  a 
chance !  No,  no,  no — you've  never  given 
him  a  chance,  nothing  but  a  fresh  start. 
Can't  you  see?" 


HERITAGE 


301 


Roy's  mouth  was  open  wide  now.  No, 
he  certainly  could  not  see.  He  was 
angry  at  her  life-and-death  tone. 

"Say — "  he  commenced  to  expostu- 
late, but  she  crowded  him  out. 

"For  once  in  his  life  he's  got  a  fresh 
start  of  his  own — not  given  him.  He 
got  it  himself.  Now  give  him  a  chance. 
Let  him  be.    Keep  out!" 

The  man  felt  that  he  must  laugh  out 
loud.  It  was  like  an  unbelievable  farce. 
This  was  what  came  of  women  pushing 
into  men's  affairs. 

"Do  you  know  how  it  happened  he 
could  get  this  'fresh  start'?"  He  shook 
a  furious  finger  at  the  deck  beneath  him. 
"Say!  Say!" 

The  woman's  forehead  reddened, 
but  that  was  the  only  sign  of  the 
blow. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  know.  But 
Prince  doesn't." 

It  had  happened  so  quickly  that  it 
took  him  a  breath  to  realize  how  com- 
pletely she  had  turned  him.  He  was 
fighting  up  now  instead  of  down.  It 
showed  in  his  next  words. 

"But  listen  to  me.  He's  sick!  I  tell 
you  he's  a  sick  man." 

"He  is — "  She  did  not  finish,  for  they 
both  heard  Prince's  boots  at  the  bottom 
of  the  ladder  within.  "  He's  coming,"  she 
whispered,  pulling  his  sleeve.  "Please 
go  quickly.  Hurry.  Sam!  Sam! — the 
dinghy!  Mr.  Peters's  brother  is  in  a 
hurry — " 

Roy  Peters  found  himself  sitting  in 
the  stern-sheets  of  the  tender,  without 
remembering  clearly  how  he  came  to  be 
there.  Afterward  he  had  to  explain  it 
to  himself  by  a  rather  vague  "There's 
something  about  the  woman — " 

His  brother's  head  appeared  with  a 
complaining  "I  can't  locate  it,  Jenn." 
Then  his-  eyes  fell  to  the  dinghy,  and  he 
came  pattering  to  hang  over  the  rail. 
"Say,  look  here.  What's  the  matter, 
Roy?  You're  not  going?  Why,  you've 
only  just  come!  I  wanted  to  talk  about 
that—" 

"I've  got  to  catch  this  tide  going 
north,"  Roy  explained,  without  looking 
directly  at  him. 

"I'm  going  north  to-night,  too,  over 
the  Cape.  I'll  catch  up  with  you."  He 
waved  a  hand  at  his  sails  and  laughed 
with  a  touch  of  bravado.    "But  about 

Vol.  CXXXI  — Nto.  782.-38 


that  place  at  Paradise?"  he  called  after 
the  retreating  boat. 

"Not  much  in  it  for  a  man.  Some 
other  time,  Prince."  Roy  waved  his 
hand  and  looked  away.  He  did  not 
want  to  see  that  woman  any  more. 

It  was  noon  again,  and  forty-odd  miles 
to  the  east  of  the  Cape.  The  day  was  as 
hot  and  airless  as  the  one  before,  but  a 
bank  of  clouds  standing  lofty  and  dun 
across  the  eastern  horizon  promised  an- 
other weather  before  sundown.  The 
Stream  stood  to  the  northeast,  her  black 
funnel  trailing  a  smudge  of  soft  coal 
along  her  wake.  Roy  Peters  got  up  from 
a  tub  on  the  forward  deck,  sat  down 
again,  took  off  his  hat,  and  fanned  his 
neck. 

"By  gracious,  but  it's  hot!"  he  grum- 
bled, savagely. 

He  turned  and  scowled  over  the  bows. 
A  little  way  off*  across  the  water  another 
steamer  sat  idly,  her  smoke  standing 
straight  overhead  in  a  dingy  column. 
A  hand's-space  to  the  left  of  her,  three 
small  boats  converged  upon  a  common 
center,  the  tiny  black  figures  in  them 
gesticulating,  pulling  at  the  sweeps, 
heaving  out  the  seine.  Roy  threw  back 
his  head  and  shouted  at  the  man  in  the 
cross-trees  forty  feet  above.  "Is  it 
Todd?"^ 

"Can't  say 's  yet.  He's  got  a  good  set 
there,  whoever  'tis." 

Roy  got  up  to  wander  again.  His  lips 
were  dry.  He  was  nervous.  Most  of  the 
afternoon  before  he  had  wasted  trying  to 
find  his  "little"  brother  Ed,  to  the 
south  of  Nantucket.  Then  he  had  been 
up  all  night  coming  through  the  shoals, 
chancing  the  passage  to  make  up  with  the 
northward-going  fish — a  clear  day's  gain 
with  the  rest  of  the  fleet  to  the  south. 
And  here  was  what  had  come  of  it.  And 
then  there  was  Prince.  And  that  wom- 
an! The  masthead  man  was  shouting 
again. 

^What's  that r  Roy  bawled. 

"I  say,  it's  Ed." 

"Ed?" 

"It's  him — by  the  red  drive-boat — 
that  new  un." 

"Say!"  Roy's  face  lost  its  harried  ex- 
pression; he  grinned  and  slapped  his 
thighs.  "Say!  That  boy  will  do!"  He 
turned  to  squint  at  the  growing  vessel. 


302 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


And  now  the  voice  aloft  broke  out  in 
a  new  note,  lifting  a  cry  which  will  never 
be  less  than  a  paean  of  triumph:  " There 
they  play — they  pla-a-ay.  To  the  north- 
'rd  of  'im.    They  scho-o-o-ol!,, 

Roy  swung  round  toward  the  mid- 
decks,  his  lips  open  for  a  command. 
Already  the  men  aft  were  in  motion — 
Miers,  the  "driver,"  scrambling  over  the 
stern  into  the  drive-boat  under  the  ves- 
sel's counter,  others  casting  ofF  the  lash- 
ings of  the  heavy  seine-boats,  a  few 
pointing  out  to  the  northward  where  a 
vague  blur  shot  with  violet  lay  on  the 
water. 

"They  scho-o-o-ol !"  came  down. 
"Two  hundred  barrel!" 

Roy  closed  his  lips.  He  ran  his  tongue 
over  their  dry  edges.  It  was  intolerably 
hot.  "Hang  take  it!  Why  couldn't 
Prince  have  stayed — " 

"All  right — all  right — "  The  word 
came  from  mouth  to  mouth  along  the 
deck.    "All  ready,  sir!" 

Roy  shifted  his  uneasy  eyes  to  the 
masthead.  An  unaccountable  sultry 
fury  took  him.  That  woman  —  why, 
damn  that  woman!  He  became  aware 
of  the  mate  near  him,  coughing 
apologetically  and  repeating,  "All 
ready,  sir!"  He  wheeled  upon  the 
fellow. 

"Did  you  hear  me  say  anything?" 
He  glared  at  the  fellow.  "Who's  run- 
ning this  vessel?"  he  demanded,  jerking 
at  his  cap-brim  with  a  belligerent  ges- 
ture.   "Let  be!    Let  be!" 

He  turned  from  the  dumfounded  mate 
to  growl  an  order  at  the  helmsman  above : 
"I  want  to  talk  with  Ed.  Put  'er  along- 
side, Hammitt.  Yes!  Yes! — that's  what 
I  said  /" 

Land  alive!  who  were  these  people,  to 
give  orders  to  him — him  ?  He  ignored 
the  whole  shipload  of  them,  standing 
with  his  arms  akimbo,  staring  over  the 
bows.  Land  alive!  And  his  brother  was 
at  it,  too,  shouting  down  from  the  deck 
of  the  Wave  as  Roy's  drive-boat  came 
alongside: 

"What's  the  matter,  Roy?  They 
showed  strong  that  time,  eh?" 

Roy  glowered  at  him.  "Wait  a  min- 
ute," he  said.  When  he  had  climbed 
aboard  he  sat  down  on  a  bit,  took  off  his 
hat,  and  mopped  his  hair.  Ed  gave  a 
word  to  the  helmsman,  nodding  away 


toward  the  spot  where  the  boats  lay  at 
rest  with  the  seine  of  fish  pursed  up 
between  them.  Then  he  faced  Roy,  his 
thumbs  tucked  in  the  armholes  of  his 
vest. 

"Well,"  he  opened,  "it  was  just  a 
chance,  Roy.  I  ran  across  Joe  Wicks  on 
the  back  side  yesterday.  He  made  color 
off  Handkerchief  and  figured  they'd  go 
south.  I  took  a  chance.  I  remember 
you  used  to — " 

"You'll  do."  Roy  nodded  his  head  in 
a  sort  of  detached  approbation. 

Ed  Peters  was  lean  and  wire-muscled 
like  the  older  boys,  but  his  hair  was 
darker  and  his  skin  smoother  and  not  so 
red.  He  had  been  given  a  vessel;  he  was 
still  quite  young  for  the  command,  and 
naturally  rather  set  up  over  it.  He  was 
doing  well,  too. 

"You'll  do,"  Roy  repeated,  and 
walked  away  to  spit  over  the  rail.  "  For 
one  brother,"  he  added,  with  an  explosive 
venom. 

"Drop  it,  Roy.    Forget  it." 

Ed  had  never  known  his  oldest  brother 
very  well,  except  as  a  carefully  avoided 
skeleton  in  the  Peters  house. 

"I  came  close  to  scraping  on  Stone 
Horse  last  night,"  he  went  on,  getting 
back  to  better  ground.  "Had  to  be 
spry  now,  I  tell  you." 

His  brother  turned  upon  his  prattle 
with  a  savage  impatience.  "Prince  has 
come  north.  I  saw  him  yesterday,  in 
the  Vineyard." 

"The  hell  he  has!"  Ed's  thumbs  jos- 
tled out  of  his  armholes. 

"His  wife  was  with  him — and  his  kid. 
Dragged  me  out  to  see  'em.  He's  got 
a  command,"  he  went  on.  "One  of 
those  Lane  freighters — the  Gipsy  Girl. 
D'you  know  her?" 

"Know  her!"  Ed  had  found  his  voice 
at  last.  "Know  her?  Whyy  say — 
Looky  here — this  has  got  to  be  stopped 
off,  some  way."  His  rancor  at  this  in- 
tolerable outrage  made  him  stutter. 
"Wh-why  every  last  scandal -body  on 
the  coast  knows  her,  and — and  what  the 
Lane  people  are  after.  Why,  we'll  be  the 
laugh  of  the  coast,  I  tell  you."  He  stuck 
his  thumbs  back  in  their  armholes.  "I 
wish  I'd  seen  Prince,"  he  announced, 
heavily.  "I  wager  I'd  given  him  a  piece 
of  my  mind." 

"Well — "    Roy  Peters  looked  up  at 


HERITAGE 


303 


his  brother's  lowering  face.  He  felt 
lighter,  somehow — as  though  he  had 
shifted  a  disagreeable  burden  to  an- 
other's shoulders.  "  After  all,  look  at  it 
this  way:  at  least  he's  doing  better, 
isn't  he?"  He  even  smiled,  and  turned 
from  the  other's  muttering  to  squint  at 
the  cloudbelt  in  the  east. 

"We're  going  to  have  a  piece  of 
weather,"  he  speculated.  He  turned  and 
called  up  to  the  man  in  the  pilot-house, 
"How's  your  glass,  there?" 

"Three-tenths,"  came  the  answer. 

"Umm-huh.  Well,  that's  enough  for 
me.  I'm  going  to  find  a  lee.  You  know 
what  Peaked  Hill  Bars  will  be  before 
night.  Now  don't  say  a  word!"  He 
turned  and  lifted  a  palm  toward  the 
other.  "You're  master  aboard  this 
craft.  I'm  only  saying  what  Vm  going 
to  do." 

Ed  did  not  say  what  he  had  opened 
his  lips  to  say.  He  stared  glumly  at  the 
hand  that  had  shut  him  off.  "I  swan, 
I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with 
you,"  he  said  at  last.  "Here's  as  fine  a 
run  of  fish  as — as — "  He  stamped  on 
the  deck  as  his  exasperation  got  beyond 
him.  "Seems  like  you're  losing  your 
hold,  Roy.  Well,  hang  take  it,  what's — " 

"Don't  say  a  word!" 

Ed  hung  over  the  rail  and  watched  his 
brother's  boat  moving  off.  The  glare  of 
the  sun  on  the  water  made  his  eyes 
squint  as  he  looked  after  the  retreating 
figure.  "  Well,  what  is  a  fellow  to  think  ? 
Something's  eating  him.  I've  never  seen 
him  take  on  about  Peaked  Hill  before. 
If  he'd  only  go  to  work  and  tell  me — 
By  gracious,  but  it's  hot!  .  .  .  Hey! 
Get  those  boats  aboard,"  he  called  aft. 
And  to  the  man  at  the  wheel  above: 
"Keep  along  with  Roy — that's  all." 

It  was  night  off  Peaked  Hill,  and  un- 
der its  cover  the  shoals,  the  inner  and 
outer  bars,  threw  up  their  dim  geysers 
unseen.  The  wind  caught  up  the  scud 
and  carried  it  a  mile  inland  to  crust  the 
bogs  beyond  the  dunes.  Roughly  mid- 
way between  the  outer  and  inner  bars 
a  black  hulk  rolled  in  a  ring  of  spume, 
blind  except  for  a  lantern  in  the  fore- 
shrouds  and  a  pair  of  yellow  eyes  in  the 
house  aft.  The  mainmast  was  carried 
away  five  feet  above  the  deck. 

Three  quite  distinct  sounds  were  audi- 


ble in  the  schooner's  cabin.  Continuous 
and  dominant,  the  voice  of  the  driven 
water  filled  up  the  world.  From  time  to 
time  an  infant's  wailing  obtruded,  a 
minor  plaint  against  this  thunderous  un- 
dertone. A  negro  huddled  in  a  corner 
by  the  galley  cowered  and  chattered 
when  a  spout  of  water  came  through  a 
broken  port  and  drenched  him. 

At  each  recurring  outbreak  of  this 
sort  Prince  Peters  shivered  and  scowled 
at  the  man,  and  cried,  "Be  quiet  there, 
can't  you?"  Then  he  went  across,  tee- 
tering and  clinging  to  the  cross-beams, 
and  kicked  him  on  the  legs  with  a  feeble 
ferocity.  "Get  out  and  take  a  look  at 
that  cable,  can't  you?"  The  black  fel- 
low did  not  appear  to  hear  his  voice  or 
feel  his  boot.  Prince  made  a  gesture  of 
hopeless  disgust  and  teetered  back  to  sit 
on  the  edge  of  the  bunk,  where  he  an- 
nounced for  the  twentieth  time:  "Jenn, 
this  is  a  fix.  If  that  cable  parts —  By 
gracious,  Jenn,  I  wish  we  were  ashore, 
I  tell  you.  God!  Jenn."  His  voice  was 
smothered  by  a  thunder  of  water  break- 
ing over  the  decks  above,  while  every 
tiny  crevice  in  the  structure  of  the  deck- 
house spouted  white. 

"A  couple  more  of  those,  Jenn,  and 
we're  done  for." 

The  woman  reached  out  a  nervous 
hand  to  touch  the  infant,  swathed  in  a 
blanket  and  lodged  between  two  boards 
in  the  port  bunk. 

"She's  doing  so  much  better  than  we 
thought  she  would,"  she  argued.  "I 
shouldn't  wonder  at  all  if  we  ride 
through  it." 

It  appeared  to  soothe  the  man.  He 
rose  and  steadied  himself  with  one  hand 
on  her  shoulder.  "  By  heavens !  it  will  be 
something  to  tell  about  if  we  do,  now. 
Won't  it,  just?  I  guess  I'll  take  a  look 
around." 

Catching  a  favoring  pitch,  he  slid  to 
the  companion  ladder  and  mounted,  la- 
boriously. The  woman  sat  with  her  lips 
slightly  parted  and  her  hands  folded 
tight  in  her  lap,  listening  and  waiting. 
Now  and  then  she  turned  her  eyes  tow- 
ard the  companion,  and,  seeing  nothing 
there,  shifted  them  back  to  the  baby  in 
the  bunk  and  waited.  Another  wave- 
crest  rocked  the  vessel's  bows  and  swept 
boiling  over  her  head.  The  woman 
leaned  over  with  an  impulse  beyond  her 


304 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


control  to  hold  the  baby  against  her 
bosom.  "All  right,  boy.  It's  all  right," 
she  whispered  into  the  wadded  clothes. 
Then  she  cried,  sharply:  "Sam!  Sam! — 
go  up  and  see!  Right  away,  Sam!  Do 
you  hear  me  ?  Saml" 

The  fellow's  eyes  continued  to  roll  in 
the  light,  glistening  and  blank. 

She  laid  the  infant  back  as  abruptly 
as  she  had  taken  him,  turned  and  went 
up  the  companion  ladder.  At  first  she 
clung  to  the  sides  of  the  hatch  and  tried 
to  keep  her  eyes  open.  A  pattern  of  tiny 
sparks  played  in  the  air  over  the  stern. 
Prince  had  told  her  the  life-savers  had 
been  signaling  since  dusk.  It  was  evi- 
dent they  could  do  nothing  with  their 
surf-boat,  but  over  and  over  the  lanterns 
swung  out  the  code  warning,  "Do 
not  attempt  to  leave  in  your  own 
boats." 

Her  eyes  were  growing  accustomed  to 
the  dark.  She  realized  with  a  sudden 
catch  in  her  throat  muscles  that  that 
was  Prince  before  her,  huddled  down 
between  the  stern  davits  that  held  the 
dinghy.  It  was  his  eyes  shining  in  the 
light  from  the  companion  that  told  her. 
She  called,  "Prince,  come  here,"  not  al- 
lowing herself  to  think  that  perhaps  he 
was  not  able.  The  huddled  figure  did 
not  stir,  but  the  eyes  continued  to  shine, 
and  once  more  the  woman  screamed  at 
him:  "Prince!  Prince  Peters!  Why 
don't  you  come  here?" 

It  was  hard  for  her  to  recollect,  after- 
ward, just  how  she  had  managed  it.  He 
lay  in  the  starboard  bunk,  and  she  knew 
she  must  have  carried  him  down  the 
ladder. 

He  lay  on  his  back  with  his  eyes  fixed 
on  the  boarding  above,  still  staring.  His 
fingers  clawed  feebly  at  his  chest,  over 
the  heart.  By  and  by  he  commenced 
to  mumble  something  about  the  boat. 
She  had  to  bend  down  with  her  ear  close 
to  his  lips  to  hear.  It  seemed  he  had 
been  trying  to  get  the  boat-falls  clear 
when  his  old  trouble  got  hold  of  him. 
His  heart!  He  kept  complaining  of  his 
heart — and  the  knots  in  the  boat-falls. 

"Better  here  than  in  the  boat,"  the 
woman  tried  to  soothe  him. 

He  turned  his  head  and  looked  at  her. 

"The  life-savers  say  so,"  she  argued, 
pressing  her  hand  to  his  forehead.  He 
was  shaken  with  a  fragile  fury  at  that. 


"What  do  they  know — about — it?"  he 
gasped.  "  They  re — not — here.  Get  me 
up,  Jenn.  Le's  make  another  try  for  the 
boat — 'nother  try,  Jenn." 

The  thing  had  turned  his  head  a  little. 
He  showed  enough  strength  to  hunch 
himself  to  the  edge  and  sit  there,  cough- 
ing. The  baby  began  to  cry,  louder  now, 
full-throated  and  insistent.  The  woman 
stepped  to  the  bunk  and  patted  the  little 
bundle,  saying,  "There — there,"  but  the 
imperious  clamor  continued.  The  baby 
was  very  hungry.  For  an  instant  every- 
thing else  was  swept  out  of  the  woman's 
brain.  She  clenched  her  hands  and 
cried  out  in  a  soundless  agony  for  a 
moment  of  peace,  that  she  might  give 
food  to  her  son.  She  took  him  up  and 
rocked  him  in  her  neck  with  a  nervous 
ferocity,  and  the  infant  screamed  and 
doubled  in  her  arms.  A  port  above  her 
cracked  and  its  white  leakage  trickled 
down  her  neck. 

She  wheeled  with  a  sudden  feeling  of 
distrust  and  found  the  man  half-way  to 
the  ladder,  creeping  on  his  hands  and 
knees,  an  expression  of  haggard  crafti- 
ness in  his  eyes. 

"Prince!" 

The  woman  laid  the  child  back  again 
and  faced  her  husband. 

"Prince,  get  back  in  that  bunk  and 
stay  there.   You  hear  me?" 

The  man  turned  and  hitched  himself 
back  with  the  crestfallen  defiance  of  a 
boy  caught  in  mischief.  His  face  was 
blue-gray  with  the  torment  of  breath, 
and  his  fingers  clutched  always  at  his 
heart.  When  he  was  sitting  once  more 
the  woman  went  over  and  stood  close 
to  him. 

"The  idea!"  she  said.  "The  idea/  You 
— the  captain  of  a  vessel!" 

The  man  was  in  just  that  state  of 
spiritual  equilibrium  where  a  touch  one 
way  or  another  would  send  him  far.  She 
was  quick  to  sense  this  indefinable  tot- 
tering of  his,  and  she  struck  hard. 

"The  idea!  I  tell  you,  Prince,  it's  not 
you  that's  in  the  tight  place — or  me.  It's 
the  little  boy  over  there.  If  he  doesn't 
get  his  supper  before  many  hours — 
Well — I  can't  say.  I  can't  feed  him  here. 
He's  the  one  you've  got  to  think  about, 
Prince." 

As  if  to  make  the  last  of  the  effect, 
she  lifted  the  wailing  infant  and  cuddled 


F.  E.  Schoonover  Engraved  by  Frank  E.  Pettit 

SHE    GOT    HIM    DOWN    THE    COMPANION    TO    HIS  BUNK 


HERITAGE 


305 


it  fiercely,  crooning:  "Yes,  boy.  It's 
all  right,  boy." 

The  little  flash  of  melodrama  had 
carried  through.  Prince  stood  up  and 
plucked  at  his  cravat.  He  brushed  the 
film  from  his  lips  with  the  back  of  a  hand 
and  muttered,  wheezily:  "That's  right, 
Jenn — you're  right  there."  He  clamped 
his  knees  more  firmly  together  and 
looked  about  him.  "  Now  let  me  see  how 
I'll  go  about  it,  Jenn." 

He  raised  his  eyes  from  the  deck  to 
find  the  woman's  fingers,  excited,  spread 
toward  the  starboard  port-holes  which 
told  white  now  against  the  mud-color  of 
the  cabin  paint. 

"Look!  Look!"  she  cried  to  him.  "A 
search-light — a  vessel!"  She  laid  the 
baby  down  quickly,  ran  to  the  com- 
panion, and  scrambled  up  the  pitching 
ladder  till  the  man  below  could  see  no 
more  than  the  edge  of  her  skirt.  Her 
face  reappeared  out  of  the  darkness. 

"A  vessel  straight  to  windward,  be- 
yond the  bar,  Prince,  watching  us." 
After  another  moment  her  face  came 
back  again,  working  with  excitement. 
"There's  another,  Prince,  opening  to  the 
eastward.  Another  one,  Prince.  Do 
you  hear?  Another!" 

The  man's  expression  of  importance 
became  more  marked.  "So!"  he  said. 
He  started  to  approach  the  ladder,  and 
midway  of  his  brief  journey  flopped 
down  on  the  boards,  his  limbs  sprawling 
at  strange  angles.  Curiously,  he  did 
not  seem  to  notice  what  had  happened, 
but  continued  to  brush  his  lips  and  mut- 
ter, "Now  let  me  see,"  with  a  line  of 
quizzical  speculation  running  up  be- 
tween his  eyes.  The  woman  discovered 
him  so  and  helped  him  back  to  the  bunk, 
still  without  apparent  appreciation  on 
his  part  of  the  wrongness  of  things. 

"Now  let  me  see,"  he  wheezed  on. 
"Might  be  a  revenue-cutter.  Wish  t' 
Heaven  'twas.  They'd  send  me  down 
a  boat,  whatever,  shoal  'r  no  shoal. 
Now  let  me  see,  Jenn."  He  stared  fix- 
edly at  nothing,  then  rolled  over  back- 
ward into  the  depths  of  the  bunk  as  a 
cross-sea  caught  the  vessel.  For  a  mo- 
ment nothing  was  to  be  heard  but  the 
turmoil  of  the  water,  the  rising  terror  of 
the  negro,  and  the  voice  of  the  woman, 
breaking  high,  crying  a  question  into 
the  bunk. 


"Prince — if  one  of  them  should  send 
down  a  boat — what  of  it  V 

"What  of  it?"  he  parried,  fighting  for 
time.  "I  tell  you,  Jenn,"  he  muttered, 
his  fingers  fluttering  over  his  heart,  "I'm 
in  a  bad  way.  I'm  not  myself.  You 
don't  realize,  Jenn." 

And  because  she  did  realize  how 
"bad"  he  was  she  dug  the  nails  into 
her  palms  and  clung  to  her  point  with  a 
naked  desperation.  "What  of  it,  Prince 
— dearest?" 

The  negro,  Sam,  was  in  the  middle  of 
the  floor,  moving  toward  the  companion- 
way  by  a  series  of  spider-like  advances. 
The  woman  cried  sharply  at  him,  "Where 
are  you  going,  Sam?" 

The  black  man  crawled  another  yard 
toward  his  goal.  He  came  to  the  lad- 
der and  ascended  laboriously,  with  thet 
awkward,  slow  lunges  of  a  mechanical 
figure.  The  woman  crossed  with  her 
troubled  bundle  and  laid  it  down  on  the 
blanket  by  the  man. 

"Wh  at's  taken  him?"  she  whispered. 

Prince  gasped,"  By  heavens!" 

The  two  had  grown  so  accustomed  to 
the  deep  thunder  of  the  gale  that  any 
chance  accretion  of  sound  made  almost 
as  distinct  a  hullabaloo  as  though  it 
broke  through  a  profound  silence.  Now 
there  came  down  to  their-ears  the  sudden 
clamor  of  an  altercation,  a  scream,  more 
than  one  voice  pitched  high  in  anger. 
And  next,  out  of  this  abruptly  peopled 
night  the  negro  came  tumbling,  to  lie 
sprawled  on  the  floor.  A  pair  of  yellow 
oil-pants  appeared  on  the  upper  ladder 
behind  him;  a  man's  face  bent  into  sight. 

"You  would,  would  you?  You  black 
devil!"  He  pointed  a  long  finger  at  the 
sprawler.  "What  d'ye  think — ?"  His 
attention  came  to  the  other  occupants  of 
the  cabin,  and  his  temper  gave  way  be- 
fore his  overweening  excitement.  His 
voice  broke  high,  like  a  boy's:  "Hullo, 
there!  This  is  a  shipshape  craft,  with 
a  crazy  nigger  and  not  a  soul  to  heave  a 
line.  Well,  hurry  up.  Leave  ofF  that 
gaping  and  get  a  move!" 

He  tumbled  down  the  ladder  and 
stood  before  the  dumfounded  pair,  his 
forehead  working  into  a  deeper  frown. 
"Say,  this  is  bad,"  he  went  on.  "A 
woman."  He  jerked  down  to  peer  into 
the  bunk.  "And  a  kid!  Say — now 
looky  here — this  is  a  time!    Well — " 


300 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


He  studied  the  situation  for  a  mo- 
ment. Then,  as  though  outraged  by 
this  squandering  of  time,  he  fell  into 
a  frenzy  of  business.  "All  right,"  he 
cried.  "Up  with  you!  I  can't  hang 
astern  here  all  night.  Now  up  with  you 
— all  together.    Gimme  the  kid — " 

He  ran  on  so,  furiously,  till  the  immo- 
bility of  the  couple  struck  into  his  mind. 
"Say,  what's  up?" 

Prince  Peters  crawled  over  the  edge 
of  the  bunk  and  put  his  feet  on  the  floor 
gingerly.  Then,  without  looking  at  his 
wife,  he  began  a  tottering  circuit  of  the 
cabin,  shivering  with  the  labor,  his 
filmed  lips  mumbling  a  rigmarole  about 
the  vessel's  papers — he  must  get  his 
papers.  "Must  save  papers,"  he  re- 
peated continually,  with  the  uneasy  gar- 
rulity of  an  actor  filling  in  an  awkward 
lapse.  But  in  the  end  he  could  bear  the 
woman's  scrutiny  no  longer,  and  he 
whirled  unsteadily  to  face  that  wordless 
prompting. 

"I — I  ought  to — stay,  I  suppose." 

He  clutched  at  his  cravat  with  a  ges- 
ture of  exaggerated  weakness  and  waited 
in  an  agony  of  suspense  for  the  others  to 
cry  out  against  his  nonsense.  But  al- 
ready the  woman  had  wheeled  with  a 
show  of  despair,  her  hands  spread  wide. 

"You  see?"  she  exclaimed,  and  the 
lift  at  the  end  implied  the  unspoken, 
"It  will  do  no  good  to  argue  with  him." 

The  other's  exasperation  found  itself 
in  words. 

"Hell!"  he  blustered  at  the  master. 
"Do  as  you  please.  If  you  want  to 
throw  yourself  away,  I  don't  give  a  hang. 
But  listen  to  me:  whoever's  to  leave 
this  vessel  has  got  to  start  right  now." 

His  eyes  remained  on  the  other's  work- 
ing face  after  he  had  finished  speaking. 
It  was  the  first  time  he  had  looked  at 
him  squarely.  Say,  look  here.  Wher- 
ever had  he  seen  this  green-white  fellow 
— or  a  shadow  of  him? 

Recollection  was  moving  in  the  other's 
brain,  too.  "It  can't  be —  It  isn't — ?" 
A  spasm  of  coughing  took  him  by  the 
shoulders  and  rocked  him  against  the 
bulkhead,  whence  he  slid  to  the  floor 
and  lay  there  gesticulating  with  a 
limp  hand.  The  woman  came  with  a 
brandy-flask  and  allowed  a  few  drops  of 
the  liquor  to  fall  against  his  lips.  Ed 
Peters,  balancing  on  wide-spread  legs  at 


the  ladder-foot,  took  all  this  in  with  a 
pallor  of  wonder  mounting  his  cheeks. 

"Well,  of  all  things!"  he  said  at 
length.  He  studied  that  phrase,  repeat- 
ing it  with  a  shifted  accentuation: 
"Well,  of  all  things!"  After  a  space  he 
managed  to  go  further.  "I  wonder  if 
Roy  knew — snooping  round  in  here.  I 
warrant  he  did.    I  warrant  he  did." 

He  was  not  one  for  speculation.  He 
got  himself  out  of  it  with  a  jerk,  rushed 
down  the  pitching  planks,  clapped  the 
sick  man  on  the  shoulders,  shouted 
about  his  ears  in  an  exuberance  of  pas- 
sionate consideration,  born  suddenly, 
quite  out  of  the  void.  "Well,  well — to 
think  of  it !  Now  up  with  you,  Prince — 
while  there's  time.   All  hands  together." 

He  tugged  while  he  rattled  on,  ar- 
ranged his  brother's  spraddling  limbs  for 
carrying,  buffeted  him  with  a  rough  ten- 
derness, continually  fending  himself  off 
with  a  free  hand  from  the  walls  and  deck 
that  struck  at  him  under  the  mauling 
of  the  seas. 

And  Prince,  no  more  than  half  sensible 
to  what  went  on,  was  yet  conscious  of  a 
novel  warmth,  a  sudden  pervasion  of 
security,  as  it  were — a  sort  of  guarantee 
against  his  own  heroism.  He  made  an 
effort  to  get  himself  together  and  flapped 
a  hand  toward  the  bottle.  Ed  took  it 
and  held  it  to  his  lips,  giving  him  without 
stint.  With  both  hands  now  the  sick 
man  smoothed  out  his  cravat.  He  re- 
peated, "I  ought  to  stay." 

"Don't  be  a  fool,  Prince."  Ed  bent 
over  him  fiercely. 

The  older  man  appeared  to  have  come 
into  new  strength. 

"It  is  my  place,"  he  gasped,  lifting 
his  chin.  "I'll  stick  by  my  vessel,  what- 
ever. 

He  seemed  to  drink  in  his  brother's 
pantomime  of  protest,  and  when  Ed, 
throwing  over  words  for  his  essential 
action,  bent  down  to  take  him  away, 
willy-nilly,  he  struggled  against  it,  to 
wring  one  more  gust  of  expostulation 
from  the  boy. 

But  he  had  overreached.  Troubled 
by  some  vague  compunction  against  this 
unequal  violence,  Ed  let  go  and  stared 
down  at  him.  It  was  all  quite  beyond 
him.  He  was  bewildered  and  uneasy,  ap- 
proaching panic.  "What's  the — what's 
the  matter?"  he  stuttered. 


HERITAGE 


307 


The  woman's  face  came  before  him, 
set  in  a  mask  of  anguish.  "You  see?" 
she  said.  "He  won't  go.  I — I  have 
begged  him." 

Outside,  a  boiling  crest  smote  the 
schooner's  side  and  lifted  her  diagonally 
over  its  shoulder,  canting  steeply.  A 
thin,  white  geyser  found  the  lamp's  flame, 
and  it  flared  with  a  preternatural  brill- 
iance, then  dimmed,  sputtered,  and  for 
a  space  the  cabin  remained  in  the  twi- 
light of  its  fight.  All  the  little  objects  in 
the  place  scraped  and  jangled.  The  in- 
fant's wa  1  ng  was  feebler.  All  this  stood 
so  while  the  three  Peterses  clung  there 
and  regarded  that  lie  of  hers — "  I  have 
begged  him." 

Prince  was  the  first  to  comment,  in 
pantomime,  letting  his  chin  sag  lower 
and  fluttering  his  fingers  over  the  region 
of  his  heart.  Whether  calculated  or  not, 
the  gesture  told.  Ed's  hand  swept 
through  the  air,  and  he  broke  out,  blus- 
tering: "Why,  the  man  is  sick.  The 
man's  dying  /" 

"I've  told  him  that."  The  woman 
raised  her  palms.  The  eyes  of  her  hus- 
band came  up  to  her  face,  and  after  that, 
with  all  their  changing  expressions,  they 
never  left  her. 

Ed  stamped  on  the  boards.  He  cried 
savagely:  "Hell!  This  is  a  crazy  thing. 
Say — looky  here.  Listen  to  me.  Do 
you  fools  know  why  Prince  is  cap'nhere?" 

The  woman  came  nearer  and  spoke 
close  to  his  face.  "Yes,  we  know.  He 
knows  why  he's  here.  He  knows  they've 
got  some  sort  of  an  idea  he'd  run  in  a 
pinch.  He  knows  they  put  him  here  be- 
cause they  wanted  their  vessel  lost.  He 
knows  they're  grinning  behind  their 
hands — everybody  along  the  coast.  He 
knows.  And  now  do  you  see  why  he  says 
he  can't  afford  to  go?  He  says  he  will 
make  fools  of  them  all.  Oh  yes,  I've  ar- 
gued with  him;  I've  shown  him  how  he 
is  not  accountable,  how  he  is  not  himself. 
But  always  he  answers  the  same  thing: 
'This  is  my  chance.  This  is  the  fresh 
start  I've  been  waiting  for.'" 

She  broke  off  and  sagged  against  the 
bulkhead,  her  bosom  heaving.  After 
a  moment  she  edged  her  way  to  the 
bunk  and  flopped  down  beside  it,  and, 
letting  her  head  sink  into  the  hollow  of 
her  arms,  sobbed  without  any  sound. 
Her  husband's  eyes  followed  her  there 


and  remained,  without  luster  or  atten- 
tion, as  though  he  were  looking  beyond 
her  at  something  new  and  strange  and 
appalling. 

His  brother  broke  out:  "Well,  I'll  be 
hanged!  I  never —  I  never — "  He 
slapped  a  thigh  and  shouted  in  profound 
relief:  "If  that's  all—  Why,  if  I  h'ist 
you  up  and  heave  you  into  the  boat,  then 
— you  can't  help  that,  you  understand." 

He  waited,  his  brows  arched  high. 

Still  without  shifting  his  blank  eyes 
from  the  figure  of  his  wife,  Prince  said, 
"They'd  never  believe  it — on  the  face 
of  it." 

A  seaman's  face  appeared  in  the  com- 
panionway,  shining  with  wet.  "Yes, 
sir,"  he  shouted  down.  "All  right,  sir — 
but  she's  breezin'  up  all  the  time,  sir." 

"There,  you  see!"  There  was  a  note 
of  accusation  in  Ed's  outburst,  as  though 
it  had  been  his  brother  who  had  ordained 
the  gale.  He  squared  off  and  pounded 
fist  in  palm.  "Once  for  all!"  That 
phrase  might  have  stood  a  monument 
for  the  man. 

Prince  did  not  look  at  him.  He  called, 
"Jenn,  bring  the  baby  here." 

She  seemed  hardly  to  have  the 
strength.  When  she  crouched  down  to 
face  him  she  appeared  the  one  nearer  the 
boundaries.  For  the  moment  she  forgot 
the  infant  that  nuzzled  feebly  at  her 
bosom. 

"Prince,"  she  said,  "come!"  Rebell- 
ion had  its  day  now.  It  mounted,  op- 
pressive, choking,  so  that  she  could 
scarcely  frame  her  tumbling  words. 
"Come,  Prince — my  husband.  Never 
mind  all  the  rest.  You  must  come — you 
must.  See — look  at  the  baby — look  at 
me."  She  clawed  at  the  bosom  of  his 
shirt.  She  wailed:  "You  mustn't  think 
of  what  I  said.  It's  not  true,  Prince. 
You  and  I  know  it's  not  true,  Prince." 

He  passed  a  hand  across  his  damp 
forehead  with  a  motion  of  deep  weari- 
ness. He  touched  the  baby's  head  and 
the  woman's  cheek.  Every  syllable  of 
the  woman's  supplications,  every  impre- 
cation of  his  brother's  hands,  added  to 
the  poignant  tingling  in  his  veins.  He 
thrilled  to  its  bucning  caress  when  he 
heard  himself  saying: 

"It's  better  this  way,  Jenn — better 
than  the  other  way." 

But  she  broke  in:  "No,  no,  Prince — 


308 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


it's  not  true.  He  lied  to  you.  That  doc- 
tor lied  to  you,  Prince.  Another  might 
give  you  years." 

The  man's  ringers  were  busy,  smooth- 
ing out  with  a  mechanical  vigilance  the 
last  wrinklings  of  his  cravat.  A  feather 
of  color  wavered  on  either  cheek-bone. 
He  said  to  his  brother,  "Help  me  over 
there,  Eddie."  Never  in  his  life  had  he 
used  that  exact  intonation.  Ed  half 
carried  him  across  the  restless  deck, 
where  the  water  began  to  well  up 
through  the  wrenched  seams,  and  left 
him  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  bunk, 
hunched  a  little  forward.  The  woman 
followed,  staggering  to  the  swells,  crying 
that  she  would  not  go  without  him.  He 
turned  upon  her  with  a  clear-eyed  tran- 
quillity, like  a  man  purged  of  sin  by  the 
mob-authority  of  a  revival. 

"Don't  talk  like  that,  Jenn,"  he  said. 

She  protested,  defiantly:  "Well,  I 
won't — I  wont." 

He  pointed  to  the  baby  in  her  arms. 
"I  must  have  a  son,"  he  said. 

There  was  something  splendid  about 
that  bombast,  which  illuminated  the 
man.  It  was  the  symbol  of  a  spiritual 
revolution.  She  understood,  and  even 
while  her  eyes  and  lips  continued  their 
pleadings  one  of  her  hands  went  out  to 
pat  his  knee. 

He  turned  to  his  brother.  "You  will 
have  to  take  her,"  he  said. 

Neither  of  them  moved.  Their  very 
immobility,  compounded  of  protest  and 
indecision,  heightened  his  exhilaration. 
A  sense  of  overweening  dominance  took 
him.    He  said,  simply,  "Take  her!" 

Ed  Peters  took  her  without  a  word 
and  led  her  toward  the  ladder.  As  they 
mounted  the  steps  that  inscrutable  bur- 
ied instinct  which  had  led  her  unerringly 
to  this  moment  made  her  smile  over  her 
shoulder  now,  and  nod  at  him,  and,  as  it 
were,  pat  his  cheek  and  kiss  his  lips, 
and  hold  up  their  son  between  them  and 
tell  him  all  the  things  which  needed  to 
be  told — all  in  that  silent  instant  while 
her  face  was  passing  out  of  sight  beyond 
the  hatchway. 

It  was  broad  morning,  sharp  with  the 
first  of  autumn.  At  sunrise  all  the 
heavy  reek  of  the  sky  had  drained  ofF, 
abruptly."  The  Stream  lay  half  a  mile 
off"  the  bars,  kicking  gently  to  hold  her 


place.  Roy  Peters  and  Ed  stood  on  the 
forward  deck,  staring  in  silence  at  the 
miracle  of  the  Gipsy  Girl  sitting  there  on 
the  bright  strip,  battered,  shorn  of  all 
her  features,  her  scuppers  awash,  but 
still  there  in  the  clear  morning,  afloat, 
inexplicable,  unbelievable.  A  surf-boat 
from  shore  hung  astern,  a  crowd  of 
human  specks  swarmed  over  her.  Be- 
yond, the  sand-hills  stood  out  clear-cut 
in  the  oblique  radiance  of  the  sun,  flat 
orange,  with  veins  of  violet  where  break- 
ers had  eaten  perpendicular  ravines. 

Roy  spoke  with  a  dull  heat.  "It  was 
too  crazy,  Ed.  You  ought  to  have 
known  better." 

"Now  looky  here,  Roy — " 

For  the  dozenth  time  that  morning 
the  younger  man  broke  off  there  with  a 
sullen  impotence.  That  seemed  to  be 
the  end  of  his  line.  Why,  hang  it!  what 
was  he  to  say?  Now  it  was  done  with, 
he  could  lay  down  what  ought  to  have 
been  as  well  as  Roy.  If  Roy  had  been 
there  in  his  place —  Well,  he'd  like  to 
have  seen  Roy  do  differently. 

"Why,  damn  it,  Roy — "  he  burst  out, 
and  hung  there  again. 

Roy  lashed  out  at  nothing.  "It's  a 
shame — a  hellish  shame,  I  tell  you.  He 
would  have  done  well,  Prince  would. 
Best  fellow  to  handle  a  vessel  I  ever  saw. 
And  to  go  to  work  and  throw — "  He 
cast  the  whole  futile  business  of  words 
over  the  side  with  an  impatient  gesture. 
"Well,"  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  finality,  "I 
suppose  that's  the  way  Prince  was,  clear 
through,  and  nothing  could  change 
him." 

He  made  another  motion  and  turned 
to  look  aft,  where  the  woman  sat,  her 
eyes  resting  lazily  on  the  water  between 
the  bars  without  sign  of  vitality  or  emo- 
tion. He  was  conscious  of  a  growing 
discomfort  and  anxiety  which  led  him 
to  mutter,  "Poor  girl!" 

Ed  repeated  after  him:  "Poor  girl! 
I  tell  you  it's  tough  on  her,  Roy." 

"You're  right  it  is."  Roy  started  aft 
with  a  sudden  determination.  "I'm 
going  to  see  if  there  isn't  something  I  can 
do  for  the  poor  girl,"  he  said.  But  Ed 
beckoned  him  back. 

"What's  this  coming  alongside?" 

A  small  tug-boat,  very  black  and  solid 
against  the  shining  water,  came  chug- 
ging toward  them.    They  watched  her 


HERITAGE 


309 


round  to  and  discharge  a  boat  with  two 
passengers  in  the  stern,  their  clothing 
dry  and  smooth  and  in  proper  order, 
incredibly  bizarre  on  this  wasted  stage. 
When  they  had  clambered  over  the  rail 
with  the  clumsy  grapplings  of  landsmen, 
the  younger  and  brisker  of  the  two 
stepped  forward. 

"My  name  is  Adamson,"  he  prefaced, 
"of  the  press,  you  understand.  Terrible 
thing  out  here,  wasn't  it?  To  think  of 
finding  him  in  his  own  bunk.  His  heart, 
they  tell  me.  Wondered  if  you  chaps 
were  about — could  tell  me  anything  of 
interest,  you  know." 

It  was  like  nothing  so  much  as  a 
Gatling  gun  of  very  small  caliber  bom- 
barding a  silence.  The  fellow  whipped  a 
note-book  from  a  pocket  with  an  un- 
earthly business-like  manner,  his  inquisi- 
tive glance  vibrating  between  the  mute 
brothers. 

"Heroic  thing — damned  heroic  thing. 
He  turned  it  out  like  an  easy  by-product. 
A  pencil,  conjured  from  another  pocket, 
hung  over  the  book.    "His  name?" 

For  a  moment  neither  answered.  They 
stood  facing  slightly  away  from  each 
other,  for  all  the  world  like  two  sober 
men  accosting  a  bar,  painfully  uncon- 
scious of  the  hearts  in  their  throats,  each 
waiting  for  the  other  to  touch  liquor. 
Adamson  of  the  press  had  to  reiterate, 
"His  name?" 

"Peters,"  Roy  gave  him,  his  face  red- 
der than  usual.    "Prince  Peters." 

His  brother  edged  forward.  "Of  Pe- 
ters's  Head,"  he  put  in.  "You  may — 
maybe  you've  heard  of  them?" 

Adamson,  being  of  the  press,  gazed  at 
the  sky  and  murmured:  "Oh  yes — let 
me  see — of  Peters's  Head — " 

"Sea-captains,  all  of  them,"  Ed 
prompted  with  a  candid  eagerness. 

And  the  other,  stabbing  at  his  book, 
murmured,  "Oh  yes — right  you  are." 

"The  crew?"  he  went  on,  returning  to 
glibness.  "There  was  some  one  else, 
wasn't  there?   Let  me  see — " 

Roy  nodded  toward  the  lee  of  the 
pilot-house.  "His  wife — his  widow  is 
there.   And  his  baby." 


Here  was  something  for  the  press. 
A  galvanic  current  might  have  passed 
through  the  bodies  of  the  couple.  They 
caught  each  other's  eyes  and  pattered 
off  without  ceremony.  The  brothers 
edged  across  the  deck  to  watch:  saw  the 
two  come  down  about  the  woman  with 
business-like  gesticulations  of  considera- 
tion; saw  how  she  continued  to  dream 
over  the  water,  still  giving  that  illusion 
of  laziness;  saw  the  indefatigable  pair 
troubling  the  atmosphere,  their  glances 
crossing  at  intervals,  deliberating,  con- 
certing, testing. 

"It's  a  shame,"  Roy  broke  out,  but 
Ed  touched  his  arm.  "Look!" 

The  pair,  being  of  the  press,  deliberat- 
ing, concerting,  testing,  had  come  at 
length  upon  the  magic  word.  The  wom- 
an stirred  suddenly,  lifted  the  infant 
from  her  lap,  held  it  up  trembling  before 
them,  and  repeated  something  over  and 
over  again,  her  face  suffused  with  color, 
so  that  Roy,  watching  from  the  bows, 
could  murmur  amazedly  to  himself,  "I 
can  see  now  what  it  was  made  Prince — " 

The  newsmen  came  back,  dabbing  in- 
dustriously, and  would  have  passed 
without  a  word  to  the  other  side  where 
their  boat  lay,  but  Ed  sidled  after  them, 
and,  when  they  had  reached  the  rail, 
plucked  the  elbow  of  the  older.  The 
man  wheeled  slowly,  a  preoccupied 
blankness  on  his  face,  his  lips  moving 
slightly,  as  though  he  tried  the  flavor  of 
something.  "A  Crowning  Heritage!"  he 
tasted,  and  then,  "An  Incomparable 
Heritage !" 

"What  is  it?"  he  demanded,  shaking 
his  elbow. 

"Well — "  Ed's  breath  seemed  all 
gone  with  that  one  word.  He  stared 
down  at  his  boots  and  then  back  at  Roy, 
who  had  followed,  his  face  flaming  with 
embarrassment. 

"What  is  it?"  the  man  repeated,  im- 
patient to  get  back  to  his  tasting  of 
qualifiers  of  the  word  "Heritage." 

Ed  turned  and  scowled  at  the  distant 
orange-and-violet  shore. 

"Well,  hang  it  all!  He  was  our 
brother,  you  know." 


Vol.  CXXXL— No.  782.— 30 


THE  elder  and  grimmer  of  the  two 
sages  who  may  be  remembered  as 
disputing  in  this  place  concerning 
New -Year's  resolutions  came  in  and 
said,  without  giving  himself  time  to 
take  off  his  hat,  "I  see  that  you  have 
been  amusing  yourself  lately  with  a  study 
of  some  of  our  recent  fiction." 

"And  instructing  our  readers,"  we 
suggested. 

"That's  as  it  may  be,"  the  sage  re- 
plied. "  I  don't  know  that  you  instructed 
me  very  much.  But  perhaps  I'm  getting 
a  little  hard  of  learning." 

"Such  things  have  been  known,"  we 
agreed.  "There  is  sometimes  a  thicken- 
ing of  the  intellectual  tympanum." 

The  sage  looked  at  us  with  a  grin  and 
a  not  wholly  dissatisfied  twinkle  of  his 
spectacles.  "Well,"  he  collected  him- 
self, "I've  just  been  reading  a  novel 
which  was  very  famous  in  its  day,  and 
its  day  was  not  so  very  long  ago,  as  these 
things  count  in  the  process  of  the  liter- 
ary epochs.  I  call  it  a  novel,  but  I  sup- 
pose you  would  stickle  for  the  term 
heroic  romance,  as  it  deals  largely  with 
the  affairs  and  characters  of  an  imagi- 
nary kingdom." 

"Does  a  brilliant  young  American  ap- 
pear on  the  scene  in  time  to  save  the 
kingdom  from  revolution  and  marry  the 
heiress-apparent?"  we  asked. 

"No,  I  can't  say  he  does,  but  he  might 
have  done  it  if  the  author  had  not  been 
engaged  in  forestalling  him  by  a  polemic 
arguing  that  taxation  without  represen- 
tation was  no  tyranny." 

"Ah!"  we  assented,  as  if  now  we  un- 
derstood, but  we  really  understood  no 
better  than  before. 

The  sage  had  now  sat  down,  and  had 
put  his  hat  at  his  feet  and  folded  his 
palms  on  the  crook  of  his  stick.  "The 
plot  is  simply  this,"  he  said.  "The  king 
of  a  far  country  has  fancied  making  his 
children  and  their  friends  safe  and  happy 
by  confining  them  in  a  beautiful  region 
where  they  are  to  grow  up  innocent  and 


glad,  but  where  they  quickly  bore  them- 
selves and  long  to  take  their  chances 
among  the  more  inviting  evils  of  the 
world.  The  prince  and  the  princess,  his 
sister,  are  accompanied  the  one  by  a 
professional  poet  and  the  other  by  a 
beloved  lady-friend,  and  directly  after 
their  escape  from  the  abode  of  bliss  they 
begin  to  have  adventures  and  to  make 
acquaintance.  In  Cairojwhere  theylhave 
quickly  resorted  from  their  native  Abys- 
sinia, they  go  into  society  and  find  every 
one  apparently  happy,  especially  a  philos- 
opher, who  is  also  wise.  They  '  divide 
between  them  the  work  of  observation'; 
the  prince  studies  high  life,  and  the 
princess  the  more  intimate  conditions; 
and  they  converse  on  the  results,  espe- 
cially the  marriage  problem  as  its  work- 
ings present  themselves  to  their  inquiry. 
They  visit  the  pyramids,  and  the  poet 
discovers  an  astronomical  scientist  who 
believes  that  he  regulates  the  weather, 
if  not  the  seasons,  but  upon  some  inter- 
views with  the  poet  decides  that  he  is 
mad,  and  renounces  his  illusions.  A 
discussion  of  immortality  precedes  the 
last  event,  which  intimates  the  friends' 
several  dissatisfactions  with  the  world, 
and  leaves  each  reader  to  arrange  their 
destinies  according  to  his  fancy." 

We  listened  rather  blankly,  and  when 
the  sage  had  ended  we  asked,  "And  is 
that  all?" 

"Isn't  it  enough?" 

"Well,  it  isn't  exactly  what  the  adver- 
tisements of  new  fiction  would  call 
gripping." 

"No?"  the  sage  mocked.  "Well,  not 
to  excite  you  too  much,  I  have  kept  back 
the  adventure  of  the  Lady  Pekuah,  the 
especial  friend  of  the  Princess  Nekayah. 
She  was  afraid  to  go  into  the  pyramid, 
because  of  the  ghosts,  and  was  carried  off 
by  the  Bedouins,  with  her  attendants, 
and  was  not  rescued  for  a  long  while,  the 
sheik  having  to  decide  between  the  sum 
offered  by  the  princess  for  her  ransom 
and  the  passion  which  had  begun  to 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


311 


dawn  in  his  heart.  But  he  reflected  that 
'twa  pund  is  twa  pund'  and  took  the 
money." 

"Ah!"  we  breathed  (as  emotional 
characters  do  in  fiction),  "that  is  red- 
blooded.  But  why  were  you  keeping  it 
back?" 

"Because  the  author  seems  not  to 
attach  any  great  value  to  the  incident, 
and  because  I  have  enjoyed  his  reflec- 
tions and  the  conversations  of  the  char- 
acters much  more.  After  an  evening  of 
social  pleasure  in  Cairo,  the  poet  says  to 
the  prince,  'In  the  assembly  where  you 
passed  the  last  night  there  appeared  such 
sprightliness  of  air  and  volatility  of 
fancy  as  might  have  suited  beings  of  a 
higher  order,  formed  to  inhabit  sacred 
regions  inaccessible  to  care  or  sorrow; 
yet,  believe  me,  Prince,  there  was  not 
one  who  did  not  dread  the  moment  when 
solitude  should  deliver  him  to  the 
tyranny  of  reflection.'" 

"Well,  well,"  we  parleyed,  "that  is 
certainly  high-languaged,  and  very  just. 
The  wonder  is  that  the  thinking  is  so 
much  humaner  than  the  wording.  The 
author  seems  to  be  speaking  from  his 
heart  in  that  tall  talk." 

"That  is  always  the  wonder  of  the 
tale.  For  instance,  where  the  prince  and 
his  sister  are  exchanging  their  ideas  on 
the  familiar  subject  of  marriage,  the 
princess  says,  'I  know  not  whether  mar- 
riage be  more  than  one  of  the  innumer- 
able modes  of  human  misery.  When  I 
see  and  reckon  the  various  forms  of  con- 
nubial infelicity,  the  unexpected  causes 
of  lasting  discord,  the  diversities  of  tem- 
per, the  oppositions  of  opinion,  the  rude 
collisions  of  contrary  desire  where  both 
are  urged  by  violent  impulses,  the  oppo- 
site contests  of  disagreeable  virtues  by 
the  consciousness  of  good  intention,  I  am 
sometimes  disposed  to  think,  with  the 
severer  casuists  of  most  nations,  that 
marriage  is  rather  permitted  than  ap- 
proved, and  that  none,  but  by  the  in- 
stigation of  a  passion  too  much  indulged, 
entangle  themselves  with  indissoluble 
compacts.' " 

The  sage  seemed,  with  a  challenging 
lift  of  his  spectacles,  to  refer  this  passage 
to  us  for  comment,  and  we  said,  "It 
isn't  exactly  the  diction  of  a  good  sport; 
but  isn't  there  a  lot  of  sense  in  it — 
worthy  the  advanced  mind  of  a  new 


woman?  One  might  object,  of  course, 
that  the  lady  was  talking  for  the  author 
in  the  author's  terms." 

"Isn't  that  what  the  ladies,  and  even 
the  gentlemen,  do  in  Meredith's  novels  ?" 

"We  have  heard  so." 

"Well,  this  novel  anticipated  the 
Meredithian  method  of  having  the  char- 
acters talk  author  by  a  hundred  years. 
So  it  is  very  modern." 

"Perhaps  so,"  we  assented.  "But 
should  you  say  that  on  the  whole  the 
story  was  very  red-blooded,  or  virile,  or 
passionate?" 

"Why  not?"  the  sage  inquired. 
"Don't  you  call  it  gripping  to  have  the 
Lady  Pekuah  carried  off*  by  an  Arab 
sheik?  Is  there  nothing  red-blooded  in 
the  sheik's  hesitation  whether  to  keep 
the  lady  and  let  the  ransom  go?  Noth- 
ing virile?  Nothing  passionate?  It 
seems  to  me  that  here  is  a  situation 
which,  if  adequately  treated  by  the  il- 
lustrator, would  make  a  very  taking  pic- 
ture for  the  paper  cover  of  the  book. 
And  the  ideas,  whether  the  author's 
or  the  lady's,  are  certainly  the  ideas  of 
many  modern  people  concerning  love 
and  marriage." 

"But  not  the  ideas  of  the  young  peo- 
ple who  take  novels  out  of  the  free 
libraries  and  leave  the  crumbs  of  their 
lunches  between  the  pages,  or  even  the 
tens  of  thousands  of  purchasers  who  de- 
mand the  stuff  of  precipitate  kisses  and 
mad  embraces  in  their  fiction.  There  is 
hardly  the  potentiality  of  these  things 
in  the  strange  allegory  you  have  there." 

"But  what  about  a  discussion  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul?  And  what 
about  these  further  remarks  upon  mar- 
riage in  a  conversation  between  the 
brother  and  sister?  'I  am  unwilling  to 
believe  that  the  most  tender  of  all  rela- 
tions is  thus  impeded  in  its  effects  by 
natural  necessity.'  4  Domestic  discord,' 
answered  she,  'is  not  inevitably  and 
fatally  necessary,  but  yet  it  is  not  easily 
avoided.  .  .  .  Some  husbands  are  im- 
perious and  some  wives  are  perverse. 
.  .  .  To  live  without  feeling  or  exciting 
sympathy,  to  be  unfortunate  without 
adding  to  the  felicity  of  others,  or  af- 
flicted without  tasting  the  balm  of  pity, 
is  a  state  more  gloomy  than  solitude;  it 
is  not  retreat,  but  exclusion  from  man- 
kind.'" 


312 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Again  the  sage  bent  his  challenging 
glance  upon  us,  and  we  asked,  "Are 
these  remarks  supposed  to  inculcate 
marriage  as  the  supreme  object  of  the 
passion  which  is  the  chief  employ,  the 
regular  job,  of  the  novelist?" 

"Can  you  doubt  it?  Then  what  have 
you  to  say  to  this  glowing,  this  almost 
hectic  conclusion  of  the  fair,  if  sometimes 
too  philosophic,  inquirer?  'Marriage/ 
she  sums  up,  'has  many  pains,  but  celi- 
bacy has  no  pleasures.' " 

"Well,"  we  consented,  "this  is  rather 
more  like,  but  we  doubt  very  much 
if  it  will  satisfy  those  generous  youth 
who  read  ahead  to  learn  how  the  love- 
afFair  comes  out,  or  those  more  experi- 
enced matrons  who  turn  to  the  last  chap- 
ter first,  like  Barrie's  Jess,  to  see  '-whether 
she  gets  him/  But/'  we  suddenly  turned 
upon  the  sage,  "what  is  this  strange 
novel  you  have  been  reading?" 

"You  wouldn't  have  to  ask  if  your 
own  reading  had  been  properly  directed. 
It  is  the  work  of  an  author  who  also  wrote 
a  dictionary  of  our  language,  and  who 
seems  to  have  been  trying  out  the  hard- 
est words  of  his  lexicon  in  the  phraseol- 
ogy of  his  romance." 

"Not  Noah  Webster?"  we  ventured. 

"Is  this  an  ill-concealed  pleasantry,  or 
an  effect  of  mistaken  patriotism?"  the 
sage  demanded.  "No.  Not  Noah  Web- 
ster— Samuel  Johnson." 

"Oh  yes,  yes!"  we  clamored  in  joyous 
relief.    "And  the  romance  is — " 

"I  hadn't  said,"  the  sage  snubbed  our 
affected  eagerness.  "But  I  don't  mind 
saying  now  that  it  is  Rasselas,  Prince 
of  Abyssinia?1 

"Do  you  know,"  we  acknowledged, 
after  a  moment,  "that  we  have  never 
read  it?" 

"That  is  not  surprising,"  he  retorted, 
"if  your  days  and  nights  are  given  to 
such  fictions  as  The  Turmoil  and  The 
Harbor  and  The  Great  Mirage." 

"Only  our  nights,"  we  pleaded,  "and 
we  own  that  the  actual  novel  is  not  so 
elegantly  written — perhaps  because  the 
bloom  has  been  taken  off  the  taller 
Johnsonian  neologisms.  Can't  you 
quote  us  a  few  more  towering  expres- 
sionsr 

"I  don't  mind,"  the  sage  replied,  "if 
you  will  take  them  respectfully.  Here 
are  a  few  bits  of  dialogue  from  a  discus- 


sion of  the  nature  of  the  soul.  'It  is  no 
limitation  of  omnipotence,'  replied  the 
poet,  'to  suppose  that  one  thing  is  not 
consistent  with  another,  that  the  same 
proposition  cannot  be  at  once  true  and 
false,  that  the  same  number  cannot  be 
even  and  odd,  that  cogitation  cannot  be 
conferred  on  that  which  is  created  in- 
capable of  cogitation.'  'I  know  not/ 
said  Nekayah,  'any  great  use  of  this 
question.  Does  that  immateriality, 
which  in  my  opinion  you  have  suffi- 
ciently proved,  necessarily  include  eter- 
nal duration?'  'Of  immateriality,'  said 
Imlac,  'our  ideas  are  negative  and  neces- 
sarily obscure.  Immateriality  seems  to 
imply  a  natural  power  of  perpetual  dura- 
tion as  a  consequence  of  exemption  from 
all  causes  of  decay.  Whatever  perishes 
is  destroyed  by  the  solution  of  its  con- 
texture and  separation  of  its  parts;  nor 
can  we  conceive  how  that  which  has  no 
solution  can  be  naturally  corrupted  or 
impaired.'  'I  know  not/  said  Rasselas, 
'how  to  conceive  anything  without  ex- 
tension. What  is  extended  must  have 
parts,  and  you  have  allowed  that  what- 
ever has  parts  may  be  destroyed.'  'Con- 
sider your  own  conceptions/  replied  Im- 
lac, 'and  the  difficulty  will  be  less.  You 
will  find  substance  without  extension. 
An  ideal  form  is  no  less  real  than  mate- 
rial bulk;  yet  an  ideal  form  has  no  ex- 
tension. .  .  .  What  space  does  the  idea 
of  a  pyramid  occupy  more  than  the  idea 
of  a  grain  of  corn;  or  how  can  either 
suffer  laceration?  As  is  the  effect,  such 
is  the  cause;  as  thought,  such  is  the 
power  that  thinks;  a  power  impassive 
and  indescerptible."' 

The  sage  paused,  again  with  the  glance 
of  challenge,  and  "Fine,  fine!"  we  cried, 
and  then  murmured  with  fond  apprecia- 
tion: "Indescerptible,  indescerptible.  It 
is  wonderful,"  we  said  aloud.  "Did 
Rasselas  establish  a  school  of  fiction?" 

"It  established  a  school  of  diction. 
When  once  she  had  read  Rasselas,  the 
author  of  Evelina  never  wrote  like  her- 
self again;  she  wrote  like  Dr.  Johnson — 
or  as  like  as  she  could." 

"Oh,  poor  dear  little  Fanny  Burney, 
so  she  did!"  we  said,  remembering 
Cecilia,  and  Camilla,  and  The  Wanderer. 
"How  she  must  have  suffered  in  trying! 
Imagine  our  having  read  all  these  and  not 
their  great  exemplar  in  diction." 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


313 


"I  can  imagine  anything  of  your 
ignorance,''  the  sage  retorted.  "But  it 
doesn't  prove  that  Rasselas  isn't  still 
read." 

"No,  no,  it  doesn't,"  we  agreed.  "We 
dare  say  some  people  say  they  read  it 
once  a  year,  just  as  they  say  they  read 
the  Waverley  novels.  Not  that  anybody 
believes  they  do  it."  We  mused  a  mo- 
ment before  we  added:  "It  is  very  curi- 
ous, the  duration  of  works  of  fiction. 
It  appears  as  if  it  were  'incapable  of 
cogitation.' " 

"Then  why  cogitate?"  the  sage  de- 
manded. 

"We  must,  we  must!  We  must  ask 
ourselves  whether  the  really  fine  fictions 
which  we  now  so  much  admire  are  going 
to  be  accidentally  discovered  and  read  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  from  now.  Will 
the  mere  names  of  The  Harbor  and  The 
Turmoil  live  on,  or  perish  with  the 
books?  And  if  they  must  die,  what  will 
kill  them?  Perhaps  the  very  actuality 
which  we  prize  in  them  contains  the 
seeds  of  mortality,  the  microbe  of  decay. 
There  is  no  actuality  in  Rasselas:  there- 
fore does  it  live?" 

"Not  for  you,  if  you  haven't  read  it," 
the  sage  returned. 

"Ah,  that  is  very  interesting,"  we 
mused,  aloud.  "Then  a  book  lives  be- 
cause it  is  read  and  not  because  it  con- 
tinues in  print." 

"It  addresses  itself  to  the  author's 
generation,  and  passes  with  it  in  most 
cases,"  the  sage  remarked,  assentingly. 

"There  is  no  use  in  writing  for  antiq- 
uity, then,"  we  reflected,  "and  as  for 
founding  a  school  of  any  sort,  it  can't  be 
done.  The  lexicographer  who  wrote 
Rasselas  and  tried  out  his  large  words  in 
it,  founded  a  school  not  of  fiction,  but  of 
diction,  you  say.    But  no!    In  the  pas- 


sages you  have  quoted  nothing  has 
amused  us  more  than  the  different 
shades  of  meaning  which  the  words,  the 
most  important  words,  have  taken  on 
since  the  lexicographer  put  them  on 
their  legs.  Apparently  much  of  the  dis- 
course in  the  book  is  psychological,  but 
psychology  has  learned  a  new  language 
since  Rasselas  was  written.  The  ideas 
are  good,  and  seem  to  be  much  the  same 
as  inquiry  evolves  now.  But  what  is 
the  outcome  of  it  all  in  the  romance,  or 
call  it  allegory?" 

"I  couldn't  advise  the  reader  to  look 
ahead  in  the  hope  of  seeing  'whether  she 
got  him.'  But  those  who  doubt  whether 
love  and  marriage  should  be  the  supreme 
end  of  life  may  care  to  know  from  'the 
conclusion  in  which  nothing  is  con- 
cluded,' that  the  gaily  feminine  'Pekuah 
was  never  so  much  charmed  with  any 
place  as  the  convent  of  St.  Anthony, 
where  the  Arab  restored  her  to  the  prin- 
cess, and  wished  only  to  fill  it  with  pious 
maidens,  and  to  be  made  prioress  of  the 
order.'  On  her  part  'the  princess  .  .  . 
desired  first  to  learn  all  the  sciences,  and 
then  proposed  to  found  a  college  of 
learned  women,  in  which  she  should  pre- 
side. .  .  .  The  prince  desired  a  little 
kingdom  in  which  he  might  administer 
justice  in  his  own  person  and  see  all  the 
parts  of  the  government  with  his  own 
eyes.  .  .  .  Imlac  and  the  astronomer 
were  contented  to  be  drawn  along  the 
stream  of  life  without  directing  their 
course  to  any  particular  port.'  " 

"And  you  think,"  we  asked,  after  a 
moment,  "that  the  good  lexicographer 
was  not  perhaps  winking  the  eye  of 
subtle  irony  in  these  intimations  of  his 
romance  ?" 

At  this  question  the  sage  laughed 
shrilly  and  disappeared. 


THE  art  of  fiction  is  mostly  con- 
cerned with  life  as  a  play.  This 
might  be  said  of  all  literature  in 
so  far  as  it  is  an  art — of  history  that 
is  not  mere  annalism,  of  essays,  of 
poetry.  This  way  of  dealing  with  life 
is  essentially  the  way  of  the  artist,  not- 
withstanding his  severe  but  self-imposed 
obligations,  which  are  implied  in  our 
calling  the  result  "a  work  of  art,"  laying 
stress  upon  the  very  feature  of  it  that 
in  its  appeal  must  be  wholly  concealed. 

The  work  is  not  one  of  art  because  it 
is  difficult.  On  the  contrary,  sponta- 
neity is  its  more  essential  condition,  ap- 
parent in  the  original  impulse  to  create, 
of  which  the  beginning  artist  is  as  con- 
scious as  he  is  of  his  developing  esthetic 
sensibility,  urgently  merging  into  active 
expression,  his  feeling,  thinking,  and 
willing  all  blending  in  the  inchoate  and 
hardly  premeditated  shaping.  Then  it 
is  that  he  becomes  aware  of  difficulty,  of 
the  reaction  of  his  material,  of  trial. 
This  reaction  makes  for  mentality,  for 
selection  and  method — for  what  the 
critic  calls  technique — all  of  which  imply 
no  recession  of  the  creative  impulse  in 
the  artist's  submission  to  empirical  disci- 
pline. In  the  end  the  spontaneity  of  the 
rhythmic  harmony  is  as  apparent  as  in 
the  initiative  impulse,  but  something 
more  than  that — the  implication  of  the 
mental  triumph. 

It  is  said  of  a  poet:  he  lisped  in  num- 
bers, for  the  numbers  came.  The  lisping 
suggests  at  once  the  spontaneity  of  im- 
pulse and  a  difficulty  to  be  overcome. 
The  sense  of  the  difficulty  on  the  poet's 
part  is  not  a  promise  of  achievement, 
but  the  measure  of  it;  it  does  not  create 
the  quality,  but  it  determines  the  scope 
of  the  art  and  the  degree  of  its  excellence. 
The  bird's  song  is  as  easy  as  it  is  sure 
and  sweet,  but  considered  as  music  it  is 
limited  and  crude.  A  poet,  singing  with 
the  same  ease,  would  be  even  less  appeal- 
ing, except  as  by  sympathetic  assimila- 
tion he  should  repeat  themes  already 


created  by  others.  Into  any  original 
creation  of  his  own  a  difficulty  enters 
unknown  to  anything  in  nature.  His 
can  be  no  unpremeditated  art,  though 
almost  it  may  come  to  seem  that.  It 
must  have  meaning,  coalescent  with 
form,  so  that  the  motif  seems  to  beget 
both — the  body  and  the  soul. 

It  is  as  true  of  prose  as  an  art  as  it  is 
of  poetry  that  the  matter  of  it  is  insep- 
arable from  the  manner,  in  the  integrity 
of  embodiment.  Prose  is,  indeed,  the 
more  difficult  art  to  achieve,  just  because 
the  obligation  is  apparently  less  com- 
pelling. The  felt  reaction  at  every  point 
guards  and  helps  the  poet,  becoming  an 
element  in  the  action;  the  tension  con- 
trols its  relaxation.  The  exultant  effort 
is  the  concomitant  of  inspiration,  of  the 
creative  inbreathing;  and  in  this  mighty 
absorption  every  resisting  element  be- 
comes a  leverage  and  a  liberation. 

The  true  freedom  of  the  poet's  dream 
cannot  be  realized,  therefore,  by  that 
evasion  of  limitations  practised  by  the 
writers  of  "free  verse" — free  and  easy  as 
it  seems.  Every  repudiation  of  an  obli- 
gation is  a  sacrifice  of  lifting  strength  as 
well  as  of  freedom.  This  is  the  peril  of 
the  prose  writer  always.  Difficulty  is 
just  as  necessary  to  his  as  to  the  poet's 
art,  but  it  is  not  so  obvious  and  pressing; 
it  must  be  sought  and  courted.  The 
danger  is  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  is 
apt  to  welcome  the  looseness  of  speech 
as  a  privilege  and  to  make  the  most  of 
it.  Fortunately  the  essayist  finds  a  chal- 
lenge in  his  theme,  a  demand  for  com- 
petence at  the  very  least,  and  for  much 
more  than  that  if  to  efficiency  he  is  to 
add  grace  and  charm  of  treatment.  A 
historical  work  is  only  a  larger  essay, 
with  a  sterner  challenge — with,  also,  the 
alluring  temptation  of  genius  to  a  trial 
of  all  the  possibilities  of  constructive  art 
in  the  building  up  of  the  great  metaphors 
of  civilization. 

Writers  of  fiction  are  oftenest  caught 
in  the  trap  of  facility,  and  without  being 


EDITOR'S  STUDY 


315 


aware  of  their  fatal  plight.  The  at- 
tempts of  the  wholly  incompetent  are 
known  only  to  editors.  It  is  those  who 
have  talent — at  least  that  of  invention — 
who  are  most  likely  to  be  deceived,  espe- 
cially if  they  have  also  the  "gift"  of 
easy  expression,  which  is  by  no  means 
to  be  despised,  though  responsible  for 
much  fatuity.  Some  of  these  need  only 
pen,  ink,  and  paper — and  then  they 
"  write  right  on,"  wondering  afterward 
why  an  ability  of  which  they  are  keenly 
conscious  is  not  equally  impressive  to 
readers  and  critics. 

But  a  goodly  few  of  such  writers, 
though  merely  plot-makers,  before  final- 
ly committing  themselves  to  the  utter 
folly  of  easy  writing,  have  enough  re- 
spect for  invention  to  be  aware  of  certain 
difficulties  involved,  suggesting  tenta- 
tion,  a  trial  of  skill  at  least.  They  may 
even  wait  upon  imagination,  that  greater 
and  happier  faculty  without  which  there 
can  be  no  masterly  invention.  The 
project,  in  any  case,  has  the  magnitude 
of  a  theme  making  its  demand  upon  the 
writer  for  all  that  he  elects  to  give. 
Usually  he  works  at  the  theme  from  the 
outside,  wrestling  with  it,  exploiting  its 
values  for  sensational  or  intellectual  en- 
tertainment, perhaps  for  both.  We  need 
say  nothing  of  his  desire  for  profit  and 
fame — that,  in  this  kind  of  effort,  is  a 
spur  upon  him  which  the  more  he  feels 
the  more  it  may  help.  He  will  have 
the  just  reward  of  his  masterful  manipu- 
lation. 

There  is  always  the  chance,  too,  that 
in  his  wrestling  some  spark  of  genius  may 
be  kindled  in  the  author,  and  his  enter- 
tainment may  have  wonderful  surprises, 
making  judicious  readers  delighted  and 
grateful.  The  work  becomes  play.  This 
happens,  we  feel,  in  Arnold  Bennett's 
Buried  Alive.  This  author  is  one  of  sev- 
eral contemporary  hard-working  fiction- 
ists,  among  them  Locke  and  Wells,  who 
find  relief  from  their  severer  practice  of 
the  art  by  alternating  with  a  serious 
novel  a  really  amusing  comedy.  But  the 
relaxation  does  not  drive  the  well-trained 
novelist  to  utter  abandonment  of  method 
and  wise  selection — only  these  are  per- 
mitted more  freedom  and  felicity,  as  in 
Locke's  The  Beloved  V agabond. 

It  is  only  when  the  theme  wholly  pos- 
sesses the  writer  of  fiction — not  running 


away  with  him,  or  goading  him  like  a 
gadfly — but  so  pressing  upon  him  its 
full  demand  that  he  feels  it  in  his  whole 
being,  in  every  faculty  and  sensibility, 
that  there  can  be  the  absorption,  or  ten- 
sion, which  gives  full  and  free  play  to 
creative  genius.  The  action  and  passion 
are  drastic  in  various  degrees,  under 
varying  conditions,  such  as  mark  the 
variations  in  the  evolution  of  the  literary 
art.  Modern  fiction  does  not  show  the 
same  kind  of  tension  as  the  tragic  drama, 
though  we  are  reminded  of  that  drastic 
order  in  some  of  Hardy's  novels,  as  we 
are  in  Mrs.  Deland's  The  Iron  Woman. 
Fiction  was  the  successor,  in  a  natural 
course,  of  the  Elizabethan  drama — 
tragedy  and  comedy;  and  it  is  signifi- 
cant that  the  latter  works  are  called 
plays,  and  the  actors  players. 

If  we  were  asked  what  is  meant  by 
play  as  an  essential  element  in  all  art — 
the  consummate  issue — we  should  find 
it  difficult  to  answer  in  the  terms  of 
analytic  definition.  In  music  we  should 
identify  it  with  rhythm — and  quite  as 
perceptibly  in  sculpture,  architecture, 
and  painting.  Something  more  and  be- 
yond conscious  effort  enters  into  it, 
though  waiting  upon  it — a  reinforcement 
of  the  theme  by  creative  imagination 
and  intuition,  informing  and  shaping  it 
by  a  method  and  selection  in  which  a 
sure  dilection  supervenes  upon  precal- 
culating  choice.  We  associate  it  with 
the  ease  of  mastery;  but  the  tension  is 
still  there,  controlling  the  rhythm  itself, 
though  the  sense  of  difficulty  is  lost  in 
the  triumphant  issue.  The  compulsion 
of  rhythm  is  not  so  evident  in  prose  as 
in  the  other  forms  of  art,  but  it  needs 
the  concentration  as  much  for  its  crea- 
tive mastery,  and  there  has  been  a  dis- 
tinct advantage  gained  in  this  by  those 
masters  of  fiction  who  have — as  so  many 
of  them  have — begun  as  poets. 

We  began  by  saying  that  the  art  of 
fiction  is  mainly  concerned  with  the  play 
of  life.  What  we  have  said  of  the  play 
of  this  art  and  of  all  art  may  help  us  to 
see  a  little  more  clearly  what  the  play 
of  life  means,  since  it  is  essentially  the 
same  thing,  and  as  intimately  associated 
with  reaction  and  absorption. 

One  only  partially  acquainted  with 
early  ancient  art  sees  that  the  artist's 
own  agonism  affected  his  selection  of 


316 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


themes,  or  his  preference  for  those  which, 
out  of  the  mythological  or  legendary 
background,  especially  invited  him.  The 
note  of  conflict  in  the  battles  of  the 
Titans  with  the  Olympians,  and  of  the 
Centaurs  Vith  the  Lapithae;  in  the  la- 
bors of  Heracles,  and  even  in  the  futile 
exertions  of  Sisyphus — all  superhumanly 
embodied,  aptly  joined  that  of  the  sculp- 
tor's and  poet's  travail.  The  visible  or 
imaged  signs  of  these  contests,  in  a 
heroic  age,  met  a  joyous  response,  and 
where  joy  is  there  is  play. 

So  near  is  work  to  play,  in  life  as  in 
art.  Art  circles  through  many  grooves, 
and  it  meets  the  ever-changing  sensibil- 
ity of  man  with  new  manners  of  its  own 
and  on  varying  planes  of  satisfaction. 
What  the  artist,  in  supreme  sympathy, 
assimilates  and  nutritively  absorbs  from 
life  into  his  conscious  experience  is  not 
the  same  from  age  to  age.  It  could  not 
always  be  the  gigantic,  unwearying  fig- 
ure of  Atlas  that  would  hold  the  imagi- 
nation. In  all  evolution  the  mighty  and 
relentless  forces  are  diminished  for  the 
increase  of  a  different  excellence.  So 
the  imagination  of  poet  and  sculptor 
in  time  emptied  itself  of  giants  and  su- 
permen, finding  in  human  life  its  proper 
field  of  tension  and  play. 

It  was  necessary  to  this  change  that 
human  life  itself  should  develop  more 
amply  its  possibilities  of  thought  and 
feeling.  As  the  scope  and  variety  of 
consciousness  and  sensibility  expand  in 
a  subjective  field,  a  growing  human  sym- 
pathy, seeking  expression  in  its  own 
terms,  no  longer  finds  satisfaction  in 
merely  external  impressiveness.  The 
demand  upon  the  imagination  for  an  ap- 
peal largely,  and  in  its  very  ground,  sub- 
jective creates  new  arts  and  new  capa- 
bilities of  arts  already  existing. 

As  art  blends  more  and  more  with  life, 
finding  there  its  compelling  themes,  it 
more  and  more  yields  to  the  mastery  of 
life;  its  tension  becomes  ever  less  ob- 
jectively apparent,  as  its  creations  are 
no  longer  forceful  projections  of  the 
imagination,  but  intimate  and  compan- 
ionable to  the  soul. 

But  this  modern  art  of  fiction,  espe- 
cially, is  due  to  that  social  expansion 
through  insight  and  sympathy  which 
gives  free  play  to  all  human  activities 


and  emotions.  We  call  this  art  a  repre- 
sentation of  life;  it  re-creates  life,  from 
its  inward  source  and  in  a  disinterested 
field,  free  from  the  ancient  strain,  which 
contracted  even  the  drama,  its  prede- 
cessor. Its  concentration  is  an  absorb- 
ing assimilation  of  life,  now  almost  en- 
tirely of  contemporary  life,  that  it  may 
have,  in  its  relaxation,  ample  and  easy 
communicability  and  appeal. 

That  old  form  of  tragedy  which  sought 
remote  perspective  in  time,  as  if  to  evade 
the  ordinary  and  familiar  aspects  of  the 
present,  could  not  escape  unnaturalness 
of  pose  and  manner.  A  sense  of  comedy 
— as  George  Meredith  understood  it — 
led  to  a  fuller  and  truer  representation  of 
life,  including  its  pathos.  The  writer  of 
fiction  cannot  be  wholly  alive  to  any 
time  but  his  own;  in  the  attempt,  as  in 
the  historical  novel,  to  deal  with  the  life 
of  any  other,  he  loses  the  full  play  of  it, 
and  must  rely  upon  the  ingenuity  of  his 
invention  to  replace  the  missing  content. 
For  any  sense  of  realness  we  prefer 
Scott's  letters  to  his  novels.  The  writer 
can  have  a  comprehending  sympathy 
with  only  the  life  he  sees  and  feels,  and 
which  gives  back  to  his  ardent  regard 
its  most  evanescent,  and  yet  most  dis- 
tinctive, traits. 

The  writer  of  fiction  of  to-day  who 
has  this  attitude  to  life,  the  hunger  for 
life  that  is  an  absorption,  has  entered 
into  a  partnership  in  which  he  receives 
more  than  he  can  give.  He  feels  the 
push  and  buoyancy  of  a  current  upon 
which  he  may  depend  for  support.  The 
tension  of  his  art  is  not  wholly  his  own, 
however  individual  his  utterance.  Be- 
cause of  this  peculiar  intimacy  of  fic- 
tion with  contemporary  life  it  has  be- 
come the  most  sympathetically  social  of 
all  the  arts.  The  writer's  insight  and 
imagination  differentiates  his  work,  for 
he  must  re-create  life,  not  simply  repro- 
duce it — must  re-create  it  true  to  its 
essential  reality,  which  brings  into  recon- 
cilement its  apparently  contradictory 
actualities.  Thus  along  with  the  full 
acceptance  of  life's  mastery  comes  the 
disclosure  of  its  rhythmic  play.  The 
individual  judgment  is  brought  to  abey- 
ance, and  didacticism  bows  its  head  in 
the  presence  of  sympathy,  which  is  seen 
to  be  the  essential  function  of  genius. 


The  Tale  of  a  Daghestan  Rug 

BY  ARTHUR  GUI  TERM  AN 

With  Home-made  Illustrations  by  Vida  Lindo  Guiterman 

"  Whatever  their  type  of  ornamentation  may  be,  a  deep  and  complicated  symbolism,  originating  in  Baby- 
lonia and  possibly  India,  pervades  every  denomination  of  Oriental  carpets." — Sir  George  Birdwood. 

STRANGE  Stories  of  their  Simple  Lives 
Do  Oriental  Maids  and  Wives 
Embroider,  so  the  Dealers  tell  us, 
In  Symbols  on  the  Rugs  they  sell  us. 

Then  read  the  Record  woven  thus 
By  Zillah  of  the  Caucasus, 
Deciphered  by  my  Friend,  Sardjeenian, 
A  Most  Reliable  Armenian. 


// 


Among  the  Hills  of  Daghestan 
That  frown  upon  the  Wayside  Khan- 
Her  Father's  Hospitable  Villa — 
The  Fairest  of  her  People,  Zillah, 


Composed,  with  skilful  Twist  and  Tug, 
An  Odjakliky  or  Hearthside  Rug; 
Enweaving  there  in  those  Queer  Symbols 
That  look  like  Barber-poles  and  Thimbles 


Her  simple  Joys  and  Hopes  and  Fears, 

The  Story  of  her  Maiden  Years. 

With  Entertainment  to  provide  her 

A  Long-tailed  Lambkin  played  beside  her, 


And  cropped  the  Mead  and  quaffed  the  Stream- 
A  Cherished  Pet  with  Fleece  of  Cream 
But  lately  rescued  from  a  Leopard 
By  Kurdish  Kar,  the  Gentle  Shepherd. 


Along  the  Road  from  Erivan 
A  Warrior  with  Yataghan 
And  other  Social  Incidentals 
An  fait  among  the  Orientals — 


In  Cutaway  Capote  arrayed 
Approached  to  woo  the  Mountain  Maid. 
"My  Name,"  said  he,  "Resplendent  Zillah, 
Is  Ali  Abdul  Hassan  Billah! 


AAA 


1'\ 
j]di\. 


Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  782.--40 


318 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"I  come,  perhaps  you  understand, 
To  beg  that  Precious  Gift,  your  Hand. 
Behold!  I  faint  from  Sheer  Emotion! 
Ah,  let  me  prove  my  Heart's  Devotion! 


''Assign  me  any  Awful  Task; 

I  vow  to  do  whate'er  you  ask!" 

The  Maiden  lisped,  "Your  Offer's  handsome 

(I  know  you're  worth  a  Sultan's  Ransom); 


"I  may  decide  to  be  your  Wife — 
But  search  me  first  the  Tree  of  Life 
Which  blooms  through  all  the  Seasons' 
Among  our  bleak  Caucasian  Ranges, 


Ch 


anges 


"And  cull  for  me  the  Mystic  Pear 
That  you  will  find  a-growing  there. 
But  let  me  warn  you,  Ardent  Stranger, 
You'll  find  the  Errand  full  of  Danger! 

"  For  first  you  needs  must  bring  to  Terms 

The  Three-horned  Birds  and  Hunchbacked  Worms 

That  lurk  among  the  Giant  Boulders 

To  prey  on  Indiscreet  Beholders. 


"Then  must  you  slay  a  Fiercer  yet- 
The  wild,  Constricting  Dragonette 
That  dwells  beyond  the  Andi  River; 
And  last — oh!  how  the  Mountains  quiver 

"If  he  but  gives  his  Tail  a  Whisk! 

The  dread  Tri-cornered  Basilisk!" 

Low  bowed  the  Chief  of  Haughty  Bearing, 

And  galloped  to  the  Northward,  swearing 


To  battle,  conquer,  seek,  and  find. 
(And  Kar  the  Shepherd  trudged  behind.) 
Right  gallantly  adventured  Ali 
Through  Rugged  Pass  and  Gloomy  Valley. 

His  Sword  divided  into  Thirds 

The  Hunchbacked  Worms  and  three-horned  Birds. 
Against  the  Serpentine  Constrictor 
He  likewise  proved  a  Noble  Victor. 


And  then  he  challenged,  brave  and  brisk, 
The  dread  Tri-cornered  Basilisk — 
Which,  pausing  not  to  scrutinate  him, 
Unlocked  its  Grisly  Jaws,  and  ate  him! 


aiw~irir\\ 


EDITOR'S  DRAWER 


319 


ELJlL_HU 


Oh,  Fatal  Meal!    Upon  its  Side 
The  Poisoned  Creature  writhed,  and  died! 
Now,  Kar  the  Shepherd,  sadly  rueing, 
Surveyed  the  Tragic  Scene,  till,  viewing 

The  Tree  of  Life  unguarded  there, 
He  gathered  in  the  Mystic  Pear. 
Thus,  laden  down  with  Fate's  Providings- 
The  Precious  Fruit  and  Sorry  Tidings — 


He  lifted  up  his  Feet  and  ran 
And  told  the  Belle  of  Daghestan. 
A  Maiden  who  has  lost  a  Lover 
Should  not  too  rapidly  recover; 

Still,  Ali,  that  Unlucky  Man, 
Left  Widows  Five  in  Erivan; 
And  so  the  Philosophic  Zillah 
Resignedly  remarked,  "  Bismillah!' 


Then — since  the  Foes  of  Basilisks 
Are  rarely  Good  Insurance  Risks — 
She  vowed  no  more  her  Hopes  to  jeopard 
And  married  Kar,  the  Gentle  Shepherd. 


Non-partisan 

A  KANSAS  CITY  lawyer  tells  of  a  case  tried 
in  a  country  court  of  Missouri.  Counsel 
for  the  plaintiff  had  finished  his  argument, 
and  counsel  for  the  defense  stepped  forward 
to  speak,  when  the  judge  interposed.  It  was 
plainly  to  be  seen  that  his  Honor,  who,  by  the 
way,  was  new  to  the  bench,  was  filled  with 
admiration  for  the  skilful  manner  in  which 
the  plea  of  the  plaintiff  had  been  handled. 
Accordingly,  he  said: 

"No  need  to  go  any  further.  Plaintiff 
wins." 

Whereupon  counsel  for  the  defendant  gave 
evidence  of  becoming  hysterical.  "Your 
Honor!  your  Honor!"  he  exclaimed.  "Surely 
you  will  at  least  let  me  present  my  case!" 

Reluctantly  the  judge  gave  his  assent;  and 
the  protesting  lawyer  was  permitted  to  state 
his  case.  When  this  had  been  done,  curi- 
ously enough,  his  Honor  evinced  even  greater 
wonder. 

"Well,  well!"  he  exclaimed.  "Don't  it 
beat  all!    Now  defendant  wins!" 


A  Reasonable  Request 

'THE  other  night  Dickey  (age  five)  in  con- 
cluding his  prayers  as  usual  with  "God 
bless  papa  and  mamma,  and  Florence,  and 
Eleanor  and  Winifred"  (the  twins),  and  his 
grandparents,  and  all  of  the  aunties  and 
uncles  he  could  readily  remember,  then 
added:  "And  God  bless  Mr.  Brassey  and 
Mrs.  Brassey,  and  Charles  and  Nell  Brassey. 
— You  know  'em,  don't  your" 


A  Poetic  Simile 

A  CHICAGO  man,  with  his  two  little  boys, 
_  was  visiting  a  Boston  man  of  his  acquaint- 
ance. The  Bostonian  was  delighted  by  the 
affection  of  the  two  kiddies. 

"What  a  beautiful  sight,"  he  exclaimed, 
"to  see  your  two  little  boys  thus!  Such 
brotherly  love  is  as  rare  as  it  is  exquisite." 

The  Chicagoan  nodded  in  assent.  "Yes," 
said  he,  "those  boys  are  as  inseparable  as  a 
pair  of  pants." 


Sitting  Up  With  a  Sick  Friend 


The  Bostonian's  Bull 

A  BOSTON  man  was  on  his  way  West  on 
important  business.  In  the  opposite  sec- 
tion of  the  Pullman  sat  a  sweet-faced,  tired- 
appearing  woman  with  four  small  children. 
Being  fond  of  children,  and  feeling  sorry  for 
the  mother,  the  Bostonian  soon  made  friends 
with  the  kiddies. 

Early  the  next  morning  he  heard  their 
eager  questions  and  the  patient,  "Yes,  dear," 
of  the  mother,  as  she  tried  to  dress  them,  and, 
looking  out,  he  saw  a  small  white  foot  pro- 
truding beyond  the  opposite  curtain.  Reach- 
ing across  the  aisle,  he  took  hold  of  the  large 
toe  and  began  to  recite: 

"This  little  pig  went  to  market;  this  little 
pig  stayed  at  home;  this  little  pig  had  roast 
beef;  this  little  pig  had  none;  this  little  pig- 
cried,  'Wee!  wee!'  all  the  way  home." 

The  foot  was  suddenly  withdrawn,  and  a 
cold,  quiet  voice — that  of  the  mother — said, 
"That  is  quite  sufficient,  thank  you." 


His  Honey 

^SAN  FRANCISCO  man  tells  of  a  flower, 
growing  abundantly  near  Santa  Barbara, 
which  is  peculiarly  attractive  to  bees. 

"Now,"  says  he,  "there  was  a  young  Cali- 
fornian,  particularly  fond  of  honey,  who  used 
to  visit  a  certain  Santa  Barbara  hostelry 
because  such  a  superior  sort  of  this  nectar 
was  to  be  had  there. 

"This  young  man  married  in  due  course, 
and  the  wedding-trip  included  Santa  Barbara, 
so  that  the  bride  might  taste  this  superb 
honey.  But,  to  his  dismay,  no  honey  ap- 
peared on  the  breakfast-table  the  first  morn- 
ing of  their  stay.  The  groom  frowned.  He 
called  the  old  familiar  waiter  over  to  him, 

"Where's  my  honey?'  he  demanded. 

"The  waiter  hesitated,  looked  awkwardly 
at  the  bride,  and  then  bent  toward  the  young 
man's  ear  and  in  a  hoarse  whisper  stam- 
mered, 'Why,  Marie  don't  work  here  any 
more,  sir.' " 


Officer:  "And  what  kind  of  an  automobile  was  it  that  hit  you?" 
Victim:    "  Hard,  Officer — mighty  hard." 


Behind  in  the  Hauling 

MOUNTAINEER  from  the  Ozark  region 
was  visiting  New  York  for  the  first  time, 
and  he  put  up  at  a  hotel  which  is  pretty  far 
down-town.  Next  morning  a  friend  came  to 
take  him  out  and  show  him  the  sights.  They 
walked  down  Broadway  until  they  got  to 
Canal  Street.  The  Ozark  person  stopped 
and  contemplated  the  great  congestion  of 
traffic  there,  hundreds  of  trucks  going  in 
every  direction. 

"You  have  got  a  nice  city  here,"  said  the 
mountaineer,  "but  it  looks  to  me  like  your 
folks  was  a  whole  lot  behind  in  their  haulin'." 


An  Appropriate  Synonym 

"V()l  can't  beat  an  Irishman  for  wit," 
says  a   well    known  Washingtonian. 

'I  was  in  Boston  one  day  last  winter,  and, 
while  standing  near  a  men's  furnishing-store 
owned  by  one  Haggerty,  my  attention  was 
attracted  by  a  display  of  shirts  and  ties  which 
embraced  a  variety  of  color  far  exceeding  a 

I  urner  landscape  when  the  sun  is  red  and 
gold.  Every  color  of  the  rainbow  was  repre- 
sented, and  some  colors  which  were  a  true 
revelation  to  me;  I  had  never  seen  them 
an v where.  On  a  huge  yellow  card  was  in- 
scribed the  single  word— 'LISTEN!'" 


Ignorance 

A  SCOTCH  cabman  was  driving  an  Amer- 
ican around  the  sights  in  Edinburgh. 
In  High  Street  he  stopped  and,  with  a 
wave  of  his  hand,  announced,  "That  is  John 
Knox's  house." 

"John  Knox!"  exclaimed  the  American. 
"Who  was  he?" 

This  was  too  much  for  the  cabby.  "Good 
heavens!"  he  exclaimed.  "Did  you  never 
read  your  Bible?" 


Strategy 

A  YOUNG  woman  took  down  the  receiver 
of  the  telephone  one  day  and  discovered 
that  the  line  was  in  use. 

"I  just  put  on  a  pan  of  beans  for  dinner," 
she  heard  one  woman  complacently  inform- 
ing another. 

She  hung  up  the  receiver  and  waited  for 
the  conversation  to  end.  Upon  returning  to 
the  telephone  she  found  the  woman  still 
talking.  Three  times  she  waited,  and  then, 
at  last  becoming  exasperated,  she  broke  into 
the  conversation. 

"Madam,  I  smell  your  beans  burning," 
she  announced  crisply. 

A  horrified  scream  greeted  the  remark,  and 
the  young  woman  was  able  to  put  in  her  call. 


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HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Unequally  Armed 

T  ]  NCLE  EPH,  an  old  colored  man,  was  up 
in  court,  accused  of  stealing  a  watch. 
He  pleaded  not  guilty,  and,  moreover, 
brought  against  the  complainant  a  counter- 
charge of  assault.  The  man,  he  declared,  had 
tried  to  kill  him  with  an  iron  kettle. 

During  the  cross-examination,  the  attor- 
ney, Lawyer  Bennet,  demanded,  "  Dare  you 
to  say  that  my  client  attacked  you  with  an 
iron  kettle?" 

"Dat  what  he  done,  sah,"  replied  Uncle 
Eph,  with  a  nervous  gulp. 

"With  an  iron  kettle,  eh?"  sarcastically 
reiterated  the  lawyer.  "That's  a  fine  story 
for  a  big,  strong  fellow  like  you  to  try  to 
impose  upon  this  honorable  court!  And  had 
you  nothing  with  which  to  defend  yourself?" 

"Only  de  watch,  sah,"  was  the  unwary  re- 
ply; "but  what's  a  watch  agin  an  iron 
kettle,  sah?" 


Close  at  Hand 

A  WOMAN  from  the  South  visiting  New 
York  for  the  first  time  was  much  agitated 
when,  after  being  conveyed  through  the 
Hudson  tube,  she  found  herself  in  another 
Subway.  Rushing  up  to  a  knowing-looking 
individual,  she  asked,  in  an  agitated  tone: 

"Sir,  do  please  tell  me  where  is  New 
York?" 

"Lady,"  said  he,  with  the  utmost  gravity, 
"it's  right  at  the  top  of  those  stairs." 


A  Novelty 

^NEW  ENGLAND  woman  tells  of  discov- 
ering her  new  cook  in  the  drawing-room, 
gazing  at  an  aquarium  with  much  interest. 

"Well,  Mary,"  said  the  mistress  of  the 
house  in  a  kindly  tone,  "what  do  you  think 
of  them?" 

"Sure,  they're  lovely,"  said  the  girl.  "Will 
ye  belave  me,  mum,  but  this  is  the  first 
toime  in  me  loife  I  iver  see  red  herrings  alive 
before!" 


Why? 

MISS  BASSETT  was  talking  to  the  class 
in  history  in  her  most  impressive  man- 
ner. 

"Now,  children,"  she  said,  looking  over 
her  pupils,  "I  want  you  to  understand  that 
the  time  to  ask  questions  in  my  class  is  when- 
ever anything  is  said  which  you  wish  ex- 
plained. Do  not  wait  until  the  time  comes 
for  recitation  and  then  tell  nte  you  'did  not 
hear'  or  'did  not  understand'  when  I  talked 
to  you." 

The  children  replied,  "  Yes'm,"  in  chorus. 

"Very  well,"  said  teacher;  "we  will  begin 
to-day  with  James  the  First,  who  came  after 
Elizabeth." 

A  scholar  raised  his  hand. 

"Well,"  queried  Miss  Bassett,  graciously, 
"what  is  it?" 

"What  made  him  come  after  her?"  asked 
the  scholar,  eagerly. 


Lady  Artist:  "  Would  you  mind  tightening  the  ropes  on 
your  boat  out  there,  so  I  can  draw  'em  with  a  ruler?" 


"  James ,  Mr.  Dauber  has  promised  to  give  us  one  of  his  paintings. 
"  Welly  never  mind,  dear.    He  may  forget  it." 


Tempora  Mutantur 

pTHEL,  aged  nine,  paying  a  visit  to  Aunt 
Nell,  told  of  a  birthday  party  she  had 
attended  the  day  before.  "And  Mabel,  who 
gave  the  party,  said  to  me:  'Oh,  Ethel, 
you've  got  on  the  same  dress  you  wore  to 
my  party  the  last  time.  I  suppose  your 
mother  couldn't  afford  to  buy  you  a  new 
dress  this  year.'" 

Aunt  Nell  laid  her  hand  caressingly  on 
Ethel's  blond  curls  and  gently  asked:  "Of 
course,  dear,  you  didn't  remain  at  the  party 
after  that?  If  a  little  girl  had  made  such  a 
remark  to  me  when  I  was  your  age  I  should 
have  gone  right  home." 

"Well,  Aunt  Nell,"  Ethel  replied,  "times 
have  changed.  I  slapped  her  face  and 
stayed." 


One  On  the  Doctor 

^  a  south  Jersey  country  physician  was 
driving  through  a  village  he  saw  a  man 
amusing  a  crowd  with  the  antics  of  his  trick 
dog.    The  doctor  pulled  up  and  said: 

"My  dear  man,  how  do  you  manage  to 
train  your  dog  in  that  way?  I  can't  teach 
mine  a  single  trick." 

1  he  man  looked  up,  with  a  simple,  rustic 
stare  and  replied: 

"Well,  you  see,  it's  this  way;  you  have  to 
know  more'n  the  dog,  or  you  can't  learn  him 
nothinV 


Mother's  Love-letters 

A  BALTIMORE  woman  is  the  proud  mother 
of  an  ingenious  kiddie  of  seven.  One 
afternoon,  when  he  came  in  about  an  hour 
later  than  usual,  she  asked,  "Where  have 
you  been,  Clarence?" 

"Playing  postman.  I  gave  a  letter  to  all 
the  houses  in  this  street — real  letters,  too." 

"Where  on  earth  did  you  get  them?" 

"They  were  the  old  ones  in  the  attic, 
tied  up  with  a  blue  ribbon." 


A  Penalty  of  Kinship 

A  LADY  passing  through  the  slums  of  New 
York  was  shocked  to  see  a  boy  of  per- 
haps seven  severely  pummeling  a  little  chap 
of  four.  "Are  not  you  ashamed,"  she  asked, 
indignantly,  "to  abuse  such  a  small  fellow?" 

"Dat's  all  right,"  was  the  cheerful  re- 
sponse; "he's  me  brudder." 


Old-fashioned 

'THE  day  came  when  little,  old-fashioned 
Emily  was  taken  to  town  that  she  might 
see  the  circus  for  the  first  time.  She  watched 
the  performance  in  speechless  wonder  until 
the  equestrians  appeared.  Then,  as  the  first 
couple,  dressed  in  their  usual  airy  attire,  rode 
past  her,  her  cheeks  grew  pink;  she  sidled 
close  to  her  mother  and  whispered,  "Are 
they  married,  mother?" 


324 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Things 
THE  INDEPENDENT  KITE 

A   KITE  is  very  nice  to  own. 

It  never,  never  grieves  you, 
'Cept  when  it  wants  to  play  alone 
And  just  goes  off  and  leaves  you! 

THE  FISHING-POLE 

A  fishing-pole's  a  funny  thing — 
It's  made  of  just  a  stick  and  string, 
A  boy  at  one  end  and  a  wish, 
And  on  the  other  end  a  fish! 

THE   SELFISH  SEA 

The  sea  is  very,  very  wide; 
It  takes  up  all  the  room  outside; 
And  when  I  stand  beside  the  sea 
It  comes  right  up  and  pushes  me! 

Mary  Carolyn  Davies. 


Willing  to  Oblige 

CERTAIN  novelist  not  unknown  to  fame 
received  from  a  woman  an  unstamped 
note,  asking  the  loan  of  a  book  on  the  ground 
that  she  could  not  obtain  it  at  her  book- 
seller's.   The  writer  replied  in  this  wise: 

Dear  Madam,— In  your  vicinity  there  appears 
to  be  a  lack  of  all  sorts  of  things  easily  procurable 
elsewhere — not  only  of  my  recent  work,  but  also 
of  postage-stamps  for  letters.  I  have  in  my  pos- 
session, it  is  true,  the  book  you  desire  to  obtain, 
and  also  the  stamps  to  pay  its  carriage,  but,  to 
my  regret,  I  am  without  the  necessary  string  to 
make  it  into  a  parcel.  If  you  can  supply  me  with 
a  piece,  I  am  at  your  service. 


Of  One  Race 
A  TEACHER  asked  the  class  in  geography 
to  name  six  different  kinds  of  people 
belonging  to  the  Caucasian  race.  Nobody 
answered  until  one  little  girl  timidly  raised 
her  hand. 

"Well?"  said  the  teacher,  encouragingly. 
"A  father,  mother,  and  four  children," 
was  the  reply. 


Circus  Day 

Bein   broke  sure  does  make  a  feller  feel  unnecessary." 


Careless  Toward  the  Last 

A  SOLDIER  at  one  of  the  Western  posts 
was  recently  given  leave  of  absence  the 
morning  after  pay-day.  When  his  leave  ex- 
pired he  didn't  appear.  It  was  ascertained, 
however,  through  unofficial  sources,  that  he 
had  been  too  convivial. 

When  at  last  he  was  brought  in  and  haled 
before  the  commanding  officer  for  sentence, 
the  following  conversation  ensued: 

"Jones,  you  look  as  if  you  had  had  a  hard 
time  of  it." 
Yes,  sir, 
"Have  you  anv  money 
left?" 

|;  No,  sir." 

"When  you  left  the  post 
you  had  thirty-five  dollars. 
Didn't  you?" 
"Yes,  sir." 

"What  did  you  do  with 

itr 

"I  was  walking  along 
when  I  met  a  friend.  We 
went  into  a  nice  place  and 
spent  nine  dollars.  Then 
we  came  out  and  I  met  an- 
other friend,  and  we  spent 
nine  dollars  more.  And 
then  I  came  out  and  met  a 
friend,  and  we  spent  nine 
dollars  more.  Then,  sir,  I 
met  some  more  friends  and 
I  spent  three  dollars  more. 
Then  I  comes  back  to  the 

^_  55 

post. 

"Well,  Jones,  that  makes 
only  thirty  dollars.  What 
did  you  do  with  the  other 
five  dollars?" 

Jones  reflected  a  bit,  and 
then  replied  :  "I  don't 
know,  sir.  I  guess  I  must 
have  squandered  that 
money  foolishly." 


Painting  by  C.  E.  Chambers  Illustration  for  "  The  Return  of  Martha 

DAY   AFTER   DAY   HE   SNATCHED   AT   PRETEXTS   FOR   A   WORD   WITH   LUCY  ALONE 


Harper's  Magazine 


Vol.  CXXXI       AUGUST,  1915       No.  DCCLXXXIII 


Sea-Green 


BY  KATHARINE  FULLERTON  GEROULD 


HE  first  night,  I  remem- 
ber, was  not  so  bad. 
One  braces  oneself,  I 
suppose,  for  a  first  en- 
counter with  people 
who  have  power  over 
one.  I  was  a  free  man, 
according  to  any  legal  fiction  that  may 
prevail;  but  I  was  young,  and  poor,  and 
ambitious.  Youth,  poverty,  and  ambi- 
tion put  you  in  the  clutch  of  the  older, 
richer,  and  devilishly  detached  people 
who  dally  with  the  notion  of  giving  you 
a  living  wage  in  return  for  services  ren- 
dered. If  I  had  refused  to  be  in  the 
Fenbys'  power,  I  should  presently  have 
been  in  the  clutch  of  a  bony  allegorical 
figure  you  might  call  Destitution.  So  I 
use  the  phrase  advisedly.  Poor  Ralph 
had  taken  my  last  cent — my  last  ten- 
dollar  bill,  anyhow — so  that  it  was  im- 
portant for  me  to  get  on  with  these 
Fenbys.  Old  Crowninshield  had  recom- 
mended me  to  them  as  tutor  for  their 
grandson.  It  was  the  first  and  last  thing 
old  Crowninshield  ever  did  for  me;  and 
I  have  never  known  whether  to  be  grate- 
ful or  not. 

My  drive  from  the  station  was  accom- 
plished in  the  leisurely  twilight  of  late 
May;  but  there  was  afterglow  enough  to 
show  me  that  the  region  had  neither 
physical  charms  nor  social  resources. 
The  mansion  seemed  to  have  been  left 
high  and  dry  by  the  retreating  human 
wave.  We  passed  one  darkened  factory 
and  a  bunch  of  gaunt  wooden  tenements 
— stuck  in  the  fields  a  mile  beyond  the 

Copyright,  1015,  by  Harper  & 


station,  with  the  casual  gesture  industry 
sometimes  makes  in  our  older  Eastern 
States.  There  was  not  a  hill,  not  a  lake, 
not  a  brook,  even,  for  all  it  was  such  open 
country.  The  man  who  drove  me  had  a 
kind  of  taciturn  humor.  I  placed  him 
at  once:  an  old  Irish  dependent  who 
had  by  this  time  forgotten  all  about 
Ireland.  His  type  was  so  familiar  to  me 
(I  had  been  brought  up  in  the  next 
State)  that  I  could  almost  foretell  the 
drawing-room  furniture.  It  would  not, 
of  course,  be  called  the  "drawing-room." 
The  carriage  was  comfortable  and  had 
once  had  style.  After  three-quarters  of 
an  hour  I  alighted  at  the  steps  of  an  ugly 
stone  house,  built  evidently  in  the  fifties. 
The  figure  on  the  threshold  was  obvi- 
ously my  employer.  A  lantern  swinging 
from  the  porch  roof  enabled  me  to  decide 
that  at  once.  He  leaned  on  a  gold- 
headed  stick — of  course.  Any  man  to 
whom  old  Crowninshield  confidently 
recommended  you  would  lean  on  a  gold- 
headed  stick. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fenby  had  waited  sup- 
per for  me;  and  I  came  down  from  my 
neat,  faded,  comfortable  room,  as  soon  as 
possible,  to  sit  down  with  them.  The 
little  boy  had  gone  to  bed,  I  was  told. 
A  gaunt  maid  served  us  with  excellent 
food — things  that,  belonging  peculiarly 
to  supper,  make  you  wonder  why  we  are 
ever  such  fools  as  to  dine  at  night.  I 
can  scarcely  say  that  our  talk  was  lively, 
but  I  had  a  vivid  sense  that  they  meant 
it  to  be  so.  Whether  they  were  bent  on 
proving  that  they  were  not  out  of  the 

Brothers.    All  Rights  Reserved 


328 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


current,  or  merely  anxious  to  set  me  at 
my  ease,  I  could  not  tell.  Old  Mr.  Fen- 
by  was  both  pompous  and  nervous; 
evidently  accustomed  to  be  deferred  to, 
yet  suspicious  of  the  world's  having  gone 
beyond  him.  His  wife  seemed — but  of 
course  I  knew  my  imagination  might  be 
playing  me  tricks — to  be  secretly  derid- 
ing, in  some  polished  corner  of  her  mind, 
both  his  pretensions  and  his  fears.  She 
was  a  small  woman,  white-haired  and 
very  wrinkled,  and  her  mouth  twisted  a 
little  to  one  side.  She  scarcely  spoke, 
except  to  ask  me  a  question  or  to  agree 
very  positively  with  her  husband.  Prob- 
ably it  was  the  unnatural  twist  of  her  lips 
that  gave  at  once  a  sardonic  effect  to  her 
stilted,  harmless  talk.  The  first  night, 
as  I  said,  was  not  so  bad.  The  Fenbys 
seemed,  if  not  precisely  eager  to  please 
me,  at  least  unwilling  that  I  should 
think  ill  of  them.  Old  Mr.  Fenby, 
I  remember,  mentioned  explicitly  various 
privileges  that  would  be  mine — the  run 
of  his  library  for  my  own  purposes,  com- 
plete control  over  Carol's  mind  and 
morals,  a  horse  to  ride  if  I  cared  for  one, 
and  (this  from  him  surprised  me  exceed- 
ingly) breakfast  in  my  own  room.  Of 
course,  nothing  of  any  sort  could  be  set- 
tled offhand;  I  should  have  to  grow 
into  the  house  and  its  ways.  I  merely 
expressed  myself  politely  with  reference 
to  his  kind  suggestions.  As  the  clock 
struck,  I  saw  by  certain  mechanical  ges- 
tures, some  little  involuntary  stir  on 
their  part,  that  something  usually  hap- 
pened at  that  hour. 

"We  retire  very  early,"  began  Mr. 
Fenby. 

"And  always  have  prayers  at  nine," 
his  wife  concluded  for  him. 

Four  women  entered  the  room.  My 
coachman  was  evidently  exempt.  Three 
of  them — the  maid  who  had  served  us 
and  two  others — might  have  been  (for- 
give the  undignified  word)  triplets.  I 
had  not  noticed  the  waitress  particu- 
larly; but  their  joint  effect  was  very 
grim.  They  were  like  the  Graeae.  The 
fourth  was  younger  and  of  a  different 
mould  and  race.  The  three  who  had  not 
yet  seen  me — the  young  one  and  two  of 
the  Graeae  —  gave  me  one  respectful, 
curious  stare.  I  was  puzzled  by  the  re- 
spectfulness of  the  youngest  one.  She  did 
not  have  the  air,  as  she  came  in,  of  re- 


specting any  one  in  the  room  except  me. 
Prayers  over,  Mrs.  Fenby  mentioned  to 
me  the  names  of  the  maids,  as  they  filed 
out:  "Hannah"  (the  waitress)  "you 
know;  Martha — the  cook;  Rachel — the 
chambermaid." 

"And — ?"  I  pointed  to  the  back  of 
the  younger  woman. 

Mrs.  Fenby  looked  at  her  husband 
and  busied  herself  with  extinguishing 
one  of  the  lamps. 

"Miss  Susan."  Mr.  Fenby  answered 
me.  "She  would  prefer  to  be  called 
Miss  Susan.  She  is  accustomed  to  it. 
Her  position  is  a  little  anomalous,  per- 
haps, but  we  are  used  to  her.  She  has 
no  employment,  yet  we  keep  her  busy. 
She  sews  for  my  wife,  puts  up  preserves, 
orders  the  meals.  She" — he  smiled  a 
little — "she  does  not  consider  herself 
precisely  a  servant.  Nor  do  we.  She 
has  been  with  us  a  great  many  years." 

"I  see,"  and  I  was  turning  away. 

"No,  perhaps  you  do  not  see.  We 
have  spoiled  her,  I  admit,  but  she  is  not 
of  the  servant  class.  We  treat  her  more 
or  less  as  one  of  the  family.  She  is  a 
dependent,  but  of  good  birth.  I  only 
mention  all  this  to  explain  to  you  why 
perhaps  it  would  be  better  for  you  not 
to  ask  any  service  of  her.  She  makes 
herself  indispensable  to  us,  but  she  has 
never  lived  with  any  one  in  a  menial 
capacity.  Indeed,  she  has  never  lived 
in  any  house  but  this." 

"Except,  of  course,  her  parents'." 
Again  Mrs.  Fenby  concluded  her  hus- 
band's sentence  for  him. 

"Of  course,  except  her  parents'.  Mr. 
Sladen  understood  me.  I  meant  Tived' 
as  one  says  it  of  servants.  I  really  need 
not  have  gone  into  it  so  extensively,  but 
I  wished  to  warn  Mr.  Sladen  not  to 
treat  her  like  the  others.  Miss  Susan  is 
so  quiet  that  her  own  manner  might  not 
have  made  it  clear." 

"Quite  so.  Good  night,  Mr.  Sladen." 
Mrs.  Fenby  offered  me  an  exquisite 
claw.  "You  will  not  see  much  of  Miss 
Susan,  in  any  case.  She  sits  with  me  a 
good  deal;  and  Carol  is  not  fond  of  her. 
He  is  delighted  that  you  have  come.  I 
could  hardly  get  him  to  go  to  sleep  to- 
night. Hannah  will  leave  a  tray  outside 
your  door  at  eight." 

Mr.  Fenby  saw  me  to  my  room. 

It  did  not  take  me  long  to  get  ac- 


SEA-GREEN 


329 


quainted  with  my  pupil.  He  did  indeed 
seem  glad  to  see  me;  and  who  could 
blame  him  ?  The  Fenbys  were  obviously 
respectable  and  rich;  and  I  gathered 
vaguely  that  they  intended  to  send  Carol 
to  a  good  preparatory  school  (if  I  could 
get  him  ready)  and  then  to  the  oldest 
college  in  the  country.  Their  moral  atti- 
tude seemed  to  have  been  transmitted 
to  them  intact  from  worthy  ancestors. 
But  they  were  not  cheerful  people  for  a 
child  to  consort  with,  especially  as  all 
future  benefits  to  Carol  were  explicitly 
contingent  on  his  good  behavior.  I  did 
not  believe  for  a  moment  that  his  grand- 
parents, if  he  turned  out  badly  at  school, 
would  send  him  to  work  in  the  gaunt 
factory  beyond  their  gates,  but  if  Carol 
had  said  that  he  believed  it,  I  should  not 
necessarily  have  thought  him  stupid. 
The  Fifth  Commandment  was  all  over 
the  place,  and  there  was,  besides,  a  tang 
of  Isaac  Watts  in  the  air.  The  old  peo- 
ple seemed  fond  of  the  boy,  yet  anxious 
to  conceal  their  fondness  both  from  him 
and  from  all  the  other  inmates  of  the 
household.  That  twist  of  attitude  I  had 
seen  before:  they  were  simply  marching 
with  their  own  generation,  in  the  rut  of 
their  racial  tradition. 

I  grew  fond  of  him,  of  course.  He 
was  an  attractive  child,  with  something 
mutinous  and  elfin  in  him  that  occasion- 
ally gave  me  pause.  He  would  grow  up 
into  either  a  charmer  or  a  beast,  was 
my  conclusion  at  the  end  of  a  few  weeks. 
He  had  good  parts,  but  loathed  coercion; 
was  willing  to  learn  like  lightning  at  cer- 
tain hours,  or  to  have  adorable  manners 
when  he  happened  to  be  in  a  ruffled  and 
powdered  mood.  He  was  very  fond  of 
me,  I  may  say,  so  far  as  I  could  tell; 
and  I  kept  him  with  me  as  much  as 
possible.  After  all,  it  didn't  matter  what 
he  said  before  me;  and  I  jealously  didn't 
want  him  making  temperamental  breaks 
before  his  grandparents,  who  might  not 
like  them.  We  worked  in  the  morning, 
and  walked  or  did  other  outdoor  things 
in  the  afternoon.  After  supper  Carol 
went  to  bed;  and  the  big  library — really 
a  fine  collection  in  a  rather  magnificent 
old  room — stood  open  to  me  during  the 
evening  hours.  Mr.  Fenby  always  sat 
with  his  wife  after  supper;  and  they 
went  to  bed  after  nine-o'clock  prayers. 
Many  enchanted  midnights  found  me 


beneath  a  mild  old  lamp  in  the  Fenbys' 
library.  That  was  real  freedom;  they 
asked  of  me  only  to  remain  in  the  room 
five  minutes  after  extinguishing  the 
lamp,  and  to  go  up-stairs  without  a 
candle.  Old  Mrs.  Fenby  was  mortally 
afraid  of  fire;  as  well  she  may  have 
been,  for  no  help  could  have  come  to  us 
except  from  the  coachman  and  gardener. 
By  the  time  anything  arrived  from  the 
town  the  place  would  have  been  in  ruins. 

It  was  a  curious  household — so  much 
bodily  comfort  and  so  little  amenity. 
The  Gray  Sisters  cooked,  cleaned,  and 
waited  with  a  grim  and  noiseless  perfec- 
tion; but  I  never  saw  one  of  them  smile, 
even  at  Carol.  They  were,  of  course, 
not  really  sisters — could  not  have  been, 
I  mean;  for  I  never  knewT  the  facts. 
Nature  does  not  provide  three  such  in 
one  hour  of  labor.  But  they  might  easily 
have  been  kin  in  the  spiritual  sense — lay 
sisters  of  some  harsh  and  secret  order, 
fruit  of  some  strange  Protestant  aberra- 
tion. Their  silent  co-operation  seemed 
more  than  habit:  they  seemed  to  be 
bound  by  a  like  vow;  their  minds,  like 
their  faces,  were  all  in  one  mould.  I 
inwardly  congratulated  Mrs.  Fenby;  no 
triumph  of  perfectly  matched  footmen 
could  equal  the  psychologic  indistin- 
guishability  of  Hannah,  Martha,  and 
Rachel.  Miss  Susan  was  another  mat- 
ter. Perhaps,  I  thought,  you  have  to 
pay  for  three  such  maids  with  a  discord 
like  Miss  Susan.  She  was  as  quiet  as 
Mrs.  Fenby  had  said;  and  I  hardly  ever 
had  occasion  to  speak  to  her.  I  gathered 
from  Carol  that  she  sometimes  came  to 
meals  with  them  when  they  were  alone; 
but  she  never  did  while  I  was  there. 
"Doesn't  want  to,  I  suppose,"  he  sug- 
gested in  his  charming  treble.  "Does 
what  she  pleases,  I  guess.  I  don't  like 
her."  I  could  not  discover  the  ground 
of  his  dislike.  Certainly  she  never,  so 
far  as  I  could  see,  interfered  with  him  in 
any  way.  I  didn't  like  to  probe  Carol; 
but  I  wondered  whether  he,  with  his 
sensitive  precocity,  had  noticed,  as  I 
had,  the  strange  barometric  eflFect  of  her 
changing  expression.  There  were  times 
when,  scarce  seen,  she  lowered  over  the 
house  like  a  dull  and  thunderous  sky; 
and  once,  coming  upon  her  at  the  turn 
of  a  winding  corridor,  I  seemed  to  be 
face  to  face  with  a   wandering  flame. 


330 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


For  the  most  part,  however,  she  effaced 
herself  into  oblivion;  and  it  has  often 
happened  to  me  to  be  startled,  on  pass- 
ing Mrs.  Fenby's  open  door,  to  see  Miss 
Susan  sitting  beside  the  old  lady's  couch. 
I  did  not  mean,  a  moment  since,  to  hint 
that  Miss  Susan  was  beautiful.  Usually 
you  passed  her  by  without  looking  or 
wishing  to  look.  She  wore  habitually  a 
black  frock  with  a  white  apron;  her 
eyes  were  always  lowered;  her  thick 
chestnut  hair  was  done  precisely  like 
Hannah's  or  Rachel's.  She  spoke,  if  at 
all,  so  briefly  that  one  scarcely  knew  if 
her  voice  or  her  diction  were  good. 
Carol's  remarks  surprised  me.  I  should 
have  said  that  she  was  terribly  afraid 
of  both  her.  employers;  afraid,  in  true 
servile  fashion,  of  endangering  her  posi- 
tion, losing  her  asylum.  I  did  not  hear 
her  subjected  to  verbal  harshness,  but 
Mrs.  Fenby  had  a  way  of  watching  her 
that  was  scarce  short  of  insult. 

I  am  recording  all  this  because  I  feel 
that  it  is  important:  it  clears  up  a  little 
for  me  that  turbid  interlude  to  recall, 
back  to  the  very  beginning,  any  detail 
I  can  of  the  Fenby  household.  These 
scattered  notes  of  memory  may  be  insig- 
nificant, considering  the  shape  events 
presently  took,  yet  I  like  to  clarify  my 
recollections  to  that  extent. 

One  night  in  early  July  I  was  sitting 
late  in  the  library.  The  day  had  been 
hot;  the  evening  was  blessedly  cool. 
With  a  kind  of  wonder  I  had  heard  the 
family  and  servants  depart  to  their 
rooms.  How  could  one  refuse  to  await 
nature's  apology  for  the  heat  of  noon? 
A  west  wind  wandered  in  through  the 
screened  windows,  carrying  with  it  the 
close-blended  sweetness  of  flowering 
shrubs  outside  on  the  lawn.  Even  the 
oil-lamp  beside  me  did  not  oppress.  I 
found  no  end  of  things,  first  and  last,  in 
old  Mr.  Fenby's  library — books  that  I 
had  always  meant  to  read  and  never  had 
read.  There  was  time  in  those  peaceful 
evening  periods  for  works  in  many  vol- 
umes. There  was  nothing  to  hurry  me: 
it  would  take  me  a  year  at  least  to 
get  Carol  ready  for  any  school. 

I  was  turning  a  page  of  Sir  Charles 
Grandisotiy  somewhere  midway  of  the 
work,  where  he  is  practising  his  steps 
among  Clementina's  relatives.  You  can 
imagine  that,  if  I  had  time  for  eight  vol- 


umes of  punctilio  and  smelling-salts,  I 
was  wrapped  thick  in  leisure.  It  must 
have  been  near  midnight;  and  that  I 
was  not  weary  of  Harriet  Byron  shows, 
I  think,  that  I  was  not  sleepy. 

It  was  not  a  noise  that  reft  me  from 
Harriet  Byron;  it  was  a  vague  visual 
sense  of  a  companion  in  the  room. 
Slowly  I  looked  up,  wondering;  for  it 
was  three  hours  since  every  one  else  in 
the  house  had  gone  to  bed.  It  is  difficult 
to  trace  the  history  of  a  sense-impression 
on  its  path  to  the  brain,  but  I  must  have 
thought  that  it  was  Mrs.  Fenby,  for  I 
remember  rising,  alarmed  that  such  a 
frail  old  creature  should  be  wandering 
about  at  night  without  a  candle.  The 
woman  shut  the  door,  very  slowly  and 
softly — as  slowly  and  softly  as  she  must 
have  opened  it — and  I  saw,  completely 
at  a  loss  to  know  why,  that  it  was  Miss 
Susan. 

She  glided — only  thus  can  I  express 
her  noiseless  progress — across  to  the  win- 
dow, and  closed  that,  with  infinite  pre- 
caution, and  still  without  speaking.  We 
were  now  shut  into  the  library  together. 
Apparently  then  she  felt  safe,  though 
she  breathed  heavily  and  her  hand  went 
to  her  heart  in  the  typical  feminine  ges- 
ture. She  came  and  stood  very  close  to 
me  before  she  spoke.  Her  chestnut  hair 
was  loosened  about  her  face,  and  was 
drawn  forward  over  her  shoulders  in  two 
magnificent  braids.  Her  face  was  very 
white,  with  two  beautiful  feverish  spots 
of  color  on  the  cheek-bones.  She  was 
swathed  from  neck  to  foot  in  some  sort 
of  dressing-gown — a  wadded,  brocaded, 
sea-green  garment,  shapeless  and  rich 
and  ancient  like  a  cere-cloth;  some- 
thing, I  judged  automatically,  that  Mrs. 
Fenby  must  have  pulled  out  of  a  cedar 
chest  and  given  to  her  in  a  fit  of  irony. 
It  became  her  well;  which  is  simply  to 
say,  I  suppose,  that,  clad  in  a  rich  stuff, 
the  whole  texture  of  her  seemed  imme- 
diately to  have  changed.  Her  skin,  I 
saw,  was  fine;  one  imagined  a  supple 
sleekness  of  body  beneath  those  sea- 
green  folds.  I  remembered  Cinderella 
and  the  ball. 

I  had  time  for  this  impression  before 
she  spoke — bending  very  close  to  me 
and  almost  whispering  the  first  words: 

"May  I  ask  you  a  question?  Will 
you  excuse  my  intruding?" 


Drawn  by  N.  C.  Wyeth 

MR.    FEXBY    ALWAYS    SAT    WITH    HIS    WIFE    AFTER  SUPPER 


SEA-GREEN 


331 


The  tone  and  words  did  not  go  with 
the  vision.  She  spoke  as  humbly  as  if 
Mrs.  Fenby  had  sent  her. 

"Surely,  surely — "  I  stammered  out. 
" Won't  you  sit  down?" 

She  shook  her  head,  and  we  remained 
standing. 

"It  is  only  that —  I  don't  quite  know 
how  to  explain."  Miss  Susan  twisted 
one  lustrous  braid  of  hair  in  her  hand 
nervously. 

"Why  not?"  I  smiled  a  little  to  put 
her  at  her  ease. 

"  It  is  only  this."  She  tossed  her  head, 
shaking  her  braids  back.  Her  voice 
grew  stronger.  She  was  now  speaking 
in  almost  a  normal  tone.  "I  am  very 
ignorant.  I  have  never  had  the  chance 
to  learn  as  much  as  I  wanted.  Could 
you  sometimes  let  me  have  one  of  Carol's 
old  lesson-books?  History,  geography, 
arithmetic,  Latin — anything.  I  have  a 
good  deal  of  time  to  myself." 

"Do  you,  indeed,  Miss  Susan?  I 
should  not  have  thought  it." 

"Oh  yes."  Her  affirmation  had  a 
sharp  edge — whether  of  bitterness  or 
boredom  I  could  not  say;  but  certainly 
of  some  very  un-Cinderella-like  emo- 
tion. "Evenings,  for  example.  I  go  to 
sleep  very  late,  and  I  really  am  anx- 
ious to  learn.  Of  course  I  want  only  the 
books  that  Carol  has  finished  with." 

"You  don't  use  the  library,  then?" 

"Mr.  Fenby  would  not  like  that.  But 
how  could  he  object  to  my  using  old 
school-books  ?  And  I  thought  you  would 
know  which  ones  Carol  did  not  need." 

"He  needs  very  few." 

"Is  he  clever?"  Again  there  was  an 
edge — was  it  of  hostility? — in  her  tone. 

"Rather!" 

"Then  he  will  be  through  with  his 
books  all  the  sooner.  May  I  have 
them?" 

"Of  course,  there  is  no  conceivable 
objection  on  my  part,"  I  began.  "They 
aren't  my  books,  even,  you  know." 

"No,  they're  theirs.  Or  Carol's,  per- 
haps. I  don't  know  about  those  things." 
She  paused  a  moment,  then  looked  up  at 
me  sharply  from  under  the  thick  brown 
ridge  of  her  eyebrows.  "Are  you  afraid 
to  give  them  to  me  for  fear  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Fenby  will  mind?" 

"No.  Why  should  I  be?  I  suppose 
I  thought  it  odd  that  you  didn't  speak 


to  them  instead  of  to  me."  My  honest 
thought  came  out  thus.  Then  I  won- 
dered. .  .  .  "If  there  is  anything  in  the 
world  that  I  can  do,  I  shall  be  glad  to — 
if  you  really  want  to  begin  Latin,  for 
example.    I  am  just  starting  Carol." 

She  appeared  to  consider.  "But  he 
would  be  using  the  book  himself, 
wouldn't  he?" 

"Not  at  any  hour  when  you  would  be 
using  it."  I  laughed.  "Especially  not 
in  the  evening." 

"I  wouldn't  ask  you  many  questions, 
and  I  could  always  return  the  books 
here  in  the  early  morning." 

"Done,  then.  What  do  you  most 
want?  I  will  get  them  for  you  to-mor- 
row. 

"Oh,  almost  anything.  What  Carol 
has  had  will  do  for  me  to  begin  on." 
She  smiled  gratefully,  but  not  at  me. 
She  looked  away  as  she  smiled.  Appar- 
ently her  errand  was  quite  finished,  for 
she  moved  toward  the  door. 

"Miss  Susan!"  I  could  not  help  it. 
I  felt  I  must  ask  her.  "Why  should  the 
Fenbys  mind  your  teaching  yourself  out 
of  the  boy's  books?  Why  do  you  think 
they  would?  Do  you  fancy  they  would 
be  afraid — " 

"That  I  might  better  myself  if  I  had 
more  education?"  She  took  the  words 
out  of  my  mouth — though  I  may  say 
I  shouldn't  have  uttered  just  those. 
"Yes,  I  think  they  would  be  afraid  of 
that.  That's  why  I  don't  like  to  ask 
them." 

"But  why  haven't  you  bought  text- 
books long  since?" 

"Oh,  if  I  had  had  money  to  buy 
text-books  with — "  She  shrugged  her 
shoulders  and  turned  her  back  on  me, 
moving  again  toward  the  door.  But  I 
had  seen  the  sudden  crimson  in  her 
cheeks  before  she  turned;  and  I  did  not 
pursue  her  with  more  words.  She  opened 
the  library  door  and  shut  it  again  be- 
hind her,  as  quietly  as  she  had  done  it 
btefore. 

In  a  few  moments  I  blew  out  the 
lamp;  and  I  sat  loyally  in  the  dark  for 
five  minutes,  keeping  my  promise  to 
Mrs.  Fenby.  The  elegant  Harriet  Byron 
no  longer  intrigued  me,  whereas  poor 
Miss  Susan  did.  I  was  forced  to  infer 
that  she  served  my  employers  for  food 
and  shelter  rather  than  for  wages.  It 


332 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


seemed  rather  niggardly  of  them,  for 
there  was  evidently  plenty  of  money.  I 
wondered  a  little  why  she  had  never 
married.  For  under  the  lamplight  the 
truth  had  come  out — Miss  Susan,  give 
her  half  a  chance,  was  handsome.  Not 
only  that:  she  was  handsome  in  no 
forbidding  way.  There  was,  in  her  pres- 
ence, a  potential — mind,  I  don't  say 
actual — invitation  to  woo.  She  wasn't 
a  bit  like  the  Graeae.  There  was  enough 
reticence  there  to  banish  the  thought  of 
intrigue;  but  that  she  shouldn't  have 
married  in  her  lustrous  youth  seemed 
odd — a  pretty  little  problem  in  fatalities. 
After  all,  though  (it  came  to  me  as  I 
mounted  the  dark  stairs),  any  suitor 
would  have  had  to  walk  many  miles  to 
reach  her  in  that  mansion;  and  an 
anomalous  position  like  hers  is  not  the 
predestined  setting  for  a  bride.  She  had 
ambition,  evidently,  still;  but  a  worn 
and  warped  ambition  that  asked  only 
for  Carol's  old  school-books.  Hang  the 
Fenbys!  She  should  have  them.  I 
would  teach  her  the  Greek  verb  at  mid- 
night if  she  thought  it  would  please  her. 
Her  hair  had  been  magnificent  against 
that  sea-green  stuff. 

The  encounter  which  I  have  just  re- 
lated was  the  first  of  three.  I  saw  Miss 
Susan  daily,  as  I  saw  the  Gray  Sisters; 
but  my  casual  meetings  with  her  about 
the  house — when,  as  of  old,  she  slipped 
by  me,  eyes  lowered,  in  her  black  dress — 
were  empty  of  personal  savor.  I  did  not 
even,  for  many  days,  have  a  chance  to 
hand  over  the  school-books  I  had  sifted 
out  for  her.  Mrs.  Fenby's  regime  for 
her  was  iron.  Sometimes  I  even  won- 
dered if  Miss  Susan  had  really  visited 
me — if,  rather,  she  had  done  anything 
save  "appear"  as  a  ghost  does.  Was  it 
perhaps  some  eidolon  of  herjsome  uncon- 
scious projection  of  a  stifled  desire,  that 
had  met  me  face  to  face  in  the  library? 
Had  she  walked  in  her  sleep?  Or,  more 
precisely,  had  some  aspect,  some  frag- 
ment of  her  personality  visited  me  while 
the  familiar  part  of  her  lay  sleeping? 
In  such  reflections — when  Carol  left  me 
time  for  reflection — I  spent  the  next  ten 
days.  Most  of  all  in  the  library  at 
night,  alone  with  my  eighteenth-century 
books,  did  I  wonder;  and  more  than 
once  I  lifted  my  eyes  to  see  if  the  door 
would  open  on  a  sea-green  shape. 


They  were  to  be  three,  my  genuine 
encounters  with  Miss  Susan  under  that 
roof — each  one  violently  and  strangely 
different  from  the  others.  They  deep- 
ened— those  three  scenes — to  the  climax, 
as  cunningly  as  if  they  had  been  staged. 
I  do  not  think  she  ever  knew  that,  or 
thought  for  one  instant  what  must  be 
the  dramatic  history  of  my  attitude 
to  her.  The  first  chute  de  rideau  she 
might  have  planned;  the  others,  in  es- 
sence, she  was  innocent  of.  I  do  not 
believe  she  ever  once  calculated  her  effect 
on  me. 

Ten  days  after  her  request  for  school- 
books — a  request  that,  as  I  explained, 
she  had  never  given  me  the  chance  to 
fulfil  (for,  after  all,  she  had  to  seek  me 
out;  I  could  not  mount  to  her  attic),  I 
sat  again  late  in  the  library.  July  was 
heavy  upon  us,  and  there  was  no  cool 
west  wind.  For  very  heat,  I  could  not 
go  to  bed,  and  I  marveled  that  others 
could.  Mrs.  Fenby  had  the  immunity 
to  heat  of  her  fragility.  She  was  one 
of  those  thin  old  creatures  who  wear 
a  shawl  in  the  hottest  weather,  as  if 
their  veins  stored  ice  that  was  in  per- 
petual need  of  thawing.  Her  husband, 
however,  was  of  a  sanguine  constitution, 
full-fleshed  and  flushing  easily.  I  should 
have  expected  him  to  share  my  vigils, 
though  I  was  always  grateful  to  hear  his 
heavy  footsteps  following  his  wife's  up- 
stairs. Night  by  night  they  ascended 
together,  like  an  aging  mastiff  and  a 
decrepit  parrot.  Hannah,  Martha,  and 
Rachel  would  follow  presently,  dogging 
each  other  closely,  the  three  making  a 
single  indistinguishable  smudge  on  the 
twilit  staircase.  Miss  Susan  usually 
preceded  them  all. 

The  night  was  hotter  than  any  other 
even  in  that  hot  July.  I  could  not  read 
with  comfort,  and  while  I  got  over  a  good 
many  pages,  it  was  by  dint  of  changing 
my  position  constantly  and  drinking  ice- 
water  in  great  gulps.  Some  time  after 
eleven  I  went  out  through  the  French 
window  to  the  porch.  The  covered 
porch  was  as  hot  as  the  room;  I  stepped 
down  on  the  lawn.  At  least  the  ceiling 
of  the  lawn  was  high!  I  strolled  up  and 
down,  wondering  if  I  shouldn't  simply 
fling  myself  down  on  cool  turf  to  spend 
the  night  under  the  stars.  Of  course, 
though,  if  I  did,  I  should  have  to  go  in 


SEA-GREEN 


333 


first  and  put  out  that  wretched  lamp. 
Instinctively,  with  the  thought,  I  looked 
toward  the  house.  Framed  in  the  French 
window  of  the  library  was  a  sea-green 
figure. 

"Oh!"  That  ejaculation  was 
wrenched  from  me.  Why,  on  such  a  hot 
night?  Well,  I  would  give  her  the  books 
and  then  come  out  and  fling  myself  on  the 
turf.  I  walked  across  to  the  long  win- 
dow.   She  stepped  aside  for  me  to  enter. 

I  found  the  books  for  her  and  handed 
them  over  with  a  few  curt  words.  It 
was,  for  some  reason,  annoying  to  have 
waited  vainly  all  those  days,  and  now, 
at  this  torrid  moment,  to  be  called  to 
account.  My  enthusiasm  for  this  spin- 
ster's schooling  had  ebbed.  Yet,  as  she 
stood  beside  me,  asking  eager  questions, 
the  second  self  of  Miss  Susan — call  it 
what  you  will — wrought  upon  me  again. 
My  second  impression  was  more  vivid 
than  my  first  had  been,  probably  be- 
cause it  had  the  first,  for  past,  to  go 
upon.  Suspicions  resolved  themselves 
into  certainties;  vague  wonderments 
into  conclusions.  I  did  not  need  to  note 
again  details  I  had  already  noted.  The 
whiteness  of  her  skin,  the  sheen  of  her 
hair,  the  suppleness  of  her  form  beneath 
its  rich  shroud,  I  took  for  granted  now; 
and  proceeded  to  take  in  other  details: 
a  vague  scent  about  her  sea-green  dra- 
peries, a  small  foot  pushed  out  in  its 
slipper  beneath  the  swirling  hem  of  her 
gown,  the  excellent  shape  of  her  slightly 
roughened  hands.  But  most  of  all,  as 
we  faced  each  other  across  the  marble 
chimney-piece  (having  withdrawn  by 
common  impulse  from  the  tropic  radius 
of  the  lamp-ray),  were  her  eyes  revealed 
to  me.  I  met  them,  glowing  in  the  dim- 
ness, with  a  kind  of  shock.  In  point  of 
fact,  as  I  realized,  I  had  never  seen  Miss 
Susan's  eyes  before.  She  seemed  quite 
unconscious  of  the  kind  of  figure  she  cut: 
I  dare  say  she  was.  No  intention  was 
revealed  to  me,  at  all  events;  only  an  un- 
suspected capacity — for  what?  Well,  for 
being  like  other  women ;  that  was  all.  Im- 
agine how  little  like  other  women  she  must 
have  seemed,  day  by  day,  going  about 
the  Fenbys'  business!  And  a  sea-green 
gown,  of  no  fashion  and  unquestioned 
age,  had  done  it.  The  only  malice  you 
could  record  against  Miss  Susan  was  her 
wearing  it  at  all — her  thinking  it  worth 


while,  for  the  sake  of  some  starved  sense 
in  her,  to  masquerade  to  herself  in  a  bit 
of  cast-off  finery.  I  did  not  even  then 
believe  that  she  had  "dressed  up"  for 
me.  If  it  had  occurred  to  me,  I  could 
have  felt  only  pity  for  an  instinct  that 
had  to  satisfy  itself  with  a  dressing-gown 
of  Mrs.  Fenby's  grandmother. 

So  we  stood,  exchanging  a  few  words 
about  the  Latin  grammar.  "You  are 
very  kind,"  was  the  most  personal  thing 
said  between  us,  and  she  said  it  as 
humbly  as  if  I  had  tipped  her. 

"If  you  have  any  questions,  I  should 
be  glad  to  answer  them.  And  surely 
you  don't  need  to  sit  up  to  all  hours  to 
ask  them.  Almost  any  time  in  the  day 
when  I  see  you — " 

"I  don't  dare  in  the  daytime.  Really, 
it  is  better  not."  Her  acknowledged  fear 
sat  oddly  on  her  magnificence.  So,  too, 
did  her  desire  for  book-learning.  You 
could  have  imagined  her — in  sea-green — 
wanting  a  personal  success;  I  couldn't 
readily  imagine  her — in  sea-green — car- 
ing to  spell  correctly.  That  creature 
ought  to  have  despised  the  technique  of 
respectability — though  she  looked,  too, 
as  innocent  as  gunpowder  that  has  never 
heard  of  a  gun.  I  felt  all  this  a  little 
thickly  and  incoherently.  I  can't  give 
you  her  effect  so  logically  as  I  should 
like.  I  was  very  young  when  I  encoun- 
tered Miss  Susan. 

She  was  starting  to  go  away,  I  think — 
at  all  events,  she  had  removed  her  vague, 
burning  glance  from  me — when  I  heard 
a  voice  in  the  hall.  Immediately  the 
door  was  thrown  open — quietly;  but  no 
other  human  being  could  quite  achieve 
the  soundlessness  of  Miss  Susan's  per- 
formance. 

Mr.  Fenby,  candle  in  hand,  con- 
fronted us.  The  books — she  was  just 
taking  them  from  my  hand — dropped  to 
the  floor  with  a  little  crash.  The  noise 
woke  me  to  a  daylight  reality.  I  almost 
expected  the  sea  -  green  wrapper  to 
change  in  a  twinkling  to  black  stuff,  and 
the  braids  of  hair  to  arrange  themselves 
in  compact  Cinderella  fashion  on  Miss 
Susan's  head.  But  she  did  not  change 
in  any  respect.  She  was  evidently  too 
much  surprised  to  adventure  even  into 
another  manner  all  at  once. 

"What  is  this?"  He  stormed  impar- 
tially at  us  both. 


334 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Miss  Susan  asked  me  for  some  text- 
books. I  found  them  and  gave  them 
to  her.  She  was  just  taking  them  up- 
stairs." 

"  Carol's  text-books  ?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  "Carol's  text- 
books. He  is  quite  through  with  them. 
Have  you  any  objection,  Mr.  Fenby?" 

Miss  Susan  had  not  crumpled  yet. 
She  was  quite  self-possessed. 

"Of  course  I  have."  Mr.  Fenby  didn't 
precisely  shout,  but  his  voice  sounded 
to  my  nervous  ear  like  summer  thunder. 
"What  right  have  you  to  Carol's 
books?  They  belong  to  my  dead  son's 
boy.    Pick  them  up." 

I  stooped  and  gathered  up  the  books. 
I  was  not  going  to  see  any  woman  obey- 
ing orders  issued  in  that  tone. 

"Your  dead  son's  boy."  She  spoke 
musingly.  "No,  I  never  did  care  for 
your  dead  son." 

"And  you  come  here,  at  night,  in  that 
costume" — he  pointed  a  scornful  finger 
at  her — "to  get  up  an  intrigue  with  this 
young  man!" 

"Nothing  of  the  sort,  Mr.  Fenby,"  I 
said,  roundly.  "I  don't  know  why  Miss 
Susan  wants  text -books,  but  neither 
could  I  be  supposed  to  see  why  she 
shouldn't  have  them.  She  has  been  here 
only  five  minutes,  and  I  have  been  ex- 
plaining to  her  how  she  had  better  begin. 
We  have  had  no  conversation  whatever 
on  any  other  subject,  so  you  will  kindly 
reverse  your  opinion." 

"I'm  not  accusing  you  of  anything, 
young  man.  I  don't  suppose  you'd  look 
at  her.  But  you" — he  turned  to  Miss 
Susan — "traipsing  around  my  house  at 
midnight — not  even  in  a  decent  dress — 
your  hair  down—  It's  disreputable, 
you — 

I  won't  repeat  the  word  he  used.  It's 
sufficiently  well  known  to  be  guessed. 

Before  I  could  reply,  either  for  myself 
or  for  Miss  Susan,  a  tottering  figure 
stood  in  the  doorway.  Mrs.  Fenby  had 
crept  down  after  her  husband,  and  was 
now  making  her  way  to  his  side.  She 
stood  there,  hunched  and  rounded  and 
frail  in  dressing-gown  and  shawl,  facing 
her  husband  and  the  other  woman. 

"That  is  no  word  for  you  to  use  to 
Susan,  Horace."  Her  voice  was  very 
thin  and  piping,  but  she  got  an  effective 
emphasis  all  the  same. 


He  did  not  answer  at  once,  but  his 
rage  against  Miss  Susan  appeared  to 
abate.  Or,  at  least,  rage  seemed  to  pass 
out  of  him,  like  air  from  a  deflated 
balloon.  His  wife's  eyes  and  his  fixed 
each  other  during  this  shrinking  proc- 
ess; to  my  imagination,  dark  accusa- 
tions passed  silently  between  them. 
When  those  few  instants  had  passed, 
Mrs.  Fenby  turned  to  Miss  Susan.  Her 
words  came  shrill  and  sudden. 

"Go,  woman!  My  husband  is  right. 
I  have  no  doubt  of  your  intentions.  But 
it  shall  not  happen  again.  What  decep- 
tions you  have  practised  on  this  mis- 
guided young  man  it  is  not  for  me  to  say 
or  to  know.  But  they  shall  not  be  prac- 
tised any  further.  My  household  is  safe 
from  you.  Do  you  understand?  Safe! 
I  will  see  to  that.  Carol's  tutor  should 
have  been  sacred  even  to  you." 

"Mrs.  Fenby!"  I,  in  my  turn,  almost 
shouted.  "I  have  already  told  your 
husband  that  Miss  Susan  came  to  me 
with  a  request  for  some  paltry  school- 
books.  She  said  she  wished  to  study  by 
herself.  I  gave  them  to  her.  I  don't 
know  the  meaning  of  all  your  abomi- 
nable talk,  but  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
any  facts  I  know  anything  about.  If 
you  choose  to  insult  her  privately,  I 
can't  control  it,  I  suppose;  but  you  shall 
not  insult  her  in  my  presence  with  lies. 
I  did  not  see  at  first  why  she  had  to 
conceal  so  innocent  a  request  from  you 
and  Mr.  Fenby,  but  I  do  see  now,  and  I 
shouldn't  have  believed  it  possible!" 

Miss  Susan  came  forward  and  offered 
her  hand  to  me.  "Thank  you,"  she  said. 
"I  didn't  know  men  ever  spoke  the 
truth.  Apparently  they  do.  You're 
good  for  that,  whether  you  are  good  for 
anything  else  or  not."  She  smiled 
straight  into  my  face,  maliciously — as  if 
she  had,  after  all,  in  many  ways  found 
me  wanting.  Then  she  turned  to  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Fenby.  "As  for  you  two" — 
some  word  seemed  to  stick  in  her  throat 
— "I  apologize.  It  shall  not  happen 
again.'  Your  grandson's  books  shall  be 
sacred." 

And,  lifting  the  little  pile  from  the 
chimney-piece,  she  flungthem  on  the  floor. 
Apparently  the  gesture  relieved  her  pent 
emotion,  for  with  it  all  passion — and 
likewise  all  luster — seemed  to  ebb  from 
her.   In  spite  of  her  costume,  she  looked 


SEA-GREEN 


335 


like  her  daily  self  once  more.  "I  apolo- 
gize," she  repeated.  "I  wouldn't  have 
done  it  if  I  had  known." 

The  words  were  spoken  to  Mrs.  Fenby 
alone.  She  turned  her  back  on  the  hus- 
band. 

Miss  Susan's  movements  had  brought 
her  very  near  the  mistress  of  the  house; 
and  at  this  point  Mrs.  Fenby,  with 
a  myopic  start,  caught  at  the  sea- 
green  sleeve  and  held  it  to  her  eyes. 
" Wretched  girl !"  she  piped.  "You  wore 
this — -down  here — at  midnight!" 

"Yes,  I  did.  But  I  never  will  again," 
and  the  sea-green  figure  passed  out  into 
the  hall. 

"I  am  cold,  Horace— cold !"  All  Mrs. 
Fenby's  shrillness  had  gone.  She  cow- 
ered against  her  husband  in  a  shivering 
revulsion.  Apparently  she  was  cry- 
ing. 

"Of  course  you  are  cold.  You  must 
go  back  to  bed,"  he  said,  vaguely,  while 
with  one  hand  he  mopped  the  sweat 
from  his  own  brow.  "Take  my  arm. 
Or — if  Mr.  Sladen  will  go  up-stairs  ahead 
of  us,  I  will  give  you  my  dressing-gown 
to  put  round  you." 

Mrs.  Fenby's  teeth  were  chattering. 
There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  put  out 
the  lamp  and  precede  them,  letting  Mr. 
Fenby  give  his  wife  that  extra  covering. 
This  I  did.  After  all,  I  wanted  an  in- 
terval of  solitude  before  the  inevitable 
explanations  came. 

But  the  inevitable  explanations,  para- 
doxically, did  not  come.  Mr.  Fenby,  in 
his  wife's  presence  the  next  day,  apolo- 
gized to  me  for  anything  that  might  in- 
cidentally have  offended  me  the  evening 
before.  His  words  were  as  vague  and 
inclusive  as  that.  There  was  nothing  for 
me  to  take  up,  I  saw  by  daylight,  unless 
Miss  Susan  chose  to  appeal  to  me. 
Whatever  dark  stuff  of  hatred  they  had 
woven  between  them  was  not  for  me  to 
lift  unchallenged.  Miss  Susan  was  not 
visible  to  me  for  some  days;  but  by  the 
end  of  the  week  she  appeared  again 
about  the  house.  She  seemed  to  take 
pride  in  not  altering  her  accustomed  de- 
meanor— in  neither  lifting  her  eyes  to 
mine  nor  quickening  her  pace  when  she 
had  occasion  to  pass  me.  I  gave  her 
chances;  for,  though  I  did  not  like  her, 
I  thought  her  oppressed.  She  took  none 
of  them;  and  as  I  had  now  no  reason  to 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783.-42 


think  her  either  stupid  or  simple,  I 
ceased  to  occupy  myself  with  her. 

That  last  statement  is  of  course  not 
quite  true.  I  ceased  to  put  myself,  how- 
ever unobtrusively,  in  her  way;  but 
my  hours  of  solitude  were  full  of  wild 
surmises.  I  tried  to  keep  away  from  the 
subject;  for  some  evenings  I  went  to 
my  own  room  after  prayers,  eschewing 
the  library.  These  people  were  my  em- 
ployers; I  needed  their  money;  I  was 
fond  of  Carol;  I  almost  respected  them 
for  not  explaining  to  me  things  that 
most  people — if  they  did  not  turn  me 
out  of  the  house  at  once — would  have 
bitten  their  tongues  in  their  haste  to 
explain.  Their  power  over  Miss  Susan 
was  certainly  a  moral  power;  for  she 
had  had  chances  to  give  me  a  sign,  and 
did  not  take  them.  The  decent  thing 
to  do — since  I  wasn't  prepared  to  chuck 
my  position — was  to  forget.  And  yet, 
how  could  I  ? 

There  is  scarcely  a  thinkable  solution 
that  my  brain  did  not  work  out  to  its 
passionate,  illogical  end.  I  sailed  with 
the  wind  straight  into  Sophoclean  trag- 
edy; I  tacked — into  Dumas  fils.  What 
had  there  been  between  Miss  Susan  and 
Horace  Fenby  that  stirred  the  crack- 
ling ire  of  his  wife?  Or,  had  she  embit- 
tered the  son's  brief  marriage?  Carol's 
mother  had  died  in  childbirth,  I  had 
learned;  his  father,  of  typhoid,  not  long 
after  her.  Or  did  it  all  go  further  back, 
and  was  Miss  Susan  herself  a  result,  not 
a  cause,  of  scandal?  Above  all,  had 
there  been  any  reason,  any  precedent, 
for  their  implication  that  she  had  sought 
me  out  with  no  holy  emotion?  I  could 
not  think  it;  though  I  remembered  the 
malice  of  her  final  glance  at  me.  What 
hold  had  she  on  people  who  hated  her 
so?  Why  did  she  stay  with  people  she 
so  detested?  What  strange  situation 
kept  the  balance  between  them — a  claim 
they  acknowledged  so  meanly;  a  hatred 
that  she  could  not  keep  from  being 
humble?  I  made  nothing  of  it;  and,  as 
I  say,  I  was  not  sure  that  I  had  the  right 
to  wonder  too  cleverly,  had  I  been  able. 
They  were  paying  for  the  full  bloom  of 
my  mental  powers.  I  could  not  cheat 
Carol  of  that. 

Yet,  even  so,  my  curious  fever  would 
not  abate  at  once.  It  waxed  with  the 
waxing  heat  of  July.     By  August  the 


33G 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


heat  was  even  greater,  and  other  symp- 
toms began  to  possess  me.  A  strange 
inward  coolness  took  the  place  of  my 
brief  delirium;  my  chill  mind  seemed 
to  react  against  the  physical  torridity 
and  save  me.  I  longed  only  for  autumn 
to  reconcile  once  more  the  temperatures 
of  body  and  brain.  Perhaps  the  massive 
fixity  of  the  household  hypnotized  me. 
I  took  to  sitting  in  the  library  again  at 
night;  and  after  the  first  few  evenings 
I  ceased  to  expect  a  sea-green  shape  to 
rise  upon  the  threshold.  Perhaps  we  had 
all  been  mad  together;  crazed  by  the 
highest  temperature  in  years. 

In  any  case,  it  was  upon  a  state  of 
mind  from  which  all  expectancy  had 
been  wrung  that  my  third  encounter 
with  Miss  Susan  fell.  I  had  gone  back 
to  Richardson  —  not  to  Sir  Charles 
Grandison,  which  indeed  I  have  never 
finished;  but  to  Pamela.  I  was  wonder- 
ing idly  what  it  would  feel  like  to  be 
"Mr.  B.";  I  was  even  wondering,  with 
equal  idleness,  what  "Mr.  B."  would 
have  made  of  the  Fenby  household. 
My  brain  was  scarce  working,  as  you 
can  see,  and  it  took  me  some  moments 
to  authenticate  the  smell  of  smoke  in 
my  own  nostrils.  I  was  slow  about  in- 
vestigating; it  was  a  nuisance  to  get  up, 
and  probably  the  kerosene-lamp  beside 
me  was  guilty.  But  the  odor  was  too 
strong  and  significant.  I  suddenly  real- 
ized that,  and  my  limbs  as  suddenly 
ceased  to  be  lazy.  I  walked  quickly 
across  the  library  and  opened  the  door. 
A  great  acrid  gust  choked  me,  and  I 
dashed  up-stairs,  where,  in  the  darkness, 
I  already  heard  a  mild  commotion.  The 
Gray  Sisters  rushed  by  me  in  weird 
nightgear.  Two  of  them  went  to  Mrs. 
Fenby's  room,  where  I  heard  Mr.  Fenby 
shouting  encouragement  to  her.  The 
other  fled  before  me  down  the  corridor 
that  led  to  Carol's  room  in  the  wing. 
That  was  the  path  I  took  instinctively, 
myself;  and  I  called  through  the  smoke 
to  the  maid — Martha,  the  cook — to  go 
to  the  stables  and  wake  the  coachman 
and  gardener.  She  turned  and  shuffled 
away  through  the  smoke. 

That  moment  was  such  a  chaos  of 
sensations  that  even  memory  cannot 
straighten  it  out.  I  know  that  I  had  a 
purpose  at  the  back  of  my  mind — to  get 
every  living  creature  out  of  the  house, 


and  then,  with  the  other  men,  to  see 
what  could  be  done.  The  Fenbys  and 
the  servants  were  awake  and  aware;  but 
no  sound  had  come  from  Carol.  I  in- 
tended, I  know,  to  carry  the  child  out- 
side, myself,  in  my  own  arms,  before 
that  terrible  air  grew  hotter.  I  could 
not  yet  see  flames  anywhere,  but  I  heard 
cracklings  and  rumblings.  Mrs.  Fenby's 
terror  had  realized  itself.  I  heard  her 
excited  moaning  somewhere  behind  me 
as  I  rushed  down  to  Carol's  room;  I 
heard  the  others  pleading  with  her;  but 
I  did  not  stop.  The  smoke  grew  greasier, 
hotter,  thicker,  with  each  step  I  took 
toward  Carol.  I  judged  it — as  far  as  in 
that  dash  I  could  judge  anything — to 
have  started  in  the  floor  or  walls  above 
that  wing;  I  hoped,  beyond  Carol's  own 
room. 

The  child  was  sleeping,  but  woke, 
choking  and  spluttering,  as  I  felt  for  him 
roughly  in  the  dark.  He  was  frightened, 
but  surrendered  himself  to  me  without 
too  much  kicking.  Common  sense  came 
to  my  rescue  in  a  single  flash.  I  flung  a 
blanket  round  him,  picked  up  his  slip- 
pers and  put  them  on  his  feet.  His 
weight  was  more  than  I  had  bargained 
for,  though.  I  could  not  be  sure  of 
stumbling  ahead  fast  enough  with  him 
in  my  arms.  I  felt  for  the  washstand, 
dipped  a  towel  in  the  pitcher  against 
emergencies,  and  bade  him  walk  quickly 
by  my  side,  holding  my  hand.  The  sleep 
was  jolted  out  of  him  by  this  time,  and 
he  obeyed,  whispering  and  asking  absurd 
questions.  It  seemed  an  age  before  I 
got  him  down  the  hall  to  the  main  stair- 
case; but  the  flames  did  not  reach  us, 
though  they  were  creeping  stealthily 
down  toward  us  now  from  the  end  of  the 
wing. 

Mrs.  Fenby  was  calling  in  her  piping 
shriek  for  Carol.  I  shouted  that  I  had 
him  safe,  and  I  heard  them  bumping 
down  the  stairs.  Evidently  they  had  to 
carry  her,  among  them.  I  told  them  we 
were  following  close  behind,  and  by  this 
time  they  could  hear  Carol's  own  voice 
still  asking  angry  questions.  Their  rick- 
ety progress  was  resumed.  Martha  had 
not  yet  brought  the  men  back  from  the 
stables.  The  whole  group  got,  finally, 
into  the  outer  air,  and  Mr.  Fenby  and  I 
rushed  back  for  wraps.  There  could  be 
no  question  of  trying  to  save  anything 


SEA-GREEN 


337 


on  the  upper  floors.  Just  as  we  came 
out  of  Mrs.  Fenby's  room,  staggering 
laden  through  the  smoke,  feeling  for  the 
hand-rail  of  the  staircase,  something 
turned  me  sick  and  nearly  knocked  me 
over.  Not  one  of  us  had  thought  of  Miss 
Susan!  I  flung  my  load  over  the  ban- 
isters into  the  hall  below  and  turned  to 
the  third  -  story  staircase.  Old  Mr. 
Fenby  started  down,  and  I  let  him  go 
without  speaking  to  him.  It  was  too 
hideous  to  mention,  that  we  should  not 
have  thought  of  her.  There  was  light 
now  —  the  awful  apocalyptic  light  of 
flame  where  flame  should  not  be.  And 
as  I  approached  the  attic  stairs — no 
speech  is  quick  enough  to  tell  all  this, 
nor  yet  confused  enough — a  sea-green 
figure  came  half  falling,  half  running 
down  them.  I  tried  to  stop  Miss  Susan, 
but  could  not.  Her  face  and  hair  were 
singed,  and  one  blackened  hand  was 
bleeding.  She  tore  past  me  to  the  wing, 
straight  into  the  beginning  conflagra- 
tion. "Carol!  Carol!"  I  heard  her  cry, 
as  she  dashed  past  me  through  the 
smoke. 

"He  is  safe!  He's  outdoors!"  I 
shouted  to  her,  but  she  did  not  hear  me. 
She  tore  her  way  into  the  fire,  beating 
a  passage  through  the  smoke  with  her 
wounded  hand. 

"Carol!  Carol!    I'm  coming!" 

"Miss  Susan!"  I  screamed  it  in  her 
ear.  "I  took  him  down.  He's  safe. 
Every  one  is  safe." 

She  heard  me  then  and  gripped  my 
arm.    "You  swear  it?" 

"I  swear  it.  I  went  for  the  boy  first 
of  all,  of  course.  For  God's  sake,  come! 
The  ceiling  is  falling  in." 

She  turned.  "It  started  in  the  attic 
next  my  room,  I  think.  My  door  got 
jammed.  I  had  to  fight  my  way  out. 
It's  all  burning  up  there.  The  windows 
are  all  open.  Where  is  he?  Where  is  he?" 

I  led  her  down,  almost  at  a  run,  my 
arm  round  her  waist;  for  the  second 
floor  was  already  doomed. 

"Carol!"  she  called  in  the  hall  be- 
low. But  there  was  no  answer.  The 
family  had  gone,  I  realized  afterward,  to 
the  far  end  of  the  lawn.  "Carol!"  she 
called  again  in  the  doorway.  And  when 
no  answer  came,  she  struck  at  me  and 
ran  back  to  the  staircase.  I  clutched 
her,  willing  to  be  brutal  if  necessary,  for 


she  was  far  gone  in  hysteria.  By  God's 
providence,  at  that  moment  Carol's 
own  cry  came  authentically  from  out- 
side. He  ran  across  the  lawn,  wrapped  in 
his  blanket,  elfin  and  comic  in  the  lurid 
glow. 

"  My  son !  my  son !  my  own  little  son !" 
Neither  Hannah  nor  Rachel  could  get 
him,  for  a  moment,  out  of  Miss  Susan's 
clutch,  though  the  boy,  frightened,  no 
doubt,  writhed  to  get  free  from  her 
blackened  face  and  arms.  At  last,  for 
sheer  physical  weakness,  she  let  him  go. 
But  I  had  heard  the  cry,  and  so  had  the 
maids  and  Mr.  Fenby,  who  now  stood 
beside  them. 

"Take  the  boy  to  his  grandmother," 
he  commanded.  "You  have  frightened 
him  sick,  Susan." 

He  ran  to  meet  the  two  men  who  had 
just  reached  the  house,  and  tried  to  pull 
me  along  with  him.  I  half  gave  to  his 
pull,  but  before  I  actually  moved  from 
the  spot  I  spoke  to  Miss  Susan.  "They 
have  taken  chairs  ofT  the  porch.  Go 
over  there  and  rest.  You  can't  do  any- 
thing now.  We  must  try  to  save  some 
of  the  books." 

"Rest  ?"  She  looked  about  her  wildly. 
"Where  should  I  rest?  With  my  mother 
over  there  who  has  taken  my  boy  away 
from  me?   I'll  stay  here." 

And,  wrapping  her  green  garment 
about  her,  she  flung  herself  face  down- 
ward on  the  turf. 

"Get  a  blanket,  Martha!"  I  called. 
Even  in  that  instant  I  remembered  it 
was  Martha  who  had  tried  first  to  save 
Carol.  I  managed  finally  to  get  Miss 
Susan  up  from  the  ground  and  lead  her 
to  a  wicker  couch  under  a  tree.  We  had 
got  wraps  from  the  lower  floor,  and  the 
women,  at  the  far  end  of  the  lawn,  were 
protected  from  chill.  Miss  Susan  would 
not  have  her  couch  placed  near  the 
others  when  she  saw  that  Carol's  sleepy 
head  was  on  his  grandmother's  lap. 
Mrs.  Fenby  called  to  her  peevishly,  but 
Miss  Susan  gave  her  only  a  curt  reply 
as  she  passed. 

"God  has  cursed  me  in  my  daughter, 
and  now  he  has  taken  my  home.  Blessed 
be  the  name  of  the  Lord."  That  solemn 
whimper  of  Mrs.  Fenby's  in  sight  of  her 
blazing  house  haunts  me  still. 

Then  Susan  Fenby  turned  on  her. 
"You  have  frightened  me  with  God  long 


338 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


enough,  mother.  You  will  never  do  it 
again.  I  see  now  that  you  are  only  a 
fool." 

"Grace  is  not  in  you,  Susan."  It  was 
hardly  more  than  a  whisper,  for  all 
its  shrillness.  The  old  woman's  chin 
dropped  wearily  on  her  breast,  and  she 
was  silent  in  her  coil  of  wrappings.  Miss 
Susan  flung  herself  upon  her  couch  and 
gazed,  unwinking  and  speechless,  at  the 
burning  house. 

After  this  bitter  little  interlude  I  ran 
back  to  help  Mr.  Fenby  and  the  men 
with  the  books.  The  silver,  carefully 
carried  up-stairs  every  night  to  Mrs. 
Fenby's  room,  we  could  not  go  for.  We 
saved  a  few  volumes — more  or  less  at 
random,  I  am  afraid,  for  it  was  impos- 
sible either  to  turn  Mr.  Fenby  out  or  to 
disobey  him,  and  he  had  completely  lost 
his  head.  The  house  was  doomed  from 
the  start,  and  when,  an  hour  later,  the 
engines  came  from  the  town,  there  was 
little  they  could  do  save  to  fling  some 
water  on  what  seemed  the  very  spirit  of 
fire. 

The  morrows  of  such  nights  are 
strange.  By  dawn  we  persuaded  the 
women  to  go  down  to  the  stables.  Before 
dawn  not  one  of  them  would  stir.  It 
was  eight  o'clock  before  I  went  down 
myself;  and  when  I  got  there  I  found 
that  Mr.  Fenby,  Carol,  and  all  the 
women  had  been  driven  to  the  hotel  in 
the  town.  The  gardener's  wife  gave  me 
breakfast,  and  I  ate  it  hungrily.  The 
morning  I  spent  in  groping  about  among 
the  ruins,  estimating  the  usefulness  of 
the  walls  that  were  left,  picking  up 
charred  objects  from  the  debris,  waiting 
for  Mr.  Fenby's  return.  I  could  hardly 
divine  what  my  next  move  would  be 
until  I  had  seen  him. 

It  must  have  been  noon  when  I  was 
suddenly  confronted,  in  the  middle  of 
what  had  been  the  library,  by  a  strange 
figure.  Susan  Fenby,  in  cheap  gingham, 
stood  before  me  under  the  August 
sun. 

"I  walked  back,"  she  said,  simply. 
"They  are  all  sleeping  except  Mr.  Fen- 
by, who  is  seeing  the  insurance  people. 
He  will  be  here  pretty  soon.  I  sha'n't 
see  you  again." 

"Do  you  know  what  they  are  going 
to  dor 

"No."    She  shook  her  head.  "Go 


somewhere,  probably,  until  the  house 
can  be  rebuilt." 

"How  is  Mrs.  Fenby?"  I  dared  not 
be  the  first  to  mention  Carol. 

"Asleep,  I  told  you." 

"And  you  think  they  won't  need  my 
services  any  more?" 

"They'll  never  keep  you  on."  She 
shook  her  head.  "They  will  have  to 
keep  me.  That  will  be  bad  enough — 
after  last  night.  They'll  be  very  nice  to 
you;  you  won't  suffer.  But  you  can  be 
sure  they  will  never  want  to  see  you 
again." 

"Probably  not,"  I  mused.  "And  you 
will  still  stay  on — after  last  night?"  I 
was  deeply  embarrassed.  But,  leaning 
against  the  cracked  marble  of  the  fire- 
place, in  that  roofless  room,  under  the 
crude  August  sun,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
nothing  was  too  strange  to  be  said. 

"I  shall  stay.  It's  in  the  bargain.  I 
have  done  everything  they  made  ,  me — 
standing  up,  sitting  down,  and  on  my 
knees — for  the  sake  of  being  near  Carol. 
If  you  are  out  of  the  way  it  will  all  go 
on  as  before.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  the 
fire,  I  should  never  have  broken  out 
again.  And  I  sha'n't  now,  as  long  as 
Carol  is  still  at  home.  I'm  not  afraid  of 
God  any  more,  as  I  used  to  be — nor  of 
them.  But  I  have  learned  how  to  hold 
my  tongue.  Only,  of  course,  you'll  have 
to  go.  They  couldn't  stand  it  with  any 
one  who  knew — except  the  maids,  and 
they  have  always  known.  They've  been 
with  us  since  I  was  born." 

"But  what  about  Carol?" 

"They're  already  hoping  he's  forgot- 
ten, in  the  excitement.  I  dare  say  he 
has."  She  passed  her  handkerchief  ner- 
vously over  her  lips  with  her  bandaged 
hand,  then  broke  out,  passionately:  "I 
did  keep  my  word.  I  should  never  have 
told  him  if  I  hadn't  been  mad  with  fear 
for  him." 

She  closed  her  eyes  convulsively.  Her 
whole  face  twitched. 

"What  I  really  came  for,"  she  said, 
dully,  "was  to  advise  you  to  ask  your 
own  price.  I  mean,  for  going  away  like 
a  gentleman  and  holding  your  tongue. 
Probably  you  would  do  it,  anyhow,  but 
they  might  as  well  pay." 

"Miss  Susan!"  I  exclaimed.  "What 
do  you  take  me  for?" 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  you, 


Drawn  by  N.  C.  Wyeth 

"  AXD    yOU    WILL    STAY    OX— AFTER    LAST  NIGHT?" 


RENUNCIATION 


339 


but  if  any  one  can  get  anything  out  of 
them,  it's  all  to  the  good." 

"  Besides,"  I  went  on — for  she  laid  no 
leash  on  curiosity — "what  is  there  for 
me  to  tell?" 

"I  should  think  that  it  was  clear 
enough,"  she  said,  indifferently.  "My 
name  is  Susan  Fenby,  and  Carol  is  my 
son.  That  is  more  than  enough  for 
them,  anyhow.  I  was  their  only  child, 
remember." 

"How  they  have  had  to  lie!"  I  mur- 
mured. 

"Of  course  they've  had  to.  And  they 
don't  like  it,  either;  so  that  shows  you 
how  they  feel  about  it — if  they  can  lie 
like  that  when  they  think  it's  a  sin  to 
lie.  They  had  to  come  here  to  this  God- 
forsaken place  to  live,  too.  I'm  not 
defending  myself,  you  understand.  I 
used  to  think  I  was  as  bad  as  my  mother 
said  I  was.  I  never  took  much  stock  in 
what  my  father  said.  He  was  no  saint 
himself,  I  guess,  in  the  beginning.  I 
don't  think  anything  much,  now — and 
I  guess  it's  'pull  Dick,  pull  devil,'  be- 
tween us.  He  has  a  temper,  and  she  is 
as  cold  as  ice.  I'm  like  both  of  them. 
That's  all."  She  began  to  pick  her  way 
out  of  the  debris.  "I  only  came  to  tell 
you  to  ask,  in  reason,  what  you  like. 
They'll  give  it  to  you.  They  can  afford 
to.  I  must  go  now,  or  he'll  find  me  when 
he  comes." 

"Miss  Susan — "  I  stopped  her — "why 
do  you  give  me  this  advice?" 

"Because  you  were  kind  about  the 
school-books.    I  did  want  to  keep  up 


with  Carol.  And  I  liked  having  his 
books  in  my  hands.  But — "  Suddenly 
she  turned  wholly  round  to  me,  her  deep 
blush  making  her  almost  handsome 
again.  In  that  most  unbecoming  scene 
and  light  she  had  been  like  the  Miss 
Susan  I  used  to  see  slip  through  the  cor- 
ridors slavishly  intent  on  Mrs.  Fenby's 
business.  "They  were  quite  wrong,  that 
night.  It  was  only  the  school-books. 
Though" — she  raised  her  eyes  to  mine 
with  one  desperate  grip  on  honesty — 
"I  don't  blame  them.  They  had  no 
reason  to  trust  me.  Good-by!"  She 
would  not  take  my  hand;  would  not 
even  let  me  help  her,  in  spite  of  her  crip- 
pled arm;  and  I  watched  her  pick  her 
way  out  of  the  ruined  house.  Five  min- 
utes later  Mr.  Fenby  had  returned. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  I  did  not 
follow  up  Miss  Susan's  suggestion  of  put- 
ting a  price  on  my  silence.  But  I  fell 
in  with  Mr.  Fenby's  idea  of  an  immedi- 
ate departure,  and  I  accepted  his  own 
offer  of  paying  me  six  months'  salary  the 
more  readily  because  I  knew  how  grate- 
ful he  was  for  the  chance  to  give  it. 
I  agreed  with  him  very  gravely  that  we 
had  all  gone  off  our  heads  the  night 
before.  He  trusted  me  to  the  point  of 
letting  me  spend  one  long  morning  alone 
with  Carol.  Carol  talked  to  me,  as 
freely  as  a  running  brook,  of  all  that 
had  happened;  but  he  mentioned  Miss 
Susan  only  casually.  I  honestly  believe 
that,  in  the  drugged  sleep  which  followed 
close  on  such  excitement,  he  had  for- 
gotten. 


Renunciation 

BY  AMEEN  RIHANI 

AT  eventide  the  Pilgrim  came 
-    And  knocked  at  the  Beloved's  door. 
"Who's  there?"  a  voice  within,  "thy  name?" 

"'Tis  I,"  he  said. — "Then  knock  no  more. 
As  well  ask  thou  a  lodging  of  the  sea, — 
There  is  no  room  herein  for  thee  and  me." 

The  Pilgrim  went  again  his  way 

And  dwelt  with  Love  upon  the  shore 

Of  self-oblivion;   and  one  day 

He  knocked  again  at  the  Beloved's  door. 

"Who's  there?"    "It  is  thyself,"  he  now  replied, 

And  suddenly  the  door  was  open  wide. 


A  Day  at  Douarnenez 

BY  HERBERT  ADAMS  GIBBONS 


HERE  they  were  before 
me,  two  little  fish,  the 
white  of  their  scales 
making  more  yellow 
than  green  the  Lucca 
oil  in  which  they  had 
been  canned.  Beside 


them,  on  the  edge  of  the  plate,  was  the 
wee  finger  of  butter  that  is  served  out  to 
you  in  the  Paris  restaurant  where  the 
hors  d'ceuvre  are  all  vingt  and  trente 
centimes.  I  looked  at  them  with  amaze- 
ment at  first,  and  was  on  the  point  of 
hitting  my  glass  with  my  fork  to  call 
back  the  waiter.  What  absent-minded- 
ness had  induced  me  to  order  sardines? 
Or  had  I  really  ordered  sardines?  Per- 
haps it  was  the  waiter's  fault.  But  my 
hand  stopped  with  the  fork  suspended. 
The  sardines  did  look  good.  I  discov- 
ered that  I  really  wanted  to  eat  them. 
So  the  fork  fell  on  the  fish.  And  I  did 
eat  them  out  there  on  the  terrace  of  the 
cafe  opposite  the  fountain  of  Marie  de 
Medicis. 

Camelots  came  running  down  the 
street  from  the  Pantheon  gate  of  the 
Luxembourg,  crying  a  noon  extra.  But, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Germans 
were  supposed  to  be  so  near  Paris,  I  did 
not  buy  a  paper.  I  was  still  marveling 
over  the  fact  that  I  had  unconsciously 
ordered  sardines,  and  that,  having  or- 
dered them,  I  was  eating  them.  Only 
a  month  ago  sardines  and  I  had  parted 
company  for  ever. 

Strange  resolution,  not  to  eat  sar- 
dines, especially  for  a  man  to  whom  sar- 
dines had  been  a  dish  fit  for  the  gods 
in  a  Rocky  Mountain  mining-camp,  in 
foodless  Albania,  in  a  Taurus  Mountain 
khan,  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  and 
on  Russian  railways. 

It  had  come  about  in  this  way.  I  got 
off  the  train  at  Quimper  one  afternoon 
last  summer,  and  faced  the  problem  of 
where  to  go.  For  no  sane  man  would 
stay  in  Quimper  with  all  Finistere  to 
choose  from. 


There  was  the  sign  pointing  to  Ros- 
porden,  and  that  would  take  me  to  Con- 
carneau  or  to  Carhaix.  There  was 
the  automobile  char-a-banc  labeled  Beg- 
Neil.  Then  I  saw  Douarnenez.  I  had 
never  been  to  Douarnenez.  That  would 
have  been  in  its  favor  ten  years  ago, 
when  the  single  article  in  my  travel 
creed  was,  "I  believe  in  the  places  I  have 
not  seen."  But  now  doubts  are  begin- 
ning to  arise  as  to  the  advantages  of  the 
unknown  over  the  known.  The  hotels 
may  not  be  good,  and  the  places  that 
your  friends  extol,  and  tell  you  that 
"you  really  ought  not  to  miss,  don't  you 
know,"  generally  turn  out  to  be  places 
that  you  really  would  not  have  missed 
missing.  I  was  actually  crossing  over  to 
the  Rosporden-Concarneau  quai,  with  a 
ticket  in  my  pocket,  when  I  suddenly 
remembered  that  the  Artist  might  be  at 
Douarnenez.  "Might  be"  is  enough  for 
one  who  knows  the  Artist.  Soit!  In 
ten  minutes  I  was  speeding  in  the  oppo- 
site direction  from  Rosporden,  and  won- 
dering how  many  hotels  I  would  drive  to 
before  I  ran  the  Artist  to  the  ground,  or 
if  I  should  find  that  he  had  gone  on  to 
Pont-Croix. 

The  little  branch  railway  from  Quimper 
to  Douarnenez  runs  along  the  crest  of 
a  promontory — at  least  it  seems  like  a 
promontory  when  one  catches  glimpses 
of  the  ocean  from  both  car  windows  at 
the  same  time.  I  was  pleased  with  my 
decision,  Artist  or  no  Artist,  before  I 
reached  my  goal. 

But  it  was  the  right  tuyau.  For  I  had 
no  sooner  gotten  safely  through  the 
row  of  hungry  hotel-runners,  and  started 
across  the  long  bridge  that  binds  the 
old  town  with  the  railway  side  of  the 
estuary,  than  I  saw  ahead  of  me  a 
husky  figure  in  English  homespun,  sur- 
mounted by  a  straw  hat  comme  il  faut 
of  the  season.  He  was  leaning  over  the 
rail.  At  right  angles  to  his  body  a 
slender  bamboo  cane  that  would  not 
have  supported  the  weight  of  a  child  of 


A  DAY  AT  DOUARNENEZ 


341 


ten  years  stuck  out,  to  the  provocation 
of  passers-by.  There  could  be  no  mis- 
take. This  unique  combination  of  Pic- 
cadilly and  Boulevard  du  Montparnasse 
was  the  Artist. 

I  came  up  slowly  behind  him,  and  told 
the  boy  who  was  carrying  my  bag  to  go 
on  ahead  to  the  end  of  the  bridge  and 
wait  at  the  octroi  station.  I  gently  took 
hold  of  the  end  of  the  cane.  There  was 
an  unconscious  -struggle  of  arm  and  hand 
for  a  moment,  and  then  he  turned 
round. 

"Why,  hello!"  he  said.  "I  thought 
St.-Jean-du-Doigt  would  prove  too  slow 
for  you.  You  see  how  those  pines  go 
up,  climbing  over  the  rocks,  from  that 
point  out  there.  When  the  tide  is  high 
it  reminds  me  of  the  Maine  coast, 
Prout's  Neck  or  Winter  Harbor." 

"What  are  those  men  unloading  down 
there  in  barrels  from  that  Norwegian 
schooner?"  I  asked.  "The  barrels  are 
all  marked  'Bergen.'  What  in  the  name 
of  Heaven  do  these  people  want  with 
anything  that  comes  from  Norway?" 


"Oh,  that's  cod  roe.  They  put  it  in 
the  nets  to  attract  the  sardines." 

"So  they  fish  for  sardines  here?"  I 
asked. 

"Do  they?  I'll  take  you  along  the 
quay  after  dinner  to-night.  If  your  eyes 
fail  you,  your  nose  won't.  Douarnenez 
is  the  home  of  the  sardine." 

We  walked  toward  the  old  town.  I 
wanted  to  ask  more  about  sardines,  but 
the  Artist  was  telling  me  how  the  cop- 
pery sails  of  the  fishing-smacks  blended 
with  sea  and  sky  at  sunset.  We  sent  the 
boy  on  to  the  hotel  with  my  bag,  and 
turned  back  to  climb  to  a  vantage-point 
by  the  church  in  the  new  town. 

There  was  just  time.  Sky,  sea,  sails, 
and  sun  were  disappearing  together. 

We  got  to  arguing  about  the  Caillaux 
trial  at  dinner  last  night.  Ten  diners  at 
the  long  table  had  ten  different  opinions, 
and  it  was  ten  o'clock  before  they  were 
all  aired.  So  we  did  not  have  our  stroll 
along  the  quay. 

A  glorious  summer  day,  after  a  long 


THE  SARDINE  FLEET  AT  ANCHOR  IN  THE  BAY 


342 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


night's  rest  from  a  long  day's  train 
journey,  and  with  a  holiday  before  you, 
a  new  place  to  explore,  the  sea  air  in  your 
nostrils,  and  the  Artist  beside  you  with- 
out his  paint-box  and  tripod  folding- 
stool — this  is  a  combination  that  does 
not  often  come  within  my  experience. 
Every  time  I  get  out  on  a  trip  like  this 
I  say  to  myself 
that  the  city  is 
stupid,  that  as- 
phalt streets  and 
stone  sidewalks 
are  like  a  prison 
yard,  and  that 
the  multiple 
sounds  and 
smells  of  a  great 
city  take  years 
from  the  life  of 
the  man  in  a 
treadmill.  And 
yet  I  know  per- 
fectly well  that 
within  a  week  I 
shall  be  glad  to 
get  backto  Paris. 
City  people  are 
prisoners  and 
slaves,  but  will- 
ing slaves,  for 
all  that. 

We  were  walk- 
ing through  the 
town  by  the  high- 
road o  n  top  of 
the  hill.  The 

Artist  explained  that  he  wanted  me  to 
see  first  the  Point,  and  come  back  by 
way  of  the  quays  and  the  sardines,  and 
not  to  begin  Douarnenez  with  the  quays 
and  the  sardines.  "I  want  your  first 
view  of  this  wonderful  bay  to  be  fish- 
less,"  he  said,  simply. 

We  passed  several  canning-factories, 
but  only  the  chimneys  were  visible.  The 
sardines  were  hid  from  view  by  the  high 
walls  that  the  Frenchman  delights  to 
put  up,  holding  to  privacy  even  in  his 
business.  We  came  down  to  the  water's 
edge  through  a  deserted  street  of  steps, 
and  before  us  opened  the  panorama  of 
the  bay,  white-capped  and  sail-studded 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  see. 

The  shore-line  was  different  from  that 
to  which  the  northern  coast  of  Brittany 
had  accustomed  me.    Its  beauty  struck 


AN  OLD  NET-MENDER 


me  more  forcibly  by  the  very  fact  that 
it  was  unexpected.  Instead  of  the  long, 
bare  landes  of  the  Cotes  du  Nord, 
grudgingly  covered  here  and  there  with 
monotonous  plantagenista,  and  broken 
only  by  boulders  and  birds  of  similar 
color,  there  was  just  a  border  of  rock  at 
the  water's  edge  above  which  rose  real 

trees,  foliage- 
crowned  up  to 
the  sky-line,  and 
relieved  occa- 
sionally by  a 
patch  of  cleared 
land  where,  in 
the  rich  green 
grass,  horses  and 
cattle  were  graz- 
ing. 

The  bay  open- 
ed into  the  sea 
almost  on  the 
h  o  r  i  z  o  n —  far 
enough  away  to 
be  indistinguish- 
able. Were  it 
not  forthe  specks 
of  sail,  appear- 
ing on  the  sky- 
line and  growing 
larger  after  every 
dip,  one  would 
not  have  taken 
the  bay  of  Dou- 
arnenez for  a 
lake.  The  point 
of  land  at  the 
left  of  the  bay's  mouth  was  a  jumble 
of  rock  —  not  cliffs,  but  enormous 
boulders  falling  every  which  way,  and 
piled  higher  than  the  wooded  hill  from 
which  they  seemed  to  emerge.  This 
was  the  Cap  de  Raz,  westernmost  point 
of  France.  From  the  top  of  the  hills 
on  the  right,  forming  the  northern  side 
of  the  bay,  the  Artist  told  me  one  could 
see  Brest. 

In  front  of  us  were  two  islets.  The 
nearer  one  was  rock  and  seaweed,  sur- 
mounted by  a  stone  building  in  ruins, 
beside  which  lay  two  or  three  barrels 
and  an  abandoned  dory.  But  the  farther 
one,  a  cone  of  trees,  was  perfectly  mir- 
rored by  the  sun  in  the  protected  waters 
of  the  channel  between  it  and  the  main- 
land. An  unpretentious  country  house 
stood  by  the  water's  edge. 


ALONG  THE  QUAYS 


As  the  tide  was  low,  on  the  side  toward 
us  it  was  possible  to  reach  the  islets  with- 
out a  boat.  We  crossed  to  the  first  one, 
crunching  mussel-shells  at  every  step, 
and  on  our  guard  against  the  seaweed 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  783.-13 


menacing  our  ankles.  Like  a  pair  of 
children,  we  stopped  occasionally  to 
tease  a  horseshoe-crab  with  the  Artist's 
cane. 

I  had  it  in  my  mind  to  go  on  to  the 


344 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


second  islet  and  make  for  a  tree  at  the  opera.    But  neither  of  us  could  call  back 

top  of  the  cone.   We  could  rely  on  hail-  any  more  of  the  story  than  that  Tristan 

ing  a  fisherman's  boat  to  get  us  back  and  Isolde  loved  each  other,  and  one 

to  the  mainland.    But  the  Artist  ex-  took  poison  because  the  other  had  died 

plained  that  this  islet  was  the  property  prematurely.    I  was  sure  of  the  poison, 


of  the  poet  Jean  Richepin. 
intrude,"  he  said,  "unless 


"We  cannot 
you  want 


SARDINE-BOATS 

to  interview  the  eminent  Academician. 
Jean  Richepin  bought  up  that  island  for 
inspiration's  sake,  I  suppose,  for  it  is 
the  scene  of  Tristan  and  Isolde.  The 
King  of  Cornwall  had  his  castle  there. 
But  we  have  a  better — and  sunnier — 
view  of  the  bay  here  than  the  poet  has. 
And  that  is  more  to  the  point  on  a  day 
like  this."    I  thought  so,  too. 

We  sat  on  the  rocks,  with  our  backs 
against  an  abandoned  dory,  and  tried 
to  reconstruct  the  story  of  Tristan  and 
Isolde.  The  Artist  had  once  lunched 
with  a  prima  donna  who  sang  Isolde, 
and  I  had  "suped"  one  memorable  eve- 
ning in  sophomore  days  in  Wagner's 


for  I  had  long  kept  among  my  treasures 
the  piece  of  wood  that  had  served  for 
the  bottle  from  which 
the  fatal  draught  was 
quaffed,  and  which  had 
hit  my  knee  in  the 
wings  as  Isolde  threw  it 
from  her  with  an  air 
of  abandon  when  she 
fell  over  the  body  of 
her  knight.  There  we 
have  it!  Isolde  it  was 
who  took  the  poison. 

I  had  always  associ- 
ated the  name  of  Corn- 
wall with  England.  But 
the  Artist  was  sure  that 
we  were  in  Cornwall. 
An  elderly  spinster  had 
read  it  to  him  out  of 
her  guide-book  at  the 
hotel  a  few  days  be- 
fore. We  were  in  the 
real  Cornwall,  here  in 
Douarnenez.  The 
Knights  of  the  Round 
Table  —  was  not  Tris- 
tan one  of  them? — 
must  have  sailed  in  this 
beautiful  bay.  The 
King  of  Cornwall  lived 
on  this  island,  and  here 
Tristan  had  wooed  his 
Isolde. 

Tennyson,  Swin- 
burne, Matthew  Ar- 
nold, and  Wagner — they  have  all  used 
the  local  color  of  Douarnenez  in  their 
poetry.  But  ten  to  one  that  they  were 
never  here!  Longfellow  wrote  "Evan- 
geline" without  having  visited  Nova 
Scotia,  and  Montesquieu  never  met  a 
Persian  in  his  life. 

I  have  read  the  Odes  of  Horace  at 
Tivoli  with  my  feet  dangling  over  the 
high  wall  of  the  Villa  d'Este.  But  as  I 
looked  out  across  the  Campagna  it  was 
not  the  Sabine  farm,  but  distant  Rome 
and  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's,  that  held 
me.  Try  as  hard  as  I  could  that  day, 
my  thoughts  would  not  go  further  back 
than   Garibaldi   and   Mazzini,    and  I 


A  DAY  AT  DOUARNENEZ 


345 


translated  Horace's  ridens  Lalage  into 
an  Italian  peasant  girl  picking  up  fire- 
wood along  the  Avezzano  road.  So  here, 
at  Douarnenez,  it  was  useless  to  wish 
for  Swinburne  out  on  these  rocks. 

Why  should  I  be  ashamed  to  confess 
that  in  these  romantic  surroundings  we 
soon  got  back  to 
the  topicsof  theday 
— t  h  e  love-affairs 
of  Madame  C  a  i  1  - 
laux  instead  of 
those  of  Isolde,  and 
the  death  of  the 
Archduke  Franz 
Ferdinand  instead 
of  that  of  Tristan? 
Nihil  humani  alie- 
num  mihi  puto  is 
perfectly  true.  But 
the  human  interests 
of  a  man  are  those 
of  his  milieu.  If  we 
are  able  to  become 
absorbed — r  e  a  1 1  y 
absorbed  —  in  any- 
thing except  that 
with  which  we  are 
in  immediate  and 
vital  touch,  it  is  a 
sign  of  an  abnormal 
mentality.  One 
thinks  of  the  past 
and  the  future  only 
when  the  present  is 
uninteresting,  and 
when  the  present  is 
not  interesting 
something  is  the 
matter  with  you. 
Better  see  a  doc- 
tor, or,  better  still, 
get  out  in  the  open  air  and 
cise. 

We  were  in  the  open  air — jolly  good 
sea  air  to  boot,  and  we  had  been  taking 
exercise.  So  we  abandoned  Tristan  and 
Isolde  and  the  legendary  king  of  the 
island  before  us. 

But  I  have  been  speaking  only  of  the 
human  appeal  as  imagined  and  recorded 
by  the  human  mind.  Nature  is  a  totally 
different  thing.  The  appeal  of  creation 
is  compelling.  One  tires  of  his  own 
thoughts.  But  one  never  tires  of  God's 
thoughts,  whether  the  form  of  revelation 
be  inanimate  or  animate.    Keats  did  not 


originate  the  idea  that  "a  thing  of 
beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever."  He  repeated 
an  axiom.  For  the  beautiful  has  only 
one  test,  the  appeal  to  the  senses.  To 
appreciate  nature  you  do  not  have  to 
think;  you  have  only  to  feel.  The 
moment  you  begin  to  think,  there  is  a 


tak 


e  exer- 


MARKET-DAY 

fly  in  the  ointment  —  a  fly  that  you 
yourself  have  put  there. 

So  the  Artist  and  I  enjoyed  the  Bay  of 
Douarnenez  most  when  we  stopped  try- 
ing to  associate  it  with  what  had  hap- 
pened there.  It  filled  our  souls  because 
it  was  a  bay  with  sky  and  sea  and  sails, 
and  with  a  bold,  yet  delicate,  coast- 
line. That  this  was  the  scene  of  the  love- 
affairs  of  Tristan  and  Isolde  did  not 
enhance  its  beauty  a  bit. 

All  the  world  over,  we  are  talking 
to-day  of  boycotting  things  German. 
For  Heaven's  sake  let  us  begin  with 
Baedeker!  When  tourists  learn  to  travel 


IN  THE  RUE  ST.  JEAN 


without  guide-books,  and  to  enjoy  what 
God  and  man  have  made  by  letting  the 
beautiful  appeal  to  their  senses  and  by 
observing  the  life  of  people  as  human 
beings  living  together  in  society,  travel 
will  become  the  great  educator. 

A  woman  from  Kansas  said  to  me  once 
on  a  steamer  in  the  Gulf  of  Corinth: 
"It  takes  me  back  two  thousand  years 
to  be  here  in  Athens.  I  just  live  over 
the  days  of  Pericles;  and  in  these 
Greeks,  everywhere  I  go,  I  see  their  no- 
ble ancestors."  "What  a  rotten  time 
you  must  be  having!"  I  answered.  I 
think  she  thought  I  was  rude — and  cer- 
tainly not  a  Harvard  man! 


With  our  backs  against  the  old  dory, 
the  Artist  and  I  had  the  best  sort  of  a 
time.  Tobacco  has  one  virtue.  It 
makes  you  forget  to  talk. 

Habit  is  strong.  One  may  get  out  of 
the  rut  for  an  hour  or  two,  but  he  does 
not  stay  out.  After  watching  the  sails 
idly  during  several  pipe-bowls,  I  began 
to  conjecture  why  the  ships  were  coming 
in,  and  what  they  were  carrying.  A 
desire  began  to  possess  me.  I  wanted 
to  inspect  the  sardine  industry.  Here  I 
was,  wasting  my  precious  holiday.  I 
looked  around  at  the  Artist,  afraid  to 
incur  his  scorn  by  broaching  to  him 


A  DAY  AT  DOUARNENEZ 


347 


what  was  in  my  mind.  He,  too!  I 
chuckled.  For  he  had  slit  open  an 
envelope,  placed  it  on  his  knee,  and  was 
making  one  of  his  inimitable  sketches. 
Even  had  I  seen  only  his  face,  I  should 
have  guessed  what  he  was  about  from 
the  half-closed  eyes  and  the  tilt  of  his 
chin.  Your  true  artist  scents  a  picture 
as  naturally  as  a  pointer  scents  a  quail. 

So  I  felt  bold  to  get  up  and  stretch 
my  legs,  and  rub  the  places  on  my  back 
which  the  dory  had  caressed. 

"If  you've  got  a  subject  in  your 
head,"  I  put  out  as  a  ballon  d'essai,  "I 
might  stroll  along  the  quay,  and  see 
some  of  those  sardines  you  have  been 
speaking  about." 

"All  right,"  he  answered.  "But  I 
won't  prophesy  that  you  won't  regret 
it — that  is,  if  you  like  sardines.  See 
you  at  the  hotel  for  dejeuner."  And  he 
turned  back  to  the  work  on  the  inside 
of  the  envelope. 

The  tide  was  coming  up,  so  I  had  to 
wade  back  to  shore  and  dry  my  feet 
with  a  handkerchief. 


From  the  island  there  was  no  direct 
road  along  the  shore.  I  had  to  climb 
back  up  through  a  street  whose  name 
was  weather-blurred,  and  waste  steps 
in  picturesque,  if  unsavory,  culs  de  sac, 
before  I  found  a  way  down  to  the  quay. 
One  could  not  navigate  safely  through 
this  street  without  casting  his  eyes  ahead 
of  him  on  the  ground  at  every  step  to 
avoid  puddles,  stones,  fish-heads,  and — 
But  why  enumerate?  I  marveled  at 
what  seemed  to  me  the  unnecessary 
sign,  "Passage  interdit  aux  voitures"  for 
what  kind  of  vehicle,  and  what  animal 
born  outside  of  the  shadow  of  Islam, 
could  have  negotiated  the  passage  suc- 
cessfully? 

In  Italy,  I  have  often  felt  that  no- 
where else  in  the  world  is  there  so  much 
evidence  to  the  eye,  and  so  little  evi- 
dence to  the  nose,  of  washing.  Douar- 
nenez  is  like  Italy.  But  here  the  wash 
is  not  hung  across  the  streets,  but  along 
them,  on  clothes-lines  parallel  with  the 
houses.  As  a  Scotch  mist  is  generally 
falling  all  over  Brittany,  I  suppose  the 


fishermen's  houses 


348 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


thought  of  sunning  the  wash  does  not  fishing-smacks  to  the  depots,  where  they 
enter  into  the  housewife's  calculations,  dumped  them  into  wooden  troughs. 
But  when  you  haven't  one  thing,  you     The  sardine-troughs  are  taken  into  the 


have  another.  That  is  the  law  of  com- 
pensation. Here  it  is  a  wind,  rude 
enough  to  counteract  the  gentle  per- 
sistence of  the  mist. 


A  CORNER  OF  THE  MARKET-PLACE 


At  last  I  reached  the  quay — and  the 
sardines. 

For  the  better  part  of  a  mile,  every 
building  is  a  canning-factory  or  a  fish- 
depot.  July  is  the  height  of  the  season 
— at  least  it  seemed  so  to  me,  for  the 
activity  was  feverish.  I  could  not  get 
away  from  the  sight  and  the  smell  of 
sardines.  An  endless  stream  of  fishing- 
smacks  was  coming  up  to  the  mole  and 
discharging  cargoes.  And  an  endless 
row  of  sailors  and  boys  and  girls  was 
bringing  the  sardines  in  baskets  from  the 


factory  and  dumped  into  huge  tanks  of 
brine.  After  a  thorough  salting  the  heads 
are  cut  off.  The  fish  are  cooked  in  oil 
and  packed  in  cans  of  the  flat,  rec- 
tangular kind  famil- 
iar to  all  the  world. 
The  w  o  rk  in  the 
factories  is  done  by 
Breton  girls,  who 
sing  as  they  handle 
the  fish.  They  are 
remarkably  indus- 
trious and  cheerful, 
and  enough  of  them 
are  good-looking  to 
make  one  linger 
longer  in  the  work- 
room than  he  would 
for  mere  interest  in 
sardines. 

But  one  does  not 
get  away  from  sar- 
dines when  he  leaves 
the  depots  and  the 
factories.  For  be- 
tween the  processes 
of  salting  and  cook- 
ing they  are  dried, 
and  this  is  generally 
done  out  of  doors. 
In  every  possible 
space  on  the  quay 
not  necessary  for 
passage  there  are 
wire  baskets  in  which 
the  sardines  stand, 
tails  in  the  air.  Each 
basket  contains  a 
thousand.  Each  dry- 
ing-platform has  a 
thousand  baskets. 
There  are  a  thousand  drying-platforms. 
There  are  four  dryings  per  day.  There 
are  two  hundred  days  of  good  fishing. 
I  advise  you  not  to  multiply  these  sums 
and  dwell  upon  the  total;  and  I  advise 
you  not  to  think  of  the  sardines  in  the 
boats,  or  in  the  baskets,  or  in  the 
troughs,  or  in  the  vats,  or  dancing  in 
the  boiling  oil.  If  I  leave  a  picture  of 
Douarnenez  sardines,  may  it  be  rather 
of  the  pretty  Breton  peasant  girls,  with 
their  immaculate  white-lace  headgear, 
set  off  by  dark  hair  and  wind-reddened 


A  DAY  AT  DOUARNENEZ 


349 


cheeks,  singing  and  laughing  at  their 
work. 

As  I  watched  the  fishermen  unloading 
their  cargoes  I  had  a  striking  illustra- 
tion of  Breton  frugality.  So  many  sar- 
dines come  into  the  port  of  Douarnenez 
that  their  white,  flecky  scales  cover  the 
sand  in  mounds, 
washed  up  by  the 
tide.  Some  of 
the  boats  have 
their  decks  cov- 
ered  several 
inches  deep  with 
the  catch.  But 
the  fishermen 
actually  count 
every  sardine, 
and  send  them 
ashore  in  bas- 
kets of  exactly 
two  hundred 
each.  There  is 
no  guesswork,  no 
approximation 
by  w  e  i  g  h  i  n  g  . 
Since  at  low  tide 
the  boats  are 
fifteen  feet  below 
the  mole,  the 
porters  let  down 
ropes  to  fisher- 
men in  the  boats. 
The  baskets  are 
drawn  up  one  at 
a  time.  If  a  sin- 
gle fish  happens 
to  fall  overboard 
they  go  after  it 
with  a  hand-net 

and  make  really  strenuous  efforts  to 
recover  it.  These  are  fishermen  to 
whom  the  admonition  to  gather  up  the 
fragments  would  not  have  been  neces- 
sary. 

And  yet,  in  sharp  contrast  to  this 
meticulous  care  of  unloading  the  catch 
is  the  willingness  to  part  with  the  reward 
of  labor  for  the  refreshment  that  is 
poured  into  petits  verres  a  F  Abri  de  la 
Tempete,  a  la  Descente  des  Thonniers, 
au  Beau  St  jour,  au  Barometre,  a  f  Abri 
du  Vent,  a  VEtoile  d'Or,  and  at  the  Buvette 
du  Bon  Coin,  as  the  drinking  -  places 
along  the  quay  are  called. 

Before  leaving  the  quay  I  must  not 
forget  to  speak  of  another  fishing  indus- 


A  YOUNG  GIRL  OF  DOUARNENEZ 


try  which,  although  overshadowed  by 
the  sardines,  is  important  and  noticeable 
in  the  life  of  Douarnenez.  The  sardine 
fishing  is  done  at  the  mouth  of  the  bay, 
and  the  fishermen  return  several  times 
a  week.  But  there  are  larger  boats  in 
the  port  whose  crews  go  out  for  fifteen 

days  and  fish 
for  thon  from 
Spain  to  Eng- 
land. There 
were  some  of 
these  larger 
boats  unloading 
at  the  mole.  The 
tunny  is  a  giant 
beside  the  sar- 
dine. He  is  not 
taken  ashore  in 
baskets,  but  is 
carried  by  the 
tailtothedepots. 
A  boy  can  hold 
one  in  each 
hand,  if  they  are 
small,  while  four 
is  a  load  sufficient 
for  the  strongest 
man. 

In  t  h  e  after- 
noon the  Artist 
and  I  went  for  a 
walk  along  the 
shore  toward 
Audierne,  and 
passed  through 
village  after  vil- 
lageof  this  thick- 
ly populated 
coast.  In  places  summer  people  were 
in  evidence,  and  we  found  miniature 
Trouvilles  where  the  rocks  gave  way  for 
a  brief  space  to  sand.  But  sardines 
dominated  all.  Were  there  churches  to 
compel  the  admiration  of  the  jaded 
traveler?  Beside  the  church  tower  a 
chimney  arose,  and  the  church-bells  had 
to  compete  with  the  clink-clink  of  can- 
ning-machinery. Were  there  quaint 
streets  whose  roof-line  made  the  Artist 
half  close  his  eyes  by  instinct  and  fumble 
for  his  pencil  ?  From  gable  to  gable  light- 
blue  nets  were  stretched,  and  oilskins 
and  overalls  hung  from  hooks  out  of 
every  window.  Was  there  a  charming 
bit  of  rock  and  trees  edging  the  waters 


IN  THE  OLD  FISHWIVES'  CORNER 


of  the  bay?  On  the  rocks  sardines,  in 
their  wire  baskets,  stood  with  tails  up, 
for  all  the  world  like  the  helmeted  regi- 
ments of  the  Germans  in  Belgium;  and 
nets  were  drying  in  the  trees.  Was  there 
a  bit  of  pasture- land  with  cows  that 
Troyon  would  have  found  good  to  look 


at?  They  were  grazing  beside  the  rem- 
nants of  a  Lucca  olive-oil  barrel. 

The  Artist  growled :  "What  a  delight 
Douarnenez  would  be,  without  sar- 
dines!" 

"But  would  it  be  at  all — without  sar- 
dines?" I  answered. 


How  Strange  It  Seems 

BY  ELLEN  M.  H.  GATES 

TO  think  this  little  photograph, 
On  common  paper  lightly  cast, 
May  look  into  your  face  and  laugh 
When  I  myself  have  wholly  passed. 


Honor  Bright 


BY  MEREDITH  NICHOLSON 


^HE  front  door  of  Wen- 
dell Phillips  School 
opened  with  a  bang, 
and  Master  Michael 
Foley  struck  out  for  the 
gate  at  a  record-break- 
ing pace.  Miss  Fergu- 
son, the  principal,  particularly  sensitive 
to  door-banging,  flung  up  her  window 
in  time  to  observe  not  only  the  flight 
of  the  eloping  pupil,  but  the  precipitate 
exit  of  Miss  Honor  Bright,  the  youngest 
of  her  teaching  staff,  in  hot  pursuit. 
Any  one  with  a  drop  of  sporting  blood 
would  have  watched  the  contest  with  de- 
light; and  yet  only  disdain,  anger,  and 
horror  were  depicted  on  Miss  Ferguson's 
severe  countenance. 

Master  Michael  gained  the  street  safe- 
ly, but,  hearing  his  pursuer  close  upon 
him,  grasped  a  tree-box  and  began  danc- 
ing behind  it  while  he  weighed  the 
chances  of  further  flight.  Miss  Bright, 
evidently  familiar  v/ith  such  tactics, 
caught  him  in  one  of  his  feints,  affixed 
her  hand  firmly  to  his  collar  and 
marched  him  before  her  to  the  school- 
house. 

Miss  Ferguson,  satisfied  with  her  ob- 
servations, closed  her  window  and  re- 
tired to  the  hall  in  time  to  see  Miss 
Bright  deposit  the  prisoner  in  the  cloak- 
room, in  which,  it  may  be  said,  he  had 
been  immured  for  the  heinous  crime  of 
casting  a  paper  wad  in  a  rude  and  inso- 
lent manner  at  a  model  boy  who  had 
been  graciously  permitted  to  clean  the 
blackboard  as  a  reward  of  merit. 

Having  disposed  of  Michael,  Miss 
Bright  was  about  to  return  to  her  room, 
where  her  pupils  had  abandoned  them- 
selves to  hilarity  in  her  absence,  when 
the  principal's  voice  arrested  her. 

"I'm  greatly  surprised,  Miss  Bright, 
that  you  should  so  far  forget  your  dig- 
nity as  to  run — run — from  your  room 
and  into  the  street  after  one  of  your 
pupils.  I  witnessed  the  whole  occur- 
rence, and  in  thirty  years  of  teaching  I 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  783.-44 


never  before  saw  a  teacher  so  shame- 
lessly forget  herself.  You  may  report  to 
me  when  school  is  dismissed." 

"Yes,  Miss  Ferguson,"  replied  Honor, 
meekly. 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  be  obliged  to  walk 
away  from  a  person  who  stands  rigidly 
at  attention,  watching  you.  Miss  Bright 
felt  the  principal's  eyes  boring  into  her 
back.  The  sensation  was  disagreeable, 
but  by  the  time  the  door  of  her  room 
closed  Honor  was  smiling  again. 

"Honor  bright"  is  a  colloquialism 
recognized  by  reputable  dictionaries  as 
an  adverbial  expletive  of  affirmation, 
and  Miss  Bright's  father  had  named  her 
Honor  to  please  his  sense  of  humor.  He 
was  a  Presbyterian  minister  whose  own 
name  was  Quintius  Curtius,  so  it  was 
not  surprising  that  he  held  views  on  the 
subject  of  nomenclature.  Honoria  is,  of 
course,  the  obvious  feminine.  Honoria 
seemed  to  him  English  and  highfa- 
lutin';  moreover,  the  extra  vowels 
spoiled  the  joke.  To  send  a  girl  out  into 
the  world  as  Honor  Bright  not  only 
tickled  him,  but  the  name  would,  he  ar- 
gued, be  an  incentive  to  straightforward- 
ness and  veracity  in  the  possessor. 

Honor  had  decided  early  in  life  that  it 
is  better  to  laugh  than  to  cry.  The  year 
she  graduated  from  high  school  her  par- 
ents were  victims  of  a  typhoid  epidemic 
that  swept  the  small  Ohio  River  town 
where  she  was  born.  As  the  administra- 
tor of  the  Rev.  Quintius  Curtius's  estate 
didn't  sympathize  with  Honor's  ambi- 
tion to  spend  her  two  thousand  dollars  of 
life  insurance  on  education,  she  bade  him 
keep  the  money  at  interest  and  ad- 
dressed herself  to  the  business  of  working 
her  way  through  the  State  university. 
This  was  not  the  easiest  possible  thing  in 
a  small  town,  and  there  were  times  when 
Honor  found  it  difficult  to  keep  smiling. 
She  clerked  in  a  store  on  Saturdays, 
typed  lectures  for  the  faculty,  and  ran 
the  kitchen  of  the  girl's  boarding-house 
until  her  junior  year,  when  she  found 


352 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


more  agreeable  employment  in  tutor- 
ing. These  labors  did  not  prevent  her 
graduating  with  credit  or  being  voted  the 
most  popular  girl  in  her  class. 

When  you  said  Honor  Bright,  both 
town  and  gown  smiled.  There  was 
something  about  Honor  that  was  pro- 
vocative of  smiles — kind,  friendly,  ap- 
proving smiles. 

Honor  was  so  busy!  Her  industry  was 
one  of  the  many  absurd  things  about  her. 
She  not  only  worked  hard,  but  when  she 
played  she  put  her  soul  into  it.  She  was 
a  star  performer  in  the  gymnasium,  and 
could  stand  on  her  head,  walk  on  her 
hands,  and  do  amazing  things  on  a  hori- 
zontal bar. 

After  a  year  at  the  State  Normal 
School  she  taught  one  winter  in  her 
native  town,  decided  that  the  local  field 
was  too  limited,  and,  nothing  better  of- 
fering, accepted  a  position  in  the  schools 
of  Kernville,  the  Gem  City  of  the  Syca- 
more, and  was  given  power  of  life  and 
death  over  a  miscellaneous  collection 
of  eight-year-olds  in  Wendell  Phillips 
School. 

When  Honor  had  been  a  small  cog  in 
the  big  machine  for  a  month,  Gale,  the 
superintendent,  asked  Miss  Ferguson 
how  the  new  teacher  was  getting  on. 

"Miss  Bright  is  capable,"  Miss  Fer- 
guson replied,  frostily,  "but  she  lacks 
the  poise  desirable  in  teachers.  Her 
ideas  of  discipline  are  very  lax.  She  pays 
little  attention  to  our  system,  and  con- 
stantly persists  in  introducing  ideas  of 
her  own.  I  fear  the  university  spoiled 
her  for  elementary  work." 

"Well,  results  arewhat  we  want,"  re- 
marked Gale.  "She  has  talked  to  me 
about  some  of  her  ideas  and  I'm  disposed 
to  give  her  pretty  free  rein.  There's  al- 
ways the  chance,"  he  added,  with  a  mol- 
lifying smile,  "that  some  of  our  old  ideas 
may  not  be  the  best." 

The  Gem  City's  schools  were  full  of 
Miss  Fergusons  who  bitterly  resented 
the  new  superintendent's  indifference  to 
the  sacred  system.  Since  his  advent  the 
previous  year,  Gale  had  labored  assidu- 
ously, but  without  success,  to  modify  the 
system.  There  were  enough  Miss  Fer- 
gusons to  thwart  him;  and  there  was 
always  the  board.  The  members  of  the 
board  were  solid  citizens  long  undis- 
turbed in  their  positions,  chiefly  because 


the  politicians  had  never  thought  school- 
board  jobs  worth  fighting  for.  In  the 
Gem  City  of  the  Sycamore  it  was  con- 
sidered a  great  honor  to  sit  on  the  school 
board,  and  incidentally  it  gave  the  pros- 
perous members  an  excellent  chance  to 
protect  the  taxpayers  from  foolish  ex- 
penditures for  new  fads  in  education. 
At  the  same  time  they  basked  in  the 
bright  effulgence  of  their  self-sacrificing 
civic  virtue.  The  board  hadn't  changed 
in  ten  years,  and  it  seemed  unlikely  that 
anything  would  ever  jar  its  equanimity. 
The  commissioners  had  been  basely  de- 
ceived in  Gale.  He  had  new  ideas  and 
talked  seriously  of  making  the  schools  a 
social  force.  This  was  rank  heresy.  The 
board  distrusted  Gale  and  meant  to  get 
rid  of  him  at  the  earliest  opportunity. 

Shortly  before  school  closed  Miss 
Bright  visited  the  recalcitrant  Michael 
in  the  cloak-room,  and  as  a  result  of  a 
few  minutes'  conversation  he  appeared 
shamefacedly  on  the  platform  and  apolo- 
gized for  his  evil  conduct.  The  gong 
sounded,  and  Honor  dismissed  her  class 
with  the  usual  evolutions,  and  repaired 
to  the  principal's  room. 

She  smiled  cheerfully  at  several  of  her 
sister  teachers  who  guardedly  and 
tremulously  watched  her  on  her  way  to 
the  scaffold.  They  liked  Honor,  though 
they  were  disposed  to  hold  her  responsi- 
ble for  the  disordered  state  of  Miss  Fer- 
guson's nerves,  which  made  trouble  for 
the  whole  staff. 

Miss  Ferguson's  wrath  had  not  cooled, 
and  she  not  only  repeated  her  rebuke  in 
sharper  tones,  but  admonished  Miss 
Bright  as  to  other  sinful  infractions  of 
the  rules. 

"In  all  my  experience  as  a  principal 
I  have  never  found  it  necessary  to  ask 
the  removal  of  a  teacher,  but  I  have  felt 
from  the  opening  of  school  that  your 
temperament  unfits  you  for  teaching. 
You  are  a  new-comer  in  town  and  un- 
familiar with  our  school  traditions;  but 
I've  hoped  that  with  experience  you 
would  see  the  importance  of  bringing 
more  dignity  to  your  work.  That  Foley 
boy  is  wholly  insubordinate  and  is  con- 
stantly causing  trouble  on  the  grounds. 
You  will  write  a  letter  to  his  parents  im- 
mediately, warning  them  that  he  will  be 
suspended  the  very  next  time  he  is 
guilty  of  an  infraction  of  the  rules." 


HONOR  BRIGHT 


353 


"But,  Miss  Ferguson,  he  isn't  a  bad 
boy!  He's  the  brightest  pupil  I  have! 
He's  mischievous,  but  so  are  all  healthy 
children  of  eight.  I  haven't  seen  many 
of  the  parents  of  my  children  yet,  but  I 
shall  send  a  note  to  Michael's  father  and 
ask  him  to  come  to  the  school.  He 
hasn't  any  mother,  I  believe." 

"That's  unfortunate,  of  course.  But 
his  father,"  said  Miss  Ferguson,  scorn- 
fully, "is  a  low  politician  of  the  worst 
type.  I've  never  seen  the  man,  but  he's 
constantly  in  the  newspapers." 

"Please  let  me  work  on  Michael's  case 
a  little  longer  without  threats.  I  don't 
like  threatening  parents." 

"You  will  find,  Miss  Bright,  that  in- 
dulgence in  these  cases  only  makes  trou- 
ble for  yourself  and  brings  our  discipline 
into  disrepute.  I've  watched  that  Foley 
boy  all  year,  and  he's  not  only  disobedi- 
ent, but  insolent.  Only  yesterday  I 
caught  him  making  faces  at  you  while 
the  lines  were  forming." 

Instead  of  being  outraged,  Honor 
laughed — a  spontaneous,  merry  laugh 
that  caused  Miss  Ferguson  to  stare  in 
mute  amazement. 

"He  probably  thinks  I'm  a  brute  and 
not  the  indulgent  person  you  make  me 
out!  But  I'm  sorry  I  ran  after  him.  I 
know  it  wasn't  proper  or  becoming;  but 
I  thought  it  unwise  to  allow  him  to  sneak 
out  of  the  cloak-room  in  that  fashion." 

"Another  thing,"  continued  Miss  Fer- 
guson, austerely,  "the  superintendent  is 
likely  to  visit  the  building  any  day,  and 
it  would  be  most  deplorable  if  he  should 
find  any  of  my  rooms  in  disorder.  You 
must  remember  that  I  have  my  own 
reputation  to  sustain,  and  some  of  us 
who  have  been  long  in  the  schools  find 
Mr.  Gale  very  critical — quite  unsympa- 
thetic, in  fact." 

At  this  point  a  short,  stocky  man  en- 
tered the  room  and  began  examining  the 
radiators — an  intrusion  that  clearly 
added  to  the  principal's  annoyance. 

"Plumber!"  she  ejaculated,  rapping 
sharply  on  the  desk. 

"Yes,  madam?"  The  plumber  rose 
from  his  knees  and  snapped  the  spring 
on  a  tape-line. 

"It's  against  the  rules  for  workmen 
to  visit  these  rooms  during  the  school 
hours." 

"Beg  your  pardon,  madam." 


He  started  for  the  door,  carrying  his 
derby  loftily  as  though  it  were  a  sacred 
emblem.  As  he  passed  the  principal's 
desk  he  ducked  his  head  in  a  jerky  bow 
and  said,  "Beg  your  pardon,"  again.  He 
vanished  noiselessly  with  a  long  stride 
that  his  short  stature  made  amusingly 
incongruous.  His  walk,  the  funny  little 
bow,  his  round,  smooth-shaven,  humor- 
ous face,  and  his  reverential  attitude 
toward  his  hat  wakened  in  Honor  a 
strong  impulse  to  giggle.  The  interrup- 
tion had  caused  Miss  Ferguson  to  lose 
the  thread  of  her  argument.  She  bent 
her  severe  gaze  upon  Honor  for  a  mo- 
ment as  she  collected  her  thoughts. 

"I  shall  not  report  this  occurrence  to 
the  superintendent,  but  hope  my  own 
warning  will  be  sufficient  to  prevent  a 
repetition  of  your  error.  That  will  do 
for  the  present." 

"Thank  you,  Miss  Ferguson." 

Honor  walked  out,  feeling  again  the 
principal's  eyes  following  her.  Return- 
ing to  her  room,  she  began  clearing  her 
desk,  when  a  knock  on  the  open  door 
called  her  attention  to  the  gentleman 
with  the  derby,  who  approached  timidly 
in  response  to  her  cheery  "Come  in." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  you  may  go  ahead  with  these 
radiators  if  you  like;  you  won't  bother 
me  a  bit." 

"Well,  I've  already  got  what  I  was 
looking  for.  I  just  wanted  to  speak  to 
you  a  minute.  I'm  Mickey  Foley's 
father.    I  guess  this  is  his  room?" 

He  glanced  about  as  though  seeking 
signs  that  would  confirm  the  suspicion 
that  this  was  indeed  the  spot  lately  hal- 
lowed by  his  son's  presence. 

"Well,  yes;  it's  very  much  his  room," 
said  Honor,  smiling  as  she  noted  the 
points  of  resemblance  between  the  plumb- 
er and  his  son.  He  declined  a  chair,  but 
stood  with  his  arm  (supporting  the 
derby)  on  the  edge  of  her  desk. 

"I  heard  the  old  lady  dressing  you 
down;  I  guess  Mickey's  a  good  deal  of 
trouble,  all  right.  But  you  don't  need 
to  bother;  I'll  have  some  conversation 
with  Mickey  to-night  and  he  won't 
bother  you  any  more.  You  see,  there's 
just  the  two  of  us;  and  I  guess  I  haven't 
been  watching  the  lad  close  enough.  You 
don't  need  to  suspend  him.  He  likes 
you  and  brags  about  you  all  the  time. 


354 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


He  wouldn't  do  anything  to  make  you 
trouble." 

"He  might  do  much  better,"  said 
Honor,  feeling  that  candor  was  required 
here.  "I'd  appreciate  it  if  you'd  talk  to 
him.  His  trouble  is  that  he's  so  much 
brighter  than  most  of  the  other  children 
that  he  has  plenty  of  time  for  foolish- 
ness." 

Foley  nodded  solemnly,  but  his  eyes 
brightened  at  the  compliment.  "I  guess 
Mickey's  smart  enough,  all  right.  You 
won't  need  to  bother  about  him;  I'll  fix 
him.  If  he  cuts  any  more  monkey-shines, 
you  let  me  know.  I'm  much  obliged  to 
you.  I  couldn't  help  hearing  the  old 
lady  calling  you  down.  I  wouldn't  have 
my  boy  the  cause  of  making  you  trouble. 
I'm  mighty  sorry." 

"Please  don't  be  hard  on  Michael! 
He's  the  most  interesting  child  in  his 
class.  Just  a  little  friendly  talk  will  do 
the  business." 

"I'll  have  a  few  words  with  him.  You 
won' t  have  any  more  trouble  with  Mickey. 
Thank  you,  and  beg  your  pardon." 

He  ducked  his  head  and  strode  out 
with  his  ridiculous  long  step.  When  he 
was  half-way  to  the  door  he  hesitated, 
then  returned  to  the  desk.  "I  haven't 
got  anything  to  do  to  the  plumbing;  I 
was  just  measuring  the  radiators." 

This  in  a  half-whisper,  with  the  derby 
held  to  his  face,  caused  Honor  to  smile; 
and  he  grinned  responsively,  as  though 
measuring  radiators  was  one  of  the  most 
amusing  things  imaginable. 

That  night  as  Honor  read  the  evening 
paper  at  her  boarding-house  her  eyes 
caught  his  name  in  a  head-line,  and 
she  read  the  subjoined  article  with  in- 
terest: 

Tom  Foley,  the  Little  Boss  of  the  Fourth, 
is  much  in  evidence  at  Democratic  head- 
quarters these  days.  As  the  campaign 
gathers  headway,  he  seems  to  be  taking  him- 
self seriously  as  a  candidate  for  the  State 
senate.  In  the  list  of  speakers'  appoint- 
ments given  out  yesterday  his  name  is  down 
for  fifty  engagements  throughout  the  county. 
As  the  Little  Boss  has  heretofore  been  known 
only  as  a  silent  worker,  his  determination  to 
join  the  noble  army  of  spellbinders  has 
aroused  much  curiosity. 

Miss  Ferguson  had  called  Michael's 
father  a  low  politician.  Honor's  ideas 
of  bosses  were  derived  largely  from  news- 


paper cartoons  depicting  gross  monsters 
with  piratical  mustaches,  clad  in  loud 
checks  and  smoking  huge  cigars.  Clear- 
ly, Foley  was  a  variation  from  the  famil- 
iar type.  His  smile,  like  the  young 
Michael's,  was  wholly  engaging,  and 
argued  for  a  conscience  on  pretty  good 
terms  with  itself. 

Another  bit  of  news  explosively  head- 
lined announced  that  three  members  of 
the  school  board  whose  terms  were  ex- 
piring were  for  the  first  time  to  meet 
with  opposition.  The  attitude  of  the 
board  in  refusing  the  use  of  school  prop- 
erty as  playgrounds  had,  it  seemed, 
aroused  antagonism,  and  the  labor  or- 
ganizations were  backing  an  indepen- 
dent school  ticket.  Moreover,  the  Ger- 
mans were  in  arms  because  the  board 
had,  in  a  fit  of  economy,  eliminated  Ger- 
man from  the  primary  grades.  Gale  was 
also  to  be  an  issue,  it  appeared,  as  some 
of  his  radical  changes  had  not  met  with 
the  board's  favor,  and  the  belligerent 
forces  were  rallying  to  his  support. 

The  next  morning  a  sister  teacher,  to 
whom  Honor  mentioned  the  impending 
war  on  the  old  board,  stared  at  her  in 
mute  astonishment. 

"You'd  better  not  meddle  with  those 
things,  Miss  Bright.  It  would  be  a  pity 
if  the  old  members  should  be  defeated. 
We  are  all  vitally  interested  in  their  re- 
election." 

Honor  turned  away  impatiently.  She 
had  already  decided  that  one  year  in 
Kernville  would  be  enough,  and  she  was 
laying  her  plans  to  obtain  a  position  in 
the  schools  of  the  capital  the  next  year. 

"Please,  Miss  Bright!"  ? 

She  was  writing  the  day's  work  on  the 
blackboard  when  she  became  conscious 
that  Michael  Foley  was  standing  beside 
her.  He  carried  under  his  arm  a  small 
blue  box  which  he  extended,  grinning 
broadly.  He  was  dressed  in  a  new  suit  of 
clothes.  His  hair  had  been  cut  since 
his  last  appearance,  and  was  brushed  till 
it  shone. 

"Miss  Bright,  I'm  sorry  I  caused  you 
so  much  trouble  yesterday,"  he  mum- 
bled, pivoting  on  one  foot.  "Here's 
some  roses  I  brought  for  your  desk." 

He  waited  while  she  opened  the  box, 
which  contained  a  bunch  of  violets — not 
roses.  From  Michael's  frank  curiosity 
in  the  contents,  it  was  clear  that  the 


HONOR  BRIGHT 


355 


purchase  had  not  been  effected  by  him 
personally. 

"This  is  fine  of  you,  Michael;  how 
did  you  ever  come  to  think  of  it?" 

"Well,  I  guess  dad  thought  of  it  first. 
He  thought  you  might  like  'em.  He 
said  the  Foley  family  got  to  square  it- 
self." 

"Well,  it  was  all  square,  anyhow, 
Michael.  What's  the  matter  with  your 
hand  ?" 

"Nothin';  only  I  punched  Jerry  Cor- 
rigan's  face  comin'  through  the  alley; 
he  thought  there  was  candy  in  the  box." 

The  knuckles  he  exhibited  hinted  at 
the  employment  of  considerable  violence 
in  the  defense  of  the  violets.  "And, 
Miss  Bright,  Jerry  won't  be  here  this 
morning;  he  went  home  to  tell  his  ma," 
Michael  added,  with  a  contemptuous 
curl  of  the  lip. 

It  was  her  plain  duty  to  reprimand 
him  for  punching  Jerry's  head;  and  yet 
how  could  she,  with  the  cause  of  battle 
lying  fragrantly  before  her!  She  merely 
expressed  regret  that  the  encounter  had 
been  necessary  and  repeated  her  thanks 
cordially. 

Michael  was  so  conspicuously  virtuous 
that  day  that  the  sins  of  the  rest  of  the 
class  loomed  blackly  in  contrast.  Honor 
put  an  unusual  amount  of  snap  into  her 
work,  and  things  moved  merrily.  With 
the  superintendent's  permission,  she  had 
substituted  for  the  system's  outline  an 
objective  method  of  teaching  arithmetic 
which  she  had  found  set  forth  in  a  school 
journal.  She  had  demonstrated  to  her 
own  satisfaction  that  it  brought  better 
results  with  half  the  wear  and  tear  of  the 
old  method.  She  finished  the  lesson  in  a 
glow  just  before  the  afternoon  recess, 
when  a  frantically  waving  hand  called 
for  attention. 

"Please,  Miss  Bright,  you  told  us 
you'd  stand  on  your  head  some  day  if 
we  was  good." 

A  chorus  of  astonished  "oh's!"  greeted 
this.  A  few  days  before,  in  a  dark  mo- 
ment when  things  were  at  sixes  and 
sevens,  Honor  had  declared  that  she'd 
be  standing  on  her  head  pretty  soon  if 
they  didn't  keep  better  order.  She  was 
about  to  correct  the  false  impression 
conveyed  by  the  child's  reminder  when 
she  was  arrested  by  a  sharp  squeak. 

"What  was  that?"  she  demanded. 


Michael  Foley's  seat-mate  complained 
that  Michael  had  pinched  his  ear. 

"Aw,  he  said  you  couldn't  do  it!"  pro- 
tested Michael. 

"Well,  you  needn't  have  pinched  his 
ear.    Please  behave  yourself,  Michael." 

The  continued  restlessness  was  in- 
dicative of  a  desire  that  she  settle  the 
point  thus  acutely  at  issue  by  furnishing 
ocular  proof  of  her  prowess. 

Honor  had  never  taken  a  dare — a  fact 
that  had,  in  the  earlier  half  of  her  twen- 
ty-two years,  got  her  into  much  trouble, 
owing  to  the  joy  of  her  boy  playmates  in 
beguiling  her  to  climb  telegraph-poles  and 
walk  fences.  She  glanced  at  the  clock, 
took  the  cushion  from  her  chair  and 
dropped  it  on  the  platform,  seized  a 
stout  piece  of  cord  confiscated  that 
morning  in  the  enforcement  of  discipline, 
and  tied  it  round  her  skirts.  She  eyed 
the  cushion  critically  and  glanced  again 
at  the  clock.  It  lacked  three  minutes  of 
recess.  The  children  pressed  forward  in 
the  aisles,  watching  breathlessly.  Cal- 
culating the  distance  carefully,  she 
threw  herself  forward  on  her  hands,  got 
her  balance  instantly,  and  then  let  her- 
self down  slowly  until  her  head  rested  on 
the  cushion. 

Awe  held  the  young  spectators. 
Teacher  had  met  the  challenge.  There 
she  stood,  indubitably,  upon  her  head. 
To  their  young  imaginations  she  seemed 
to  hold  the  position  for  hours. 

They  were  so  absorbed  that  the  soft 
opening  of  the  door  and  the  entrance  of 
Miss  Ferguson,  followed  by  the  super- 
intendent of  the  Gem  City's  schools, 
passed  unnoticed.  Then  Honor  dropped 
upon  her  feet  with  a  bang  and  turned  a 
crimson  face  to  the  visitors.  Miss  Fer- 
guson, overcome  by  mingled  feelings  of 
horror  and  humiliation,  extended  her 
hands  helplessly  to  the  superintendent 
and  fled.  The  gong  sounded  and  the 
children  marched  out.  When  Honor  re- 
turned to  her  room  she  found  Gale  sit- 
ting at  her  desk,  examining  some  cards 
and  money-boxes  she  had  been  using  in 
her  arithmetic  class. 

"I'm  so  sorry!"  she  began  instantly. 
"We  were  waiting  for  the  gong  and  I'd 
said  something  the  other  day  about 
standing  on  my  head,  and — and — well, 
I  didn't  want  them  to  think  I  couldn't!" 

The  superintendent  laughed.  "Miss 


356 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Bright,  please  don't  trouble  about  that! 
I'd  give  a  year's  salary  if  I  could  do  it! 
I  was  just  looking  at  these  things. 
They're  using  that  idea  in  a  good  many 
places.    How  does  it  work?" 

"  Splendidly.  It  seems  a  pity  to  waste 
so  much  time  teaching  numbers  when 
this  way  is  so  simple." 

"I'm  afraid  you've  spent  your  own 
money  for  these  supplies.  Please  send 
me  a  memorandum  of  the  amount.  I 
was  wondering,"  he  went  on,  medita- 
tively, "if  you  won't  show  how  it's  done 
next  Saturday  morning,  before  all  the 
teachers  of  your  grade.  We'll  have  a 
discussion  of  it  and  see  if  some  of  the 
older  teachers  can  find  a  flaw  in  it." 

"Oh,  they  can  and  will!"  exclaimed 
Honor,  quickly. 

Gale  chuckled.  "So  you're  finding 
the  system  hard  to  live  with,  are  you?" 
he  asked,  ruefully.  "Well,  you  may  feel 
better  to  know  that  I  am,  too.  By  the 
way,  Miss  Ferguson  complains  of  your 
lax  discipline.  What  are  your  views  on 
that  subject?" 

"She's  right,  according  to  her  ideas; 
and  I'm  ashamed  to  annoy  her  so  much. 
But  my  youngsters  do  their  work  and 
keep  cheerful.  I  can't  see  anything  to 
be  gained  by  nagging  them  all  the  while. 
I  suppose  I  could  put  in  most  of  my 
time  scolding." 

"I  doubt  very  much  whether  you 
could!"  he  replied,  with  a  faint  smile. 
"I'll  spend  the  next  hour  with  you  and 
watch  your  work.  And — I'll  take  the 
liberty  of  saying  to  Miss  Ferguson  that 
you  have  promised  to  conduct  your 
classes  hereafter  in  the  upright  manner 
prescribed  in  the  manual." 

The  following  week  Honor  received 
visits  from  the  mothers  of  nearly  every 
child  in  her  room;  two  fathers  also  made 
bold  to  present  themselves.  A  teacher 
who  could  stand  on  her  head  was  a 
novelty  of  whom  the  patrons  of  Wendell 
Phillips  School  felt  they  should  be  proud. 

Politics  shook  Kernville  to  its  base 
that  fall.  The  Republican  and  Demo- 
cratic organs,  locked  in  a  death  struggle 
on  the  tariff*  and  the  freedom  of  the  Fili- 
pinos, discreetly  ignored  the  fight  on  the 
school  board.  The  Evening  Telegram, 
however,  unawed  by  the  prominence  of 
the   commissioners,    devoted  columns 


daily  to  exposing  the  inadequacy  and 
incompetence  of  Kernville's  schools. 
"The  system  in  vogue  here,"  it  declared, 
"is  antiquated  and  parsimonious.  The 
children  of  the  Gem  City  of  the  Syca- 
more deserve  the  best  the  taxpayers  can 
give  them.  Superintendent  Gale  seems 
to  be  helpless  in  the  hands  of  the  old 
fogies  who  have  so  long  dominated  our 
schools.  Scrape  the  moss  off"  the  school- 
houses!  Take  the  schools  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  old  stifF-necked  clique,  and 
give  them  back  to  the  people!" 

The  playground  question  was  not 
neglected,  the  board's  attitude  in  refus- 
ing the  use  of  school-yards  to  the  chil- 
dren of  the  poor  being  characterized 
from  day  to  day  as  autocratic  and 
brutal.  Then  out  of  a  clear  sky  the 
Telegram  sprang  a  circumstantial  story 
of  fraud  in  a  plumbing  contract.  A  new 
heating  system  had  been  installed  in  all 
the  school  buildings  the  previous  sum- 
mer, and  the  Telegram  charged  fraud  on 
the  contractor's  part.  Figures  were 
given  to  prove  that  the  amount  of  radia- 
tion furnished  was  just  half  what  the 
public  had  paid  for.  Honor,  deeply  in- 
terested in  the  fight,  accounted  now  for 
the  visit  of  the  Little  Boss  to  Wendell 
Phillips  School  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
day  she  had  outraged  the  proprieties  by 
sprinting  out  of  the  school-yard  in  pur- 
suit of  the  Little  Boss's  son. 

When  the  campaign  neared  its  climax 
late  in  October,  the  Wendell  Phillips 
Mothers'  Club  announced  a  public  meet- 
ing in  a  church  that  had  hospitably 
opened  its  doors  for  its  conferences  after 
the  commissioners'  refusal  of  the  school- 
house.  All  the  teachers  of  Wendell  Phil- 
lips School  were  invited. 

Miss  Ferguson  called  her  teaching 
staff"  together  to  warn  them  against  fall- 
ing into  the  trap  which  she  informed 
them  had  been  devised  for  their  undoing. 

"We  must  maintain  an  absolutely 
neutral  position  in  these  matters.  The 
members  of  the  board  are  among  our 
first  citizens,  who  have  given  their  time 
and  thought  to  the  best  interests  of  our 
schools  for  years.  It  would  be  base  in- 
gratitude for  any  teacher  to  encourage 
the  efforts  of  a  few  politicians  to  drive 
them  from  the  position  they  have  filled 
so  long  and  honorably.  The  opposing 
candidates  are  utterly  unknown  men — 


HONOR 

one  of  them  is  a  mechanic  who  knows 
nothing  of  the  needs  of  the  schools — a 
labor  agitator  and  trouble-maker." 

"I  don't  believe  that  is  quite  fair, 
Miss  Ferguson,"  Honor  ventured.  "If 
you  mean  John  Arnold,  it's  true  he's  a 
mechanic,  and  a  good  one.  His  little 
girl  is  in  my  room,  and  I've  met  and 
talked  to  him  and  found  him  unusually 
intelligent." 

The  others  gathered  about  Miss  Fer- 
guson's desk  listened  breathlessly.  It 
was  inconceivable  that  any  one  should 
dare  to  controvert  any  of  Miss  Fergu- 
son's assertions,  much  less  question  her 
authority.  They  waited  anxiously  for 
the  principal's  reply. 

"I  believe,  Miss  Bright,  that  I  have 
nothing  to  add  to  what  I  have  said 
already,"  she  replied,  coldly. 

It  was  growing  dark  when  Honor  left 
the  school.  At  the  gate  Foley  emerged 
from  the  shadows. 

"Just  passing  along  and  thought  I 
might  meet  you,"  he  said,  with  a  flourish 
of  the  derby.  "I  hope  Mickey  isn't 
causing  any  more  trouble?" 

"Oh,  he's  doing  beautifully!  We're 
getting  on  quite  famously." 

"That's  all  right.  I've  been  talking 
things  over  with  him  a  good  deal,  and 
he  means  to  be  square.  He's  a  well- 
meaning  kid — just  a  little  skittish  some- 
times. Beg  your  pardon,  but  I'm  going 
your  way — " 

"Oh,  certainly,"  murmured  Honor  as 
he  caught  step  with  her. 

It  was  apparent  before  he  spoke  that 
he  was  going  her  way,  and  the  idea  was 
not  disagreeable.  It  was  a  real  adven- 
ture to  be  walking  beside  the  Little  Boss, 
candidate  for  the  State  senate  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  Republican  Journal,  an 
unreliable  and  dangerous  character.  He 
chuckled  when  presently  she  spoke  of  the 
plumbing  scandal. 

"  We've  got  it  on  'em,  all  right.  They'll 
say  to-morrow  that  I'm  sore  because  I 
didn't  get  the  contract  myself.  Well, 
I  was,  all  right.  Of  course  the  old  guys 
on  the  school  board  didn't  know  they 
were  getting  stung;  but  that's  their 
trouble.  They're  so  afraid  of  having  to 
pay  a  little  taxes  that  they  screw  every- 
thing down  till  the  valves  crack." 

He  made  light  of  his  candidacy  for 
the  State  senate  when  she  referred  to  it. 


BRIGHT  357 

"Well,  I  didn't  want  that  job — not 
particularly — but  they've  rubbed  it  in 
so  much  about  my  being  a  crook  that 
I  thought  I'd  give  'em  a  chance  to 
down  me.  I'm  going  to  give  'em  a 
run  for  their  money —  I  beg  your  par- 
don!" he  exclaimed  hurriedly,  as  though 
remembering  that  he  was  speaking  to 
an  educator  of  youth.  "By  the  way,  I 
don't  want  you  to  answer  if  you'd  rather 
not,  but  about  this  school  row,  what's 
the  real  dope?  I  don't  know  anything 
about  such  things,  but  are  the  schools 
rotten  or  not?" 

"The  methods  are  old — that's  all. 
The  superintendent  would  be  all  right  if 
the  board  gave  him  a  chance.  The 
teachers  are  all  scared  to  death,  and 
that's  another  bad  thing.  The  commis- 
sioners meddle  with  things  that  ought 
to  be  left  to  Mr.  Gale." 

"I  just  wanted  to  know,"  Foley  re- 
plied, slowly.  "I  didn't  start  that  fuss, 
but  I  guess  I'll  have  to  butt  in  a  little. 
They're  always  bragging  about  keeping 
the  schools  out  of  politics,  when  they've 
built  up  a  little  machine  of  their  own 
that's  hard  to  beat.  I  guess  it  ought  to 
have  a  jolt.   Ami  right?"  he  demanded. 

"I  think  you  are,  Mr.  Foley,"  said 
Honor,  smiling  at  his  intonation.  "Of 
course  I'm  not  much  interested  person- 
ally, because  I  don't  expect  to  be  here 
another  year;  but  for  the  good  of  the 
town  I  hope  the  jolt  will  be  a  hard  one." 

"Don't  pack  your  things  yet,"  he  said, 
holding  the  derby  tenderly  against  his 
shoulder  at  the  boarding-house  door. 
"It's  a  good  town  and  getting  better. 
Hang  on;  you  never  can  tell  what  '11 
happen.  About  Mickey  —  you're  sure 
he's  doing  better?" 

"Nobly!  I'm  not  having  the  slightest 
trouble  with  Michael  now." 

He  planted  the  derby  on  his  head  after 
another  flourish  and  hurried  away. 
Honor  watched  him  for  a  moment  before 
closing  the  door.  The  Little  Boss  was 
a  new  species.  His  deferential  manner, 
his  quiet  earnestness,  argued  against  his 
possessing  the  wily,  vicious  qualities  the 
Journal  ascribed  to  him.  And  he  was 
fond  of  his  young  Michael;  this,  Honor 
thought,  was  greatly  in  his  favor. 

The  next  evening  the  meeting  of  the 
Mothers'  Club  of  Wendell  Phillips 
School  was  under  way  when  she  reached 


358 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  church.  Many  of  the  mothers  had 
taken  their  husbands  and  children  with 
them  and  the  room  was  crowded.  Honor 
found  a  seat  near  the  door  just  as  the 
chairman  introduced  the  first  speaker — 
the  candidate  for  school  commissioner  of 
whom  Miss  Ferguson  had  spoken  so 
bitterly. 

What  they  all  wanted,  he  said,  was  the 
best  education  they  could  give  their 
children.  He  named  the  old  commis- 
sioners, and  dwelt  upon  the  fact  that 
they  were  all  prosperous  men,  and  that 
only  one  of  them  had  ever  had  a  child 
in  the  Kernville  schools. 

"They  want  us  to  be  satisfied  with 
anything  they  choose  to  give  us,  while 
they  send  their  own  children  to  private 
schools.  It's  not  a  square  deal.  All 
over  the  country  school-houses  are  being 
used  for  social  purposes  by  the  neigh- 
bors, and  why  shouldn't  they  be?  Why 
shouldn't  our  boys  have  the  right  to 
play  in  school-grounds  instead  of  in  the 
street  and  on  the  railroad  tracks?" 

He  had  been  investigating  the  meth- 
ods employed  in  other  towns  the  size 
of  Kernville,  and  read  letters  in  proof  of 
his  assertion  that  the  local  schools  were 
behind  those  of  other  cities. 

The  chairman  then  said  that  she  had 
a  surprise  in  store  for  the  audience;  that 
a  man  everybody  in  the  Fourth  Ward 
knew  and  admired  was  present  and 
would  express  his  sentiments  on  the 
school  question. 

"I  have  the  honor  to  introduce  the 
Honorable  Thomas  Foley." 

The  hat  which  Honor  associated  in- 
evitably with  Michael's  father  was  now 
observable  moving  down  the  aisle  on  the 
arm  of  the  Honorable  Thomas.  There 
was  a  great  clapping  of  hands  as  the 
Little  Boss  appeared  on  the  platform. 
With  his  right  arm  enfolding  the  derby 
protectingly,  he  began  to  speak  in  a  con- 
versational tone. 

"I  suppose  I  oughtn't  to  be  here,  for 
they  say  they  don't  want  any  politics 
in  school  business.  I'm  here  this  evening 
because  I've  decided  there  ought  to  be 
some.  [Applause.]  They  say  I'm  a 
machine  politician  and  a  bad  lot  gener- 
ally. Well,  I  didn't  come  here  to  brag 
about  myself.  Sometimes  the  machine 
does  bad  things,  and  when  it  does  I'm 
just  as  sorry  as  anybody.   I  can  tell  you 


this,  you  folks  that  live  around  here  and 
know  me,  that  I  intend  to  stay  right 
on  in  the  old  Fourth  Ward,  and  that  I'm 
not  going  to  do  anything  so  rotten  bad 
that  the  neighbors  will  turn  their  backs 
on  me.  I  don't  want  people  to  point  to 
my  boy  and  say  Mickey  Foley's  father's 
a  crook  and  they  don't  want  their  kids 
to  play  with  him.  [Applause.]  If  I'm  as 
bad  as  they  say  I  am,  I  ought  to  be  in 
jail.  I've  been  thinking  about  this 
school  business  and  I've  just  dropped  in 
to  tell  you  I'm  against  the  old  crowd." 
[Great  applause.]  He  looked  with  sud- 
den interest  at  his  hat,  waved  it  in 
acknowledgment  of  the  hand-clapping, 
and  concluded  with,  "Well,  I  guess 
that's  about  all  from  me." 

Several  other  short  speeches  followed, 
and  then,  after  a  parley  with  the  club 
secretary,  the  chairman  said: 

"One  of  the  teachers  of  the  Wendell 
Phillips  School  has  kindly  come  to  this 
meeting.  I'm  not  going  to  call  her  name, 
but  a  good  many  of  us  know  her,  and 
if  she  feels  like  saying  anything  I'm  sure 
we'll  all  be  mighty  glad  to  hear  from 
her." 

There  was  a  craning  of  necks;  several 
children  in  Honor's  neighborhood  rose 
and  pointed  her  out.  Honor,  flushing 
scarlet,  waited,  hoping  the  chair  would 
accept  and  respect  her  silence.  It  was 
bad  enough  to  have  ignored  Miss  Fer- 
guson's warning  and  attended  the  meet- 
ing, without  adding  to  her  offense  by 
lifting  her  voice  against  the  powers. 
Vigorous  applause  gave  her  time  for  re- 
flection. Several  boys  called  her  name 
loudly.  Very  likely  she  would  lose  her 
position;  but  these  were  simple,  kindly 
people,  and  they  were  right  in  their  pro- 
test.  She  had  never  taken  a  dare! 

When  she  rose  she  was  greeted  with 
the  noisiest  applause  of  the  evening. 

"I  didn't  come  here  to  say  anything, 
but  just  to  listen.  I  haven't  had  much 
experience  as  a  teacher,  but  I  believe- the 
schools  of  Kernville  can  be  made  better. 
I  think  the  superintendent  could  make 
your  schools  the  best  in  the  state  if  he 
had  a  chance.  I  hope  you're  all  going 
to  help  give  him  the  chance."  And  then, 
suddenly  very  much  at  ease,  and  smiling, 
she  said,  "I  don't  believe  I  can  improve 
the  last  remark  made  by  Mr.  Foley — 
'I  guess  that's  about  all  from  me'!" 


HONOR 

At  a  special  meeting  of  the  board  held 
at  noon  the  next  day  the  superintendent 
was  instructed  to  demand  Miss  Bright's 
resignation.  Gale  refused.  She  was  an 
efficient  and  successful  teacher,  he  de- 
clared, and  he  would  not  punish  any 
employee  in  his  charge  for  attending  a 
meeting  that  had  been  marked  by  per- 
fect order  and  propriety. 

The  board,  afraid  of  the  consequences 
of  removing  the  superintendent,  let  the 
matter  stand;  but  Honor  became  immedi- 
ately an  issue  of  the  campaign.  Even 
the  partisan  papers  were  obliged  to  take 
note  of  the  demand  of  the  commissioners 
for  her  discharge,  and  the  Telegram 
espoused  her  cause  in  an  editorial  headed, 
"Why  Gag  the  School-Teachers?" 

Honor  declined  requests  for  her  photo- 
graph to  be  reproduced  in  the  Telegram, 
and  continued  her  work  at  Wendell 
Phillips,  where  her  associates,  cautioned 
by  the  principal,  showed  so  markedly 
their  distrust  of  her  that  she  ceased 
joining  them  with  her  luncheon  at  the 
noon  recess  and  ate  alone  in  her  room. 

In  spite  of  the  arduous  duties  of  the 
campaign — including  his  "speeches," 
never  more  than  fifty  words  in  length, 
which  the  Journal  ridiculed  daily — the 
Little  Boss  found  it  possible  several 
times  a  week  to  walk  home  with  Honor. 
He  talked  politics  chiefly,  and  it  was  a 
pleasant  and  novel  experience  to  learn 
from  him  of  strategic  movements  that 
never  got  into  the  newspapers.  He  was 
putting  in  his  best  licks,  he  told  her,  to 
push  the  independent  school  ticket 
through.  He  consulted  her  about  a  pa- 
rade he  was  planning  of  all  the  school 
children  in  the  city  on  the  Saturday  af- 
ternoon before  election  day,  and  he 
asked  Honor  to  furnish  inscriptions  for 
the  banners,  which  he  said  must  be 
numerous  and  "snappy." 

This  demonstration  was  the  biggest 
hit  of  the  campaign.  It  was  preceded  by 
a  band  and  the  entire  police  force  of 
Kernville.  The  participation  of  the  po- 
lice evoked  a  roar  from  the  Journal, 
which  declared  that  Foley  had  gone  into 
the  school  fight  merely  to  bolster  up  the 
failing  strength  of  the  Democratic  ma- 
chine. Wendell  Phillips  was  represented 
by  the  largest  delegation  contributed  by 
any  of  the  schools.  The  Little  Boss's 
son,  much  swollen  with  pride,  bore  a 

Vol.  CXXXI  — No.  783.-45 


BRIGHT  .  359 

banner  (chosen  for  him  by  his  discrim- 
inating parent)  inscribed,  "Pay  Our 
Teachers  Living  Wages." 

Honor's  meetings  with  Foley  did  not 
pass  unobserved;  in  fact,  she  made  no 
attempt  to  avoid  observation.  She 
merely  walked  out  of  the  school  gate,  and 
there,  quite  by  chance  it  might  have 
appeared  to  any  one,  the  Little  Boss  rose 
up  out  of  nowhere  and  walked  away 
with  her. 

Miss  Ferguson,  who  had  been  ignoring 
Honor  as  much  as  possible  since  the 
deadlock  between  the  board  and  the 
superintendent  over  the  question  of  dis- 
charging her,  accosted  Honor  in  the  hall 
late  one  afternoon.  The  principal's 
calm,  assured  manner  poorly  concealed 
her  intense  agitation. 

"Miss  Bright,  I  feel  that  as  a  friend 
I  should  tell  you  that  that  man  Foley, 
who's  been  seen  walking  home  with  you, 
is  a  saloon-keeper!  If  you  must  see  him, 
I  think  it  would  be  more  prudent  if  you 
met  him  elsewhere." 

Honor  flushed,  murmured,  "Thank 
you,"  and  hurried  on.  It  was  disagree- 
able news,  if  true,  and  she  had  no  grounds 
for  denying  it.  The  next  morning's 
Journal  jubilantly  trumpeted  the  same 
information.  Foley,  while  ostensibly  a 
plumber  by  occupation,  was  conducting 
a  saloon  at  Harney  and  Dodge  Streets; 
and  in  proof  of  this  a  picture  of  the  place 
was  offered  in  evidence.  That  evening 
Honor  resolved  to  have  a  look  at 
"Shiel's  Bar,"  as  the  Journal  described 
the  saloon. 

As  she  passed  the  corner  rapidly  the 
door  opened  and,  lifting  her  eyes,  she 
caught  a  glimpse  of  Foley  standing  be- 
hind the  cigar-counter  with  the  unfailing 
derby  on  the  back  of  his  head,  evidently 
engaged  in  studying  a  number  of  papers 
lying  open  before  him.  Beyond  him 
shone  the  mirror  and  fixtures  of  the  bar 
— a  pleasant  background  against  which 
to  see  a  man  who  has  been  walking  home 
with  you!  One  glimpse  was  enough;  she 
hurried  on  with  mounting  indignation. 
Manifestly  his  enemies  had  scored  heav- 
ily in  uncovering  Foley's  connection 
with  a  saloon,  and  it  was  quite  clear  that 
as  a  self-respecting  young  woman  she 
could  not  suffer  him  longer  to  hang 
about  the  school  gate  waiting  for  her. 


360 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


The  next  afternoon  she  took  the  pre- 
caution to  leave  the  school-house  by  a 
side  gate,  to  avoid  the  possibility  of 
meeting  him.  When  she  came  out  into 
her  usual  course  again  she  found  the 
Little  Boss  sedately  waiting.  He  grinned 
cheerfully  as  she  approached. 

"Miss  Bright,  please  let  me  speak  to 
you  a  moment,"  he  began  hastily,  mov- 
ing along  beside  her.  "I  know  why  you 
dodged  me  and  I  don't  blame  you.  I 
just  want  to  tell  you  about  that  saloon 
business.  It's  all  in  the  Telegram  to- 
night. I  never  owned  that  place  or  any 
other  saloon.  Old  Pat  Shiel  was  a  good 
friend  of  mine  even  if  he  did  run  a  saloon. 
He  died  last  summer,  and  somebody  had 
to  take  charge  of  things  for  his  widow, 
and  they  put  me  in  as  administrator.  I 
wouldn't  have  taken  it  if  it  hadn't  been 
to  help  out  Mrs.  Shiel  and  her  kids.  I'm 
going  to  sell  it  out  as  soon  as  I  can. 
It's  all  the  woman's  got.  I  knew  you 
wouldn't  like  that  story.  I'm  mighty 
sorry";  and  then  he  added,  "I  beg  your 
pardon." 

"I'm  glad  to  know  this,"  said  Honor, 

quietly,  "and  I  appreciate  your  telling 

  )j 

me. 

He  turned  toward  her  with  his  amus- 
ing smile  and,  lowering  his  voice,  said, 
"We  had  that  fake  worked  off  on  the 
Journal  on  purpose." 

"I  don't  believe  I  see  the  point," 
Honor  confessed. 

"Well,  you  see,  it's  this  way.  They 
hadn't  been  hitting  me  hard  enough  to 
warm  up  our  side,  and  about  this  time 
in  a  campaign  you've  got  to  get  some 
punch  into  things.  To  show  me  up  as 
a  booze-dealer  looks  like  a  knock-out. 
When  we  spring  the  answer  and  show  that 
I'm  only  helping  out  a  poor  widow  with 
four  children  they  wobble  back  on  the 
ropes.  We  framed  the  whole  business  at 
headquarters  and  then  let  the  Journal 
shoot  it  off  as  a  big  scoop.  I  guess  may- 
be you  think  it's  pretty  low  politics,"  he 
added,  humbly,  "but — " 

"You're  very  naughty,"  said  Honor, 
severely,  "just  as  Michael  is  disposed  to 
be  sometimes.  He  can  reach  across  the 
aisle  •  and  twitch  a  little  girl's  pigtail 
and  look  as  innocent  as  a  lamb  when  the 
girl  screams." 

"He's  been  doing  that!"  ejaculated 
Foley. 


"Oh,  not  lately!"  Honor  hastened  to 
assure  him.  "I  meant  years  and  years 
ago — before  his  reformation." 

On  the  night  of  election-day  Honor 
made  up  a  party  at  the  boarding-house 
to  go  down-town  to  watch  the  returns 
flashed  on  a  screen  in  front  of  the 
Telegram  office.  She  was  not  interested 
a  particle  in  what  forty  precincts  in 
Syracuse  had  done,  or  whether  Tam- 
many had  put  through  its  candidate  for 
governor;  but  by  eleven  o'clock  the 
news  of  the  local  fight  began  to  crystal- 
lize.   This  was  the  first  stirring  report: 

Returns  at  this  hour  indicate  that  two  of 
the  independent  candidates  for  school  com- 
missioner have  been  elected. 

The  crowd  greeted  this  with  much 
cheering,  which  was  intensified  a  few 
minutes  later  when  the  three  indepen- 
dent candidates  were  declared  to  be  safe. 
Then  this  cryptic  statement  followed: 

Complete  returns  from  60  precincts  in 
Bliss  County:  For  state  senator,  Foley,  Dem., 
leads  Smythe,  Rep.,  by  1800. 

While  the  crowd  cheered,  a  picture  of 
Foley  was  flashed,  and  the  uproar  was 
intensified.  His  face  wore  his  familiar 
smile;  he  looked  more  than  ever  like 
Michael,  Honor  thought. 

Vague  reports  from  California  held 
the  screen,  and  then  an  automobile  ap- 
peared at  the  edge  of  the  crowd  and 
cries  went  up  for  Foley.  The  crowd 
turned  its  back  upon  highly  unimportant 
returns  from  Texas  and  began  demand- 
ing that  Foley  should  speak.  Under  an 
arc-lamp  at  the  corner  Honor  now  saw 
the  Little  Boss  standing  up  in  the  car, 
tipping  his  derby  and  shaking  his  head 
in  reply  to  the  demand  for  a  speech. 
As  the  noise  continued  and  grew  he 
raised  the  derby  to  command  silence. 

"I'm  mighty  glad  to  see  you  all  feel- 
ing so  good,"  he  said,  looking  out  over 
the  tightly  packed  crowd.  "I'm  feel- 
ing pretty  good  myself.  [Laughter.] 
They've  been  saying  around  Kernville 
for  a  good  while  that  I'm  a  crook.  I've 
given  'em  a  chance  to  prove  it.  Have 
they  made  good?  [A  wild  blur  of 
no's.]  I  haven't  any  hard  feelings 
against  anybody.  All  I  want  is  to  get 
for  Bliss  County  and  Kernville  every- 
thing the  folks  is  entitled  to.  And 


HONOR  BRIGHT 


361 


listen!  When  you  all  come  up  to  the 
legislature  I  want  you  to  tell  the  man 
at  the  door  to  call  me  out  right  away, 
because  you're  dead  sure  Tom  Foley 
wants  to  see  you." 

Smythe  concedes  Foley's  election 

struck  the  screen  as  he  waved  his  hat 
and  dropped  from  sight. 

The  Little  Boss  no  longer  haunted  the 
school  gate,  but  boldly  presented  him- 
self three  evenings  a  week  at  Honor's 
boarding-house.  There  was  something 
that  pleased  Honor  deeply  in  his  humil- 
ity over  his  success. 

"When  you've  had  your  head  punched 
as  much  as  I  have  you  don't  just  natu- 
rally swell  up  over  a  little  thing  like 
that,"  he  said  a  few  evenings  after  the 
election.  "But  I'm  going  to  try  to  get 
some  things  done  for  our  town.  I'm 
reading  up  on  city  government,  and  I 
guess  there's  some  new  ideas  we  ought 
to  have  for  Kernville.  If  it  won't  bother 
you  too  much,  I  wish  you'd  look  at  some 
of  these  books  I've  been  getting  about 
the  way  to  run  towns  like  this.  I'd  like 
to  know  what  you  think  about  'em." 

Michael,  a  willing  delivery  agent,  be- 
gan leaving  sundry  and  divers  packages 
at  the  door — offerings  which  preluded 
(ong  conferences  between  Foley  and 
Honor  on  weighty  matters.  The  fact 
that  the  newly  elected  school  commis- 
sioners took  office  on  the  first  of  Janu- 
ary, and  a  suspicion  that  Honor  had  in- 
fluence with  the  superintendent  and  in 
other  high  quarters,  contributed  to  a 
kindlier  attitude  toward  her  at  the 
school-house. 

Foley  called  on  New- Year's  eve  with  a 
white  carnation  in  his  buttonhole.  He 
and  Honor  were  on  such  terms  now  that 
she  openly  chaffed  him  on  occasions. 
He  had  been  busy  since  election  straight- 
ening out  his  business,  and  he  confided 
to  her  that  he  had  secured  a  couple  of 
good  contracts  that  would  keep  his  shop 
busy  while  he  wore  his  senatorial  toga 
at  the  capital.  He  had  been  concerned 
for  Michael's  safety  during  his  absence, 
but  had  arranged  to  place  him  with  a 
neighbor. 

"And  I'll  keep  an  eye  on  him,  too," 
said  Honor. 


"I  guess  you  see  enough  of  him  in 
school,"  Foley  replied,  lifting  the  pre- 
cious derby  from  the  hat-rack  prepara- 
tory to  his  usual  abrupt  exit.  "You 
know,  Miss  Bright,  I  want  to  give  the 
lad  a  good  chance.  I  want  to  see  him 
get  somewhere;  I  want — I  want — to 
send  him  to  college!" 

"That's  what  I  hoped  you  meant  to 
do,"  replied  Honor,  from  the  parlor  door. 
"He's  worth  it.  There's  the  making  of 
a  fine  man  in  Michael." 

The  Little  Boss  glanced  into  his  hat 
to  hide  his  embarrassment.  His  affec- 
tion for  the  boy  had  touched  Honor 
from  the  beginning  of  their  acquaint- 
ance. And  there  was  beyond  question 
something  very  appealing  in  the  Little 
Boss.  He  was  only  thirty,  she  had 
learned,  and  he  had  been  thrown  on  the 
world  to  shift  for  himself  at  fourteen. 
His  achievements  were,  on  the  whole, 
amazing;  and  his  ambitions  as  he  mod- 
estly confessed  them  were  highly  cred- 
itable. 

"I'm  going  down  to  the  capital  to- 
morrow. You  see  it's  a  new  game  and 
I  want  to  get  the  hang  o'  things  before 
the  session  opens." 

"I  suppose  it's  best  to  do  that.  Well, 
I'll  miss  you  while  you're  away." 

He  looked  at  her  quickly,  then  re- 
garded his  hat  fixedly. 

"I  forgot  to  tell  you,"  Honor  re- 
marked, "that  Mr.  Gale  has  offered  me 
another  place.  He  wants  me  to  be  his 
secretary  and  work  at  the  school  office." 

"I  hope  you  won't  take  it!"  said 
Foley  in  a  tone  that  implied  that  some 
great  indignity  lay  behind  the  superin- 
tendent's compliment.  "It  wouldn't  be 
square  to  the  folks  around  Wendell  Phil- 
lips. Why,  you're  the  most  popular 
teacher  they  ever  had  over  there." 

"Oh,  far  from  that!"    she  protested. 

"And  besides" — he  referred  again  to 
the  interior  of  his  hat  and  then  met 
her  brown  eyes  with  his  candid  blue 
ones — "and  besides,  I  was  going  to  offer 
you  a  job  myself.  You  see,  Miss 
Bright,"  he  went  on,  hastily,  "ever  since 
that  day  the  old  lady  up  at  the  school 
jumped  you  for  chasing  little  Mickey — " 

Honor  was  somewhat  astonished  a  few 
moments  later  to  find  herself  standing 
on  his  derby. 


The  Close  of  John  Hay's  Career 


From  his  UNPUBLISHED  LETTERS  and  DIARIES 


Compiled  and  Edited  by  William  Roscoe  Thayer 


OR  convenience  we 
group  a  statesman's 
work  according  to  top- 
ics; in  real  life,  how- 
ever, there  is  no  such 
grouping.  We  cannot 
isolate  tasks  which 
overlap  or  go  forward  simultaneously. 
So  it  was  with  Secretary  Hay.  Long 
before  he  signed  the  treaty  with  the  new 
Republic  of  Panama  he  had  many  other 
issues  on  his  hands.  I  pass  over  the 
abortive  negotiations  to  buy  the  Danish 
Islands — failure  in  which  several  ob- 
servers believed  they  detected  German 
counterplay;  I  pass  over  also  Hay's 
eager  support  of  the  first  Hague  Tri- 
bunal and  of  subsequent  appeals  to  it, 
and  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  international 
copyright.  The  chief  business  which  ab- 
sorbed him  at  the  end  of  1903  concerned 
the  Far  East. 

Although  constantly  professing  her 
intention  of  evacuating  Manchuria, 
Russia  not  only  stayed  on  there,  but 
menaced  Korea.  Japan  formed,  in  1902, 
a  league  with  England  which  wonder- 
fully strengthened  the  self-reliance  of  the 
little  men  of  Nippon.  Early  in  1903 
Secretary  Hay  pressed  upon  the  Russian 
government  the  need  of  respecting  the 
integrity  of  China.  On  May  12th  he 
writes  to  the  President: 

We  have  the  positive  and  categorical 
assurance  of  the  Russian  Government  that 
the  so-called  " convention  of  seven  points" 
has  not  been  proposed  by  Russia  to  China. 
We  have  this  assurance  from  Count  Cassini 
here,  from  Mr.  McCormick  [American  Am- 
bassador to  Russia]  directly  from  Count 
Lamsdorff  in  Petersburg,  and  through  Sir 
Michael  Herbert  [British  Ambassador  at 
Washington],  from  the  Russian  Ambassador 
in  London.  .  .  .  Per  contra,  we  have  from 
Conger  in  Pekin,  from  our  Commissioners  in 
Shanghai,  from  the  Japanese  Legation  here, 
and  from  the  British  Embassy,  substantially 
identical  copies  of  the  "  convention  of  seven 


points,"  which  there  is  no  shadow  of  doubt 
the  Russians  have  been,  and  perhaps  still 
are,  forcing  upon  the  Government  of  China. 
...  I  have  intimated  to  Cassini  that  the 
inevitable  result  of  their  present  course  of 
aggression  would  be  the  seizure  by  different 
Powers  of  different  provinces  in  China,  and 
the  accomplishment  of  the  dismemberment 
of  the  empire.  He  shouts  in  reply:  "This  is 
already  done.  China  is  dismembered  and 
we  are  entitled  to  our  share." 

The  next  confidential  letter,  addressed 
to  Mr.  White,  in  London,  reveals  the 
difficulties  against  which  Hay  was  work- 
ing: 

The  Manchurian  matter  is  far  more  deli- 
cate and  more  troublesome.  Russia,  as  you 
know,  has  given  us  the  most  positive  assur- 
ances that  the  famous  "convention  of  seven 
points"  never  existed.  We  have  a  verbatim 
copy  of  it  as  it  was  presented,  with  preamble 
and  appendix,  by  Monsieur  Plancon,  to  the 
Chinese  Government.  If  they  choose  to 
disavow  Plancon,  and  to  discontinue  their 
attempts  to  violate  their  agreements,  we 
shall  be  all  right;  but,  if  the  lie  they  have 
told  was  intended  to  serve  only  for  a  week  or 
two,  the  situation  will  become  a  serious  one. 
The  Chinese,  as  well  as  the  Russians,  seem 
to  know  that  the  strength  of  our  position  is 
entirely  moral,  and  if  the  Russians  are  con- 
vinced that  we  will  not  fight  for  Manchuria — 
as  I  suppose  we  will  not — and  the  Chinese  are 
convinced  that  they  have  nothing  but  good 
to  expect  from  us  and  nothing  but  a  beating 
from  Russia,  the  open  hand  will  not  be  so 
convincing  to  the  poor  devils  of  Chinks  as  the 
raised  club.  Still,  we  must  do  the  best  we 
can  with  the  means  at  our  disposition. 
[May  22,  1903.] 

Our  strength  in  Russia  is,  of  course,  not 
with  the  military  or  diplomatic  sections  of 
the  Government  [Mr.  Hay  writes  to  Minister 
Conger  in  Peking],  but  with  Mr.  Witte  and 
the  whole  financial  world  of  Russia.  [June 
I3>  1903-] 

In  spite  of  warnings  and  dissuasions, 
however,  Russia  pursued  her  policy,  and 
at  the  beginning  of  1904  she  forced  the 
Japanese  to  conclude  that  they  must 


THE  CLOSE  OF  JOHN  HAY'S  CAREER 


363 


either  accept  Russian  domination  down 
to  the  shores  of  the  Japan  Sea — a  domi- 
nation which  would  soon  overshadow 
themselves — or  attack  the  Russians  be- 
fore they  had  assembled  their  full 
strength.  To  the  surprise  of  the  Powers, 
the  Japanese  chose  the  latter  course. 

Mr.  Hay's  diary  gives  us  the  clue  to 
the  swiftly  maturing  events: 

January  5,  IQ04. — From  despatches  re- 
ceived from  Tokio  and  from  the  Japanese 
Legation  here  it  is  evident  that  no  attempt  at 
mediation  will  do  any  good.  Russia  is  clearly 
determined  to  make  no  concessions  to  Japan. 
They  think — that  is,  Alexieff  and  Bezobra- 
zofF,  who  seem  to  have  complete  control  of 
affairs — that  now  is  the  time  to  strike,  to 
crush  Japan  and  to  eliminate  her  from  her 
position  of  influence  in  the  Far  East.  They 
evidently  think  there  is  nothing  to  be  feared 
from  us — and  they  have  of  course  secured 
pledges  from  Germany  and  France  which 
make  them  feel  secure  in  Europe. 

January  6th. — The  President  notices  a  de- 
cided change  of  opinion  against  Russia.  Her- 
man Ridder  has  told  him  he  can  get  up  a 
big  dinner  in  New  York  of  Germans  and 
Irish  to  express  sympathy  with  Japan. 

January  gth. — Takahira  [the  Japanese 
Minister  at  Washington]  saw  for  the  first  time 
in  some  weeks  a  possible  gleam  of  light.  He 
asked  me  whether  it  would  seem  ungracious 
on  the  part  of  Japan  to  desist  from  claiming 
"foreign  settlements"  in  Manchuria — show- 
ing that  this  is  one  of  the  points  Russia  is 
insisting  on.  I  told  him  that  we  reserved 
our  treaty  right  to  discuss  the  matter,  but 
that  we  were  not  at  present  insisting  on  it. 

January  nth. — I  saw  Takahira,  who  read 
me  several  long  despatches  from  his  Govern- 
ment. One  saying  they  had  asked  strict 
neutrality  from  China,  in  the  interest  of 
China  and  the  civilized  world — and  another 
giving  excellent  reasons  why  they  did  not 
desire  the  mediation  of  other  Powers;  as 
they  would  inure  to  the  advantage  of  Russia 
through  endless  delays. 

America's  good  offices  had  as  little 
effect  as  had  the  counsels  of  European 
bankers  and  diplomats  in  averting  the 
war.  On  February  8th  Admiral  Togo, 
commanding  the  Japanese  fleet,  made  a 
dash  on  Port  Arthur  and  attacked  the 
Russians.  The  day  before,  Secretary 
Hay,  just  returned  from  a  trip  to 
Georgia,  was  shown  a  memorandum 
which  the  German  ambassador,  Speck 
von  Sternburg,  had  presented  to  the 
President.  Read  now,  it  proves  to  be 
the  clue  to  a  puzzle  which  mystified 


diplomacy  then.  It  suggested  that  the 
German  Emperor  desired 

that  we  take  the  initiative  in  calling  upon 
the  Powers  to  use  good  offices  to  induce 
Russia  and  Japan  to  respect  the  neutrality 
of  China  outside  the  sphere  of  military  opera- 
tions. I  said  I  thought  we  ought  to  eliminate 
the  last  clause  and  include  "the  administra- 
tive entity  of  China."  The  President  agreed. 

On  February  8th  Mr.  Hay  had  the 
draft  ready  to  show  to  the  President 
and  other  persons,  who  approved  of  it. 
Among  them  were  the  German  and  Chi- 
nese envoys.   The  latter 

was  greatly  pleased  to  know  what  we  had 
done.  So  was  Takahira,  who  came  in  and 
talked  of  the  situation  with  profound  emo- 
tion, which  expressed  itself  in  a  moment  of 
tears  and  sobs  as  he  left  me. 

Cassini  [the  Russian  Ambassador]  came  to 
my  house  at  2.30  and  stayed  an  hour.  He 
spent  most  of  the  time  in  accusing  Japan  of 
lightness  and  vanity;  he  seemed  little  af- 
fected by  the  imminence  of  war,  expecting  a 
speedy  victory,  but  admitting  that  the  war, 
however  it  resulted,  would  profit  nobody. 

From  this  time  forward  Mr.  Hay  re- 
ceived almost  daily  visits  from  Takahira 
and  Cassini.  The  Japanese  was  always 
courteous  and  dignified;  the  Russian 
was  often  fretful,  peevish,  and  complain- 
ing if  bad  news  came — and  the  news  was 
usually  bad  for  Russia — or  he  was  surly 
and  overbearing  to  such  a  point  that 
Mr.  Hay  seems  more  than  once  to  have 
been  on  the  point  of  showing  him  the 
door.  Count  Cassini  deceived  himself 
by  thinking  that  the  way  to  propitiate 
the  Secretary  and  the  American  people 
was  to  arraign  the  government  for  un- 
neutrality.  He  would  come  to  the  State 
Department  in  a  rage  over  some  news- 
paper article,  or  some  joke  or  cartoon, 
and  once,  when  a  Japanese  consul  was 
reported  to  have  shouted  "  Banzai "  at 
a  public  dinner  in  New  York,  Count 
Cassini  could  hardly  refrain  from  mak- 
ing an  international  question  of  it. 

Appreciating  how  much  the  unex- 
pected reverses  must  embitter  him,  Sec- 
retary Hay  did  his  best  to  make  allow- 
ances for  the  untactful  Russian,  but  from 
the  start  he  feared,  and  with  reason, 
that  Cassini  was  "in  no  humor  to  be  a 
safe  counselor  to  LamsdorfF,"  the  Rus- 
sian Foreign  Minister. 

Having  already  had  unofficial  notice 


364 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


that  England,  France,  Russia,  China, 
and  Japan  would  be  glad  to  consider  it, 
on  February  12th  Hay  launched  his  cir- 
cular. He  counted  upon  Germany,  be- 
cause the  Kaiser  had  made  the  original 
suggestion. 

I  get  many  inquiries  as  to  the  exact 
meaning  of  a  note  which  [Hay  writes]  was 
properly  left  indefinite. 

Within  ten  days  the  Powers  chiefly 
interested  agreed  in  substance  to  the 
American  circular. 

Three  more  extracts  from  the  diary  on 
this  matter  must  suffice. 

March  I. — Cassini  came  at  three  and 
stayed  till  five.  His  object  was  to  hand  me 
a  memorandum  from  Russia,  limiting  the 
theater  of  war  in  Manchuria,  which,  like 
everything  from  that  country,  has  a  "false 
bottom."  He  talked  for  an  hour  about 
American  unfriendliness.  I  told  him  that  the 
Japs  were  cleverer — they  talked  of  our  friend- 
liness. 

March  2. — There  is  an  interview  with  Cas- 
sini printed  in  the  papers  to-day  containing 
much  that  he  said  to  me  yesterday;  giving 
the  government  credit  for  being  correct,  but 
going  for  the  people  and  the  press.  Takahira 
also  resorts  to  the  newspapers  to  sustain  the 
attitude  of  Japan. 

March  g. — [The  President]  is  determined 
to  do  his  duty  by  Russia  and  not  be  swerved 
from  strict  neutrality  by  her  pettishness,  nor 
to  show  any  unfriendliness  to  Japan  by  rea- 
son of  it. 

Throughout  the  year,  Secretary  Hay 
had  the  war  in  the  Far  East  constantly 
on  his  mind,  and  the  days  were  rare  when 
he  escaped  a  call  from  Mr.  Takahira  and 
Count  Cassini.  But  many  other  per- 
plexing matters  required  his  attention. 
I  omit  the  later  efforts  of  the  Colom- 
bians to  undo  the  Republic  of  Panama; 
nor  can  I  detail  the  negotiations  to  pro- 
tect China. 

Early  in  the  spring  the  coming  Presi- 
dential campaign  began  to  absorb  the 
Republican  administration.  Months  be- 
fore, Hay  foresaw  that  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
renomination  would  not  be  disputed.  At 
a  time  when  Senator  Hanna,  the  Repub- 
lican "Warwick,"  was  supposed  to  be 
casting  about  for  a  more  pliable  candi- 
date, Hay  wrote  as  follows  to  a  corre- 
spondent in  Brooklyn,  who  seems  to 
have  suggested  that  Hay  himself  should 
run: 


A  veteran  observer,  like  you  and  me,  ought 
never  to  shut  his  eyes  to  accomplished  facts. 
Roosevelt  is  already  nominated.  Hanna 
knows  this  as  well  as  the  rest  of  us.  He  is 
not  going  to  oppose  him,  and  Roosevelt  will 
be  nominated  by  acclamation  in  the  conven- 
tion. I  do  not  believe  another  name  will  be 
put  forward  in  opposition.  Of  course,  I  am 
for  him  against  all  comers,  if  the  matter  were 
in  controversy,  but  even  if  it  were  not,  and 
if  I  were  a  possibility  (which  I  am  not),  no 
earthly  consideration  would  induce  me  to 
accept  a  nomination  for  that  place.  When 
I  get  through  with  my  present  job  I  shall 
never  hold  another  public  office.  [To  W.  F. 
G.  SHanks,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  November  24, 
1903-] 

Mr.  Cortelyou,  on  Secretary  Root's 
declination,  was  chosen  Republican  cam- 
paign manager.  The  Democrats  tem- 
porarily shook  off  Mr.  Bryan  and  his 
free-silver  platform,  and  sought  another 
candidate  with  different  issues.  In  spite 
of  their  hold  on  power,  the  Republicans 
felt  anxious  until  late  in  the  summer. 
Hay's  diary  again  serves  to  light  up  the 
campaign  and  his  own  attitude  toward 
it: 

April  12. — In  the  Cabinet  meeting  to-day 
the  President  set  forth  at  great  length  the 
difficulties  and  dangers  of  the  campaign,  as  a 
preliminary  to  the  suggestion  that  the  wel- 
fare of  the  Republican  party  in  this  trying 
hour  demanded  that  I  should  make  some 
speeches.  The  motion  was  seconded  by 
Shaw  and  Moody  with  considerable  elo- 
quence. I  sat  mute — fearing  to  speak  lest 
I  should  lose  my  temper.  It  is  intolerable 
that  they  should  not  see  how  much  more 
advantageous  to  the  administration  it  is  that 
I  should  stay  at  home  to  do  my  work  than 
that  I  should  cavort  around  the  country 
making  lean  ana  jejune  orations. 

April  24. — The  President  had  only  been 
here  a  few  minutes  this  morning  when  Nicho- 
las Murray  Butler  and  Joe  Bishop^came  in. 
They  were  very  much  amused  at  the  frantic 
energy  with  which  Mr.  Cleveland  is  denying 
that  he  ever  showed  any  common  civility  to  a 
negro.  They  seem  to  think  it  indicated 
that  in  spite  of  all  protestations  he  still  de- 
sires the  Presidential  nomination. 

The  Republicans  at  their  convention 
on  June  23d  nominated  Roosevelt  and 
Fairbanks  for  President  and  Vice-Presi- 
dent.  The  next  day  Hay  records: 

Cabinet  meeting  to-day.  The  President 
was  not  specially  elated — it  was  too  clear  a 
walk-over. 


THE  CLOSE  OF  JOHN  HAY'S  CAREER 


365 


On  July  9th  the  Democrats  chose 
Judge  Alton  B.  Parker  as  their  nominee 
for  the  Presidency.  Secretary  Hay 
wrote  to  Mr.  Choate  the  following  caus- 
tic and  characteristically  partisan  criti- 
cism of  Judge  Parker's  action. 

The  conventions  have  met  and  adjourned, 
and  I  think  we  are  left  in  an  excellent  posi- 
tion for  the  campaign.  The  last  day  of  the 
St.Louis  convention  was  the  scene  of  several 
dramatic  incidents  which  the  Democratic 
papers  seem  to  think  will  be  to  the  advantage 
of  Parker.  I  cannot  agree  with  them.  He 
held  his  tongue  rigidly,  giving  no  hint  of  his 
position  on  any  question  until  the  platform 
was  made  and  he  was  nominated.  The  next 
morning  the  three  most  important  opposi- 
tion papers  in  New  York — the  Sun,  the 
Times,  and  the  World — had  leaders  furiously 
denouncing  the  platform.  Upon  this  Parker 
took  a  sudden  fright,  feeling  that  his  nomina- 
tion would  be  worthless  if  he  was  to  lose  his 
Eastern  support  in  the  press,  and  he  at  once 
sent  a  telegram  to  St.  Louis,  saying  that  he 
was  in  favor  of  the  gold  standard,  and  if  they 
did  not  like  it  they  could  nominate  somebody 
else.  He  knew  perfectly  well  they  could  not 
nominate  any  one  else,  nor  could  they  change 
their  platform,  but  he  accomplished  his  pur- 
pose in  extorting  from  them  permission  for 
him  to  accept  without  changing  his  views. 
So  they  are  now  before  the  country,  the  plat- 
form by  its  silence  indorsing  the  Bryanite 
view  of  the  money  question,  and  the  candi- 
date trying  to  save  himself  by  a  repudiation 
of  the  convention — something  which  has 
never  happened  before,  so  far  as  I  remember, 
except  in  the  case  of  McClellan,  with  conse- 
quences not  to  be  envied.  They  are  all  ex- 
tolling to-day  the  boldness  of  Parker,  his 
boldness  consisting  in  his  having  held  his 
tongue  until  he  had  secured  the  nomination, 
and  then,  in  a  blue  funk  over  the  outburst  of 
the  newspapers  Saturday  morning,  repudiat- 
ing the  platform,  to  which  his  representa- 
tives had  explicitly  consented.  Yet,  singu- 
larly enough,  this  rather  pitiful  performance 
has  helped  him  in  public  opinion.  [July  11, 
1904.] 

The  next  letter,  dated  July  13th,  dis- 
closes President  Roosevelt's  willingness 
to  accept  suggestions,  and,  incidentally, 
it  repeats  Mr.  Hay's  trenchant  opinion  of 
the  Democratic  adversaries. 

I  return  herewith  the  draft  of  your  speech. 
I  am  sorry  to  return  it  almost  absolutely  in- 
tact. Knowing  how  you  yearn  for  the  use 
of  the  meat-ax  on  your  offspring,  I  always 
feel  in  default  when  I  send  back  your  drafts 
with  no  words  but  those  of  unlimited  admira- 


tion. I  really  think  this  is  one  of  the  best 
speeches  you  have  ever  made.  The  first  two 
pages  are  severe,  but  absolutely  just  and 
dignified,  and  the  rest  is  history  with  a  fine 
flavor  of  actuality.  [Here  follow  three  sug- 
gestions as  to  verbal  changes.] 

We  are  in  the  world  and  we  have  got  to  be 
patient  with  our  environment,  but  I  find  it 
hard  to  keep  my  temper  over  the  falsetto 
shrieks  of  rapture  of  The  Evening  Post  about 
the  trick  which  Parker  played  on  his  con- 
vention. I  cannot  say  I  have  much  sym- 
pathy with  the  Tillmans,  the  Williamses, 
and  the  Clarks,  but  I  think  Bryan  has  the 
right  to  go  to  his  Nebraska  home  chanting 
the  immortal  refrain  of  Bret  Harte: 

"He  played  it  that  day  upon  Williams  and 
me  in  a  way  I  despise." 

And  the  most  exasperating  thing  about  it 
is  that  Parker  really  seems  to  have  scored  by 
this  act  of  treachery,  dictated  by  abject 
cowardice.  But  it  is  a  good  while  until 
election,  and  the  hard-headed  common  sense 
of  the  American  voters  "won't  do  a  thing  to 
him"  in  the  mean  time. 

In  spite  of  his  reluctance,  Mr.  Hay 
made  three  speeches  during  the  season: 
at  the  opening  of  the  St.  Louis  Fair;  at 
the  semi-centennial  celebration  of  the 
birth  of  the  Republican  party  at  Jack- 
son, Michigan,  on  July  6th;  and  at  Car- 
negie Hall,  New  York,  on  October  26th. 
Only  the  last  was  directly  political;  but 
the  Jackson  speech,  judging  by  its  wide 
circulation,  was  regarded  by  the  Repub- 
lican managers  as  their  best  campaign 
document.  Not  long  before  election, 
Judge  Parker  publicly  accused  President 
Roosevelt  of  employing  a  corruption 
fund  to  turn  the  votes  to  his  side.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  waited  for  several  days  in  si- 
lence, and  then  issued  a  crushing  denial. 
Secretary  Hay  describes  this  episode  in 
a  letter  to  Mr.  Frank  H.  Mason,  consul- 
general  at  Berlin: 

I  am  getting  to  be  an  old  man,  and 
naturally  take  a  calmer  view  of  political  con- 
tests than  when  I  was  young,  but  never  since 
the  early  Fremont  days  have  I  been  so  abso- 
lutely certain  of  the  justice  of  our  cause  and 
of  its  certain  triumph.  The  other  side  had 
no  programme,  and,  as  it  turned  out  in  the 
last  week  of  the  campaign,  no  candidate. 
Their  platform  was  as  complete  a  humbug 
as  Parker  himself.  The  force  of  comparison 
could  go  no  farther.  When  he  emerged  from 
Esopus  for  the  whirlwind  close  of  his  cam- 
paign he  first  insinuated  his  charges  against 
the  President  half  under  his  breath,  but, 
receiving  no  reply  for  a  day  or  two,  he  grew 


366 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


bolder  and  bolder,  until  at  last  he  went  roar- 
ing about  that  the  President  knew  he  was 
guilty  and  dared  not  answer.  This  was  sim- 
ply a  vulgar  gamble  on  what  he  assumed  was 
the  President's  sense  of  dignity;  but  when, 
on  Saturday  morning,  he  got  a  blow  square 
between  the  eyes  from  the  "big  stick"  and 
was  called  a  liar,  and  a  malignant  liar,  and  a 
knowing  and  conscious  liar,  we  were  all  of 
us  a  little  curious  during  the  day  to  know 
what  reply  he  would  make  Saturday  night. 
Of  course,  we  knew  that  his  charges  were 
absolutely  false,  but  we  could  not  regard  it 
as  possible  that  he  had  made  them  without 
any  foundation  whatever  in  his  own  mind. 
The  two  or  three  possibilities  we  thought  of 
were  a  forgery,  or  some  fool  letter  from  some 
fool  friend  of  the  President,  but  when  it 
turned  out  that  all  the  proof  he  had  of  his 
charges  were  his  own  assertions  made  during 
the  week,  it  became  too  ridiculous.  It  re- 
minded one  of  the  lines  in  the  "Hunting  of 
the  Snark":  "I  have  said  it  once;  I  have 
said  it  again;  when  I  say  it  three  times,  it's 
true."  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  pitiful  col- 
lapse of  his  campaign  of  mendacity  cost  him 
many,  many  thousands  of  votes.  .  .  . 

I  do  not  amount  to  much  myself  this  fall. 
I  do  not  know  that  I  have  any  local  lesion 
anywhere,  but  I  feel  a  gentle  flavor  of  mild 
decay  which  gives  the  contradiction — which 
I  am  too  polite  to  give  myself — to  the  Presi- 
dent's announcement  that  I  shall  be  here  for 
four  years  to  come.   [November  26,  1904.] 

Toward  the  end  of  this  year  rumors  of 
peace  kept  cropping  up.  Takahira  ex- 
pressed anxiety  lest  the  European 
Powers,  by  compelling  mediation,  should 
deprive  Japan  of  the  fruits  of  victory. 
Secretary  Hay  assured  him  that  the 
American  government,  while  remaining 
strictly  neutral,  would  not  consent  to  a 
repetition  of  the  injustice  of  1894.  On 
November  17th  Hay  received  a  telegram 
from  St.  Petersburg,  saying:  "I  am  re- 
quested to  inform  you  that  the  Emperor 
earnestly  desires  to  accept  the  Presi- 
dent's proposal,  but  will  be  prevented 
by  existing  conditions."  It  required 
further  defeats — at  the  Hun  River,  and 
Mukden  on  land,  and  in  the  Sea  of 
Japan — to  bring  Russia  to  terms.  From 
the  diary: 

1905,  January  3. — The  air  is  still  full  of 
rumors  of  peace  by  our  intervention.  I  gave 
the  newspapers  to  understand  that  we  were 
doing  nothing  and  had  no  intention  of  inter- 
fering in  a  matter  where  our  interference  is 
not  wanted. 


On  January  5th  occurs  this  still  more 
important  entry,  in  which  the  German 
Kaiser's  suggestion  is  set  forth: 

Sternburg  wires  the  President  that  he  com- 
municated his  views  to  the  Emperor,  who 
requested  him  to  telegraph  the  President: 
"He  is  highly  gratified  to  hear  that  you 
firmly  adhere  to  the  policy  of  the  Open  Door 
and  uphold  the  actual  integrity  of  China, 
which  the  Emperor  believes  at  present  to  be 
gravely  menaced.  Close  observation  of 
events  has  firmly  convinced  him  that  a 
powerful  coalition  headed  by  France  is  under 
formation  directed  against  the  integrity  of 
China  and  the  Open  Door.  The  aim  of  this 
coalition  is  to  convince  the  belligerents  that 
peace  without  compensation  to  the  neutral 
powers  is  impossible.  The  formation  of  this 
coalition,  the  Emperor  firmly  believes,  can 
be  frustrated  by  the  following  move:  you 
should  ask  all  Powers  having  interests  in  the 
Far  East,  including  the  minor  ones,  whether 
they  are  prepared  to  give  a  pledge  not  to 
demand  any  compensation  for  themselves  in 
any  shape  of  territory,  or  other  compensation 
in  China  or  elsewhere,  for  any  service  ren- 
dered to  the  belligerents  in  the  making  of 
peace  or  for  any  other  reason.  Such  a  re- 
quest would  force  the  Powers  to  show  their 
hands,  and  any  latent  designs  directed  against 
the  Open  Door  or  integrity  of  China  would 
at  once  become  apparent.  Without  this 
pledge  the  belligerents  would  find  it  impos- 
sible to  obtain  any  territorial  advantages 
without  simultaneously  provoking  selfish 
aims  of  the  neutral  brokers.  In  the  opinion 
of  the  Emperor,  a  grant  of  a  certain  portion 
of  territory  to  both  belligerents  eventually  in 
the  north  of  China  is  inevitable.  The  Open 
Door  within  this  territory  might  be  main- 
tained by  treaty.  Germany,  of  course,  would 
then  be  the  first  to  pledge  herself  to  this 
policy  of  disinterestedness." 

Sternburg  then  says  he  is  also  im- 
pressed with  the  danger  of  such  de- 
mands of  neutrals — asks  a  reply. 

January  o. — I  found  [the  President]  full  of 
the  proposition  of  the  German  Emperor.  Pie 
had  come  to  the  same  conclusion  at  which  I 
had  arrived  the  day  before:  that  it  would  be 
best  to  take  advantage  of  the  Kaiser's  propo- 
sition: 1st,  to  nail  the  matter  with  him,  and 
2d,  to  ascertain  the  views  of  the  other 
Powers.  I  went  home  and  wrote  out  a  letter 
for  the  President  to  send  to  Sternburg  for  the 
Emperor,  expressing  gratification  at  his  as- 
surances of  disinterestedness  and  promising 
to  sound  the  Powers. 

January  10. — I  submitted  my  letter  to  the 
President,  which  he  approved  and  sent  by 
cable.     I  then  wrote  a  circular  for  our 


THE  CLOSE  OF  JOHN  HAY'S  CAREER 


367 


Ambassadors,  speaking  of  the  apprehension 
entertained  by  some  courts,  which  the  Presi- 
dent was  loath  to  share,  etc.  I  then  repeated 
our  attitude  as  to  the  integrity  of  China, 
etc.,  and  asked  for  the  views  of  the  respective 
Powers. 

January  /J.— I  sent  off the  "self-denying" 
circular  this  morning  and  wired  Choate  that 
we  hoped  the  British  Government  would 
join,  and  told  him  to  let  Lord  Lansdowne 
know  the  disposition  of  Germany  toward  it. 
Speck's  letter,  amplifying  his  telegram,  ar- 
rived yesterday,  in  which  he  quotes  the 
Kaiser  as  saying  he  is  afraid  of  a  combination 
between  England,  France,  and  Russia  for  the 
spoliation  of  China.  It  is  a  most  singular 
incident.  If  the  Kaiser  is  speaking  frankly, 
he  is  far  less  intimately  lie  with  the  Czar  than 
most  people  have  believed.  But  either  way 
our  course  is  clear.  Our  policy  is  not  to 
demand  any  territorial  advantage  and  to  do 
what  we  can  to  keep  China  entire. 

January  18. — Choate  telegraphed  from 
London  that  Lord  Lansdowne,  who  was  at 
Bowood,  had  wired  him  "full  concurrence" 
in  our  Neutral  Powers  circular.  Meyer  says 
the  same  thing  from  Italy.  .  .  .  The  an- 
swers from  England  and  Italy  show  clearly 
the  extent  of  the  Kaiser's  illusion. 

January  ig. — This  morning  a  cable  from 
Porter  saying  that  the  French  government 
fully  concurs  in  our  view  and  does  not  desire 
concession  of  territory  from  China.  That 
virtually  finishes  the  series.  America,  Great 
Britain,  Germany,  France,  and  Italy  make  a 
body  of  power  which  nobody  will  think  of 
gainsaying. 

January  20. — [Despatch  says]  that  Biilow 
has  answered  our  circular  of  the  13th.  He 
is  gratified  that  we  have  resolved  to  take 
steps  to  maintain  integrity  of  China  and 
Open  Door,  and  at  our  promise  not  to  make 
territorial  acquisition — which  corresponds 
entirely  to  attitude  of  German  Empire. 
Refers  to  Anglo-German  agreement  of  Octo- 
ber 14,  1900  !  !  In  that  agreement  binds 
itself  to  principle  [of  the]  Open  Door  and 
therefore,  scarcely  necessary  to  add,  does  not 
seek  further  acquisition  of  territory  in  China. 

What  the  whole  performance  meant  to 
the  Kaiser  it  is  difficult  to  see.  But  there 
is  no  possible  doubt  that  we  have  scored 
for  China. 

Historians  also  may  echo  Mr.  Hay's 
question,  "What  did  the  Kaiser  mean?" 
Perhaps  the  solution  may  be  found  in 
his  intrigues  in  Morocco  and  humiliation 
of  France  in  the  spring  of  1905.  Being 
in  the  toils  of  the  war  with  Japan,  Rus- 
sia could  not  help  France.  Therefore 
Willi  am  II.  felt  secure  in  interfering  in 
the  Franco-Moroccan  negotiations.  On 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783.-46 


June  6th  M.  Delcasse,  the  French  Min- 
ister of  Foreign  Affairs,  was  forced  to 
resign.  One  of  the  last  entries  in  John 
Hay's  diary  reads: 

June  7. — Delcasse  finally  resigned  yester- 
day. The  Kaiser  scored  against  France,  and 
emphasized  his  score  by  making  von  Biilow  a 
Prince  the  same  day.  I  wonder  whether  it 
was  worth  while. 

February  4.. — [X  writes]  that   the  King 

of    asked  him  who  was  the  sovereign 

whose  anxieties  set  on  foot  my  circular  of 
the  13th  January.  He  said  he  did  not 
know.  "It  could  hardly  have  been  Ger- 
many?" said  the  King  with  a  twinkle. 

February  11. — Takahira  showed  me  a 
despatch  from  Komura  [Japanese  Minister 
of  Foreign  Affairs],  that  the  German  Minister 
at  Tokio  had  called  on  him  to  say  that,  as 
there  were  various  rumors  afloat,  his  Gov- 
ernment wished  him  to  say  that  there  was 
no  truth  in  the  story  that  Germany  was 
trying  to  make  a  combination  with  Rus- 
sia and  France  to  arrange  terms  of  peace 
favorable  to  Russia;  and  that  they  were 
friendly  to  Russia  as  is  required  by  neighbor- 
hood: but  that  they  had  done  nothing  in  the 
way  of  peace  negotiations,  and  wished  to 
remain  on  terms  of  cordial  friendliness  with 
Japan.  Komura  expressed  his  gratification 
and  reciprocated  expression  of  friendliness. 
Takahira — and  Komura,  as  I  understood — 
thought  this  move  of  Germany  was  the  result 
of  our  circular  and  the  responses. 

February  13. — Sternburg  says  the  British 
Ambassador  in  Petersburg  has  pointed  out  to 
Qount  LamsdorfF  the  advantages  for  Russia 
of  a  speedy  conclusion  of  peace.  The  Am- 
bassador stated  that  LamsdorfF  seemed  to 
agree  with  him.  Benckendorff  [Russian  Am- 
bassador in  London]  has  had  similar  inter- 
view with  Lansdowne  [British  Foreign  Secre- 
tary]. German  Foreign  Office  believes  these 
preliminary  discussions  have  been  carried  on 
without  the  knowledge  of  the  Czar,  and  are 
entirely  confidential.  They  are  anxious  to 
be  kept  informed  of  Japan's  attitude  in  rela- 
tion to  peace  negotiations. 

February  75. — The  President  keeps  warn- 
ing Japan  not  to  be  exorbitant  in  her  terms 
of  peace. 

February  17. — [The  Kaiser]  still  insists 
upon  the  fact  of  the  combination  of  France, 
England,  and  Russia,  to  partition  China.  He 
says  he  was  asked  to  join,  but  indignantly 
refused,  and  that  our  circular  of  January  13th 
gave  the  scheme  the  coup  de  grace.  The  only 
proof  of  the  story  he  gives  is  an  interview 
between  Doumer  and  Prince  Radolin  [Ger- 
man Ambassador  in  Paris].  It  is  a  strange 
incident — qui  donne  d  penser. 

Hay  was  not  destined  to  take  part  in 


3G8 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  actual  negotiations  for  peace.  For 
several  months  his  health  had  grown 
visibly  worse.  He  himself  seems  to  have 
had  a  conviction  that  his  end  was  not 
far  off.  On  November  22,  1904,  he 
wrote  Mr.  G.  W.  Smaliey,  the  New 
York  correspondent  of  the  London 
Times: 

As  to  the  announcement  of  my  remaining 
here  the  rest  of  my  life — for  it  amounts  to 
that — it  was  a  very  characteristic  action  of 
the  President.  He  has  always  appeared  to 
take  it  for  granted  that  I  was  to  stay  here  as 
long  as  he  did,  and  has  several  times  some- 
what vehemently  said  so,  but  he  has  never 
formally  asked  me  to  remain  through  his 
next  term,  and  I  have  never  formally  con- 
sented to  do  so.  The  announcement  in  the 
newspapers  was  a  proceeding  of  his  own,  dic- 
tated by  occult  motives  into  which  it  would 
be  hardly  reverent  to  inquire.  There  is,  per- 
haps, no  reason  why  I  should  not  stay,  except 
weariness  of  body  and  spirit,  and  that  seems 
not  to  be  a  sufficient  reason.  But  how  long, 
is  a  question  for  Providence  and  the  doctors 
to  decide. 

The  business  in  which  Mr.  Hay  was 
most  directly  concerned  during  his  last 
months  in  Washington  was  the  negotia- 
tion of  a  large  number  of  arbitration 
treaties,  to  serve,  he  hoped,  to  lessen  the 
likelihood  of  war  throughout  the  world. 
But  these  treaties  seemed  to  the  Senate 
to  deprive  it  of  its  constitutional  right, 
and  accordingly  the  Senators  opposed 
them.  On  February  3d  Mr.  Hay  sets 
down  in  his  diary: 

The  President  spent  an  hour  with  me  in 
the  afternoon.  He  was  deeply  disturbed 
about  the  state  of  the  treaties  in  the  Senate, 
not  so  much  at  the  opposition  of  the  Demo- 
crats as  at  the  nerveless  acquiescence  of  our 
people  in  every  attack  that  is  made  upon 
them.  Knox  and  Spooner  now  take  the 
ground  that  every  separate  agreement  to  ar- 
bitrate, under  these  treaties,  must  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  Senate:  if  this  provision  is 
incorporated  it  leaves  us  exactly  where  we 
are  now. 

The  opposition  had  its  way  in  spite 
of  President  Roosevelt's  robust  exhorta- 
tions and  Secretary  Hay's  arguments. 

February  12.  —  The  Senate  yesterday, 
after  reading  the  President's  letter,  adopted 
the  amendment,  and  then  ratified  the 
treaties.    The  President,  and,  in  my  lesser 


degree,  myself,  were  the  object  of  a  good 
many  venomous  speeches.  There  were  sev- 
eral reasons  for  this  action.  The  Clan-na- 
Gael  had  worked  more  effectively  than  any 
one  thought.  The  Southerners  felt  their 
repudiated  debts  could  not  trouble  them  if 
the  amendment  were  carried.  There  was  a 
loud  clamor  that  the  rights  of  the  Senate 
were  invaded — but  every  individual  Senator 
felt  that  his  precious  privilege  must  be  safe- 
guarded. And  then,  the  President's  major- 
ity was  too  big — they  wanted  to  teach  him 
that  he  wasn't  it. 

The  President,  according  to  Mr.  Hay, 
saw  the  situation  plainly  enough;  de- 
cided not  to  submit  the  treaties  for  the 
ratification  of  the  other  Powers;  and 
made  up  his  mind  to  go  slow  in  making 
any  more  treaties. 

A  treaty  entering  the  Senate  [Mr.  Hay 
writes]  is  like  a  bull  going  into  the  arena: 
no  one  can  say  just  how  or  when  the  final 
blow  will  fall,  but  one  thing  is  certain — it  will 
never  leave  the  arena  alive. 

The  last  rebuff  in  Mr.  Hay's  long 
struggle  with  the  Senate  was  personal. 
In  the  summer  of  1904  the  French  gov- 
ernment wished  to  confer  upon  him  its 
highest  distinction — the  Grand  Crown 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor — in  appreciation 
of  his  efforts  for  the  peace  of  the  world. 
He  was  for  declining,  but  the  Presi- 
dent urged  him  to  accept  out  of  regard 
for  France  and  for  the  cause  which 
prompted  the  decoration.  When,  how- 
ever, a  resolution  was  moved  in  the 
Senate  to  authorize  him  to  accept,  the 
"gray  wolves"  in  that  body,  glad  of  an 
opportunity  to  vent  their  ill-will  against 
the  too  unyielding  Secretary,  voted 
no. 

They  struck  a  dying  man.  After  the 
inauguration  of  Roosevelt,  Hay  was  or- 
dered to  Europe,  in  the  hope  that  rest 
and  the  baths  of  Nauheim  might  restore 
him.  On  June  15th  he  landed  in  New 
York,  "improved,"  the  doctors  said,  but 
still  needing  several  months  of  absolute 
freedom  from  care.  Having  made  a 
short  trip  to  Washington,  to  confer  with 
the  President,  he  reached  his  summer 
home  at  Newbury,  New  Hampshire,  on 
June  24th.  There  he  died  on  July  I, 
1905,  worn  out  in  the  service  of  his 
country. 


Patricia,  Angel-at- Large 


A    STORY    IN    THREE    PARTS— III 

BY  MARGARET  CAMERON 


LL  through  luncheon 
Patricia  avoided  Blais- 
delPs  glance,  and  when- 
ever he  addressed  her 
directly  she  used  his 
approach  as  a  spring- 
board from  which  to 
dive  into  animated  conversation  with 
some  one  else.  And  she  did  not  with- 
draw from  her  engagement  with  Bob. 
By  the  time  coffee  was  served  on  the 
veranda  the  diplomat  was  beginning  to 
wonder  uneasily  whether,  after  all,  it 
was  his  bluff  that  was  called,  and  his 
pulse  dropped  a  beat  and  then  raced 
when  he  heard  her  remark,  in  a  casual 
tone,  as  she  took  her  cup  from  the  tray: 
"It  wouldn't  surprise  me  if  there 
should  be  more  things  wrong  with  my 
machine  than  Kate  could  discover  up  in 
that  tree-top.  In  which  case  I  may  not 
be  able  to  take  you  up  this  afternoon." 
She  smiled  across  at  Bob. 

"Oh,  I  say!"  he  exclaimed.  "Don't 
you  think  it  will  be  all  right?  It  will  to- 
morrow, anyway.    Won't  it?" 

"Now,  Rob!  You're  not  going  up  in 
that  awful  thing!"  his  mother  began, 
but  he  interrupted: 

"Oh,  for  Pete's  sake,  mums,  do  be 
reasonable!" 

"I  am  reasonable!  I  never  interfere 
with  your  pleasures.  Haven't  I  taken 
up  dancing  and  skating  and  golf — and 
even  tennis — just  so  I  can  be  a  com- 
panion to  you?  Do  I  ever  complain 
about  spending  hours  in  your  boat — 
though  I  always  was  timid  on  the  water? 
Don't  I  go  away  off  into  the  wilds  with 
you,  and  die  a  thousand  deaths  for  fear 
you'll  be  shot  yourself  while  you're  out 
hunting?  But  you  might  sometimes 
show  a  little  consideration  for  me,  and 
you  know  perfectly  well  that  if  you  go 
up  in  that  flying-machine  I  shall  endure 
tortures  every  single  instant!" 

"Then  of  course  we  won't  go."  Pa- 
tricia nodded  cheerfully  at  Bob,  who 


thrust  his  hands  into  his  pockets,  looking 
embarrassed  and  sulky.  "I  wouldn't 
for  a  moment  do  anything  to  make  you 
unhappy,  Mrs.  Chamberlain.  Please 
forget  it." 

"I'd  like  to  see  how  that  woman  of 
yours  handles  the  problem  of  getting 
your  machine  out  of  the  tree.  Suppose 
we  stroll  over  there,"  Howard  suggested, 
to  relieve  the  tension.  So  Patricia 
sauntered  with  him  through  the  shaded 
paths,  followed  by  the  others  in  groups 
of  two  and  three — Bob,  far  in  the  rear, 
contending  the  more  hotly  with  his 
mother  in  defense  of  his  adult  masculine 
liberties  because  Elise  and  Blaisdell, 
conspicuously  oblivious  of  the  rest  of  the 
world,  loitered  along  just  out  of  earshot. 

"I  suppose  aviation's  an  old  story  to 
you?"  Patricia  tentatively  asked  the 
engineer. 

"On  the  contrary,  it's  an  experience 
I'm  eager  to  try." 

"I'm  afraid  I  can't  tactfully  invite 
anybody  to  go  up  with  me  now,  even  if 
my  machine  is  in  perfect  condition.  But, 
of  course" — she  lifted  a  twinkling  up- 
ward glance — "if  any  one  not  related  to 
my  hostess  should  ask  me  to  take  him 
up— 

"You  couldn't  graciously  refuse,"  he 
finished,  with  an  answering  gleam  that 
told  her  she  had  not  mistaken  her  man. 
"Especially  if  the  request  came  from  an 
engineer  thirsting  for  scientific  knowl- 
edge and  experience." 

"Unless — the  engineer  might  have  a 
timid  wife,"  she  intimated,  to  which  he 
dryly  responded: 

"The  wife  of  a  construction  engineer 
has  disciplined  nerves.  She  learns  to 
distinguish  between  spice  and  gunpow- 
der." 

They  found  the  machine  resting  safely 
on  the  ground,  and  Kate,  under  the 
dubious  scrutiny  of  the  chauffeur  and 
the  boatman,  putting  the  final  touches 
on  the  canvas  patches  that  completed 


370 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  repairs.  After  looking  it  over  care- 
fully, and  testing  the  engine,  Patricia 
said: 

"Very  well,  Kate.  I'll  try  a  turn  or 
two,  and  if  it's  all  right  you  may  take 
it  over  to  Mineola  alone.  I  shall  be 
staying  here  for  several  days.  I  think 
we  can  make  a  start  from  the  lawn  over 
there." 

"Oh,  I  do  wish  she  wouldn't!"  fretted 
Mrs.  Chamberlain,  as  they  all  trooped 
after  the  machine,  which  was  trundled, 
under  Patricia's  supervision,  to  the  spot 
she  had  indicated.  "I  know  there'll  be 
another  awful  accident!  Mr.  Blaisdell, 
you're  an  old  friend.  Do  persuade  her 
not  to  go  up!" 

"I'm  afraid  I  have  no  influence,"  he 
replied,  having  learned  the  futility  of 
direct  remonstrance  where  Miss  Car- 
lyle's  plans  were  concerned,  but  con- 
gratulating himself  that  at  least  he  had 
succeeded  in  eliminating  the  monoplane 
as  a  future  factor  in  her  campaign  at 
High  Haven.  "She  seems  to  have  the 
courage  of  her  convictions." 

"A  good  job,  too!"  Howard  approved. 
"I  like  her  pluck." 

"Yes;  isn't  her  courage  wonderful!" 
Mrs.  Yarnell  concurred,  with  an  air  of 
paying  graceful  and  admiring  tribute. 
"And  with  it  all  she's  so  deliciously  un- 
self-conscious!  I  suppose  it's  really 
cowardice  that  makes  most  of  us  hesitate 
at  anything  that  might  seem  the  least 
bit  spectacular,  isn't  it?" 

"Oh,  pussy!"  murmured  one  of  the 
women  in  the  ear  of  another,  and  they 
both  laughed  quietly.  "Pretty,  clean, 
white  pussy!" 

Everything  was  in  readiness  for  the 
start,  and  Patricia  was  about  to  slip 
into  her  seat,  when  Howard  said,  as  if 
yielding  to  an  irresistible  impulse: 

"Miss  Carlyle,  I'm  greatly  tempted! 
I've  always  wanted  to  go  up  in  one  of 
those  things." 

"There  are  others!"  Bob  resentfully 
interpolated. 

"Of  course  I  understand  the  principle 
well  enough,"  the  engineer  continued, 
"but  I'd  like  to  see  it  work.  Would  you 
consider  it  an  imposition  if  I  asked  you 
to  let  me  go  up  with  you?" 

"Why — no!  I'd  be  enchanted,  but — " 
She  hesitated,  smiling  doubtfully.  "I 
don't  want  to  distress  anybody." 


"Oh,  don't  go!"  begged  Mrs.  Cham- 
berlain. "Mrs.  Howard,  aren't  you 
afraid  to  have  him?" 

"Not  if  he  thinks  it's  safe,"  returned 
his  placid  spouse.  "  He  generally  knows." 

"There,  mums!  Hear  that!"  Bob  ex- 
ploded. "Now  I  am  going  up!  You'll 
take  me  later,  won't  you?"  he  appealed 
to  Patricia,  who  lightly  replied  that  she 
should  take  no  passengers  at  all  until 
she  had  made  a  trial  flight  with  Kate 
and  assured  herself  that  the  monoplane 
was  in  perfect  condition.  It  was  obvi- 
ous, however,  that  this  was  a  tactful 
evasion,  covering  refusal,  and  Chamber- 
lain turned  sharply  away,  his  lip  be- 
tween his  teeth.  As  he  passed  Blaisdell 
and  Mrs.  Yarnell,  standing  a  little  apart 
from  the  rest  of  the  group,  she  called 
softly: 

"Bob!  Oh,  Bob!" 

"Yes?"  He  paused  obediently,  but 
did  not  join  them. 

"You're  not  going  away?" 
"Yes;"  < 

"Wait  till  we've  seen  them  go  up  once, 
and  take  me  with  you." 

"I'm  sorry,  but  I'm  afraid  you'd  be 
bored,"  he  said,  politely.  "I've  got  to 
go  down  to  the  kennels,  and  you  don't 
care  for  dogs." 

Patricia  was  not  near  enough  to  over- 
hear the  words,  but  she  saw  Chamber- 
lain pause,  resentment  in  every  line  of 
his  young  figure,  and  then  stride  moodily 
on  alone.  A  moment  later  she  stepped 
over  to  that  side  of  the  group  to  speak 
to  Mrs.  Howard,  and  dropped  her  glove, 
which  Blaisdell  returned  to  her. 

"Oh,  thank  you  so  much!"  she  said, 
lightly.  "You're  really  very  useful  to- 
day, Billy."  Then,  for  the  first  time 
since  their  heated  interview  before 
luncheon,  she  measured  glances  with 
him — and  smiled. 

Howard  was  so  fascinated  by  the  sen- 
sation of  flying  that  Patty  offered  to 
have  Kate  bring  the  machine  over  from 
Mineola  whenever  he  wished  to  use  it 
during  her  stay  at  High  Haven,  but  he 
suggested : 

"Why  send  it  over  there  at  all?  Why 
not  keep  it  here,  where  we  can  play  with 
it  often?" 

"I'm  afraid  Mrs.  Chamberlain 
wouldn't  even  give  it  tree  room,"  was 
her  laughing  reply. 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


371 


"I  will!  I'll  do  better  than  that.  I 
have  just  the  place  for  it — a  dancing- 
pavilion  that  was  put  up  for  a  garden- 
party  last  month,  and  has  been  left 
because  the  young  people  seem  to  enjoy 
dancing  out  of  doors.  It  will  cover  this 
thing  very  nicely." 

"But  what  about  my  hostess?"  she 
objected.  "I'm  afraid  I've  precipitated 
trouble  already,  and  if  I  keep  the  ma- 
chine near  by — " 

"I'll  take  the  responsibility  for  that," 
he  interrupted.  "Leave  it  to  me.  If  it 
precipitates  a  certain  amount  of  trouble 
it  may  keep  more  dangerous  salts  still 
in  solution."  Whereupon  she  decided 
that  she  had  here  an  intelligent  ally  in 
case  of  need,  but  gave  him  no  intimation 
that  she  understood. 

There  was  a  dance  in  the  neighbor- 
hood that  night,  and  before  it  was  over 
Miss  Carlyle's  popularity  was  estab- 
lished. Under  her  every  mood  was  an 
elusive  grace  which  most  of  the  men 
would  have  defined  as  simplicity  and 
most  of  the  women  as  subtlety,  but 
which  captivated  them  all;  and  Bob 
Chamberlain  would  have  been  less  than 
the  normal  youth  he  was  had  he  failed 
to  enjoy  and  to  emphasize  a  little  his 
position  as  escort  of  this  girl,  for  whose 
favor  every  other  man  in  the  room  was 
eager. 

Moreover,  in  some  laughing,  negative 
way  infinitely  soothing  to  his  irritated 
nerves,  she  contrived,  without  direct 
reference  to  the  events  of  the  day,  to 
make  him  feel  that  the  immediate  family 
connections  of  every  aviator,  irrespective 
of  age  or  sex,  had  to  be  "gentled,"  like  so 
many  fractious  horses,  into  tolerance  of 
the  new  vehicle.  Little  by  little  he 
became  pleasantly  aware  that  what  now 
began  to  appear  as  his  tactful  deference 
to  his  mother's  prejudices  in  this  matter 
had  been  only  part  of  a  delightful  and 
humorous  conspiracy,  whereby  he  and 
this  amusing  and  exceedingly  pretty 
girl  were  going  to  hoodwink  the  whole 
neighborhood  into  playing  their  game. 
It  was  a  comforting  point  of  view,  par- 
ticularly as  she  did  not  seem  to  feel 
that  either  this  community  of  interest 
or  her  position  as  his  guest  entitled 
her  to  a  disproportionate  share  of  his 
attention. 

Altogether,  he  decided  that  she  was  a 


"peach,"  and  confided  as  much  to  Elise 
Yarnell,  who  would  have  liked  to  punish 
him  both  for  this  and  for  his  refusal  to 
accept  the  favor  she  had  offered  him  in 
the  afternoon,  but  she  perceived  that  it 
was  not  a  moment  for  discipline,  and 
devoted  herself  so  assiduously  to  hay- 
making that  Bob  could  not  fail  to  realize 
that  his  sun  was  shining.  The  only 
shadow  to  mar  his  complete  compla- 
cency was  that  on  several  occasions 
when  he  was  dancing  with  Patricia, 
Blaisdell  "cut  in"  and  took  her  away. 
To  be  sure,  on  several  other  occasions 
when  Elise  was  the  diplomat's  partner, 
Bob  employed  the  same  tactics  with 
considerable  satisfaction,  but  for  some 
reason  this  did  not  balance  the  account. 
He  resented  yielding  to  the  elder  man  at 
any  point,  and  entirely  failed  to  notice 
that  when  he  danced  with  Mrs.  Yar- 
nell it  was  never  Blaisdell  who  sepa- 
rated them. 

They  all  motored  home  together  in 
Mrs.  Fairweather's  car,  and  as  they 
stood  on  the  veranda  in  the  small  hours 
awaiting  it,  Patricia  flashed  a  glance  at 
Bob,  who  by  this  time  was  in  high 
spirits,  asking  in  an  undertone,  "How 
does  seven  o'clock  look  to  you  now?" 

"Looks  a  long  way  off,"  he  promptly 
and  very  audibly  returned.  "Awful 
mistake  to  waste  perfectly  good  time 
sleeping.    You're  not  quitting!" 

"I?"  She  laughed.  "You  don't 
know  me!" 

"Quitting  what?  What  are  you  two 
up  to?"  Blaisdell  asked.  When  he 
learned  that  they  intended  to  ride  be- 
fore breakfast,  he  turned  with  enthusi- 
asm to  Mrs.  Yarnell,  exclaiming:  "Cap- 
ital!  Why  don't  we  do  that?" 

"No  use  trying  to  lure  Elise  out  of  her 
downy  before  ten."  Bob  spoke  with 
the  assurance  of  experience.  "She's 
afraid  a  bird  will  get  her." 

Had  the  situation  been  reversed  and 
Mrs.  Yarnell  the  younger  woman,  she 
would  instantly  have  suggested  her  ad- 
vantage in  years  by  some  honeyed  as- 
surance that  her  rival  had  not  yet 
arrived  at  the  time  when  she  need  guard 
against  the  only  early  bird  a  woman 
dreads — the  one  that  marks  her  for 
every  hour  of  lost  sleep  with  crow's-feet. 
She  was  gathering  herself  to  meet  and 
parry  this  anticipated  thrust,  when  Pa- 


372 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


tricia  turned  toward  her,  saying,  pleas- 
antly: " Do  corned  Won't  you?" 

And  rather  than  put  that  weapon 
again  in  the  hand  of  the  enemy,  the 
widow  returned,  "Of  course  I'll  come, 
with  great  pleasure!"  resolving  that  she 
would  manage,  somehow,  to  rest  during 
the  day.  But  there  she  counted  upon  a 
slower  game  than  either  Patricia  or 
Blaisdell  intended  to  play. 

There  was  no  rest  for  any  of  them  the 
next  day — nor,  indeed,  for  many  days. 
Luncheons,  teas,  dinners,  and  dances 
followed  one  upon  the  other;  riding, 
tennis,  aviating,  and  boating  filled  the 
hours  between;  and  no  matter  how  late 
they  danced,  they  were  up  and  in  the 
saddle  early.  Through  it  all,  Patricia, 
Blaisdell,  and  the  widow  played  their 
game  of  cross  purposes  before  an  amused 
and  puzzled  countryside,  and  only  Bob 
was  wholly  without  guile.  Through  it 
all,  too,  Patricia  watched  and  listened, 
and  gradually  her  interest  in  Bob,  which 
at  first  had  been  the  least  of  the  motives 
governing  her  action,  outgrew  her  friend- 
ly wish  to  please  the  Davenports,  her 
love  of  adventure,  and  even  her  desire  to 
pique  Blaisdell,  and  became  a  very  po- 
tent influence. 

But,  notwithstanding  the  prompting 
of  "that  passion  of  responsibility,  that 
wild,  irrational  charity,  which  pours  out 
of  the  depths  of  a  woman's  stirred  be- 
ing," she  reminded  herself  of  several 
marriages  reputed  to  be  happy  despite 
the  wife's  seniority;  and  she  remem- 
bered that  the  world  is  ever  cynical 
about  sentiment  where  a  large  fortune  is 
concerned,  and  was  troubled  lest  she 
might  be  denying  another  woman  the 
benefit  of  the  doubt.  Her  scruples  would 
have  been  stilled  could  she  have  over- 
heard a  discussion  between  Mrs.  Fair- 
weather  and  her  friend  a  few  days  after 
her  own  arrival.  It  began  in  a  caustic 
allusion  of  the  widow's  to  "that  ex- 
traordinary girl  the  Chamberlains  have 
taken  up,"  and  her  hostess  rejoined: 

"I  do  hope,  my  dear,  that  you  see 
now  how  dangerous  it  would  be  to  tie 
yourself  for  life  to  that  volatile  boy. 
He'll  be  even  harder  to  hold  as  time  goes 
on,  you  know.  Anyway,  Mr.  Blaisdell's 
much  the  more  attractive  of  the  two." 

"Yes,  Billy  always  was  a  lamb.  Pity 
he  has  no  money." 


"I  insist  that  he  must  have  some 
money,  or  he  couldn't  afford  the  diplo- 
matic service.  And  he  can  certainly 
give  you  a  distinguished  position." 

"Oh,  I  suppose  one  might  consider 
him  and  his  little  tuppenny-ha'penny 
legation  seriously  if  nothing  better  of- 
fered." Mrs.  Yarnell  shrugged  a  care- 
less shoulder.  "But  one  can  be  suffi- 
ciently distinguished,  and  a  lot  more 
comfortable,  at  home — in  a  place  like 
High  Haven." 

"Elise,  I  simply  cannot  understand 
your  point  of  view!"  exclaimed  Mrs. 
Fairweather,  with  a  touch  of  exaspera- 
tion. "You  must  be  mad!  Are  you  in 
love  with  that  good-looking  boy?  Is 
that  it?" 

"In  love!  With  Bob?  Good  heavens!" 
The  widow  laughed. 

"Then  do  try  to  be  sensible!  Money 
isn't  everything." 

"Isn't  it?"  cynically  drawled  the 
other.  "It's  the  root  of  everything.  I 
notice  nothing  I  want  grows  without  it." 

"You  may  find  several  things  you 
don't  want  growing  with  it,  if  you  persist 
in  this  insane  determination  to  marry 
a  man  ten  years  your  junior." 

"He's  not  ten  years  my  junior!" 
snapped  Elise. 

"Well — nine,  then.  You're  thirty- 
three." 

"Mary,  you'll  be  good  enough  to  re- 
member that  I'm  just  twenty-seven!" 

"Don't  be  silly,  my  dear,"  Mrs.  Fair- 
weather  dryly  advised.  "We  both  know 
you're  a  scant  seven  years  younger  than 
I.   At  least  you  used  to  be." 

"I  am  still,  darling,"  sweetly  returned 
her  friend.  "  But  please  don't  insist  that 
I  can't  be  as  young  as  I  am,  simply  be- 
cause nobody  will  believe  you're  not  as 
old  as  you  look." 

Knowing  nothing  of  this,  however, 
and  beset  by  generous  doubts,  Patricia 
held  firmly  to  the  course  she  had  marked 
out  for  herself — as  firmly,  that  is,  as  the 
situation  permitted,  for  Blaisdell's  con- 
stant intervention  in  his  own  behalf 
made  it  impossible  for  her  to  establish — 
much  less  to  maintain — that  nice  bal- 
ance of  relations  which  had  been  so  im- 
portant a  feature  of  her  original  scheme, 
and  she  was  forced  to  relinquish  certain 
of  her  plans  and  substitute  others  for 
them.    Not  that  Blaisdell  continued  his 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


373 


impulsive  and  irritating  policy  of  active 
interference  between  her  and  Chamber- 
lain. After  the  first  day  he  played  a 
deeper,  steadier  game,  ably  seconded  by 
Mrs.  Yarnell,  and  although  he  knew 
nothing  of  Patricia's  intention  to  apply 
to  Bob's  infatuation  the  acid  test  of 
constant  association  with  its  object,  by 
arousing  the  boy's  jealousy  and  so  mak- 
ing the  widow's  society  seem  doubly 
desirable  instead  of  inevitable,  he  un- 
consciously made  even  this — her  main 
line  of  attack — ineffective. 

However,  despite  all  this  unforeseen 
and  baffling  opposition,  Patricia  won 
certain  small  but  definite  victories,  and 
they  comforted  her.  There  was  the 
matter  of  taking  Bob  up  in  her  mono- 
plane, for  example,  in  which  she  was 
eventually  triumphant.  When  almost 
every  man  in  the  neighborhood,  and 
several  women,  including  Janet  Howard, 
had  been  safely  returned  to  terra  firma 
after  exhilarating  flights,  even  Mrs. 
Chamberlain  perceived  that  her  em- 
bargo, which  had  been  scrupulously  ob- 
served, was  making  her  son  ridiculous, 
and  reluctantly  withdrew  it.  Let  no 
one  suppose,  however,  that  she  did  this 
without  protest.  Taking  her  neighbor's 
housing  of  the  monoplane  in  ill  part 
from  the  first,  she  was  very  indignant 
indeed  when  she  saw  his  radiant  little 
daughter  carried  away  on  her  first  flight. 

"I  do  think  you're  treating  me 
badly!"  she  expostulated,  cornering 
Howard  for  a  moment.  "You  know 
how  I  feel  about  Bob's  flying — especially 
with  this  reckless  girl!  And  after  this  I 
shall  never  be  able  to  prevent  it! 
Never!" 

"My  dear  friend,  give  it  up!"  was  his 
laughing  advice.  "The  time  comes  to 
all  of  us  when  we  can  no  longer  stand 
between  our  children  and  danger.  We 
can  only  watch  them  go  to  meet  it  with 
such  equipment  as  we  have  given  them 
— and  keep  our  tremors  to  ourselves. 
At  least  we  needn't  handicap  them  with 
our  fears." 

"But  this  isn't  that  sort  of  thing,"  she 
persisted.  "It  isn't  as  if  it  would  help 
him — or  strengthen  him — or  get  him 
anywhere.    It's  just  foolhardy!" 

"Possibly — and  yet —  Don't  you 
think  that's  about  what  the  hen  must 
have  said  when  the  ducklings  took  to 


the  water?"  Chuckling,  he  made  his 
escape,  leaving  her  with  plumage  still 
ruffled. 

So,  although  their  other  engagements 
left  them  fewer  opportunities  than  she 
could  have  wished,  Patricia  occasionally 
took  Bob  up  through  the  trackless  lanes, 
and  they  talked,  soaring  in  the  warm, 
sunlit  air,  as  people  talk  only  when  there 
is  no  possibility  of  interruption  by  a 
third  person.  Little  by  little,  down  un- 
der all  his  shy,  youthful  pretenses  and 
repressions  and  evasions,  she  began  to 
catch  fugitive  glimpses  of  the  real  Bob, 
and  her  interest  in  him  grew.  One  day 
he  said: 

"Gee!  Patty,  I  should  think  you'd 
hate  to  be  a  girl!" 
"Why?" 

"  Because  you  like  to  do  almost  every- 
thing that  a  fellow  does — and  you  do 
'em  all  so  well — and  a  girl  can't  carry 
any  of  'em  through  to  the  end."  He 
worked  his  thought  out  slowly,  in  de- 
tached, suspended  phrases.  "She  only 
plays  with  things — never  really  does 
em. 

"That's  all  a  lot  of  men  do,  isn't  it?" 
she  returned.  "Look  at  your  friend  Lee 
Hazard.  He  has  ability  enough,  and 
does  all  sorts  of  things  well — but  what 
is  he,  after  all?  Just  a  rich  man's  son, 
playing  with  toys." 

"Yes,  but — this  is  what  I'm  getting 
at.  Lee  could  do  things  if  he  wanted  to. 
Here!  This  is  it!  If  we  should  get  into 
a  war,  Lee  could  go  into  the  aviation 
corps  and  use  his  knowledge.  You 
couldn't,  because  you're  a  woman." 

"I  might,  in  a  pinch,  though  I  should 
probably  be  in  a  Red  Cross  hospital, 
having  harder  work  and  less  excitement. 
Anyway,  war's  an  emergency,  but  we 
live  all  the  time — and  what's  the  use 
of  having  ability  if  you  never  use  it  for 
anything  real?  It's  like  hoarding  food — 
or  gold — or  anything  else  the  world 
hasn't  much  of  and  needs." 

"That's  what  Mr.  Howard  says." 

"Now  there's  a  man,  if  you  like!" 
She  turned  a  glowing  face  toward  him. 
"He's  not  hoarding  anything!  Nor 
playing  with  his  life!  He's  doing  real 
things!  You  know,  Bob,  if  I  were  a 
man,  that's  what  I'd  rather  be  than  any- 
thing else  in  the  world — a  great  engi- 
neer!"   He  shot  a  suspicious  glance  at 


374 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


her,  but  she  was  looking  straight  ahead, 
her  thoughts  apparently  fixed  on  some- 
thing far  removed  from  him.  "Did  you 
happen  to  go  to  Panama  while  they 
were  digging  the  Culebra  Cut?" 
"No." 

"Well,  I  did.  I  stood  on  a  hill  one 
day  and  watched  them  do  part  of  it — 
making  over  the  world!  I've  been  in 
mines  lighted  by  electricity  carried  a 
hundred  miles  on  wires!  I've  seen  crops 
growing  where  there  used  to  be  nothing 
but  cactus.  And  I'd  rather  control  great 
natural  forces  like  that — harness  them — 
make  them  work  for  men  instead  of 
destroy  them — than  anything  else  in 
the  world — if  I  were  a  man." 

"I  suppose  you  know  that's  my  pro- 
fession?" he  said,  after  a  moment.  "I 
took  the  engineering  course  at  college." 

"Oh,  did  you?  How  perfectly  splen- 
did for  you!"  Again  she  turned  her 
radiant  glance  upon  him.  "When  are 
you  going  to  begin?" 

"I  don't  know.  Some  time,  I  sup- 
pose."  He  had  flushed  slightly. 

"Do  have  your  camp  within  flying 
distance  of  somewhere,  so  I  can  come 
and  see  you  alter  the  face  of  the  world," 
she  said,  lightly,  adding,  with  a  droll 
little  smile,  "Perhaps  some  day  you'll 
let  me  touch  off  a  fuse,  so  I  can  play  I 
helped  a  little." 

He  said  he  would,  provided  it  was  not 
too  important  a  matter  to  let  a  girl  fool 
with,  and  they  fell  back  into  persiflage. 
But  Patricia  knew  that  her  breath  had 
fanned  a  living  spark,  and  was  for  the 
moment  well  content,  even  though  she 
realized  that  the  little  flame  of  ambition 
she  had  kindled  might  be  blown  out 
before  night  in  the  gusts  of  more  primi- 
tive emotions.  It  was  later  that  same 
day  that  she  made  her  last  appeal  to 
Blaisdell  in  Bob's  behalf. 

As  the  period  she  had  been  invited  to 
spend  at  High  Haven  neared  its  close, 
it  became  quite  evident  that  Mrs. 
Chamberlain  had  no  intention  of  urging 
her  to  continue  her  visit,  notwithstand- 
ing all  the  pressure  either  Bob  or  How- 
ard could  bring  to  bear.  The  engineer 
openly  lamented  her  approaching  de- 
parture, and  repeatedly  expressed  his 
regret  that  his  wife  and  daughter  had 
been  called  away  by  a  family  emergency, 
making  it  impossible  for  them  to  ask  her 


to  stay  on  with  them  after  she  left  High 
Haven,  as  they  had  hoped  to  do.  Con- 
vinced that  Patricia  had  at  least  post- 
poned Chamberlain's  headlong  plunge 
into  the  widow's  snare — how  consciously 
he  could  not  determine — he  labored  to 
convert  Bob's  mother  to  his  own  belief 
that  the  surest  talisman  against  the 
siren's  spell  lay  in  the  girl's  continued 
presence  and  its  attendant  diversions, 
but  Mrs.  Chamberlain  was  obdurate. 
She  said  her  mistake  had  been  in  asking 
the  young  woman  to  stay  down  in  the 
first  place.  But  for  that,  Mrs.  Yarnell 
would  have  been  safely  engaged  to  the 
minister  by  this  time,  and  Bob  would 
not  be  risking  his  life  daily  in  an  aero- 
plane. For  her  part,  she  failed  to  see 
what  there  was  about  that  girl,  anyway, 
to  make  every  man  who  looked  at  her 
immediately  lose  his  head. 

When  it  became  apparent  that  Pa- 
tricia would  be  allowed  to  leave  within 
three  or  four  days,  with  only  a  perfunc- 
tory protest  from  her  hostess,  Blaisdell's 
spirits  rose  to  a  degree  entirely  dispro- 
portionate to  the  importance  of  this 
negative  victory.  At  the  same  time,  he 
realized  that  the  danger  of  a  permanent 
attachment  between  Chamberlain  and 
his  captivating  guest  would  increase 
with  every  moment  up  to  the  hour  of  her 
departure,  and  redoubled  his  own  efforts 
to  win  her,  wooing  her  by  every  tender 
and  subtle  means  he  could  devise, 
though  she  permitted  him  only  rare 
moments  alone  with  her,  and  the  dead- 
lock remained  unbroken.  The  strain 
was  telling  upon  all  of  them,  however, 
and  occasionally  a  sort  of  truce  was  ar- 
ranged by  common  consent,  though 
none  of  them,  as  will  be  seen,  relied  too 
implicitly  upon  its  observance  by  the 
others. 

They  motored  together  that  after- 
noon to  a  charity  fair  in  a  neighboring 
village,  and  had  dutifully  made  pur- 
chases and  partaken  of  refreshments. 
Then,  with  a  frank  yawn,  Patricia  plain- 
tively suggested: 

"Don't  you  think  we  might  go  home 
now?  I'm  a  simple  city  maid,  unaccus- 
tomed to  these  mad  revels.  I  suppose 
we'll  dance  all  night,  as  usual,  and  I'm 
perfectly  willing  to  acknowledge  that 
I'm  perishing  for  a  nap!  Let's  all  go 
home  and  rest  before  dinner.   Shall  we  ?" 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


375 


She  smiled  pleasantly  at  Mrs.  Yarnell, 
who  found  it  increasingly  difficult,  with 
all  the  arts  at  her  command,  to  conceal 
the  ravages  scanty  sleep  and  eternal 
vigilance  were  making,  both  in  her  ap- 
pearance and  in  her  temper,  but  who 
would  have  suffered  torment  rather  than 
admit  fatigue,  as  the  younger  woman 
had  done.  Now,  however,  with  the  gra- 
cious air  of  one  conferring  a  favor,  the 
widow  seized  the  opportunity. 

"Why,  surely,  if  you're  tired.  You 
certainly  do  need  rest,  you  poor  thing! 
And  you  had  such  wonderful  color  when 
you  came!"  Elise  had  ceased  to  guard 
against  retaliatory  scratches.  Patricia 
seemed  to  her  a  good-natured  simpleton, 
without  sense  enough  to  avail  herself 
of  what  the  other  conceived  to  be  the 
natural  weapons  of  her  sex. 

As  the  Fairweather  car  swept  out  of 
the  High  Haven  grounds  after  dropping 
Bob  and  Patricia,  he  looked  after  it, 
questioning: 

"I  wonder  what  those  two  are  really 
going  to  do?" 

"They're  going  do-do,"  Patricia  told 
him,  laughing.  "Only  a  strong  sense  of 
propriety  kept  Billy  from  nodding  in  the 
car.  He's  been  walking  in  his  sleep  for 
three  days !"  Then,  with  an  air  of  admir- 
ing candor:  "  Can  you  keep  this  pace 
indefinitely  ?  You  don't  look  a  bit  tired." 

"I'm  not,"  he  lied,  promptly. 
"Neither  are  you.  Anyhow,  what's  the 
use  of  trying  to  sleep?  It's  too  hot. 
Let's  go  out  in  the  canoe  for  an  hour. 
That  '11  rest  you  just  as  much." 

Ten  minutes  later,  having  failed  to 
find  the  boatman,  Bob  was  preparing  to 
put  the  canoe  in  the  water  himself  when 
the  boat-house  telephone-bell  rang.  He 
answered  the  call,  grinning  sheepishly  as 
he  hung  up  the  receiver. 

"Caught  with  the  goods!  They've 
come  back!  I  put  something  Elise 
bought  at  that  fool  fair  in  my  pocket, 
and  she  wants  it.  Shall  I  ask  them  to  go 
out  with  us  in  the  motor-boat  now?" 

"Oh,  they're  so  sleepy!"  she  depre- 
cated. "And  Peterson  isn't  here  to  run 
it.  Besides — why  need  they  know  I'm 
here?   I'm  resting." 

"That's  so!  Then  you'll  wait?  I'll 
be  back  in  a  jiff." 

Realizing  that  she  had  been  outplayed 
again,  Patricia  watched  him  run  up  the 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783.-47 


path  and  out  of  sight  before  she  dropped 
on  a  bench  and  closed  her  eyes,  the  bet- 
ter to  concentrate  her  thoughts  upon  her 
problem.  Presently  she  heard  quick 
footsteps  approaching,  but  supposed  the 
boatman  to  be  returning,  and  did  not 
lift  her  weary  eyelids  until  she  was  star- 
tled by  Blaisdell's  voice,  saying: 

"Asleep  on  guard!" 

Her  eyes  snapped  open,  to  discover 
him  regarding  her  with  undisguised 
amusement,  and  she  demanded,  "What 
brought  you  here?" 

"Chamberlain  said  you  were  resting," 
he  observed.  "I  always  wondered 
whether  angels  slept  with  their  heads 
under  their  wings.    Now  I  know." 

"Apparently  the  man  never  heard  of 
the  Enchanted  Princess,"  she  remarked, 
and  he  started  toward  her,  declaring: 

|| I'll  break  that  spell!" 

"Too  late!"  She  waved  him  off. 
"Opportunity  trails  no  life-rope  behind 
for  a  man  who  doesn't  know  at  a  glance 
the  difference  between  an  Enchanted 
Princess  and  a  Sleeping  Sentinel." 

"At  any  rate,  I  occasionally  call  a 
bluff,"  he  mentioned,  whereat  she  had 
the  grace  to  blush  a  little.  He  sat  down 
on  the  other  end  of  the  bench,  and 
continued,  with  an  air  of  making  con- 
versation, "So  you're  giving  up  that 
guardian-angel  role?"  She  lifted  an  in- 
terrogatory eyebrow.  "The  Enchanted 
Princess  was  a  very  human  sort  of  per- 
son, as  I  remember." 

"One  angel,  in  her  time,  plays  many 
parts,"  she  paraphrased.  "Are  you,  by 
any  chance,  looking  for  Peterson? 
"Don't  let  me  detain  you.  Mrs.  Yar- 
nell's  waiting." 

"But  not  alone,"  he  reminded  her. 
"I  understand  we're  to  be  deprived  of 
your  society  very  soon." 

"Did  you  come  down  to  say  good-by? 
We  shall  probably  meet  again." 

"I  trust  so.  Good-by  is  the  last  thing 
I  want  to  say  to  you." 

"Probably  it  will  be  the  last  thing  you 
do  say  to  me." 

"Never!"  he  declared.  "I  shall  say, 
'Hasta  la  vista1 — and  follow." 

"Always?"  Her  little  grimace  sug- 
gested dismay. 

"Always — until  I've  persuaded  you 
to  love  me!  And  always  afterward!" 

"Love  you!   My  word!   Why  should 


376 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


I  love  you?  You  spoil  everything  I  try 
to  do — upset  every  plan — baffle  me  at 
every  turn — make  a  meddling,  interfer- 
ing, persistent  nuisance  of  yourself — and 
expect  to  be  loved  for  it!" 

"Woman,  have  you  forgotten  that  I 
saved  your  life  ?"  He  struck  an  attitude. 
"I'm  a  he-ro.  Mrs.  Fairweather  says 
so — frequently." 

"Hero,  indeed!  'Watchful  waiting' 
is  your  line!"  At  this  they  both  laughed 
a  little,  and  he  said: 

"At  any  rate,  I  caught  you  napping — 
once!"    But  she  shook  her  head. 

"I  wasn't  asleep.  I  was  thinking. 
Trying  to  make  up  my  mind." 

"What  about?  Leave  it  to  me.  I'll 
decide  it." 

"Billy" — she  regarded  him  thought- 
fully— "  does  the  end  justify  the  means  ?" 

"Depends  on  the  end.  Also  on  the 
means.   What's  it  about?" 

"It's  about  Bob.  Do  you  think  she 
cares  for  him — in  her  way?" 

"I'm  no  Daniel,"  he  teased.  "Nor 
yet  an  angel.  What's  the  use  of  even 
pretending  to  be  an  angel  if  you  can't 
discover  simple  things  like  that  for  your- 
self?" 

"Then  you  don't  believe  she  does! 
No,  Billy — please!    I'm  serious!" 

"My  dearest  girl,  give  it  up!"  he 
counseled.  "You've  made  a  good  fight 
— done  everything  you  can — " 

"Oh  no,  I  haven't!"  She  laughed 
shortly.  "That's  it!  If  I  had— "When 
she  failed  to  go  on,  he  prompted: 

"If  you  had  ?" 

"I  might  have  succeeded  better.  But 
— I  hate  to  use  my  claws!" 

"Claws!  You?  Bless  your  heart, 
you  couldn't!" 

"Oh,  couldn't  I!  But  I  haven't.  In 
all  these  days  I've  never  said  one  catty 
thing  to  her  or  about  her.  I've  never 
ridiculed  her,  never  tried  to  unmask  her, 
never  put  her  in  a  false  position.  I've 
played  fair." 

"Yes,  you  have,"  he  conceded. 
"You've  fought  like  a  gentleman." 

"And  I've  failed.  Because  I  haven't 
succeeded,  I've  failed.  But  if  I  could  be 
sure  of  just  one  thing — "  Again  she 
paused.  Then,  leaning  slightly  toward 
him,  "Billy,  will  you  do  something  for 
me?" 

"My  dear,  when  you  look  at  me  like 


that  I'd  murder  my  best  friend,  if  you 
asked  me  to!"  In  spite  of  his  light  man- 
ner his  voice  shook  a  little. 

"It's  not  murder  I  want;  it's  first 
aid."  She  smiled  faintly.  "Will  you 
help  me?" 

"Help  you  succor  mine  enemy?" 

"I've  played  fair — but  you  and  I 
know  that  I've  never  had  a  fair  chance 
myself,"  she  gently  reproached  him,  and 
before  her  pleading  gaze  his  own  fell. 

"What  do  you  want  me  to  do?"  His 
tone  was  low,  his  glance  still  averted. 

"I  want  you  not  to  do  this  sort  of 
thing  any  more — not  to  interfere!  And 
not  to  let  her!  If  you  won't  hold  her 
off,  at  least  don't  strengthen  her  hand — 
just  for  these  two  or  three  days  I  have 
left!  Please,  Billy!  See — I  come  to  you 
frankly,  admitting  that  I'm  beaten  un- 
less you  help  me.   Will  you?" 

"Patty— do  you  mean  that?"  Blais- 
dell  choked  a  little.  "Do  you  really 
want  me  to  go?" 

"But  I'm  asking  you  to  stay!  To 
help  me!" 

"Help  you  make  yourself  as  essential 
to  another  man's  happiness  as  you  are 
to  mine?"  he  broke  forth: 

"No,  no!  Why  won't  you  understand! 
I  don't  want  to  be  essential  to  Bob's 
happiness." 

"Then  why  do  you  care  so  much? 
Why  do  you  insist  on  going  on  with  this 
thing?" 

"Because  I'm  afraid — all  his  friends 
are  afraid — that  unless  somebody  makes 
him  see  where  he's  going,  he'll  never 
have  any  real  happiness.  Do  you  think 
he'll  be  happy,  if — if — "  She  hesitated, 
and  he  grimly  replied: 

"I  think  he's  a  man,  and  must  meet 
life  and  take  his  chances,  like  other 
men." 

"But  does  nobody  ever  help  boys? 
Did  nobody  ever  help  you?" 

"Why  is  this  so  vital  to  you?  He  has 
older  friends." 

"Don't  you  see  the  others  have  all 
tried  and  failed  ?  There's  only  me  now, 
and  if  I  fail — unless  you'll  help  me  help 
him,  Billy — that  boy  may  pay  with  his 
whole  life  for  it!" 

"And  if  I  do  help  you —  Patty,  do  you 
care  for  me  so  little  that  you  can't  even 
see  what  you're  asking?  Or  is  it  that 
you  care  for  him  so  much?"  he  added, 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


377 


jealously,  and  she  made  an  impatient 
gesture. 

"Oh,  I  don't  care  for  him  at  all!  Not 
that  way — nor  he  for  me.  He's  not  in 
love  with  me." 

"But  he  would  be,  if —  Oh  yes,  he 
would!"  he  declared,  combating  a  shake 
of  her  head.  "No  man  could  help  lov- 
ing you,  unless  he  was  blinded  by  an 
infatuation  for  another  woman!  And 
when  you  show  him  such  heavenly  com- 
passion— are  so  deeply  concerned  for  his 
happiness — !  Besides,  he  is  more  than 
half  in  love  with  you,  and  you  know  it! 
Yet  you  ask  me  to  stand  aside  and  give 
him  a  free  field!  What  do  you  think 
I'm  made  of?" 

"Then  you  won't?" 

"Of  course  I  won't!  And  you  wouldn't 
have  the  slightest  respect  for  me  if  I 
did!  Confess  it!"  For  a  moment  he 
compelled  her  to  meet  his  gaze.  Then 
she  arose,  with  a  little  shrug  and  a  ges- 
ture dismissing  the  whole  subject. 

"Well — there  it  goes!" 

"There  what  goes?" 

"Another  illusion.  Apparently  the 
only  successful  way  to  fight  the  devil  is 
with  fire.  I  thought —  But  the  prag- 
matists  are  right,  aren't  they?  'Av  it 
worrks,  it'sthrue,'"  she  quoted.  "And 
since  my  theory  doesn't  'worrk,'  it  can't 
be — "  She  broke  off,  a  quick  illumina- 
tion in  her  eyes,  repeating  softly:  "'Av 
it  worrks,  it's  thrue.'  Then — if  it's  true 
it  works!   Why,  of  course!   That's  it!" 

"What's  'it'?  Patty,  what  are  you 
up  to  now?"  he  demanded,  and  she 
laughed. 

"Sure,  I'm  afther  findin'  out  av  it 
worrks,  sor.  Av  it  does,  it's  thrue — an' 
no  harrm  to  annybody.' 

"If  what  works?" 

"I  think  you'd  call  it  love." 

"Whose  love?" 

"Not  yours,  Billy!" 

That  night  there  was  a  new  vibration 
in  her  voice  when  she  spoke  to  Bob,  a 
new  challenge  in  her  eyes,  and  the  eter- 
nal masculine  in  him  rose  to  meet  and 
dominate  it.  They  made  much  of  her  at 
the  Country  Club,  but  throughout  the 
evening,  except  when  dancing  separated 
them,  he  held  his  place  at  her  side 
against  all  comers,  a  little  exultant  and 
flushed  by  this  discovery  of  his  power, 
and  not  to  be  lured  away  on  any  pretext. 


Blaisdell's  heart  grew  heavy  within  him, 
and  the  glitter  in  Elise  Yarnell's  eyes 
sharpened  hour  by  hour  above  her  fixed 
smile. 

Like  the  day  that  had  preceded  it, 
however,  the  evening  was  oppressively 
hot,  and  about  eleven  o'clock  Patricia, 
loitering  on  the  veranda  between  dances, 
exclaimed:  "It  must  be  wonderful  on 
the  water  to-night!  I've  never  seen  such 
moonlight!" 

"Let's  cut  the  rest  of  this  and  go  out 
in  the  boat!"  whispered  Bob,  instantly 
alert.    "Will  you?" 

"Oh — isn't  it  too  late?"  she  demurred, 
but  wistfully. 

"Not  a  bit  of  it!  Besides,  we  haven't 
many  nights  left!  Let's  make  the  most 
of  it!  Will  you  go?" 

"Well — if  the  others  will,"  she  agreed. 

But  Mrs.  Yarnell  would  not.  Both 
she  and  Mrs.  Fairweather  said  it  was 
much  too  late,  and  in  this  Elise  persisted, 
even  though  Bob  vehemently  urged  her 
not  to  be  a  quitter  and  spoil  it  all.  Then 
Patricia,  still  wistful,  said:  "Oh,  don't 
you  feel  equal  to  it?  I'm  so  sorry! 
Perhaps  Mr.  Howard  will  go  with  us, 
Bob."  When  the  engineer  said  he  would, 
and  it  became  evident  that  the  expedi- 
tion was  not  to  be  prevented,  the  widow 
decided  that  she  and  Billy  would  go, 
after  all,  though  Mrs.  Fairweather  still 
declined,  and  Bob  telephoned  to  Peter- 
son to  have  the  boat  in  readiness. 

Arrived  at  High  Haven,  the  party 
found  Kate  at  the  dock  with  the  boat- 
man, and  the  latter  explained  that  as  the 
second  man  had  been  given  permission 
to  visit  a  sick  relative  that  night,  Miss 
Carlyle's  woman  had  kindly  agreed  to 
run  the  engine,  if  nobody  objected. 
This  obvious  ruse  was  received  with 
smiles — Peterson's  devotion  to  Kate 
having  been  manifest  for  several  days — 
and  they  were  soon  afloat. 

With  a  view  to  continuing  his  master- 
ful monopoly  of  her  attention,  Bob  con- 
trived to  sit  beside  Patricia,  and  seized 
opportunities,  while  the  others  were 
talking,  to  carry  on  a  fragmentary,  low- 
toned  conversation  with  her.  To  be 
sure,  this  consisted  chiefly  of  nonsense, 
but  now  and  then  a  tone,  an  inflection,  a 
glow  in  his  eager  eyes,  reminded  her  that 
she  was  indeed  playing  with  fire. 

Presently  some  one  mentioned  South 


378 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


America,  and  thereafter  Patricia  turned 
an  inattentive  ear  to  Bob's  badinage, 
while  the  engineer  and  the  diplomat 
talked  men's  gossip  of  the  conduct  of 
nations,  and  of  rumors  concerning  large 
enterprises  on  the  other  side  of  the 
equator.  They  had  been  out  perhaps  an 
hour  and  were  far  from  shore,  when  the 
women  agreed  that  it  was  time  to  return, 
and  Bob  told  Peterson  to  put  about. 
Five  minutes  later  the  engine,  which  had 
begun  acting  strangely  just  before  they 
turned,  indulged  in  a  noisy,  explosive 
demonstration,  fluttered  a  little,  and 
stopped.  Exclamations  and  questions 
followed,  but  Kate  and  Peterson  both 
maintained  that  the  trouble  could  not  be 
serious,  as  the  machine  had  been  run- 
ning quite  smoothly  until  a  few  minutes 
before.  Their  combined  efforts  failed  to 
start  it,  however,  and  eventually  Bob, 
Howard,  and  Patricia  all  offered  sugges- 
tions. 

"Let  me  see  the  spark  plug,"  Patricia 
said.  "Perhaps  that's  the  trouble," 
Kate  handed  it  to  her,  and  she  examined 
it  in  the  moonlight.  "Seems  to  be  all 
right,"  she  said,  finally.  "Must  be 
something —  My  word!"  She  had  made 
a  quick  movement,  and  now  stood  star- 
ing down  at  the  water. 

"What's  the  matter?"  two  or  three  of 
the  others  asked. 

"I  dropped  it!  Peterson,  have  you 
another  spark  plug?  I've  dropped  that 
one  overboard!" 

"Oh  yes,  miss!  I  always  carry  an 
extra  one,"  reassuringly  returned  the 
mechanic.  "That  '11  be  all  right."  Dili- 
gent search,  however,  failed  to  discover 
it.  Peterson  declared  he  had  seen  it  in 
his  box  that  very  afternoon,  but  eventu- 
ally admitted  that  it  was  not  to  be  found. 

"Well,  I  guess  that  settles  it,"  Bob 
remarked  to  his  guests.  "I'm  sorry,  but 
I'm  afraid  we're  in  for  it!" 

"Settles  it?  In  for  what?"  sharply 
questioned  Mrs.  Yarnell.  "You  don't 
mean  we've  got  to  stay  out  here  all 
night!" 

"Unless  somebody  comes  along  and 
gives  us  a  tow — which  isn't  likely  at  this 
hour." 

"But — that's  impossible!  We  must 
get  back  somehow!  Can't  you  use  a 
makeshift?  Wire — or  a  hairpin— or 
something?"      Then,    as    the  others 


laughed:  "But  I  tell  you  I  won't  be 
kept  in  this  wretched  boat  all  night!  I 
insist  upon  your  taking  me  home!" 

While  the  mechanics  made  another 
futile  search  for  the  spark  plug,  Patricia 
murmured  apologies  for  her  clumsiness, 
and  the  men  convinced  Mrs.  Yarnell 
that  the  case  was  hopeless  and  that 
their  only  course  was  to  make  the  best  of 
their  plight  until  some  one  came  to  their 
rescue. 

"There's  going  to  be  fog  before  morn- 
ing, too,"  Peterson  prophesied. 

"I  suppose  you've  no  rugs  aboard?" 
Howard  asked. 

"Oh  yes,  sir.  We  put  them  in  the 
last  thing.  Kate  said  the  ladies  might 
be  chilly,  in  their  thin  dresses." 

"Admirable  foresight,"  said  the  engi- 
neer. "Thank  the  Lord- my  people  are 
away ! 

"Might  be  lots  worse."  Bob  dropped 
down  beside  Patricia  again.  "Rather  a 
lark,  I  call  it." 

"More  like  a  bat,  isn't  it?"  was  Blais- 
dell's  suggestion,  and  the  widow  acidly 
contributed : 

"A  vampire?" 

"Tell  us  more  fascinating  stories  of 
South  America,"  Patricia  presently  re- 
quested. 

So  Howard  told  tales  of  the  romance 
of  engineering  in  the  southern  hemi- 
sphere— of  the  toll  of  life  paid  by  the 
builders  of  the  Verrugas  bridge,  of  towns 
inundated  to  make  reservoirs  for  great 
electric  transmission  plants,  of  immense 
irrigation  schemes  in  Peru,  and  of  many 
dramatic  crises  in  his  own  career,  to 
most  of  which  Bob  listened  absorbedly, 
with  occasional  whispered  asides  to  Pa- 
tricia. Then  Blaisdell  took  up  the 
thread  and  told  them  of  revolutions  in 
Paraguay. 

The  moonlight  was  brilliant,  the  little 
waves  rippled  against  the  side  of  the 
gently  rocking  boat,  and  Bob  made  sev- 
eral unsuccessful  efforts  to  distract  Pa- 
tricia's attention  from  the  diplomat's 
story.  Finally,  leaning  over  her,  he 
said,  boldly,  "Let's  go  up  forward 
where  we  can  see  the  moon  better." 

"We  might  get  moonstruck,"  she  ob- 
jected, turning  again  toward  Blaisdell, 
but  Bob  refused  to  be  put  off. 

"Come!"  he  urged.  "You  don't  care 
anything  about  South  America!  Come — 


PATRICIA,  ANGEL-AT-LARGE 


379 


let's  go  forward  and  talk."  He  laid  his 
hand  upon  hers,  and  in  his  lowered  tone 
she  caught  again  that  vibrant  throb. 
For  an  instant  she  hesitated,  wavering, 
and  then  planted  her  barb  with  preci- 
sion, though  with  a  laughing  insouciance 
that  masked  its  intention. 

"Talk!  My  dear  Bobby!  You're  a 
very  engaging  boy,  and  great  fun  to  play 
with,  but  when  it  comes  to  talking — - 
these  men  have  done  real  things,  you 
know.  They  have  something  to  say. 
Even  if  one  can't  be  a  man  and  do 
things,  one  can  always  listen."  She  felt 
a  very  genuine  pang  as  she  saw  his  hurt 
stare.   After  a  moment  he  said,  slowly: 

"Just  because  a  man's  never  had  a 
chance  to  do  things  is  no  sign  he  can't!" 

"No?  Well — of  course,  some  men  are 
content  to  be  merely  amusing,  and  never 
take  the  chance  when  it  offers,  much 
less  seek  it.  But  when  one  can  listen  to 
talk  like  this — !"  A  gesture  completed 
the  sentence. 

"Oh,  very  well!  Just  as  you  choose, 
of  course!"  He  drew  back  stiffly,  and  a 
little  later  crossed  over  and  joined  Mrs. 
Yarnell,  who  received  him  frostily,  but 
permitted  him  to  stay. 

Little  by  little  the  night  wore  away. 
The  moon  sagged  in  the  western  sky, 
and  to  their  weary  eyes  it  looked  sallow 
and  worn.  They  were  hungry,  they 
were  thirsty,  a  chill  from  the  approach- 
ing fog  crept  upon  them,  and  they  hud- 
dled beneath  the  rugs.  Toward  dawn 
they  all  dozed  more  or  less. 

Then,  slowly,  the  light  strengthened, 
and  it  became  possible  for  them  to  see 
one  another  more  distinctly.  It  hap- 
pened that  both  Patricia  and  Howard 
had  their  eyes  open,  though  Blaisdell 
was  asleep,  when  Bob  roused  himself 
from  a  troubled  dream  and  looked  at 
Mrs.  Yarnell,  still  napping  opposite  him. 
He  stared,  blinked,  rubbed  his  eyes, 
stared  again,  and  muttered  under  his 
breath: 

"For  the  love  of  Mike!" 

She  had  wound  a  lace  scarf  around 
her  head  and  dropped  an  end  over  her 
face,  but  this  had  loosened  and  fallen 
away  while  she  slept,  revealing  the  rav- 
ages of  the  night.  The  creeping  mist 
had  worked  its  will  with  her  carefully 
waved  hair,  leaving  it  in  dank,  straight, 
disordered  loops  and  straggling  ends, 


from  which  the  nib  of  a  switch  pro- 
truded. The  dampness,  too,  had  wiped 
from  her  face  its  bloom  of  powder,  and 
the  line  of  demarkation  between  the 
skilfully  applied  rouge  and  her  now  pal- 
lid cheek  was  distinctly  visible.  Ner- 
vous irritation  had  painted  deep  shad- 
ows beneath  her  eyes,  etched  fretful  lines 
about  them,  and  drawn  her  lips  into 
querulous,  drooping  curves;  and  the 
cold  morning  light,  filtering  through  the 
fog,  held  no  tender  glow  to  soften  the 
revelation. 

For  a  long  moment  Bob  stared,  entire- 
ly unconscious  that  he  also  was  under 
scrutiny.  Then  he  arose,  stretched, 
shook  himself  like  a  young  dog,  thrust 
his  hands  deep  into  his  trousers  pockets, 
looked  once  more  at  Elise,  and  ejacu- 
lated, "H'mph!" 

Howard  glanced  at  Patricia,  and 
found  her  watching  Chamberlain  with  so 
peculiar  an  intensity  that  a  suspicion  he 
had  held  all  night  was  strengthened,  and 
a  smile  flickered  across  his  features.  At 
the  same  instant  Mrs.  Yarnell  opened 
her  eyes,  encountered  Bob's  disillu- 
sioned gaze,  and  dropped  the  rug  she  was 
holding  to  clutch  at  the  displaced  veil. 
When  he  stooped  to  pull  the  rug  over 
her  again,  she  exclaimed: 

"Oh,  do  go  away!  For  Heaven's  sake 
let  me  alone!" 

"I'll  do  that,  all  right!"  he  returned, 
and  immediately  joined  Peterson,  on 
watch  at  the  wheel,  to  discuss  once  more 
the  probabilities  of  an  early  rescue. 

Instantly  averting  his  glance  from  the 
widow's  face,  lest  he  embarrass  her  fur- 
ther, Howard  looked  at  Patricia.  Her 
eyes  were  closed,  and  she  seemed  very 
tired.  As  he  watched  her,  he  thought 
her  lips  trembled,  and  presently  he  was 
amazed  to  see  a  tear  force  itself  between 
her  twitching  eyelids  and  roll  down  her 
cheek. 

Presently,  however,  she  regained  com- 
mand of  herself  and  was  blithely  chat- 
ting with  Blaisdell  and  the  engineer 
when  she  broke  off  in  the  middle  of  a 
word  to  exclaim: 

"What's  that?"  Stooping  quickly, 
she  picked  up  a  metal  pin  and  flourished 
it.  "Here's  your  extra  spark  plug,  Pe- 
terson!" 

"What!"    Everybody  sat  up. 

"Here  it  is!"  Howard  corroborated. 


380 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Must  have  been  kicking  around  under- 
foot all  night." 

"Well,  for  the  love  of  Mike !  Peterson, 
you're  a  bird!"  Bob  eyed  his  boatman 
disgustedly.  "Keeping  us  out  here  all 
night — " 

"We're  equally  guilty,  I  think," 
Howard  interposed.  "We  all  looked  for 
it,  you  know,  and  none  of  us  saw  it." 

"Well,  stick  it  in,  for  Pete's  sake,  and 
see  if  you  can  keep  that  tea-kettle  going 
until  we  get  ashore!  I'll  take  the  wheel, 
Peterson,  and  you  run  the  engine  your- 
self," Bob  commanded,  and  in  thirty 
seconds  they  were  under  way. 

Finding  that  he  could  not  dislodge 
Howard  from  his  place  beside  Patricia, 
Blaisdell,  perforce,  joined  Elise,  sitting 
alone  swathed  in  scarf  and  rugs  on  the 
other  side  of  the  boat,  and  the  girl  seized 
the  opportunity  to  whisper,  under  cover 
of  the  rushing  waters: 

"Now,  Mr.  Howard!  Now's  your 
time!  If  you  really  want  Bob  to  go  to 
Brazil,  strike  now!  To-day!" 

"So  it  wasn't  an  accident?"  He 
looked  down  at  her  amusedly. 

"No — it  wasn't  an  accident." 

"I  thought  there  might  be  method  in 
your  madness.  Where  was  that  spark 
plug?" 

"Kate  had  it.  I—  Mr.  Howard,  I 
came  down  here  to  do  this;  but — oh, 
I  didn't  want  to  do  it  this  way!" 
Again  tears  threatened,  and  she  paused 
a  moment  before  asking,  unsteadily: 
"Do — do  you  think  she — cares?  Really 
cares,  I  mean?" 

"My  dear  child,  of  course  she  cares!" 
His  own  eyes  were  moist  and  their  light 
was  warm.  "We  don't  blame  birds  and 
beasts  of  prey  for  seeking  their  succulent 
morsels  where  they  can  find  them. 
That's  nature's  way.  But  we  protect 
men  from  them  when  we  can — and 
you've  saved  a  man! 

He  talked  until  they  reached  the  dock 
at  High  Haven,  and  as  Patricia  listened 
her  eyes  regained  their  starry  light,  a 
faint  color  crept  into  her  cheeks,  and  the 
sunlight,  burning  through  the  mists, 
caught  and  reflected  in  bright  glints 
from  the  curling  tendrils  of  her  hair. 

Just  before  luncheon  Blaisdell  was 
called  to  the  telephone  at  Fairweather 
Hill,  and  this  is  what  he  heard: 

[the 


"Hello,  Billy!  Had  a  good  nap?  .  .  . 
Oh,  I'm  all  right!  Billy,  did  you  notice 
it  didn't  'worrk'?  .  .  .  That  emotion 
we  were  discussing  this  afternoon.  The 
cold  light  of  dawn  seemed  to  congeal  it, 
somehow,  so  of  course  it  wasn't  'thrue.' 
That's  a  perfectly  good  theory!  .  .  . 
Yes,  Bob,  of  course.  .  .  .  No;  that's 
settled  definitely  now!"  She  laughed. 
.  .  .  "Besides,  he's  leaving  for  Brazil 
next  week.  .  .  .  Yes,  for  Mr.  Howard. 
.  .  .  No,  his  mother  doesn't  like  it,  but 
he's  promised,  just  the  same.  .  .  .  Sure- 
ly! I'm  enchanted!  Isn't  it  what  I've 
been  working  for  all  the  time  ?  .  .  .  No, 
I  know  you  didn't  believe  it.  I  want  to 
tell  you  something  else,  too.  You've 
overplayed  the  part  a  little  sometimes, 
but  on  the  whole  you've  been  very 
helpful,  Billy.  Thank  you  so  much! 
And — hasta  la  vista!  .  .  .  Yes,  I'm  going 
to-day.  .  .  .  Not  by  the  afternoon  train. 
Now — in  five  minutes.  .  .  .  Well,  for 
one  thing,  there's  a  cry  from  Mace- 
donia, and  as  a  conscientious  angel-at- 
large  I  can't  refuse  to  help,  you  know. 
.  .  .  No,  I  can't  possibly  wait  until  you 
get  here.  .  .  .  Perhaps  because  I  prom- 
ised not  to  let  anybody  clip  my  wings — 
and  I  think  you'd  try!  She  who  fights 
and  runs  away!"  She  was  laughing 
again.  "Never  mind  where  I'm  going. 
I  don't  quite  know  myself  yet — and 
think  of  all  those  important  engage- 
ments you  ought  to  be  keeping!  .  .  . 
But  you  always  were  afraid  the  girl  crop 
would  run  out,  you  know.  .  .  .  Yes,  I 
do!  I  think  you're  perfectly  sincere  to- 
day, Billy  dear,  but — other  days,  other 
girls — and  'to-morrow  will  be  another 
day.'  .  .  .  Well " — did  her  voice  soften 
and  tremble,  or  did  he  imagine  it? — "I 
believe  one  thing.  'Av  it's  thrue,  it 
worrks,'  Billy!  Meanwhile — hasta  la 
vista!" 

The  minister  slammed  the  receiver 
into  the  hook  and  raced  down -stairs, 
demanding  a  car  instantly.  When  he 
was  half-way  to  High  Haven,  however, 
he  saw  Patricia's  monoplane  soar  into 
the  air  and  turn  toward  Mineola.  He 
went  back  to  Fairweather  Hill,  announced 
that  his  mail  had  contained  an  impera- 
tive summons  to  Washington,  and  began 
packing.  Two  hours  later  he  was  off  in 
pursuit  of  the  escaping  angel-at-large. 

ND.] 


One  of  Those  Nice  Little  Evenings 


BY  STEPHEN  WHITMAN 


^^^^fea^^^ES,  all  this  happened 
very  much  as  I  tell  it, 

«3S  \  7  &m  some  time  ag°>  °f  course 
H      y      §ni — in  fact,  when  the  wo  rid 

&  °B  was  y°uns- 

^^^^^^^^^^  The  spring  air  was 
^^^ff^^^^^  soft  and  sweet.  The 
sun  was  declining.  Dino  and  I  were 
sitting  in  Giacosa's,  on  Via  Tornabuoni, 
in  Florence.  Dino  was  languidly  scrap- 
ing away  at  a  raspberry  sherbet.  Sud- 
denly he  asked  me,  "What  are  your 
views  about  reincarnation  ?" 

But  to  relish  this  inquiry  one  ought 
to  know  more  about  Dino. 

His  full  name  is  Don  Dino  dTdria. 
He  is  the  youngest  son  of  a  titled,  vain, 
impoverished  Tuscan  family.  Of  course 
he  has  never  done  a  stroke  of  work  in  his 
life.  At  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning 
he  rises,  reads  a  little  d'Annunzio,  de 
Maupassant,  or  something  like  that; 
arrays  himself  like  the  lilies,  and  saun- 
ters forth  to  brighten  the  streets.  In 
the  afternoon  he  supports  the  facade  of 
the  Nobles  Club  in  Via  Tornabuoni, 
resting  himself  from  time  to  time  by 
sitting  down  in  Doney's  or  Giacosa's. 
At  the  hour  of  promenade  he  is  likely 
to  take  some  exercise  in  Cascine  Park, 
reclining  on  the  small  of  his  back  in  a 
cab,  and  bowing  to  left  and  right.  As 
for  the  evening,  to  spend  it  with  him  is  to 
draw  a  lottery-ticket  from  the  hat  of 
Fate. 

In  person  Don  Dino  is  striking.  He 
would  seem  short,  perhaps,  if  his  lac- 
quered boots  were  not  furnished  with 
heels  two  inches  high.  His  figure,  how- 
ever, is  admirable,  due  to  the  habit  of 
Florentine  tailors  of  cutting  in  the 
waist,  and  belling  the  skirts,  and  run- 
ning the  trousers  up  so  high  that  they 
form  an  excellent  substitute  for  a  pair 
of  stays.  He  wears  his  hat  well  on  the 
back  of  his  head,  his  gloves  turned  over 
his  wrists,  his  cane-handle  hooked  on  his 
arm  like  an  officer's  sword,  his  handker- 
chief in  his  cuff,  close  to  the  gold  link- 


bracelet  that  has  a  history.  The  ladies 
adore  him,  and  he  is  aware  that  they  do. 

"And  what,"  asked  this  butterfly, 
"are  your  views  on  reincarnation?" 

"Look  here,  Dino.  Even  supposing 
your  latest  inamorata  goes  in  for  the- 
osophy,  don't  try  to  bone  up  at  my 
expense  toward  seven  o'clock  on  a  beau- 
tiful evening  of  spring,  when  every  one 
else  is  happy." 

At  that  moment,  as  if  to  belie  my  last 
words,  a  tall  young  man  with  sandy 
curls  and  freckles  plumped  himself  down 
at  our  table  and  buried  his  face  in  his 
hands. 

"Who's  this?"  Dino  whispered. 

"An  Englishman  named  Percival 
Lassofram." 

"And  why  is  he  plunged  in  despair?" 

"Despair  is  his  habit." 

"Will  he  go  away  soon?" 

"Most  likely  he'll  still  be  with  us  at 
midnight." 

Sighing,  Dino  addressed  the  new- 
comer politely,  "Signore,  we  may  as  well 
warn  you  that  we  always  talk  about 
deep,  dry,  uninteresting  things — for  in- 
stance, reincarnation." 

Mr.  Lassofram  raised  his  face,  fixed 
his  mournful  eyes  on  Dino,  and  shook 
his  head  in  reproof.  "You  ought  to 
employ  your  time  with  sensible  conver- 
sation. I'll  wager  you  know  very  little 
about  the  medieval  landmarks  of 
Paris  ?" 

"Nothing,  thank  Heaven!" 

"In  that  case,  high  time  you  did." 
And  in  sepulchral  monotone  he  began 
to  lecture  about  the  medieval  land- 
marks of  Paris. 

But  a  word  of  explanation. 

Percival  Lassofram  comes  of  good 
north-of-England  stock.  In  his  early 
youth  he  was  expected  to  make  some 
sort  of  reputable  career.  At  Oxford, 
however,  fatality  impelled  him  to  write 
a  thesis  on  "The  Probable  Position  of 
the  Fourth  Gate  of  the  Cemetery  of  the 
Innocents,    in    Paris,    Anno  Domini 


382 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


1453."  That  false  step  had  ruined  him; 
his  subsequent  existence  had  been  one 
long  debauch  in  medieval  research. 

On  the  present  occasion  he  wore  a 
homespun  suit  the  pockets  of  which 
were  distended  with  rubbish  like  gunny- 
sacks  on  a  donkey.  His  sleeves  and 
trousers  were  short  length  even  for  Brit- 
ish wear.  The  cut  of  his  jacket  round 
the  neck  suggested  that  he  had  taken 
it  away  from  some  little  boy.  In  his 
emerald-green  cravat  he  wore  a  stick-pin 
supposed  to  be  made  of  a  tooth  of 
Philippe  de  Commines. 

"Now,  then/'  he  was  mumbling,  "if 
we  glance  at  the  streets  of  the  university 
quarter  of  Paris  we  find,  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  Rue  Sacalie,  Rue  Arondelle,  La 
Rue  Pavee — " 

All  at  once  we  noticed  that  there  were 
not  three,  but  four  of  us  at  the  table. 

A  small,  pallid  man,  with  tufts  of 
black  beard  all  over  his  chin;  with  deli- 
cate, twitching  features  and  bulbous 
brow,  sat  listening  to  Mr.  Lassofram 
with  a  satirical  grin.  He  wore  a  Byronic 
collar,  a  Windsor  tie,  a  frock-coat  with 
velvet  cufFs,  and  purple  pantaloons. 
Dino  made  an  instinctive  gesture  as 
though  to  touch  the  intruder  and  find 
out  whether  or  not  he  was  real.  I  re- 
covered myself  and  stammered: 

"Don  Dino  dTdria  and  Mr.  Percival 
Lassofram,  I  present  Monsieur  D  em  ou- 
st ier,  the  eminent  French  poet." 

Monsieur  Demoustier  settled  down  in 
his  chair  and  dreamily  batted  his  eyes. 
Mr.  Lassofram  informed  him: 

"We  were  discussing  the  medieval 
landmarks  of  Paris." 

"And  also,"  Dino  amended,  "rein- 
carnation." 

Monsieur  Demoustier  replied  in  a 
slightly  hysterical  voice,  "Both  topics 
are  familiar  to  me,  for  I  happen  to  be 
the  reincarnation  of  Francois  Villon." 

With  which,  just  as  if  we  had  pressed 
him  to  continue,  he  drifted  into  a  rig- 
marole of  his  own — a  rambling  tale  of 
crime  and  poesy,  of  pothouse  and  gal- 
lows, of  kisses  and  stabbings  and 
prayers;  in  fine,  a  slap-dash  synopsis  of 
Francois  Villon's  life,  which  he  was 
pleased  to  pretend  had  once  been  his. 
At  first,  with  his  staring  eyeballs  and 
quivering  whiskers,  he  held  us  fasci- 
nated, just  as  a  voluble  bogy  might. 


But  when  he  showed  no  signs  of  fatigue 
we  rose  and  made  for  the  street/.  He 
accompanied  us,  still  talking  of  Francois 
Villon.  We  walked  along  Via  Torna- 
buoni,  we  bowed  to  our  friends,  we 
bought  cigars  which  we  thrust  into  the 
eminent  poet's  mouth,  but  still  he  con- 
tinued talking  of  Francois  Villon.  We 
hurried  into  Piazza  Vittorio;  we  sat 
down  at  a  cafe  table;  we  tried  to  gag 
him  with  syrupy  beverages,  but  still 
he  continued  talking  of  Francois  Villon. 
We  told  him  that  a  beautiful  lady  was 
beckoning  to  him,  that  he  showed  all 
the  symptoms  of  cholera,  that  his  house 
was  on  fire,  but  still  he  continued  talk- 
ing of  Francois  Villon.  We  consulted 
in  hoarse  whispers: 

"Apparently  this  pest  is  going  to  be 
with  us  till  sunrise." 

"All  the  same,  need  he  keep  us  from 
eating?" 

"Let's  dine  at  the  Alhambra,  where 
we  can  look  at  a  show." 

"Good  enough.  Arianna  is  singing 
there  this  week." 

"Hurrah!   We'll  ask  her  to  dinner." 

So,  packing  ourselves  in  a  cab,  we  set 
out  for  the  Alhambra. 

The  coachman  cracking  his  whip,  the 
horse  sending  sparks  from  the  cobbles, 
we  bowled  through  Via  Pietra  Piana. 
That  narrow,  crowded  street  swam  in 
dusk,  was  shot  with  shafts  of  lamp- 
light, re-echoed  with  laughter  and  cheery 
cries.  Behind  us  the  green  and  ame- 
thyst afterglow  was  fading  fast;  ahead, 
above  the  roofs  of  old  palaces,  the  sky 
was  dotted  with  stars.  The  walls  fled 
back;  Piazza  Beccheria  surrounded  us; 
we  alighted  before  the  Alhambra.  And 
still  Monsieur  Demoustier  was  talking 
of  Francois  Villon. 

Under  the  trees,  on  the  terrace  to  the 
left  of  the  stage,  above  the  pit  with  its 
huddle  of  iron  tables,  we  ordered  din- 
ner— spaghetti,  stuffed  egg-plants,  filets 
of  beef  with  chopped  garlic,  white  truffle 
salad,  all  the  fruits  of  the  season.  And 
just  at  that  moment  who  should  be  pass- 
ing but  Arianna.  And  when  we  had 
asked  her  to  dinner,  where  should  she 
chance  to  sit  but  alongside  of  me. 

Arianna  is  beautiful  in  various  ways. 
For  those  who  admire  brunettes,  there 
are  her  eyes  and  brows;  for  amateurs 
of  blondes,  there  is  her  flaxen  hair.  She 


ONE  OF  THOSE  NICE  LITTLE  EVENINGS 


383 


is  slender,  and  yet  somehow  she  is  not. 
She  is  tali  on  the  stage,  but  not  so  tall 
in  the  street.  When  she  looks  at  you 
with  grave  lips,  she  seems  about  twelve 
years  old;  when  she  smiles  one  accepts 
the  story  that  three  young  men  have 
tried  suicide  on  her  account.  Her  hands 
and  feet  are  dainty;  her  cheek  is  like  the 
skin  of  a  ripe  yellow  peach; 
her  manners  are  modeled 
after  those  of  princesses 
whom  she  has  watched  in 
Cascine  Park  and  on  the 
Pincian  Hill.  She  was 
born  in  old  Naples,  five 
flights  aloft  in  an  alley; 
her  father  was  probably  a 
Camorrista;  her  mother 
sang  on  the  sidewalks. 
Arianna  has  proved  that 
environment  and  heredity 
have  nothing  to  do  with 
success. 

Arianna  is  one  of  the 
few*  that  you  can  bear  to 
contemplate  while,  she  is 
eating  spaghetti.  She  does 
not  coil  that  noble  food 
round  her  fork  like  a  timid 
American.  She  does  not, 
as  do  prudish  English  girls, 
cut  it  up  into  fragments 
and  smuggle  it  down  like 
string  -  beans.  Somehow 
she  establishes  between 
her  lovely  mouth  and  the 
plate  a  continuous  current 
of  dough,  without  disar- 
ranging her  face,  without 
losing  a  bit  of  her  daint- 
iness, without  ceasing  for  an  instant 
to  be  ideal.  And  when  the  spaghetti 
has  all  disappeared  one  loves  Arianna 
the  more  because,  while  as  exquisite 
as  a  flower,  she  has  such  an  appetite! 

We  whispered  together,  like  those  who 
confess  pet  frailties,  of  the  cookery  we 
liked  best:  macaroni  with  Neapolitan 
shell-fish,  young  lamb  in  anchovy  sauce, 
figs  and  ham,  grilled  eels  with  bay- 
leaves,  and  so  on,  and  so  on,  and  so  on. 
"How  strange/'  Arianna  mused,  "that 
our  tastes  are  so  much  alike!"  And  I 
was  emboldened  to  utter  that  famous 
phrase,  "We  seem  made  for  each  other!" 

But  just  then  Arianna  had  to  clap  her 
hands  to  her  ears,  for  Mr.  Lassofram 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  783.-48 


ARRAYS  HIMSELF  LIKE  THE 
LILIES  AND  SAUNTERS  FORTH 


was  checking  off  his  medieval  land- 
marks again,  and  Dino  was  once  more 
trying  to  talk  theosophy,  while  Mon- 
sieur Demoustier,  in  his  high,  hysterical 
voice,  was  drowning  out  every  one  with 
the  same  old  balderdash. 

"What's  the  matter  with  that  French- 
man?" Arianna  inquired  of  me. 

"The  wretch  is  the  re- 
incarnation o  f  Francois 
Villon." 

r  rancois  r 
"An    old  song-writing 
apache  of  Paris." 
"His  stuff  is  good?" 
bo-so. 

"Send  me  something 
of  his.  My  songs  are  all 
poor  this  year.  Any  other 
artist  would  surely  have 
failed  with  them." 

"The  theosophists  tell 
us,"  Dino  was  saying, 
"that  man  has  seven 
bodies,  though  three  are 
only  a  sort  of  ethereal  gas. 
But  three  from  seven 
leaves  four;  and  with  four 
material  bodies  no  one  can 
blame  me  for  having  a 
little  more  to  eat." 

"Then,"  Mr.  Lassofram 
announced,  in  a  loud  and 
resolute  tone,  "when  we 
turn  to  the  streets  in  the 
Cite,  we  find,  in  the  fif- 
teenth century,  Rue  des 
C  o  u  1  i  n  s  ,  Rue  Sainct- 
Christofle,  Rue  Champ 
Roussy — " 
"  Madonnina!"  cried  Arianna,  cross- 
ing herself.    "Are  all  of  them  mad?" 

"Have  no  fear.  Snuggle  up  to  me. 
I  will  protect  you." 

Arianna  and  I,  huddled  close  to- 
gether, consumed  our  filetto  alia  Parigina. 
She  uses  a  perfume  composed  of  berga- 
mot,  orange,  rosemary,  ambergris,  musk, 
and  rhodium,  which  she  says  she  mixes 
herself.  But  because  so  delicate  a  scent 
is  quickly  dispelled  by  the  air,  in  order 
to  sense  it  properly  one  has  to  stick 
one's  nose  very  close  to  Arianna's  fair 
cheek.  Unhappily,  just  at  the  psycho- 
logical moment  a  fanfare  of  trumpets 
resounded,  and  I,  being  more  or  less 
overwrought,  upset  my  plate  in  my  lap. 


384 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


The  curtain  rose.  On  the  stage  a 
young  woman  in  a  peculiar  costume 
pranced  to  and  fro,  rolled  her  eyes,  and 
shouted  a  song.  When  she  finished,  the 
only  sound  that  ensued  was  the  wran- 
gling of  Monsieur  Demoustier  and  Mr. 
Percival  Lassofram,  as  to  whether,  in 
Francois  Villon's  time,  the  Rue  de  Paon 
ran  into  the  Rue  de  la  Serpente. 

ay  I" 

Ignoramus! 
"Take  that  to  yourself!" 
"I  tell  you  I  know  my  subject!" 
"And    I,    monsieur,    walked  those 
streets  myself  in  my  incarnation  as — " 
"Frantic  ass!   I  leave  it  to  any  one!" 


"Very  well,"  Arianna  interrupted;; 
"this  gentleman  shall  decide."  And  she  1 
designated  a  tremendously  stout,  and 
abundantly  bejeweled  stranger,  who, 
hovering  over  our  table  like  a  balloon, 
stared  down  at  us  from  above  a  wealth 
of  chins. 

"Why  that  gentleman!" 
"Why  not?"  Arianna  retorted,  and 
waved  the  Obese  Unknown  to  a  chair. 
He  sat  down,  but  with  an  effect  of 
merely  stopping  a  moment  before  float- 
ing up,  in  his  scarlet  waistcoat  and 
shepherd-plaid  suit  and  pearl  gaiters,  to 
add  the  magnificence  of  his  scarf-pin  and 
rings  and  fobs  to  the  stars. 

"Sir,"  said  Monsieur  De- 
moustier, intensely,  "did  or 
did  not  Rue  du  Paon  give 
upon  Rue  de  la  Serpente?" 

The  Obese  Unknown  gazed 
at  us  vacantly.  He  raised 
his  eyes  to  the  foliage,  took 
a  sip  of  Arianna's  coffee,  at 
last  pronounced: 

"There  is  something  to  be 
said  on  both  sides  of  that 
question.  If  Rue  du  Paon 
gave  upon  Rue  de  la  Ser- 
pente, then  Rue  de  la  Ser- 
pente would  seem  to  have 
given  on  Rue  du  Paon.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  Rue  du 


A  TREMENDOUSLY  STOUT,  BEJEWELED  STRANGER  HOVERED  OVER  OUR  TABLE  LIKE  A  BALLOON 


ONE  OF  THOSE  NICE  LITTLE  EVENINGS 


385 


Paon  did  not,  neither,  appar- 
ently, did  Rue  de  la  Serpente. 
Yet  we  have  not  only  these 
quandaries  already  stated,  but 
an  infinite  variety  of  closely 
related  dilemmas,  all  of  which 
must  be  investigated  before 
the  problem  is  solved.  For 
instance,  resorting  to  algebra, 
and  letting  x  and  y  .  . 

Figuring  on  the  table-cloth 
with  a  long  gold  pencil  in- 
crusted  with  opals,  he  rumbled 
into  a  monologue  of  his  own. 
Dino,  Percival  Lassofram, 
Monsieur  Demoustier,  sinking 
down  in  their  chairs,  regarded 
the  stranger  with  fallen  jaws. 
I,  for  my  part,  sent  a  glance 
of  reproach  at  Arianna. 

But  Arianna  was  gone! 


The  audience  tolerated  the 
various  actors.  A  juggler 
earned  three  hand  -  claps,  a 
mimic  a  "brava"  or  two,  a 
dancer  an  encore.  The  house 
was  saving  its  fire  for  Arianna. 

The  front  rows  of  red-plush  chairs 
were  occupied  by  senile  gentlemen 
whose  faces  had  long  ago  shriveled  up  in 
the  glare  of  footlights,  by  youths  about 
town  whose  intention  it  was  to  look 
romantic  when  Arianna  came  on,  by 
cavalry  officers  smart  and  gorgeous  and 
haughty.  The  pit  was  crowded  with 
family  parties — old  folk  and  children, 
married  pairs  and  affianced,  stout  ber- 
saglieri  and  pretty,  pale  cigarette-girls. 
The  iron  tables  bristled  with  glasses  of 
syrup  and  sherbet.  Smoke  hung  over- 
head in  a  pale-blue  film;  the  mingling 
leaves  formed  a  net  of  arsenical  green 
which  caught  a  haze  of  star-dust. 

But  hark!  As  the  curtain  rises  again 
the  opening  bars  of  "La  Bella  Giardi- 
niera"  are  lost  in  a  crash  of  applause. 
For  it  is  Arianna  who  walks  down  the 
stage  in  a  simple  pink  dress,  erect,  unas- 
suming, and  halts  with  a  dazzling  smile. 

"To  try  to  kiss  her  is  a  foolish  thing, 

The  while  she  plucks  her  roses  in  the 
morn: 

'Tis  true  her  lips  are  perfumed  with  the 
spring, 

And   yet,  for  every  rose   there  is  a 
thorn.  ..." 


TWO  YOUNG  CAVALRY  OFFICERS  IN  A  CORNER 


Dino,  Mr.  Lassofram,  Monsieur  De- 
moustier, and  I,  like  all  the  crowd  below 
us,  hang  breathless  on  the  story  of 
La  Bella  Giardiniera.  But  the  Obese 
Unknown  remains  indifferent!  Wheez- 
ing, smiting  his  brow,  scribbling  on  the 
table-cloth  already  covered  with  mathe- 
matical signs,  he  persists  at  the  problem 
of  Rue  du  Paon  and  Rue  de  la  Serpente. 
Surely  inhuman  beneath  his  elephantine 
tissues,  to  act  like  this  while  Spring  her- 
self is  caroling  under  these  Italian  stars! 
A  roar  of  voices :  "Brava!  Bravissima!" 
The  Obese  Unknown,  lifting  his  jowls 
from  his  scarlet  waistcoat,  exclaims,  with 
a  look  of  terrible  exultation: 

"I've  solved  it  both  ways!" 

We  ignore  him.  She  sings  again  and 
again.  The  youths  about  town  open 
their  arms  to  her.  The  senile  gentlemen 
utter  cracked  cries  of  joy.  The  army 
officers  bang  their  sword  -  scabbards 
against  the  ground.  The  fathers  of 
families,  the  fiances,  the  bersaglieri 
hammer  the  iron-topped  tables  with 
beer  and  sherbet  glasses.  At  last  she 
vanishes  and  the  stars  seem  dimmer. 
Dismissed  to  reality,  we  perceived  that 
the  Obese  Unknown  has  removed  the 


386 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


table-cloth,  turned  it  wrong  side  up, 
and  on  it,  with  Dino's  cane  for  a  ruler, 
is  marking  off  musical  staves. 

"And  what's  the  meaning  of  this?" 

"You  see  here  a  sheet  of  music,  or, 
if  you  wish,  a  table-cloth  of  music. 
Taking  pity  on  Arianna,  I  am  about  to 
compose  a  real  song-hit."  He  peered 
into  space,  poised  his  opal-incrusted 


was  invaded  by  undersized  acrobats  in 
cream-colored  tights,  as  eager  for  appro- 
bation as  a  lot  of  good  little  dogs.  Yet 
despite  the  most  violent  efforts  of  these 
poor  mountebanks,  the  audience  showed 
that  lethargy  which  follows  excessive 
emotion.  Many,  indeed,  with  lowered 
heads  ignored  the  performers,  grew  pen- 
sive, and  doubtless  dreamed  of  castles 


THE  OBESE  PERSON  HAD  DISCOVERED  A  GUITAR  IN  THE  PANTRY 


pencil,  and  suddenly  warbled  in  waltz- 
time:  "Mi,  sol,  si!  Mi,  sol,  la!  Mi, 
sol,  si!" 

Throwing  himself  across  the  table- 
cloth, he  began  marking  in  his  notes. 

"He  is  mad." 

^Without  a  doubt." 

"She's  saddled  us  with  a  madman  for 
the  rest  of  the  night." 

Resentfully  Dino  and  I  watched  the 
final  act  on  the  programme.   The  stage 


in  Spain  made  doubly  precious  by 
Arianna's  smile. 

Meanwhile,  to  the  obbligato  of  flutes 
and  fiddles,  one  heard  Monsieur  De- 
moustier  maundering  on  and  on  about 
Francois  Villon.  But  without  the 
slightest  warning  Mr.  Lassofram  pulled 
the  famous  Parisian's  nose. 

Monsieur  Demoustier  gave  vent  to  a 
howl,  bounced  up  from  the  table,  at- 
tempted to  kick  Mr.  Lassofram  with 


WE  TROOPED  OFF  TO  THE  DUEL 


both  feet  at  once.    In  consequence  he  Unknown  and  myself.    Mr.  Lassofram 

came  down  with  a  thud  upon  the  Obese  and  Dino  perched  themselves  on  the 

Unknown,  who,  looking  up   sidewise  folding-seat.   Monsieur  Demoustier  was 

while  tracing  a  clef  on  the  table-cloth,  sent  to  Coventy  beside  the  driver.  The 


protested : 

"In  Heaven's 
name,  have  some  re- 
gard for  my  afflatus!" 

Whatever  he  meant 
by  his  afflatus,  Dino 
and  I  now  had  the 
combatants  in  hand. 
And  while  we  were 
struggling  to  main- 
tain this  tableau,  all 
at  once  we  noticed 
that  Arianna  was 
back. 

"Well,';  she  de- 
manded, briskly,  pull- 
ing on  hergloves,"are 
we  ready  for  supper?" 

The  Obese  Un- 
known rolled  up  the 
table-cloth,  linked 
arms  with  Arianna, 
and  led  the  way  out. 
Since  Arianna  was  off, 
what  had  we  others 
to  do  but  follow  after? 

To  the  scandal  of 
the  assembled  cab- 
drivers,  we  all  piled 
into  one  vehicle.  Ari- 
anna was  wedged  be- 
tween  the  Obese 


latter  inquired : 


ladies 


of 
of 


THERE  GAPED  OUT  AT  US  A  DES- 
PERATE -  LOOKING    OLD  BRIGAND 


"Where  to, 
and  gentlemen  all? 

"To  Ciofini's!" 

"Get  up,  Bag 
Bones,  So-and-so 
a  So-and-so!" 

Crack!  Crack! 
Clackety-clack!  We 
were  off  to  supper. 

As  the  cab  careened 
through  suburban 
streets  I  addressed 
Arianna  :  "That 
voice  of  yours!  You're 
wasting  it  here.  Have 
you  never  thought 
of  Grand  Opera?" 
She  sent  me  a  thrill- 
ing glance  by  the  light 
of  a  lamp  that  whirled 
by.  I  raved  on,  "You 
ought  to  sing  at  La 
Scala,  the  Paris  Opera 
House,  the  Metropoli- 
tan!" 

It  seemed  to  me  the 
Obese  Unknown  was 
choking.  But  Arian- 
na replied: 

"That's  where  I'd 
be,  indeed,  if  others 


388 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


had  as  much  sense  as  you."  And  to 
prove  it  she  uttered,  full  voice,  the 
notes  of  Maliella  in  the  "  Jewels  of  the 
Madonna": 

"I  love  thee,  my  love! 
I  am  all  thine! 
Bear  me  away, 
Strength  more  than  mine!" 

Of  course,  at  this  moment  we  had  to 
reach  Ciofini's. 

Traversing  the  restaurant,  we  sallied 
out  to  the  terrace.  Here  tables  weie 
scattered  about  beneath  lamp-lit  trees; 
beyond  the  railing  expanded  a  lovely 
nocturnal  landscape.  We  seemed  to  be 
either  early  or  late;  the  only  other  pa- 
trons were  two  young  cavalry  officers 
in  a  corner. 


"Ruggero!    Ruggero!  Ruggero!" 

The  faithful  Ruggero,  with  Dundreary 
whiskers  of  pepper  and  salt,  came  trip- 
ping over  his  apron.  He  had  only  run  to 
fetch  for  our  inspection  a  plate  of  raw 
sole,  fresh  from  Leghorn. 

Straightway  the  Obese  Unknown  dis- 
covered a  guitar  in  the  pantry.  Balanc- 
ing this  instrument  across  his  abdo- 
men, he  struck  a  few  chords  and 
brilliantly  played  some  bars  of  "Sche- 
herezade." 

"Who  tangoes?"  Arianna  demanded. 

I  circled  that  exquisite  waist  with  a 
trembling  hand.  The  Obese  Unknown 
plucked  the  strings,  and  delicately 
they  buzzed  to  the  air  that  Totonno 
sings: 

"Lara,  Lara,  thou  wilt  make  me 
die  of  love  for  thee.  .  .  ." 

We  tangoed.  The  breath  of 
Arianna,  as  one  turns  with  her 
from  stepping  in  one  direction 
and  steps  in  another,  is  like 
the  flowers  of  an  Italian  eve- 
ning. The  smile  of  Arianna,  as 
she  recedes  and  comes  close,  is 
like  the  dawn  transfiguring  a 
garden  of  lilies.  The  stars 
swam  in  circles;  the  purple- 
black  trees  made  obeisance; 
the  nightingales,  in  the  hedges 
below  the  terrace,  warbled 
their  ecstasy.  Boccaccio  and 
Fiammetta,  Petrarch  and 
Laura,  Catullus  and  Lesbia; 
rich  shades  and  mellow  lights; 
tinkling  notes  and  the  rustle 
of  nature;  bergamot,  rosemary, 
ambergris,  and  the  scent  of  the 
night  breeze;  Italy,  beauty, 
illusions  of  romance! 

The  Obese  Unknown,  be- 
nignantly  nodding,  thrummed 
on  with  his  swollen,  bedizened 
fingers.  The  others,  however, 
watched  us  morosely.  One  of 
the  cavalry  officers  covered  his 
eyes  with  his  hands. 
"Hesitation  waltz?" 
So  the  amiable  guitarist  pro- 
duced some  echoes  from  the 
"Tales  of  Hoffmann." 


"  YOU  ARE  NOT  ANGRY  WITH  ME  ?"  MURMURED  ARIANNA 


"Night   sublime,    oh,    night  of 
love, 

Oh,  smile  on  our  embraces. ..." 


ONE  OF  THOSE  NICE  LITTLE  EVENINGS 


389 


But  the  musician  seemed  dissatisfied 
with  this  fine  old  tune.  At  a  word  from 
him  Ruggero  held  up  before  his  eyes  the 
Alhambra  table-cloth.  We  had  his  own 
composition : 

"Mi,  sol,  si!    Mi,  sol,  la!    Mi,  sol,  si!" 

"Booby!  Idiot!  insufferable  blight !" 

These  words  in  English,  a  ripping 
sound,  and  a  crash 
brought  our  waltz 
to  a  stop.  Mon- 
sieur Demoustier 
had  disappeared 
under  the  table. 
Mr.  Lassofram, 
with  a  Berserk 
look,  stood  bran- 
dishing in  his  fist 
a  Byronic  collar 
and  a  Windsor  tie. 
It  would  seem 
that  the  eminent 
French  poet  had 
mentioned  Fran- 
cois Villon  again. 

But  Monsieur 
Demoustier  d  i  d 
not  remain  under 
the  table.  He  rose 
with  all  his  tufts 
of  black  beard  on 
end;  he  cried  out 
for  a  duel  to  the 
death,  and,  weep- 
ing, he  begged  the 
two  young  officers 
in  the  cornerto  act 
as  his  seconds. 

This  pair,  almost  unbearably  gorgeous 
in  their  blue  jackets  with  flaming  cuffs, 
their  dove-colored  pantaloons,  and  their 
shiny  swords,  lost  no  time  in  joining  us. 
With  an  air  of  mingled  humility,  pride, 
and  delight  they  introduced  themselves. 
Lieutenant  Bartolommeo  Luigi  da  Vita 
Avanzi,  of  the  cavalry  of  Cremona,  was 
the  small,  wiry,  long-nosed  youth  with 
the  large,  liquid  eyes,  which  fixed  them- 
selves violently  on  Arianna.  Lieutenant 
Eduardo  Rodolfo  Cipollinetti  Pollio, 
also  of  the  Cremona  cavalry,  was 
the  tall,  wasp-waisted,  hollow-cheeked 
young  man  with  the  squint,  which  lan- 
guoiously  focused  itself  on  Arianna. 

The  soldiers,  Dino,  and  the  Obese 
Unknown  consulted  apart,  the  last,  at 


NIGHT  DIVINE,  OH,  NIGHT  OF  LOVE 


every  pause  in  the  conversation,  pluck- 
ing sad  chords  from  his  guitar.  Arianna 
informed  me: 

"They're  all  ridiculous  except  you." 

"But  I  begin  to  feel  a  little  flighty 
myself." 

"Ha,  ha,  ha!"  When  Arianna  laughs 
it  is  like  a  chime  of  bells  in  the  Abbey  of 
Theleme.     "Ha,   ha,   ha!     It's  true; 

you're  no  better 
than  other  folks." 

"Hang  it  all! 
Then  let's  go  down 
and  look  at  the 
nightingales." 

"They're  gone. 
It's  too  dark  to 
see  them.  My 
slippers  will  be 
soaked  with  the 
dew." 

Nevertheless,  we 
went  down  from 
the  terrace  to  look 
at  the  nightin- 
gales. 

In  the  shadows 
of  a  neglected 
garden  Arianna  is 
like  a  nymph  in 
the  brake.  The 
starlight,  drained 
through  the 
leaves,  plays  hide- 
and-seek  with  her 
eyes,  her  chin,  her 
lips.  The  path  is 
narrow;  she  walks 
ahead  with  a  sway- 
ing gait.  Her  white,  curling  fingers  brush 
the  hedgetops;  she  stoops  to  a  flower; 
she  kisses  her  hand  to  a  firefly.  She  goes 
more  slowly,  looks  back  and  smiles,  and 
in  the  gloom  her  smile  is  a  thrilling  rid- 
dle. Thus  Leonora  d'Este  in  her  vague 
gardens  at  Tivoli;  thus  Tasso,  poor 
wretch!  heart  thumping,  brain  whirling, 
held  back  and  urged  forward,  half  doubt- 
ing and  half  believing  the  call  of  the 
spring. 

Arianna  is  moved  to  hum: 
"Night  divine,  oh,  night  of  love.  .  .  ." 

Arianna's  hand  is  like  a  rose-leaf  cooled 
by  the  dew. 

The  spell  is  shattered  by  a  shout  from 
the  terrace.    Over  the  railing  bends  the 


390 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Obese  Unknown — if  one  of  his  figure 
may  be  said  to  bend — and  bawls  down 
into  the  shadows,  "How  often  must  one 
call  before  you  take  notice  ?" 

A  cry  from  Arianna:  "You'll  break 
the  railing,  and  fall  and  smash  all  your 
bones!" 

"Pooh!"  said  I. 
"Let  him." 

"And  what  do  you 
find  so  interesting 
down  there?" 

"We're  watching 
the  nightingales." 

"You're  watching 
your  grandmother's 
parrot!  Come  up 
here  as  fast  as  you 
can!  The  duel  is  ar- 
ranged and  we're  ofF 
to  fight  it." 

"I've  never  seen 
a  duel,"  murmured 
Arianna,  wistfully. 

"Nor  I.  But  I'm 
willing  to  wait  till 
the  next  one." 

"A  duel  would  be 
a  novelty,"  Arianna 
sighed  as  if  to  her- 
s  e  1  f,  unconsciously 
accenting  the  second 
word  of  her  phrase. 
After  that  we  re- 
turned to  the  others. 

On  one  side  of  the 
terrace  Monsieur 
Demoustier  stood 
flanked  by  the  two 
lieutenants.  On  the 
other  side  appeared 
Mr.  Lassofram  with 
Dino  and  the  Obese 
Unknown. 

"Ruggero   has  a 
friend  who  is  con- 
cierge of  a  neighbor- 
ing villa.    The  villa  is  empty  just  now, 
so  we  fight  the  duel  in  the  garden 
among  the  flowers." 

"It  is  true,  signori,"  Ruggero  said, 
proudly,  sticking  his  Dundreary  whis- 
kers out  of  the  pantry.  "The  flowers  of 
all  the  world  are  there — the  rose,  the 
mignonette,  the  pansy,  the  violet — " 

"Then  let  us  be  off." 

Ruggero's  face  went  blank.  "But 


"the  supper  is  ready  to 
?"  returned  the  Obese 


HIS  SCARLET  WAISTCOAT  SHAKING  LIKE 
A  VAST   MOUND    OF   CRANBERRY  JELLY 


now,"  he  cried, 
serve! 

"The  supper! 
Unknown.    "Bah!    Serve  it  in  the  gar- 
den of  your  old  friend  the  concierge!" 

And  with  a  magnificent  gesture  that 
made  all  his  rings  shed  sparks  he  led  the 

way  out  through  the 
restaurant,  playing 
on  the  guitar  the 
"Funeral  March  of 
a  Marionette."  We 
trooped  ofF  to  the 
duel,  Ruggero  in  his 
apron  running  ahead 
with  the  cutlery,  the 
wine,  the  bread,  the 
hors  d'ceuvre. 

Midway  of  a  cob- 
bly  lane  overhung 
with  ilex-trees 
loomed  the  gate  of 
the  fatal  garden. 
Ruggero,  his  hands 
being  full,  showered 
kicks  on  those  stout 
wooden  portals  stud- 
ded all  over  with 
nails.  And  presently 
there  gaped  out  at 
us  from  under  a 
lantern  a  desperate- 
looking  old  brigand 
in  nightcap  and 
nightshirt. 

"Bloody  blood  of 
a  pig  of  an  execu- 
tioner!" was  his  ex- 
clamation. 

"Girolamo!  See; 
it  is  I,  Ruggero!" 

"I  see  thee,  Rug- 
gero. 

"Here  are  some 
ladies  and  gentlemen 
who  want  to  fight  a 
duel  in  thy  garden." 
"A  duel!    What  with,  Holy  Family! 
Spoons  and  forks?    Napkins  and  plat- 
ters ?" 

"Oh,  these  are  for  the  supper  which 
the  ladies  and  gentlemen  also  wish  to 
enjoy  in  thy  beautiful  garden." 

"An  apoplexy  on  my  beautiful  garden 
if  this  is  what  it  brings  me!" 

All  the  same,  we  walked  in.  Girolamo, 
having  slammed  the  gate,  went  off"  to  a 


ONE  OF  THOSE  NICE  LITTLE  EVENINGS 


marble  bench,  sat  down  by  his  lantern, 
wagged  his  nightcap  tassel,  and  groaned: 

"  Duels!  Suppers!  Guitars!  Dis- 
guises !  A  hallo  in  maschera!  A  chimera ! 
An  indigestion!  But,  body  of  Bacchus, 
if  I  am  really  asleep,  to  the  devil  with 
the  garden;  dreams  will  not  hurt  it!" 

The  garden,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was 
exquisite.  High  walls  of  stucco  inclosed 
it,  crowned  with  a  wealth  of  roses.  And 
the  orange-trees  spread  over  the  flower- 
plats  were  weighted  with  roses.  And 
roses  covered  the  boxwood  hedges,  the 
corpulent  urns  of  terra-cotta,  the  statues 
of  cupids  and  satyrs,  the  pillars  of  a 
small  pergola  half  circling  the  fountain- 
basin.  And  through  this  vague  paradise 
of  blossoms  and  jetting  water  floated  the 
fireflies — here  and  gone,  there  and  gone, 
everywhere  at  once,  a  swimming,  vanish- 
ing, widespread  mist  of  faery  light. 

"You  are  not  angry  with  me?"  mur- 
mured Arianne. 

We  were  sitting  side  by  side  on  the 
edge  of  the  fountain-basin,  while  Dino 
and  the  lieutenants  marked  off"  a  fencing- 
space.  This  was  proving  a  difficult  feat 
for  them.  Camillo  had  served  the  hors 
d'ceuvre,  so  the  seconds,  with  napkins 
stuck  in  their  collars,  were  eating  while 
pacing  the  ground.  Meanwhile  the 
Obese  Unknown,  having  gobbled  that 
course  and  polished  his  plate  with  a 
crust,  sat  back  beneath  a  statue  of 
Venus,  his  scarlet  waistcoat  shaking  like 
a  vast  mound  of  cranberry  jelly.  Mr. 
Lassofram  and  Monsieur  Demoustier 
were  not  to  be  seen. 

"You  are  angry?  Oh,  look!  Hold 
your  match  to  the  water!  See  all  the 
goldfish!" 

"Goldfish  are  not  nightingales." 

Arianna  had  the  good  grace  to  hang 
her  head. 

But  now  the  Obese  Unknown  resumes 
his  guitar.  Coughing  affectedly,  he 
gives  us  in  a  flexible  falsetto: 

"The  blonde  who  loved  me  so, 
And  made  me  many  a  vow, 
Kissed  me  and  bade  me  go: 
'  I  do  not  love  you  now.' 
So  all  the  ladies  do! 
So  all  the  ladies  do! 
Love  is  a"*bore; 

Soon  becomes  old; 
Vows  by  the  score; 

Kiss  and  turn  cold.  ..." 
Vol.  CXXXL— No.  783. — 19 


391 

"Ruggero!  I've  eaten  the  olives,  the 
salami,  the  artichokes  in  oil,  the  ancho- 
vies, the  radishes,  the  tunn3/-fish,  the 
peppers,  the  sardines,  the  pickled  onions, 
but  where  the  dickens  is  my  sole  Mar- 
gueryf 

"Behold!"  cries  the  faithful  Ruggero 
from  the  road,  and  enters  the  garden  at 
a  dog-trot  with  the  second  course.  Dino 
and  the  cavalry  of  Cremona  adjourn  to 
the  fountain. 

By  Lieutenant  Avanzi:  "Does  the 
most  gentle  signorina  permit  one  to  sit 
at  her  feet?" 

By  Lieutenant  Pollio:  "As  Dante 
knelt  before  Beatrice — " 

"Dante!  You  are  the  reincarnation 
of  Dante,  perhaps?" 

"To-night  I  am  all  the  great  lovers  of 
the  past  rolled  into  one,  for  I  gaze  on  all 
the  beauties  of  other  days  combined  in  a 
single  form.  I  seem  to  see  the  brow  of 
Helo'ise,  the  cheek  of  Lucrezia,  the  smile 
of  La  Gioconda,  the  blush  of  Elena  of 
Troy-" 

"Red  wine  or  white?" 

"The  throat  of  Poppaea  Sabina — " 

"Have  some  more  sole." 

"The  form  of  Venus  Anadyomene — " 

^Salt?  Pepper?" 

"A  pinch  of  arsenic?" 

"A  loaded  pistol?" 

"A  rope?" 

"Gentlemen!  Do  you  intend  to  in- 
sult me  ?" 

Lieutenant  Pollio  rises  to  his  full 
height,  steps  back  indignantly,  catches 
his  heels  on  the  basin-rim,  and  amidst 
a  geyser  of  water  and  goldfish  disap- 
pears into  the  fountain.  One  should  al- 
ways ignore  the  small  mishaps  liable  to 
occur  at  these  functions.  We  continue 
our  supper. 

"A  charming  garden." 

"Who  owns  it?" 

"How  should  I  know?" 

"Let's  see.    We  are  here  because — " 

"Of  course!  We  are  here  for  that 
duel!    But  where  are  the  principals?" 

"Girolamo,  have  you  seen  a  tall 
signore  with  red  hair,  and  a  short 
signore  without  a  collar  or  tie?" 

Girolamo,  the  concierge,  put  down  his 
plate  and  waggled  his  nightcap  tassel 
indifferently.  "Blood  pudding!  What 
should  I  see,  since  somebody  has  taken 
my  lantern  ?    Ah,  but  I  know  who  it 


392 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


was,  all  the  same!  It  was  one  of  those 
ghosts." 

' 'Those  ghosts ?" 

"  Certainly.  Ruggero  neglected  to  tell 
you  that  this  garden  is  haunted  ?"  And, 
crossing  his  bare  legs,  Girolamo  related: 
"It  was  long  ago,  when  the  Austrians 
— may  they  all  die  in  a  prison — pos- 
sessed this  city.  In  fact,  a  young 
Austrian  lady  was  the  cause  of  the  duel, 
a  pretty  person,  they  say,  if  one  is  sym- 
pathetic to  yellow  locks.  For  my  part, 
I  prefer  them  black-haired,  pale  of  skin, 
with  a  sort  of  eel-like  saunter,  and  eyes 
with  a  morbidezza  about  them  that  give 
you  more  in  one  glance  than  those  for- 
eign women  could  tell  in  a  day.  May 
God  go  on  making  the  girls  of  Florence, 
say  I !  Anyhow,  it  was  here,  in  this  gar- 
den, that  the  duel  was  fought,  and  as 
each  at  the  same  time  spitted  the  other 
one,  they  expired  together,  mixed  up  on 
the  ground  like  a  puzzle.  But  they  had 
neglected  to  bring  a  priest  along — for  in 
fact  no  priest  would  attend  such  a 
party — so  naturally  they  have  to  return 
every  night  seeking  absolution.  A  mo- 
ment ago  they  both  came  floating  to  me 
over  the  flowers,  now  sinking  into  the 
earth,  now  rising  into  the  air.  But, 
pshaw!  I  am  used  to  them!  'A  loan  of 
your  lantern?'  'Take  it,'  I  said,  'and 
welcome.'" 

"And  where  are  they  now?" 

"Should  I  know?  You  might  look  in 
the  fountain." 

"The  fountain!"  cried  the  Obese  Un- 
known, slapping  a  hand  to  his  forehead. 
"Lieutenant  Pollio,  of  the  cavalry  of 
Cremona!" 

And  indeed  none  could  recollect  hav- 
ing^-seen  that  young  man  since  he  disap- 
peared in  the  fountain. 

All  of  us  approached  the  fountain- 
basin  on  tiptoe.  Lieutenant  Avanzi, 
dissolved  in  tears,  unsheathed  his  sword 
and  prodded  about  in  the  water.  Lieu- 
tenant Pollio  was  gone. 

"And  so  is  my  guitar,"  exclaimed  the 
Obese  Unknown. 

"And  so  is  Dino!" 

But  there  came  from  beyond  the  gar- 
den wall  the  faint  thrum  of  that  instru- 
ment, and  Dino's  voice  raised  in  song. 
We  ran  across  to  the  gate.  Far  down 
the  lane  the  light  of  a  wayside  shrine 
illumined  the  form  of  Don  Dino  d'ldria, 


who,  gazing  up  at  the  windows  of  an- 
other villa,  was  plaintively  singing: 

"Oh,  my  Acacia-flower! 

Believing  in  love  is  madness, 
And  trusting  in  girls  is  sadness, 
Oh,  my  Acacia-flower! 

Oh,  beauty  of  melancholy! 
Oh,  my  Acacia-flower! 

But  first  let  us  have  some  gladness, 
For  loving  is  such  sweet  folly, 
Oh,  my  Acacia-flower! 

Let  Love,  let  Love  play  the  gamin! 
Life  without  love  is  famine! 
Life  without  love  is  famine!" 

"Don  Dino!  Don  Dino!  That  villa 
is  empty,  too!" 

He  renounced  us  with  a  gesture  of 
scorn.   We  returned  to  the  garden. 

Arianna,  Lieutenant  Avanzi,  and  I 
strolled  up  and  down  the  paths.  Lieu- 
tenant Avanzi  whispered  in  Arianna's 
ear:  "How  often  I  sat  there,  hoping  for 
one  glance  of  your  eyes  across  the  foot- 
lights! Again  and  again  I  thought, 
This  time  she  will  look!  This  time  she 
will  comprehend  my  pathetic  adora- 
tion!" 

What  a  simpleton  a  man  can  make  of 
himself  with  a  pretty  woman! 

We  had  reached  a  little  pagoda  set  in 
a  bower  of  bloom,  a  wind  owl  ess  stone 
pagoda  intended,  no  doubt,  for  the  gar- 
dener's tools.  I  pushed  open  the  door. 
The  dying  light  of  Girolamo's  lantern 
revealed  Monsieur  Demoustier  and  Per- 
cival  Lassofram  dealing  out  a  tattered 
pack  of  cards  on  an  upturned  wheel- 
barrow. I  came  out  just  in  time  to  see 
Lieutenant  Avanzi  drop  Arianna's  hand. 

"No  duel,"  I  announced,  perhaps  with 
more  bitterness  than  the  news  de- 
manded. 

"How  so,  no  duel?"  asked  Lieutenant 
Avanzi,  effusively. 
"Go  in  and  look." 

The  lieutenant  entered  the  little  pa- 
goda. I  shut  the  door  on  his  heels.  I 
turned  the  key  in  the  lock.  I  removed 
the  key  and  threw  it  over  the  garden 
wall.  Arianna  and  I  resumed  our  prom- 
enade. 

The  faithful  Ruggero  had  stacked  his 
tableware  and  departed.  Remained  the 
Obese  Unknown  and  the  concierge,  who 
sat  face  to  face  astride  the  marble  bench, 
playing  mora  for  coppers.  But  still  the 
roses  dispelled  their  sweetness;  the  fire- 


ONE  OF  THOSE  NICE  LITTLE  EVENINGS 


393 


flies  glittered  among  the  petals;  the 
fountain  purled  on;  the  breeze  rustled 
invisible  coverts.  And  suddenly  a  night- 
ingale burst  into  song. 

"They  have  followed  us  here!  One 
might  see  them  to-night,  after  all !" 

A  dull  rumble  from  the  direction  of 
the  pagoda. 

"Thunder?"  cries  Arianna. 

"Look  at  the  stars." 

"It  isn't  good  to  look  too  much  at  the 
stars." 

From  a  distant  tower  the  clang  of 
bell — once,  twice. 

"Madonna  mia  !  Two  o'clock  in  the 
morning." 

"See,  at  the  end  of  the  path,  that 
little  cupid  aiming  his  bow!"  But 
Arianna  has  disappeared. 

The  wall  of  roses  sways,  scattering 
dewdrops.  The  thickets  rustle  together 
on  a  vague  sheen  of  pallor  and  gold. 
Twigs  whip  the  face;  thorns  touch  the 
hands;  a  new  vista  appears;  an  indis- 
tinct form  goes  fluttering;  a  tinkle  of 
laughter  rises,  falls,  melts  into  the  foun- 
tain's ripple. 

"Arianna!" 

Somewhere  a  nymph  sings  mockingly 
in  the  foliage: 

"Night  divine,  oh,  night  of  love — " 

A  rush  over  flower-beds,  an  answer- 
ing patter  of  feet.  Here  a  pale  shape 
stands  motionless.  Confusion!  It  is  a 
statue! 

"Arianna!  Arianna!" 

The  Obese  Unknown  had  taken  up 
the  cry.  From  the  other  side  of  the  gar- 
den she  answered  him.  Yes,  from  dia- 
metrically opposite  thickets  we  entered 
the  open  space  round  the  fountain. 

There  the  Obese  Unknown  was  count- 
ing coppers  into  Girolamo's  palm.  To 
me  he  complained:  "Why  the  deuce  do 
I  gamble  so  madly?    I  always  lose." 

"Unlucky  at  games — " 

"Sure  enough.  I  have  my  recom- 
pense, eh?"  And  to  Arianna,  while 
reaching  out  his  bejeweled,  sausage-like 
fingers  to  pinch  her  cheek,  "Eh,  Core 
of  my  Heart?" 

She  looked  demure,  then  said  in  the 
jolliest  tone  to  me,  "Do  you  know,  I 
believe  I've  forgotten  all  evening  to  in- 
troduce my  husband!" 

The  Obese  Unknown  gravely  pointed 


his  toes,  flourished  his  hat,  and  made  a 
gymnastic  bow. 

"Signore,"  he  rumbled,  grandly,  "it 
is  a  satisfaction  to  effect  your  valuable 
acquaintance." 

They  walked  to  the  gate. 

Arianna,  over  her  shoulder,  smiled 
wistfully,  as  who  should  say,  "Forgive, 
but  never  forget!" 

Arianna' s  husband  called: 

"Good  night!  To  another  of  these 
nice  little  evenings!" 

"Good  night,"  echoed  Arianna,  sadly, 
twinklingly,  perfidiously.  "To  another 
of  these  nice  little  evenings!" 

Presently  through  the  still  air  came 
back  his  flexible  falsetto: 

"They  call  me  now  La  Bella  Pastorella, 
leru-le, 

And  innocence  in  love  is  my  best  part, 
leru-le, 

When  all  would  have  a  corner  of  my 

heart,  leru-le, 
And  say,  'I  love  you  so,  O  Nina  Bella, 

leru-le.  ..." 

And  soon,  more  faintly: 

"So  all  the  ladies  do! 
So  all  the  ladies  do.  ..." 

And  so  forth.  I  returned  to  Girolamo, 
the  concierge. 

Girolamo  was  lighting  his  pipe,  when, 
from  the  little  pagoda  that  rumbling 
sounded  again.  He  poised  his  match, 
nodded,  shrugged  philosophically. 

"The  ghosts  are  amusing  themselves." 

Sundry  muffled  crashes  followed. 

"Ah,  for  a  fact,  they're  raising  the 
dickens  to-night !  No  doubt  they'll  keep 
it  up  till  daybreak.  Well,  let  them,  poor 
souls.  Give  them  their  pleasure.  A 
ghost's  life  must  be  a  dull  one  at  best. 
Is  the  Chianti  all  gone?"  He  shook  the 
flask,  hurled  it  into  the  fountain,  and  sat 
dejected.  But  after  a  while  he  resumed: 
"  Whereisthatfat  apparition  with  the  fin- 
ger-rings and  scarlet  waistcoat  ?  And  all 
the  other  masqueraders  ?  And  she  of  the 
yellow  hair?  Not  bad,  not  bad  for  a 
blonde!  Perhaps  she  was  the  ghost  of 
the  Austrian  girl  ?  Are  you  a  ghost,  too  ? 
What  crime  did  you  commit  in  life,  that 
you  sit  so  silent  and  wan,  with  your  lip 
hanging  down  like  the  lip  of  a  mother- 
less calf?  Tell  me  your  tragic  history." 
He  yawned  and  stretched  his  arms. 
"I  am  strangely  sleepy,  although  I  well 


394 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


know  I'm  dreaming  in  there  in  my 
bed.  For  of  course  the  world  was  never 
like  this.  The  world  doesn't  rain  wine- 
flasks  and  banquets.  The  world  doesn't 
offer  musical  wraiths,  goblins  that  dis- 
appear into  fountains,  sprites  that  sere- 
nade empty  houses.  That's  how  we'd 
like  the  world  to  be  sometimes,  but  not 
how  it  is.  That  is  romance,  not  life. 
So  I  know  I'm  dreaming.  However,  so 
long  as  I'm  dreaming,  why  not,  in 
Heaven's  name,  go  to  sleep?  Heigh-ho! 
Hum!   Good  repose,  poor  spirit!" 

He  pulled  his  nightcap  over  his  ears, 
lay  down  on  the  marble  bench,  tucked 


his  nightgown  round  his  legs,  and  began 
to  snore. 

A  sound  of  wheels  at  the  gate. 

"Signore!  A  large  prince  and  a  pretty 
princess  have  sent  you  this  horse  and 
cab  as  a  token  of  their  esteem." 

We  rattled  cityward.  The  garden 
walls  overhung  with  ilex-trees  gave  way 
to  commonplace  streets.  The  scent  of 
the  roses  passed.  The  stars  grew  dim. 
At  a  familiar,  prosaic  door: 

"Good  night,  signore!" 

"Good  night,  Romance!" 

And  Romance,  snapping  his  whip, 
drove  clattering  away. 


"  Oh,  Tell  Me  How  My  Garden  Grows 

BY  MILDRED  HOW  ELLS 

OH,  tell  me  how  my  garden  grows, 
Now  I,  no  more,  may  labor  there; 
Do  still  the  lily  and  the  rose 

Bloom  on  without  my  fostering  care? 

Do  peonies  blush  as  deep  with  pride, 
The  larkspurs  burn  as  bright  a  blue, 

And  velvet  pansies  stare  as  wide 
In  wonder,  as  they  used  to  do? 

The  tender  things  that  would  not  blow 
Unless  I  coaxed  them,  do  they  raise 

Their  petals  in  a  sturdy  row, 

Forgetful,  to  the  stranger's  gaze? 

Or  do  they  show  a  paler  shade, 
.  And  sigh  a  little  in  the  wind 
For  one  whose  sheltering  presence  made 
Their  stepdame  Nature  less  unkind? 

Oh,  tell  me  how  my  garden  grows 
Where  I  no  more  may  take  delight, 

And  if  some  dream  of  me  it  knows, 
Who  dream  of  it  by  day  and  night. 


The  Side  of  the  Angels 


A  NOVEL 


BY  BASIL  KING 
" My  lord,  I  am  on  the  side  of  the  angels" — Disraeli. 


CHAPTER  I 

HE  difficulty  was,  in  the 
first  place,  one  of  date — 
not  the  date  of  a  month 
or  a  year,  but  of  a  gen- 
eration or  a  century. 
Had  Thorley  Master- 
man  found  himself  in 
love  with  Rosie  Fay  in  1760,  or  even  in 
i860,  there  would  have  been  little  to 
adjust  and  nothing  to  gainsay.  In  i860 
the  Fays  were  still  as  good  as  the  Thor- 
leys,  and  almost  as  good  as  the  Master- 
mans.  Going  back  as  far  as  1760,  the 
Fays  might  have  been  considered  better 
than  the  Thorleys  had  the  village  ac- 
knowledged standards  of  comparison, 
while  there  were  no  Mastermans  at 
all.  That  is,  in  1760,  the  Master- 
mans  still  kept  their  status  as  yeomen, 
clergymen,  and  country  doctors  among 
the  hills  of  Derbyshire,  untroubled  as 
yet  by  that  spirit  of  unrest  for  con- 
science sake  which  had  urged  the  Fays 
and  the  Thorleys  out  of  the  flat  farm- 
lands of  East  Anglia  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  before. 

During  the  intervening  period  the  flat 
farmlands  remained  only  as  an  equaliz- 
ing symbol.  Thorleys,  Fays,  Willough- 
bys,  and  Brands  worked  for  one  another 
with  the  community  of  interests  devel- 
oped in  a  beehive,  and  intermarried.  If 
from  the  process  of  intermarriage  the 
Fays  were,  on  the  whole,  excluded,  the 
discrimination  lay  in  some  obscure  in- 
stinct for  affinity  of  which  no  one  at 
the  time  was  able  to  forecast  the  signifi- 
cance. 

But  by  1910  there  was  a  difference, 
the  difference  apparent  when  out  of  the 
flat  farmlands  seismic  explosion  has 
thrown  up  a  range  of  mountain  peaks. 
For  the  expansion  of  the  country  which 


the  middle  nineteenth  century  had 
wrought, theThorleys,  Mastermans,  Wil- 
loughbys,  and  Brands  had  been  on  the 
alert,  with  eyes  watchful  and  calcula- 
tions timed.  The  Fays,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  gone  on  with  the  round  of 
seed-time  and  harvest,  contented  and 
almost  somnolent,  awakening  to  find 
that  the  ages  had  been  giving  them  the 
chances  that  would  never  come  again. 
It  was  across  the  wreck  of  those  chances, 
and  across  some  other  obstacles  besides, 
that  Thorley  Masterman,  for  the  first 
time  since  childhood,  looked  into  the 
gray-green  eyes  of  Rosie  Fay  and  got 
the  thrill  of  their  wide-open,  earnest 
beauty. 

He  was  then  not  far  from  thirty  years 
of  age,  having  studied  at  a  great  Amer- 
ican university,  in  Paris,  Berlin,  and 
Vienna,  and  obtained  other  sorts  of 
knowledge  of  mankind.  He  knew  Rosie 
Fay,  in  this  secondary,  grown-up  phase 
of  their  acquaintance,  as  the  daughter  of 
his  first  patient,  and  he  had  obtained 
his  first  patient  through  the  kindly  inter- 
vention of  Uncle  Sim.  From  February 
to  November,  1910,  his  "shingle"  had 
hung  in  one  of  the  two  streets  of  the 
village  without  attracting  a  patient  at 
all.  He  had  already  begun  to  feel 
his  position  a  trial  when  his  half- 
brother's  daily  jest  turned  it  into  a 
humiliation. 

"Must  be  serious  matter,  Thor," 
Claude  would  say,  "to  be  responsible  for 
so  many  valuable  lives." 

Mr.  Leonard  Willoughby,  his  father's 
partner  in  the  old  "banking-and-brok- 
ing"  house  of  Toogood  &  Masterman, 
enjoyed  the  same  sort  of  chafF.  "Look- 
ing pale,  Thor.  Must  be  working  too 
hard." 

"Never  mind,  Thor,"  Mrs.  Willough- 
by would  encourage  him.    "When  I'm 


396 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


ill  you  shall  get  me — but  then  I'm  never 
ill." 

At  such  minutes  her  daughter  Lois 
could  only  smile  sympathetically  and 
talk  hurriedly  of  something  else.  As  he 
had  meant  since  boyhood  to  marry  Lois 
Willoughby  when  the  moment  for  mar- 
riage came,  Thor  counted  this  tactful- 
ness  in  her  favor. 

Nevertheless,  he  was  puzzled.  Having 
disregarded  his  future  possession  of 
money  and  prepared  himself  for  a  useful 
career  with  all  the  thoroughness  he  could 
command,  nobody  seemed  to  want  him. 
It  was  not  that  the  village  was  over- 
provided  with  doctors.  Every  one  ad- 
mitted that  it  wasn't — otherwise  he 
would  not  have  settled  in  his  native 
place.  The  village  being  really  a  town- 
ship with  a  scattered  population — except 
on  the  Thorley  estate,  which  was  prac- 
tically part  of  a  great  New  England  city, 
where  there  were  rows  of  suburban 
streets — it  was  quite  insufficiently  served 
by  Dr.  Noonan  at  one  end  and  Dr.  Hill 
at  the  other,  for  Uncle  Sim  in  the  Old 
Village  could  scarcely  be  said  to  count. 
No;  the  opening  was  good  enough.  The 
trouble  lay,  apparently,  in  Thorley  Mas- 
terman  himself.  Making  all  allowances 
for  the  fact  that  a  young  physician  must 
wait  patiently,  and  win  his  position  by 
degrees,  he  had  reason  to  feel  chagrined. 
He  grew  ashamed  to  pass  the  little  house 
in  the  Old  Village  which  he  had  fitted 
up  as  an  office.  He  grew  ashamed  to  go 
out  in  his  runabout. 

The  runabout  had  been  worse  than  an 
extravagance,  since,  on  the  ground  that 
it  would  take  him  to  his  patients  the 
more  quickly,  he  had  felt  justified  in 
borrowing  its  price.  The  most  useful 
purpose  it  served  now  was  to  bring  Mr. 
Willoughby  home  from  town  when 
unfit  to  come  by  himself.  Otherwise 
its  owner  hated  taking  it  out  of  the 
garage,  especially  if  Claude  were  in  sight. 
Claude  had  envied  him  the  runabout 
at  first,  but  soon  found  a  way  to  work 
his  feeling  off. 

"Anybody  dying,  old  chap  ?"  he  would 
ask,  with  a  curl  of  his  handsome  lip. 
"Hope  you'll  get  to  him  in  time." 

It  was  while  in  the  runabout,  how- 
ever, in  the  early  part  of  a  November 
afternoon,  that  the  young  doctor  met 
his  uncle  Sim. 


.  "Hello,  Thor!"  the  latter  called. 
"Where  you  ofF  to?  Was  looking  for 
you." 

Thor  brought  the  machine  to  a  stand- 
still. Uncle  Sim  threw  a  long,  thin  leg 
over  his  mare's  back  and  was  on  the 
ground.  "Whoa,  Delia,  whoa!  Good  old 
girl!" 

He  liked  to  believe  that  the  tall  bay 
was  spirited.  Standing  beside  Thor's 
runabout,  he  held  the  reins  loosely  in 
his  left  hand,  while  the  right  arm  was 
thrown  caressingly  over  Delia's  neck. 
The  outward  and  visible  sign  of  his 
eccentricity  was  in  his  difference  from 
every  one  else.  In  a  community — one 
might  say  a  country — in  which  each  man 
did  his  utmost  to  look  like  every  other 
man,  the  fact  that  Simeon  Masterman 
was  willing  to  look  like  no  one  but  him- 
self was  sufficient  to  prove  him,  in  the 
language  of  his  neighbors,  "a  little  off." 
It  was  sometimes  said  that  he  suggested 
Don  Quixote — he  was  so  tall,  so  gaunt, 
and  so  eager-eyed  —  and,  except  that 
there  was  no  melancholy  in  his  face,  per- 
haps he  did. 

"Got  a  job  for  you."  The  old  man's 
voice  was  nasal  and  harsh  without  be- 
ing disagreeable. 

Grown  sensitive,  Thor  was  on  his . 
guard.   "Not  one  of  your  jobs  that  are 
given  away  with  a  pound  of  tea?"  he 
said,  suspiciously. 

"I  don't  know  about  the  pound  of 
tea — but  it's  given  away.  Giving  it 
away  because  I  can't  deal  with  it  my- 
self. Calls  for  some  one  with  more  in- 
genuity— so  I've  told  'em  about  you." 

Thor  laughed.  "Don't  wonder  you're 
willing  to  give  it  up,  Uncle  Sim." 

"You'll  wonder  still  less  when  you've 
seen  the  patient.  By  the  way,  it's  Fay's 
wife.    'Member  old  Fay,  don't  you?" 

The  young  man  nodded.  "Used  to  be 
Grandpa  Thorley's  gardener.  Has  the 
greenhouses  on  father's  land  north  of 
the  pond.  Some  sort  of  row  going  on 
between  him  and  father  now.  What's 
she  got?" 

"It's  not  what  she's  got,  poor  woman; 
it's  what  she  hasn't  got.  That's  what's 
the  matter  with  her." 

"I'm  afraid  it's  a  variety  of  symptom 
I  never  heard  of." 

"No;  but  you'll  hear  of  it  soon. 
Whoa,  Delia!    Steady!    Good  girl!  If 


THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS 


397 


you  can  treat  it  you'll  be  the  most  dis- 
tinguished specialist  in  the  country. 
Whoa,  Delia !  I'm  giving  you  the  chance 
to  begin." 

Thor  wondered  what  was  at  the  back 
of  the  old  fellow's  mind.  There  was 
generally  something  in  what  he  said  if 
you  could  think  it  out.  "Since  you've 
diagnosed  the  case,  Uncle  Sim — "  he  be- 
gan, craftily. 

"Can't  I  give  you  a  tip  for  the  treat- 
ment? No,  I  can't.  And  it  wouldn't 
do  any  good  if  I  did,  because  she  won't 
take  my  medicine." 

"Perhaps  I  could  make  her." 

The  old  man  laughed  harshly.  "You! 
That's  good.  Why,  you'd  be  the  first 
to  make  game  of  it  yourself." 

He  had  his  left  foot  in  the  stirrup  and 
his  right  leg  over  Delia's  back  before 
Thor  could  formulate  another  question. 
As  with  head  thrown  back  he  contin- 
ued his  amused  chuckling,  there  was 
about  him,  in  spite  of  his  sixty  years,  a 
something  irresponsible  and  debonair 
that  would  have  pleased  Franz  Hals  or 
Martin  de  Vos. 

Within  ten  minutes  Thor  was  knock- 
ing at  the  door  of  a  small  house  with  a 
mansard  roof,  situated  in  what  had  once 
been  the  apple-orchard  of  a  farm.  All 
but  a  sparse  half-dozen  of  the  trees 
had  given  place  to  lines  of  hothouses, 
through  the  glass  of  which  he  could  see 
oblongs  of  vivid  green.  He  was  so  pre- 
occupied with  the  fact  of  paying  his  first 
visit  to  his  first  patient  as  scarcely  to 
notice  that  the  girl  who  opened  the  door 
was  pretty.    He  almost  ignored  her. 

"How  do  you  do,  Miss  Fay?  I'm  Dr. 
Thorley  Masterman.  I  believe  your 
mother  would  like  to  see  me.  May  I  go 
to  her  at  once?" 

He  was  in  the  narrow  hallway  and  at 
the  foot  of  the  stairs  when  she  said: 
"You  can  go  right  up.  But  perhaps  I 
ought  to  tell  you  that  she's  not — well, 
she's  not  very  sick." 

He  looked  at  her  inquiringly,  getting 
the  first  faint  impression  of  her  beauty. 
"What's  the  matter,  then?" 

"That's  what  we  don't  know."  After 
a  second's  hesitation  she  added,  "Per- 
haps it's  melancholy."  Another  second 
passed  before  she  said,  "We've  had  a 
good  deal  of  trouble." 


The  tone  touched  him.  Her  way  of 
holding  her  head,  rather  meekly,  rather 
proudly,  sufficiently  averted  to  give  him 
the  curve  of  the  cheek,  touched  him, 
too.    "What  kind  of  trouble?" 

"Oh,  every  kind.  But  she'll  tell  you 
about  it  herself.  It's  all  she'll  talk 
about.  That's  why  we  can't  do  any- 
thing for  her — and  I  don't  believe  you 
can." 

"I'd  better  see." 

Following  her  directions  given  from 
the  foot  of  the  stairs,  he  entered  a  barely 
furnished  bedroom  of  which  two  sides 
leaned  inward,  to  correspond  to  the 
mansard  grading  of  the  roof.  One  win- 
dow looked  out  on  the  greenhouses,  an- 
other toward  Thorley's  Pond.  Beside 
the  former,  in  a  high,  upholstered  arm- 
chair, sat  a  tall  woman,  fully  dressed  in 
black,  with  a  patchwork  quilt  of  many 
colors  across  her  knees.  In  spite  of  gray 
hair  slightly  disheveled,  and  wild  gray 
eyes,  she  was  a  handsome  woman  who 
on  a  larger  scale  made  him  think  of  the 
girl  down-stairs. 

"How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Fay?"  he  be- 
gan, feeling  the  burden  of  the  situation 
to  be  on  himself.    "I'm  Dr.  Thor — " 

"I  know  who  you  are,"  the  woman 
said,  ungraciously.  "If  you  hadn't  been 
a  Masterman  I  shouldn't  have  sent  for 
you. 

He  took  a  small  chair,  drawing  it  up 
beside  her.  "I  know  you've  been 
treated  by  my  uncle  Sim — " 

"He's  a  fool.  Tries  to  heal  a  broken 
heart  by  feeding  it  on  rainbows." 

Thor  smiled.  "That's  like  him.  And 
yet  rainbows  have  been  known  to  heal 
a  broken  heart  before  now." 

"They  won't  heal  mine.  What  I 
want  is  down  on  the  solid  earth."  There 
was  a  kind  of  desperate  pleading  in  her 
face  as  she  added,  "Why  can't  I  have 
it?" 

"That  depends  on  what  it  is.  If  it's 
health—?" 

"It's  better  than  health." 

He  smiled.  "I've  always  heard  that 
health  is  pretty  good,  as  things  go — " 

"It's  good  enough.  But  there's  some- 
thing better,  and  that's  patience.  If 
you've  got  patience  you  can  do  without 
health." 

"I  don't  think  you're  much  in  need  of 
a  doctor,  Mrs.  Fay,"  he  laughed. 


398 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"I  am,"  she  declared,  savagely.  "I 
am,  because  I  'ain't  got  either  of  'em; 
and  if  I  had  Fd  give  them  both  for 
something  else/'  She  held  him  with  her 
wild  gray  eyes,  as  she  said:  "Fd  give 
'em  both  for  money.  Money's  better 
than  patience  and  better  than  health. 
If  I  had  money  I  shouldn't  care  how  sick 
I  was,  or  how  unhappy.  If  I  had  money 
my  son  wouldn't  be  in  jail." 

Though  startled,  he  knew  that,  like 
a  confessor,  he  must  show  no  sign  of 
surprise.  He  remembered  now  that 
there  had  been  a  boy  in  the  Fay  family, 
two  or  three  years  younger  than  him- 
self. "I  didn't  know — "  he  began,  sym- 
pathetically. 

"You  didn't  know,  because  we're  not 
even  talked  about.  If  your  brother  was 
in  jail  for  stealing  money  it's  the  first 
thing  the  town  would  tattle  of.  But 
you've  been  back  from  your  travels  for 
a  year  or  more,  and  you  'ain't  even  heard 
that  our  Matt  is  doing  three  years  at 
Colcord." 

"But  you'd  rather  people  didn't  hear 
it,  wouldn't  you?" 

"I'd  rather  that  they'd  care  whether 
I'm  alive  or  dead,"  she  said,  fiercely. 
"I've  lived  all  my  life  in  this  village,  and 
my  ancestors  before  me.  Fay's  family 
has  done  the  same.  But  we're  pushed 
aside  and  forgotten.  It's  as  much 
as  ever  if  some  one  will  tell  you  that 
Jasper  Fay  raises  lettuce  in  the  winter, 
and  cucumbers  in  spring,  and  a  few 
flowers  all  the  year  round,  and  can't  pay 
his  rent.  I  don't  believe  you've  heard 
that  much.   Have  you?" 

He  dodged  the  subject  by  asking  the 
usual  professional  questions  and  giving 
some  elementary  professional  advice. 
"I'm  afraid,  Mrs.  Fay,  you're  taking  a 
discouraged  view  of  life,"  he  went  on,  by 
way  of  doing  his  duty.  • 

She  sat  still  more  erect  in  her  arm- 
chair, her  eyes  flashing.  "If  you'd  seen 
yourself  driven  to  the  wall  for  more'n 
thirty  year,  and  if  when  you  got  to  the 
wall  you  were  crushed  against  it,  and 
crushed  again,  wouldn't  you  take  a  dis- 
couraged view  of  life?  I've  lived  on 
bread  and  water,  or  pietty  near  it,  ever 
since  I  was  married,  and  what's  come 
of  it?  We're  worse  off  than  we  ever 
were.  Fay's  put  everything  he  could 
scrape  together  into  this  bit  of  land; 


and  now  your  father  is  shilly-shallying 
again  about  renewing  the  lease." 
"Oh,  so  that's  it!" 

"That's  it — but  it's  only  some  of  it. 
Look  out  there.  All  Fay's  sweat  and 
blood  and  all  of  mine  is  in  those  green- 
houses and  that  ground.  It's  everything 
we've  got  to  live  on,  and  God  knows 
what  kind  of  a  living  it  is.  Your  father 
has  never  given  us  more'n  a  three- 
years'  lease,  and  every  three  years  he's 
raised  the  rent  on  us.  He's  had  us  in 
his  power  from  the  first —  Oh,  he's 
crafty,  getting  us  to  rent  the  land  from 
him  instead  of  buying  it,  and  Fay  that 
soft  that  he  believed  him  to  be  his 
friend! — he's  had  us  in  his  power  from 
the  first,  and  he's  never  spared  us.  No 
wonder  he's  rich!  And  you're  coming 
in  for  that  Thorley  money,  too.  I  know 
what  your  grandfather  Thorley's  will 
was.  Going  to  get  it  when  you're 
thirty.  Must  be  pretty  nigh  that  now, 
am  t  you  r 

To  humor  her  Thor  named  the  date 
in  the  following  February  when  he 
should  reach  the  age  fixed  by  his  grand- 
father for  entering  on  the  inheritance. 

"What'd  I  tell  you?  I  remember 
your  grandfather  as  plain  as  plain.  Big, 
hard-faced  man  he  was,  something  like 
you.  My  folks  could  remember  him 
when  he  hawked  garden-truck  to  back 
doors  in  the  city.  Nothing  but  a  far- 
mer's son  he  was,  just  like  the  rest  of  us 
— and  he  died  rich.  Only  diff  erence  be- 
tween the  Thorleys  and  the  Fays  was 
that  the  Thorleys  held  on  to  their  land 
and  the  Fays  didn't.  Neither  did  my 
folks,  the  Grimeses.  If  we'd  been  crafty 
and  hadn't  sold  till  the  city  was  creep- 
ing down  our  chimneys  like  the  Thor- 
leys and  the  Brands,  we  should  be  as 
rich  as  them.  Cut  your  father  out  of 
his  will  good  and  hard,  your  grandfather 
did,  and  now  it  '11  all  come  to  you.  Why, 
there  was  a  time  when  the  Thorleys 
hired  out  to  my  folks,  and  so  did  the 
Willoughbys!  And  now — !"  She  threw 
the  quilt  from  ofF  her  knees  and  spread 
her  hands  outward.  "Oh,  I'm  sick  of 
it!  I've  spent  my  life  watching  every 
one  else  go  up  and  me  and  mine  go  down 
■ — and  I'm  sick  of  it.  I'm  not  sick  any 
other  way — " 

"No,  I  don't  think  you  are,"  he  said, 
gently. 


THE  SIDE  OF 

"But  that's  bad  enough,  isn't  it?  If 
I  had  a  fever  or  a  cold  you  could  give 
me  something  to  take  it  away.  But 
what  can  you  do  for  the  state  of  mind 
I'm  in?" 

He  answered,  slowly,  "I  can't  do 
much  just  yet — though  I  can  do  a  little 
— but  by  and  by,  perhaps — when  I 
know  more  exactly  what  the  trouble 
is — 

"You  can't  know  it  better  than  I  can 
tell  you  now.  It's  just  this — that  I've 
all  I  can  do  to  keep  from  stealing  down 
to  Thorley's  Pond,  when  no  one's  look- 
ing, and  throwing  myself  in.  What  do 
you  think  of  that?" 

"I  think  you  won't  do  it,"  he  smiled, 
"but  I  wouldn't  play  with  the  idea  if  I 
were  you." 

"Look  here,"  she  cried,  seizing  him 
by  the  arm  and  pulling  him  out  of  his 
chair.  "Look  out  of  that  window." 
He  followed  the  pointing  of  her  finger 
to  a  high  bluff  covered  with  oaks,  to 
which  the  withered  brown  foliage  still 
clung,  though  other  trees  were  bare. 
"That's  Duck  Rock.  Well,  there's  a 
spot  there  where  the  water's  thirty  foot 
deep.    What  do  you  think  of  that?" 

He  moved  back  from  the  window,  but 
remained  standing.  "I  think  that  it 
doesn't  matter  to  you  and  me  whether 
it's  thirty  foot  deep  or  sixty  or  a  hun- 
dred." 

"It  matters  to  me.  In  thirty  foot  of 
water  I'd  go  down  like  a  stone;  and  then 
it 'd  be  all  over.  After  that  nothing  but 
— sleep."  Her  eyes  held  him  again. 
"  You  don't  believe  there'll  be  anything 
after  it  but  sleep,  do  you?" 

He  dodged  that  question,  too.  "But 
you  do." 

"I  was  brought  up  an  orthodox  Con- 
gregational— but  what's  the  good?  All 
I've  ever  got  out  of  it  was  rainbows; 
and  what  I've  wanted  is  solid.  I've 
wanted  to  do  something,  and  be  some- 
thing, and  have  something — and  not  be 
pushed  back  and  trampled  out  of  sight 
by  people  who  used  to  hire  out  to  my 
folks  and  can  treat  me  like  dirt  to-day, 
just  because  they've  got  the  money. 
Why  haven't  I  got  it,  too?  I'm  fit  for 
it.  I  had  good  schooling.  Louisa  Thor- 
ley — your  own  mother,  that  is — and  me 
went  to  school  together.  Your  father 
ran  away  with  her  and  she  died  when 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  783.— 50 


THE  ANGELS  399 

you  were  born.  We  went  to  school  to 
old  Miss  Brand — aunt  to  Bessie  Brand 
that's  now  Bessie  Willoughby  and  holds 
her  head  so  high.  Poor  as  church  mice 
they  was  in  those  days.  But  then  every 
one  was  poor.  We  was  all  poor  together 
— and  happy.  And  now  some  are  poor 
and  some  are  rich — and  there's  upper 
classes  and  lower  classes — and  every- 
thing's got  uneven — and  I'm  sick  of  it." 

To  calm  her  excitement  he  talked  to 
her  with  the  inspiration  of  young  ear- 
nestness, getting  his  reward  in  an  at- 
tention accorded  perhaps  for  the  very 
reason  that  the  earnestness  was  young. 
"I  think  I  must  run  off  now,"  he  fin- 
ished, when  he  thought  her  slightly  com- 
forted, "but  I'll  send  you  something  I 
want  you  to  take  at  once.  You'll  take  a 
tablespoonful  in  half  a  glass  of  water — " 

The  rebellious  spirit  revived,  though 
less  bitterly.  "And  it  '11  do  me  as  much 
good  as  a  dose  of  your  uncle's  rainbows. 
What  I  want  is  what  I  shall  never  get — 
or  sleep." 

"Well,  you'll  get  sleep,"  he  said,  smil- 
ing and  holding  out  his  hand.  "You'll 
sleep  to-night — and  I'll  come  again  to- 
morrow." 

He  was  at  the  door  when  she  called 
out:  "Do  you  know  what  our  Matt  got 
his  three  years  for?  It  was  for  stealing 
money  from  Massy's  grocery-store,  where 
he  was  bookkeeper.  And  do  you  know 
what  made  him  steal  it?  It  was  to  help 
us  pay  the  rent  the  last  time  your  father 
raised  it.  I'll  bet  he's  done  worse  than 
that  twenty  times^a  year;  but  he's 
driving  round  in  automobiles,  while  my 
poor  boy's  in  Colcord." 

CHAPTER  II 

ON  going  down-stairs,  Thor  looked 
about  him  for  Rosie  Fay.  She 
was  nowhere  to  be  seen,  and  the 
house  was  cheerless.  He  could  imagine 
that  to  an  ambitious  woman  circum- 
scribed by  its  dreary  neatness  Duck 
Rock  with  its  thirty  feet  of  water  might 
be  a  welcome  change. 

Continuing  his  search  when  he  went 
outside,  he  gazed  round  what  was  left  of 
the  old  orchard.  He  remembered  Fay — 
a  slim  fellow  with  a  gentle,  dreamy  face 
and  starry  eyes.  He  had  seen  him  occa- 
sionally during  the  past  eighteen  years, 


400 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


though  rarely.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Fay's  greenhouses  lay  on  that  part  of 
the  shore  of  Thorley's  Pond  most  out  of 
the  way  of  the  pedestrian.  Only  of  late 
had  new  roads  wormed  themselves  up 
the  steep  northern  bank  of  the  pond, 
bringing  from  the  city  well-to-do,  coun- 
try-loving souls  who  desired  space  and 
sunshine.  It  was  a  satisfaction  to  Thor's 
father,  Archie  Masterman,  that  only  the 
best  type  of  suburban  residence  was  go- 
ing up  among  these  sylvan  glades,  and 
that  the  property  was  justifying  his  fore- 
sight as  an  investor. 

The  young  man  could  understand  that 
it  should  be  so,  for  the  spot  was  pictu- 
resque. Sheltered  from  the  north  by  a 
range  of  wooded  hills,  it  was  like  a  great 
green  cup  held  out  to  the  sunshine. 
The  region  was  favorable,  therefore, 
to  the  raising  of  early  "garden-truck." 
Whenever  the  frost  was  out  of  the 
ground,  oblongs  of  green  things  grow- 
ing in  straight  lines  gave  a  special 
freshness  to  the  landscape,  while  from 
any  of  the  knolls  over  which  the  town- 
ship clambered  clusters  of  greenhouses 
glinted  like  distant  sheets  of  water.  One 
had  to  get  them  in  contrast  to  the  spark- 
ling blue  eye  of  Thorley's  Pond  to  per- 
ceive that  they  were  not  tiny  lakes. 
With  so  pleasing  a  view,  hemmed  in  by 
the  haze  of  the  city  toward  the  south, 
and  a  hint  of  the  Atlantic  south  of  that, 
there  was  every  reason  why  Fay's  plot 
of  land  should  appreciate  in  value. 

On  these  grounds  it  became  compre- 
hensible to  Thor  that  his  father  might 
raise  the  rent  and  still  not  be  an  instru- 
ment of  oppression.  It  was  consoling  to 
him  to  perceive  this.  It  helped  to  allay 
certain  uncomfortable  suspicions  that 
had  risen  in  his  mind  since  coming  home, 
and  which  were  not  easy  to  dispel. 

He  caught  sight  at  last  of  Rosie's 
dull -green  frock  in  the  one  hothouse 
in  which  there  were  flowers.  Through 
the  glass  roof  he  could  see  the  red  disks 
of  poinsettias  and  the  crimson  or  white 
of  azaleas  coming  into  bloom.  The  other 
two  houses  sheltered  long,  level  rec- 
tangles of  tender  green,  representing 
lettuce  in  different  stages  of  the  crop. 
A  bow-legged  Italian  was  closing  the 
skylights  that  had  been  opened  for  the 
milder  part  of  the  day;  another  Italian 
replaced  the  covers  on  hot-beds  that 


might  have  contained  violets.  From 
the  high  furnace  chimney  a  plume  of 
yellow-brown  smoke  floated  heavily  on 
the  windless  air.  The  place  looked  un- 
dermanned and  forlorn. 

On  opening  the  door  he  was  met  by 
the  sweet,  warm  odor  of  damp  earth  and 
green  things  growing  and  blossoming. 
Pausing  in  her  work,  the  girl  looked 
down  the  half-length  of  the  greenhouse 
as  a  hint  for  him  to  advance.  He  went 
toward  her  between  feathery  banks  of 
gray-green  carnations,  on  which  the 
long,  oval,  compact  buds  were  loosening 
their  sheaths  to  display  the  dawn-pink 
within.  Half  covered  up  by  a  coarse 
apron  or  pinafore,  she  stood  at  a  high 
table,  like  a  counter,  against  a  back- 
ground of  poinsettias. 

"We  don't  go  in  for  flowers,  really," 
she  explained  to  him,  after  he  had  given 
her  certain  directions  concerning  her 
mother.  "It  would  be  better  if  we 
didn't  try  to  raise  them  at  all." 

Thor,  whose  ear  was  sensitive,  noticed 
that  her  voice  was  pleasant  to  listen  to, 
and  her  speech  marked  by  a  simple,  un- 
affected refinement.  He  lingered  be- 
cause he  was  interested  in  her  work.  He 
found  a  kind  of  fascination  in  watching 
her  as  she  took  a  moist  red  flower-pot 
from  one  end  of  the  table,  threw  in  a 
handful  or  two  of  earth  from  the  heap 
at  the  other  end,  then  a  root  that  looked 
like  a  cluster  of  yellow,  crescent-shaped 
onions,  then  a  little  more  earth,  after 
which  she  turned  to  place  the  flower-pot 
as  one  of  the  row  on  the  floor  behind  her. 
There  was  something  rhythmic  in  her 
movements.  Each  detail  took  the  same 
amount  of  action  and  time.  She  might 
have  been  working  to  music.  Her  left 
hand  made  precisely  the  same  gesture 
with  each  flower-pot  she  took  from  the 
line  in  which  they  lay  telescoped  to- 
gether. Her  right  hand  described  the 
same  graceful  curve  with  every  impa- 
tient, petulant  handful  of  earth. 

"Why  do  you  raise  them,  then?" 
he  asked,  for  the  sake  of  saying  some- 
thing. 

She  answered,  wearily:  "Oh,  it's  fa- 
ther. He  can't  make  up  his  mind  what 
to  do.  Or,  rather,  he  makes  up  his  mind 
both  ways  at  once.  Because  some  people 
make  a  good  thing  out  of  raising  flowers 
he  thinks  he'll  do  that.    And  because 


Drawn  by  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green 

PAUSING    IN    HER    WORK,    AS    A    HINT    FOR    HIM    TO  ADVANCE 


THE  SIDE  OF 

others  do  a  big  business  in  garden-stuff, 
he  thinks  he'll  do  that." 

"And  so  he  falls  between  two  stools. 

see. 

"It's  no  use  being  a  market-gardener/' 
she  went  on,  disdainfully  tossing  the 
earth  into  another  pot,  "unless  you're  a 
big  market-gardener,  and  it's  no  use  be- 
ing a  florist  unless  you're  a  big  florist. 
Everything  has  to  be  big  nowadays  to 
make  it  pay.  And  the  trouble  with 
father  is  that  he  does  so  many  things 
small.  He  sees  big,"  she  analyzed,  con- 
tinuing her  work — "so  big  that  he  goes 
all  to  pieces  when  he  tries  to  carry  his 
ideas  out." 

"And  you  think  that  if  he  concen- 
trated his  forces  on  raising  garden- 
stuff—" 

She  explained  further:  People  had  to 
have  lettuce  and  radishes  and  carrots 
and  cucumbers  whatever  happened, 
whereas  flowers  were  a  luxury.  When- 
ever money  was  scarce  they  didn't  buy 
them.  If  it  were  not  for  weddings  and 
funerals  and  Christmas  and  Easter  they 
wouldn't  buy  them  at  all.  Then,  too, 
they  were  expensive  to  raise,  and  diffi- 
cult. You  couldn't  do  it  by  casting  a 
little  seed  into  the  ground.  Every 
azalea  was  imported  from  Belgium; 
every  lily-bulb  from  Japan.  True,  the 
carnations  were  grown  from  slips,  but  if 
he  only  knew  the  trouble  they  gave! 
Those  at  which  he  was  looking,  and 
which  had  the  innocent  air  of  springing 
and  blooming  of  their  own  accord,  had 
been  through  no  less  than  four  tedious 
processes  since  the  slips  were  taken  in 
the  preceding  February.  First  they 
had  been  planted  in  sand  for  the  root 
to  strike;  then  transferred  to  flats,  or 
shallow  wooden  boxes;  then  bedded  out 
in  the  garden;  and  lastly  brought  into 
the  house.  If  he  would  only  consider 
the  labor  involved  in  all  that,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  incessant  watching  and 
watering,  and  keeping  the  house  at  the 
proper  temperature  by  night  and  by  day 
— well,  he  could  see  for  himself. 

He  did  see  for  himself.  He  said  so 
absently,  because  he  was  noting  the  fact 
that  her  serious,  earnest  eyes  were  of  the 
peculiar  shade  which,  when  seen  in  eyes, 
is  called  green.  It  was  still  absently 
that  he  added,  "And  you  have  to  work 
pretty  hard." 


THE  ANGELS  401 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "Oh,  I 
don't  mind  that.    Anything  to  live." 

"What  are  you  doing  there?" 

There  was  an  exasperated  note  in  her 
voice  as  she  replied:  "Oh,  these  are  the 
Easter  lilies.  We  have  to  begin  on 
them  now." 

"And  do  you  do  them  all?" 

"I  do,  when  there's  no  one  else. 
Father's  men  keep  leaving."  She  flung 
him  a  look  he  would  have  thought  defi- 
ant if  he  hadn't  found  it  frank.  "  I  don't 
blame  them.  Half  the  time  they're  not 
paid." 

"I  see.  So  that  you  fill  in.  Do  you 
like  it?" 

"Would  you  like  doing  what  isn't  of 
any  use? — what  will  never  be  of  any 
use?  Would  you  like  to  be  always  run- 
ning as  hard  as  you  can,  just  to  fall  out 
of  the  race?" 

He  tried  to  smile.  "I  shouldn't  like  it 
for  long." 

"Well,  there's  that,"  she  said,  as 
though  he  had  suggested  a  form  of  con- 
solation. "It  won't  be  for  long.  It 
can't  be.  Father  won't  be  able  to  go  on 
like  this." 

He  decided  to  take  the  bull  by  the 
horns.  "Is  that  because  my  father 
doesn't  want  to  renew  the  lease?" 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  again. 
"Oh  no,  not  particularly.  It  is  that — 
and  everything  else." 

He  felt  it  the  part  of  tact  to  make 
signs  of  going,  uttering  a  few  parting 
injunctions  with  regard  to  the  mother  as 
he  did  so. 

"And  I  wouldn't  leave  her  too  much 
alone,"  he  advised.  "She  could  easily 
slip  out  without  attracting  any  one's 
attention.  Tell  your  father  I  said  so. 
I  suppose  he's  not  in  the  house." 

"He's  off  somewhere  trying  to  engage 
a  night  fireman." 

He  ignored  this  information  to  em- 
phasize his  counsels.  "It's  most  impor- 
tant that  while  she's  in  this  state  of 
mind  some  one  should  be  with  her. 
And  if  we  knew  of  anything  she'd 
specially  like — " 

She  continued  to  work  industriously. 
"The  thing  she'd  like  best  in  this  world 
won't  do  her  any  good  when  it  happens." 
She  threw  in  a  bulb  with  impetuous 
vehemence.  "It's  to  have  Matt  out  of 
jail.    He  will  be  out  in  the  course  of 


402 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


a  few  months.  But  he'll  be — a  jail- 
bird." 

"We  must  try  to  help  him  live  that 
down." 

She  turned  her  great  greenish  eyes  on 
him  again  with  that  look  which  struck 
him  as  both  frank  and  pitiful.  "That's 
one  of  the  things  people  in  our  position 
can't  do.  It's  the  first  thing  mother 
herself  will  think  of  when  she  sees  Matt 
hanging  about  the  house — for  he'll  never 
get  a  job." 

"He  can  help  your  father.  He  can  be 
the  night  fireman." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  with  the 
fatalistic  movement  he  was  beginning 
to  recognize.  "Father  won't  need  a 
night  fireman  by  that  time." 

He  could  only  say:  "All  the  same, 
your  mother  must  be  watched.  She 
can't  be  allowed  to  throw  herself  from 
Duck  Rock,  now,  can  she?" 

"  I  don't  say  allowed.   But  if  she  did — " 

"Well,  what  then?" 

"She'd  be  out  of  it.  That  would  be 
something." 

"Admitting  that  it  would  be  some- 
thing for  her,  what  would  it  be  for  your 
father  and  you?" 

She  relaxed  the  energy  of  her  hands. 
He  had  time  to  notice  them.  It  hurt 
him  to  see  anything  so  shapely  coarsened 
with  hard  work.  "Wouldn't  it  be  that 
much?"  she  asked,  as  if  reaching  a  con- 
clusion. "If  she  were  out  of  it,  it  would 
be  a  gain  all  round." 

Never  having  heard  a  human  being 
speak  like  this,  he  was  shocked.  "But 
everything  can't  be  so  black.  There 
must  be  something  somewhere." 

She  glanced  up  at  him  obliquely. 
Months  afterward  he  recalled  the  look. 
Her  tone,  when  she  spoke,  seemed  to  be 
throwing  him  a  challenge  as  well  as  mak- 
ing an  admission.  "Well,  there  is — one 
thing." 

He  spoke  triumphantly.  "Ah,  there 
is  one  thing,  then  ?" 

"Yes,  but  it  may  not  happen." 

"Oh,  lots  of  things  may  not  happen. 
We  just  have  to  hope  they  will.  That's 
all  we've  got  to  live  by." 

There  was  a  lovely  solemnity  about 
her.  "And  even  if  it  did  happen,  so 
many  people  would  be  opposed  to  it 
that  I'm  not  sure  it  would  do  any  good, 
after  all." 


"Oh,  but  we  won't  think  of  the  peo- 
ple who'd  be  opposed  to  it — " 

"We  should  have  to,  because" — the 
sweet  fixity  of  her  gaze  gave  him  an 
odd  thrill — "because  you'd  be  one." 

He  laughed  as  he  held  out  his  hand  to 
say  good-by.  "Don't  be  too  sure.  And 
in  any  case  it  won't  matter  about  me." 

She  declined  to  take  his  hand  on  the 
ground  that  her  own  was  soiled  with 
loam,  but  she  mystified  him  slightly 
when  she  said:  "It  will  matter  about 
you;  and  if  the  thing  ever  happens  I 
want  you  to  remember  that  I  told  you 
so.  I  can't  play  fair;  but  I'll  play  as 
fair  as  I  can." 

CHAPTER  III 

THOR  was  deaf  to  these  enigmatic 
words  in  the  excitement  of  per- 
ceiving that  the  girl  had  beauty. 
The  discovery  gave  him  a  new  sort  of 
pleasure  as  he  turned  his  runabout 
toward  the  town.  Beauty  had  not  hith- 
erto been  a  condition  to  which  he  at- 
tached great  value.  If  anything,  he 
had  held  it  in  some  scorn.  Now,  for 
the  first  time  in  his  emotional  life, 
he  was  stirred  by  a  girl's  mere  prettiness 
— a  quite  unusual  prettiness,  it  had  to 
be  admitted;  a  slightly  haggard  pretti- 
ness, perhaps;  a  prettiness  a  little  worn 
by  work,  a  little  coarsened  by  wind  and 
weather;  a  prettiness  too  desperate  for 
youth  and  too  tragic  for  coquetry,  but 
for  those  very  reasons  doubtless  all  the 
more  haunting.  He  was  obliged  to  re- 
mind himself  that  it  was  nothing  to  him, 
since  he  had  never  swerved  from  the 
intention  to  marry  Lois  Willoughby  as 
soon  as  he  had  made  a  start  in  practice 
and  come  into  the  money  he  was  to  get 
at  thirty;  but  he  could  see  it  was  the 
sort  of  thing  by  which  other  men  might 
be  affected,  and  came  to  a  mental  stand- 
still there. 

Driving  on  into  the  city,  he  went 
straight  to  his  father's  office  in  Common- 
wealth Row.  It  was  already  after  four 
o'clock,  and  except  for  two  young  men 
sorting  checks  and  putting  away 
ledgers,  the  cagelike  divisions  of  the 
banking  department  were  empty.  One 
of  the  men  was  whistling;  the  other  was 
calling  in  a  loud,  gay  voice,  "Say,  Chee- 
ver,  what  about  to-night?" — signs  that 


THE  SIDE  OF 

the  enforced  decorum  of  the  day  was 

Past-  .  ~ 

Claude  was  in  the  outer  office  reserved 

for  customers.    He  wore  his  overcoat, 

hat,  and  gloves.    A  stick  hung  over  his 

left  arm  by  its  crooked  handle.  The 

ticker  was  silent,  but  a  portion  of  the 

tape  fluttered  between  his  gloved  fingers. 

Though  his  back  was  toward  the 
door,  he  recognized  his  half-brother's 
step  with  that  mixture  of  envy  and 
irritation  which  Thor's  presence  always 
stirred  in  him.  He  was  not  without 
fraternal  affection,  especially  when  Thor 
was  away;  when  he  was  at  home  it 
was  difficult  for  Claude  not  to  resent 
the  elder's  superiority.  Claude  called 
it  superiority  for  want  of  a  better  word, 
though  he  meant  no  more  than  a  com- 
bination of  advantages  he  himself  would 
have  enjoyed.  He  meant  Thor's  pros- 
pective money,  his  good  spirits,  good 
temper,  and  good  health.  Claude  had 
not  good  health,  which  excused,  in  his 
judgment,  his  lack  of  good  spirits  and 
good  temper.  Neither  had  Claude  any 
money  beyond  the  fifteen  hundred  dol- 
lars a  year  he  earned  in  his  father's 
office.  He  was  in  the  habit  of  saying 
to  himself,  and  in  confidence  to  his 
friends,  that  it  was  "damned  hard  luck" 
that  he  should  be  compelled  to  live  on 
a  pittance  like  that,  when  Thor,  within 
a  few  months,  would  come  into  a  good 
thirty  thousand  a  year. 

It  was  some  consolation  that  Thor 
was  what  his  brother  called  "an  ugly 
beast" — sallow  and  lantern-jawed,  with 
a  long,  narrow  head  that  looked  as  if  it 
had  been  sat  on.  The  eyes  were  not 
bad;  that  had  to  be  admitted;  they 
were  as  friendly  as  a  welcoming  light; 
but  the  mouth  was  so  big  and  aggressive 
that  even  the  mustache  Thor  was  trying 
to  grow  couldn't  subdue  its  boldness. 
As  for  the  nose  and  chin,  they  looked — 
according  to  Claude's  account — as  if 
they  had  been  created  soft,  and  sub- 
jected to  a  system  of  grotesque  elonga- 
tion before  hardening.  Claude  could  the 
more  safely  make  game  of  his  brother's 
looks  seeing  that  he  himself  was  notably 
handsome,  with  traits  as  regular  as  if 
they  had  been  carved,  and  a  profile  so 
exact  that  it  was  frequently  exposed  in 
photographers'  windows,  to  the  envy  of 
gentlemen  gazers.   While  Thor  had  once 


THE  ANGELS  403 

tried  to  mitigate  his  features  by  a  beard 
that  had  been  unsuccessful  and  had  now 
disappeared,  Claude  wouldn't  disfigure 
himself  by  a  hair.  He  was  as  clean- 
shaven as  a  marble  Apollo,  and  not  less 
neatly  limbed. 

"Gone."  Claude  raised  his  eyes  just 
long  enough  to  utter  the  word. 

Thor  came  to  an  abrupt  stop.  "  Club  ?" 

"Suppose  so."  He  added,  without 
raising  his  head.  "Wish  to  God  the 
drunken  sot  would  stay  there."  He  con- 
tinued, while  still  apparently  reading  the 
tape  in  his  hand,  "Father  wishes  it, 
too. 

Thor  was  not  altogether  taken  by  sur- 
prise. Ever  since  his  return  from 
Europe,  a  year  earlier,  he  had  wondered 
how  his  father's  patience  could  hold  out. 
He  took  it  that  there  was  a  reason  for  it, 
a  reason  he  at  once  expressed  to  Claude: 

"Father  can't  wish  it.  He  can't 
afford  to." 

Claude  lifted  his  handsome,  rather  in- 
solent face.    "Why  not?" 

"For  the  simple  reason  that  he's  got 
his  money." 

"Much  you  know  about  it.  Len 
Willoughby  hasn't  enough  money  left 
in  Toogood  &  Masterman's  to  take  him 
on  a  trip  to  Europe." 

Thor  backed  toward  the  receiving- 
teller's  wicket,  where  he  rested  the  tips 
of  his  elbows  on  the  counter.  He  was 
visibly  perturbed.  "What's  become  of 
it,  then?" 

"Don't  ask  me.  All  I  know  is  what 
I'm  telling  you." 

"Did  father  say  so  himself?" 

"Not  in  so  many  words.  But  I  know 
it."  He  tossed  the  tape  from  him  and 
began  to  smooth  his  gloves.  "Father 
means  to  ship  him." 

"Ship  him?    He  can't  do  that." 

"Can't?  I  should  like  to  know  why 
not." 

"  Because  he  can't.  That's  why.  Be- 
cause he  has — " 

"Yes?  Cough  it  up.  Speak  as  if  you 
had  something  up  your  sleeve." 

Thor  reflected  as  to  the  wisdom  of 
saying  more.  "Well,  I  have,"  he  ad- 
mitted. "It's  something  I  remember 
from  the  time  we  were  kids.  You  were 
too  young  to  notice.  But  /  noticed — 
and  I  haven't  forgotten.  Father  can't 
ship  Len  Willoughby  without  being  sure 


404 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


he  has  enough  to  live  on."  He  decided 
to  speak  out,  if  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  of  securing  Claude's  co-operation. 
"  Father  persuaded  Mr.  Willoughby  to 
put  Mrs.  Willoughby's  money  into  the 
business  when  he  didn't  want  to." 

"Ah,  shucks!"  Claude  exclaimed, 
contemptuously. 

"He  did,"  Thor  insisted.  "It  was 
back  in  1892,  in  Paris,  that  first  time 
they  took  us  abroad.  You  were  only 
nine  and  I  was  twelve.  I  heard  them.  I 
was  hanging  round  one  evening  in  that 
little  hotel  we  stayed  at  in  the  rue  de 
Rivoli — the  Hotel  de  Marsan,  wasn't 
it?  The  Willoughbys  had  been  living  in 
Paris  for  five  or  six  years,  and  father  got 
them  to  come  home.  I  heard  him  ask 
mother  to  talk  it  up  with  Mrs.  Wil- 
loughby. Mother  said  she  didn't  want 
to,  but  father  got  round  her,  and  she 
agreed  to  try.  She  said,  too,  that 
Bessie  might  be  willing  because  Len  had 
already  begun  to  take  too  much  and 
it  would  brace  him  up  if  he  got  work 
to  do." 

"Work!"  Claude  sniffed.  "Him!" 

"Father  knew  he  couldn't  work — 
knew  he'd  tried  all  sorts  of  things — 
first  to  be  an  artist,  then  to  write,  then 
to  get  into  the  consular  service,  and  the 
Lord  knows  what.  It  wasn't  his  work 
that  father  was  after.  It  was  just  when 
the  Toogood  estate  withdrew  old  Mr. 
Toogood's  money,  and  father  had  to 
have  more  capital." 

"Well,  Len  Willoughby  didn't  have 
any." 

"No;  but  his  wife  had.  It  came  to 
the  same  thing.  Suppose  she  must  have 
had  between  three  and  four  hundred 
thousand  from  old  man  Brand.  I  re- 
member hearing  father  say  to  mother 
that  Len  was  making  ducks  and  drakes 
of  it  as  fast  as  he  could,  and  that  it 
might  as  well  help  the  firm  of  Toogood 
&  Masterman  as  go  to  the  deuce.  Can 
still  hear  father  feeding  the  poor  fool 
with  bluff  about  the  great  banker  he'd 
make  and  how  it  was  the  dead  loss  of  a 
fortune  that  he  hadn't  had  a  seat  on  the 
Stock  Exchange  years  before." 

Claude  sniffed  again.  "You'd  better 
carry  your  load  to  father  himself." 

"I  will — if  I  have  to."  Before  Claude 
had  found  a  rejoinder,  Thor  went  on, 
changing  the  subject  abruptly,  so  as  not 


to  be  led  into  being  indiscreet,  "Say, 
Claude,  do  you  remember  Fay,  the 
gardener?" 

Claude  was  still  smoothing  his  gloves, 
but  .  he  stopped,  with  the  thumb  and 
fingers  of  his  right  hand  grasping  the 
middle  finger  of  the  left.  More  than 
ever  his  features  suggested  a  marble 
stoniness.  "No." 

"Oh,  but  you  must.  Used  to  be 
Grandpa  Thorley's  gardener.  Has  the 
greenhouses  on  father's  land  north  of 
the  pond." 

Claude  recovered  himself  slightly. 
"Well,  what  about  him?" 

"Been  to  see  his  wife.  Patient  of 
Uncle  Sim's.  Turned  her  on  to  me. 
They're  having  the  deuce  of  a  time." 

Claude  recovered  himself  still  more. 
He  looked  at  his  brother  curiously. 
"Well,  what's  it  got  to  do  with  me?" 

"Nothing  directly." 

"Well,  then  — indirectly?"  Claude 
asked,  defiantly. 

"Only  this,  that  it  has  to  do  with 
both  of  us,  since  it  concerns  father." 

Claude  was  by  this  time  master  of 
himself.  "Look  here,  Thor.  Are  you 
getting  a  bee  in  your  bonnet  about 
father?" 

"Good  Lord!  no.  But  father's  im- 
mersed in  business.  He  can't  be  ex- 
pected to  know  how  all  the  details  of 
his  policy  work  out.  He's  not  young 
any  longer;  and  he  isn't  in  touch  with 
modern  social  and  economic  ideas." 

"Oh,  stow  the  modern  social  and 
economic  ideas,  and  let's  get  to  business. 
What's  up  with  this  family — of — of — 
What-d'you-call-'ems  ?" 

With  his  feet  planted  firmly  apart, 
Claude  swung  his  stick  airily  back  and 
forth  across  the  front  of  his  person, 
though  he  listened  with  apparent  atten- 
tion. 

"You  know,  Thor,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,"  he  explained,  when  the  latter  had 
finished  his  account,  "that  the  kindest 
thing  father  can  do  for  Fay  is  to  let 
him  peter  out.  Fay  thinks  that  father 
and  the  lease  are  the  obstacle  he's  up 
against,  when  in  reality  it's  the  whole 
thing." 

"Oh,  so  you  do  know  about  it?" 

Claude  saw  his  mistake,  and  righted 
himself  quickly.  "Y-yes.  Now  that 
you — you  speak  of  it,  I — I  do.   It  comes 


THE  SIDE  OF 

— a — back  to  me.  I've  heard  father 
mention  it." 

"And  what  did  father  say?" 

"Just  what  I'm  telling  you.  That  the 
lease  isn't  the  chief  factor  in  Fay's 
troubles — isn't  really  a  factor  at  all. 
Poor  old  fellow's  a  dunderhead.  That's 
where  it  is  in  a  nutshell.  Never  could 
make  a  living.  Never  will.  Remember 
him  ?" 

"Vaguely.     Haven't   seen   him  for 
years." 

"Well,  when  you  do  see  him  you'll 
understand.  Nice  old  chap  as  ever 
lived.  Only  impractical,  dreamy.  Gen- 
tle as  a  sheep — and  no  more  capable  of 
running  that  big,  expensive  plant  than 
a  motherly  old  ewe.  That's  where  the 
trouble  is.  When  father's  closed  down 
on  him  and  edged  him  out — quietly,  you 
understand — it  '11  be  the  best  thing  that 
ever  happened  to  them  all." 

Thor  reflected.  "I  see  that  you  know 
more  about  it  than  you  thought.  You 
know  all  about  it." 

Again  Claude  caught  himself  up, 
shifting  his  position  adroitly.  "Oh  no, 
I  don't.  Just  what  I've  heard  father 
say.  When  you  spoke  of  it  at  first  the 
name  slipped  my  memory." 

Thor  reverted  to  the  original  theme. 
"The  son's  in  jail.   Did  you  know  that  ?" 

But  Claude  was  again  on  his  guard. 
"Oh,  so  there's  a  son?" 

"Son  about  your  age.  Matt  his 
name  is.  Surely  you  must  recall  him. 
Used  to  pick  peas  with  us  when  Fay'd 
let  us  do  it." 

Claude  shook  his  head  silently. 

"And  there's  a  girl." 

Claude's  stick  hung  limply  before  him. 
His  face  and  figure  resumed  their  stony 
immobility.    "Oh,  is  there?  Plain?" 

"No;  pretty.  Very  pretty.  Very 
unusually  pretty.  Come  to  think  of  it, 
I  shouldn't  mind  saying —  Yes,  I  will 
say  it!  She's  the  prettiest  girl  I've  ever 
seen."  The  eyes  of  the  two  brothers 
met.    "Bar  none." 

The  smile  on  Claude's  lips  might 
have  passed  for  an  expression  of  broth- 
erly chaff.  "Go  it,  old  chap.  Seem 
smitten." 

"Oh,  it  isn't  that.  Nothing  of  the 
sort  at  all.  I  speak  of  her  only  because 
I'm  sorry  for  her.  Brunt  of  whole 
thing  comes  on  her." 


THE  ANGELS  405 

"Well,  what  do  you  propose  that  we 
should  do?" 

"I  haven't  got  as  far  as  proposing. 
Haven't  thought  the  thing  out  at  all. 
But  I  think  we  ought  to  do  something — 
you  and  I." 

"We  can't  do  anything  without  father 
— and  father  won't.  He  simply  won't. 
Fay  '11  have  to  go.  Good  thing,  too; 
that's  what  I  say.  Get  'em  all  on  a 
basis  on  which  they  can  manage. 
Fay  '11  find  a  job  with  one  of  the  other 
growers — " 

"Yes;  but  what's  to  become  of  the 
girl?" 

Claude  stared  with  a  kind  of  bravado. 
"How  the  devil  do  I  know?  She'll  do 
the  best  she  can,  I  suppose.  Go  into  a 
shop.    Lots  of  girls  go  into  shops." 

Thor  studied  his  brother  with  mild 
curiosity.  "You're  a  queer  fellow, 
Claude.  A  minute  ago  you  couldn't 
remember  Fay's  name;  and  now  you've 
got  his  whole  business  at  your  fingers' 
ends." 

But  Claude  repeated  his  explanation. 
"Got  father's  business  at  my  fingers' 
ends,  if  that's  what  you  mean.  In  such 
big  affairs  chap  like  Fay  only  a  detail. 
Couldn't  recall  him  at  first,  but  once  I'd 
caught  on  to  him — " 

By  moving  away  toward  the  inner 
office,  where  Cheever  was  still  at  work, 
Claude  intimated  that,  as  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  the  conversation  was  ended. 
Thor  returned  to  his  runabout. 

"Say,  Claude,"  Cheever  called, 
"comin'  to  see  The  Champion  to-night, 
ain't  you?    Countin'  on  you." 

Claude  laid  a  friendly  hand  on  Chee- 
ver's  arm.  He  liked  to  be  on  easy 
terms  with  his  father's  clerks.  "Awfully 
sorry,  Billy,  but  you  must  excuse  me. 
Fact  is,  that  damn-fool  brother  of  mine 
has  been  putting  his  finger  in  my  pie. 
Got  to  do  something  to  get  it  out — and 
do  it  quick.  Awfully  sorry.  Sha'n't  be 
free." 

CHAPTER  IV 

BESIDE  his  favorite  window  at  the 
club,  commanding  the  move- 
ment of  the  street  and  the  bare 
trees  of  the  park,  Len  Willoughby  had 
got  together  the  essentials  to  a  pleasant 
hour.  They  consisted  of  the  French  and 
English  illustrated  papers,  two  or  three 


406 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


excellent  Havanas,  a  bottle  of  Scotch 
whisky,  and  a  siphon  of  aerated  water. 
On  the  table  beside  him  there  was  also 
an  empty  glass  that  had  contained  a 
cocktail. 

It  was  the  consoling  moment  of  the 
day.  After  the  strain  of  a  nine-o'clock 
breakfast  and  the  rush  to  the  city  before 
eleven,  after  the  hours  of  purposeless 
hanging  about  the  office  of  Toogood  & 
Masterman,  where  he  could  see  he  wasn't 
wanted,  he  found  it  restful  to  retire  into 
his  own  corner  and  sink  drowsily  into 
his  cups.  He  did  sink  into  them  drow- 
sily, and  yet  through  well-marked 
phases  of  excitement.  He  knew  those 
phases  now;  he  could  tell  in  advance 
how  each  stage  would  pass  into  another. 

There  was  first  the  comfort  of  the  big 
chair  and  the  friendly  covers  of  V Illus- 
tration and  the  Graphic.  He  didn't  care 
to  talk.  He  liked  to  be  let  alone.  When 
he  came  from  the  office  he  was  generally 
dispirited.  Masterman's  queer,  con- 
temptuous manner  was  enough  to  dis- 
courage any  one.  He  was  sure,  too,  that 
Claude  and  Billy  Cheever  ridiculed  his 
big,  fat  figure  behind  his  back.  But 
once  he  sank  into  the  deep,  red-leather 
arm-chair  he  was  safe.  It  was  ridicu- 
lous that  a  man  of  his  age  should  come 
to  recognize  the  advantages  of  such  a 
refuge,  but  he  laid  it  to  the  charge  of  a 
mean  and  spiteful  world. 

The  world  did  not  cease  to  be  mean 
and  spiteful  till  after  he  had  had  his 
cocktail.  It  was  wonderful  the  change 
that  took  place  then — not  suddenly,  but 
with  a  sweet,  slow,  cheering  inner  trans- 
formation. It  was  a  surging,  a  glowing, 
a  mellowing.  It  was  like  the  readjust- 
ment of  the  eyes  of  the  soul.  It  was 
seeing  the  world  as  generous,  kindly.  It 
was  growing  generous  and  kindly  him- 
self, with  the  happy  conviction  that 
more  remained  to  be  got  out  of  life  than 
he  had  ever  wrung  from  it. 

Still,  it  was  something  to  be  a  rich 
banker.  Every  one  couldn't  be  that. 
Archie  Masterman  had  certainly  pos- 
sessed a  quick  eye  when  he  singled  out 
Len  Willoughby  as  the  man  who  could 
put  the  firm  of  Toogood  &  Masterman 
on  its  feet.  Three  hundred  thousand 
dollars  of  Bessie's  money  had  gone  into 
that  business  in  1892,  just  in  time  to 
profit  by  the  panic  of  1893.    Lord,  how 


they  had  bought! — gilt-edged  stocks  for 
next  to  nothing! — and  how  they  had 
sold,  a  few  years  later!  Len  never  knew 
how  much  money  they  made.  He  sup- 
posed Archie  didn't,  either.  There  were 
years  when  the  Stock  Exchange  had 
been  like  a  wheat-field,  yielding  thirty- 
fold  and  sixtyfold  and  a  hundredfold 
for  every  seed  they  had  sown.  He  had 
never  attempted  to  keep  a  tally  on  what 
came  in;  it  was  sufficient  to  know  that 
there  was  always  plenty  to  take  out. 
Besides,  it  had  been  an  understanding 
from  the  first  that  Archie  was  to  do  the 
drudgery.  Len  liked  this,  because  it  left 
him  free — free  for  summers  in  Europe 
and  winters  in  Egypt  or  at  Palm  Beach. 

By  degrees  reminiscence  tended  toward 
somnolence.  And  yet  jt  couldn't  be 
said  that  Len  slept.  He  kept  sufficiently 
awake  to  put  out  his  hand  from  time  to 
time  and  seize  the  tumbler.  He  could 
even  brew  himself  another  glass.  If  a 
brother  clubman  strolled  near  enough  to 
say,  "Hello,  Len!"  or,  "Hello,  Willough- 
by!" he  could  respond  with  a  dull, 
"  Hello,  Tom !"  or,  "  Hello,  Jones !"  But 
he  spoke  as  out  of  a  depth;  he  spoke 
with  some  of  that  weariness  at  being 
called  back  to  life  which  Rembrandt 
depicts  on  the  face  of  Lazarus  rising 
from  the  tomb.  It  was  delicious  to  sink 
away  from  the  prosaic  and  the  bore- 
some,  to  be  so  fully  awake  that  he  could 
follow  the  movement  in  the  street  and 
the  hopping  of  the  sparrows  in  the  trees, 
and  yet  be,  as  it  were,  removed,  en- 
chanted, seeing  and  hearing  and  think- 
ing and  even  drinking  through  the  medi- 
um of  a  soothing,  slumbrous  spell. 

It  could  hardly  ever  be  said  that  he 
went  beyond  this  point.  Though  there 
were  occasions  on  which  he  miscalcu- 
lated his  effects,  they  could  generally  be 
explained  as  accidental.  Above  all,  they 
didn't  rise  from  an  appetite  for  drink. 
The  phrase  was  one  he  was  fond  of;  he 
often  used  it  in  condemning  a  vice  of 
which  he  disapproved.  He  used  it  on 
this  particular  afternoon,  when  Thor 
Masterman,  who  had  come  to  drive  him 
homeward  in  his  runabout,  was  sitting 
in  the  opposite  arm-chair,  waiting  to 
make  the  start. 

"There's  one  thing  about  me,  Thor; 
never  had  an  appetite  for  drink.  Not  to 
say  drink.     Thing   I   despise.  Your 


THE  SIDE  OF 

father's  all  wrong  about  me.  Don't 
know  what's  got  into  him.  Thinks  I 
take  too  much.  Rot!  That's  what  it 
js — bally  rot!  You  know  that,  Thor, 
don't  you?  Appetite  for  drink  some- 
thing I  despise." 

Thor  considered  the  moment  one  to 
be  made  use  of.  "Has  father  been  say- 
ing anything  about  it  ?" 

"No;  but  he  looks  it.  Suppose  I 
don't  know  what  he  means?  Sees  dou- 
ble, your  father  does.  Anybody'd  think, 
from  the  way  he  treats  me,  that  I  was 
a  disgrace  to  the  firm.  I'd  like  to  know 
what  that  firm  'd  be  without  me." 

Thor  tried  to  frame  his  next  question 
discreetly.  "I  hope  there's  been  no  sug- 
gestion of  the  firm's  doing  without  you, 
Mr.  Willoughby?" 

To  this  Len  gave  but  an  indirect  re- 
ply. "There'll  be  one  soon,  if  your 
father  doesn't  mind  himself.  I'll  retire 
— and  take  my  money  out.  Where'U 
he  be  then  ?" 

Thor  felt  his  way.  "You've  taken  out 
a  good  deal  already,  haven't  you?" 

"Not  any  more  than  belonged  to  me. 
You  can  bet  your  boots  on  that." 

"No;  not  any  more  than  belonged  to 
you,  of  course.  I  was  only  thinking 
that  with  the  splendid  house  you've 
built — and  its  up-keep — and  your  gen- 
eral expenses — which  are  pretty  heavy, 
aren't  they? — " 

"Not  any  more  than  belonged  to  me, 
Thor.  You  can  bet  your  boots  on  that." 

The  repetition  was  made  drowsily. 
The  big  head  of  bushy  white  hair,  with 
its  correlative  of  bushy  white  beard, 
swayed  with  a  slow  movement  that 
ended  in  a  jerk.  It  was  obvious  that 
the  warnings  and  admonitions  to  which 
Thor  had  been  leading  up  were  not 
for  that  day.  They  were  useless  even 
when,  a  half-hour  later,  the  movement 
of  the  runabout  and  the  keen  air  of  the 
high  lands  as  they  approached  the  vil- 
lage roused  the  big  creature  to  a  maudlin 
cursing  of  his  luck. 

On  nearing  the  house,  the  delicate  part 
of  the  task  which  of  late  Thor  had  taken 
almost  daily  on  himself  became  immi- 
nent. It  was  to  get  his  charge  into  the 
house,  up  to  his  room,  and  stretched 
on  a  couch  without  being  seen  by  Lois. 
Thor  had  once  caught  her  carrying  out 
this  duty  unaided.    She  had  evidently 

Vol.  CXXXI  — No.  783.— 51 


THE  ANGELS  407 

called  for  her  father  in  her  mother's 
limousine,  and  as  Thor  passed  down  the 
village  street  she  was  helping  the  stag- 
gering, ungainly  figure  toward  the  door. 
The  next  day  Thor  took  his  runabout 
from  the  garage  and  went  on  the  errand 
himself.  He  was  also  more  ingenious 
than  she  in  finding  a  way  by  which  the 
sorry  object  could  be  smuggled  indoors. 
The  carriage  entrance  of  the  house  was 
too  near  the  street.  That  it  should  be  so 
was  a  trial  to  Mrs.  Willoughby,  who 
would  have  preferred  a  house  standing 
in  grounds,  but  there  never  had  been 
any  help  for  it.  When  money  came  in 
it  had  been  Len's  desire  to  buy  back  a 
portion  of  the  old  Willoughby  farm,  and 
build  a  mansion  on  what  might  reason- 
ably be  called  his  ancestral  estate.  Of 
this  property  there  was  nothing  in  the 
market  but  a  snip  along  County  Street; 
and  though  he  was  satisfied  with  the 
site  as  enabling  him  to  display  his  pros- 
perity to  every  one  who  passed  up  and 
down,  his  wife  regretted  the  absence  of 
a  dignified  approach. 

By  avoiding  County  Street  when  he 
came  out  from  town,  and  following  a 
road  that  scrambled  over  the  low  hill- 
side till  it  made  a  juncture  with  Wil- 
loughby's  Lane,  by  descending  that 
ancient  cow-path  and  bringing  Len  to 
the  privacy  of  his  side-door,  Thor  en- 
deavored to  keep  his  father's  partner 
from  becoming  an  object  of  public 
scandal.  He  took  this  trouble  not  be- 
cause he  bothered  about  public  scandal 
in  itself,  but  in  order  to  protect  Lois 
Willoughby. 

So  far  his  methods  had  been  success- 
ful. They  failed  to-day  only  because 
Lois  herself  was  at  the  side-door.  With 
a  pair  of  garden  shears  in  her  gloved 
hands  she  was  trimming  the  leafless  vine 
that  grew  over  the  pillars  of  the  portico. 
Thor  could  see,  as  she  turned  round,  that 
she  braced  herself  to  meet  the  moment's 
humiliation,  speaking  on  the  instant  he 
drew  up  at  the  steps. 

"So  good  of  you  to  bring  papa  out 
from  town!  I'm  sure  he's  enjoyed  the 
drive."  Her  hand  was  on  the  lever  that 
opened  the  door  of  the  machine.  "Poor 
papa!  You  look  done  up.  I  dare  say 
you're  not  well.  Be  careful,  now,"  she 
continued,  as  he  lumbered  heavily  to  his 
feet.   "That's  a  long  step  there.  Take 


408 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


my  hand.  I  know  you  must  be  as  tired 
as  can  be." 

"Dog  tired,"  the  father  complained, 
as  he  lowered  himself  cautiously.  "Dog's 
life.  Tha's  wha'  I  lead.  No  thanks  for 
it,  either.  Damn!"  The  imprecation 
was  necessary  because  he  missed  his 
footing  and  came  down  with  a  jerk. 
"Can't  you  see  I'm  gettin'  out?"  he 
groaned,  peevishly.  "Stan'in'  right  in 
my  way." 

"Better  leave  him  to  me,"  Thor  whis- 
pered. "I  know  just  what  to  do  with 
him.  One  of  the  advantages  of  being  a 
doctor." 

Willoughby  had  mind  enough  to 
clutch  at  this  suggestion.  "Doctor's 
what  I  want,  hang  it  all!  Sick  as  a  dog. 
I  do'  know  what  '11  happen  to  me  some 
day.  Head  aches  fit  to  split.  Never  had 
appetite  for  drink.  Tha's  one  good 
thing  about  me." 

Lois  was  still  standing  near  the  por- 
tico when  Thor  had  assisted  his  charge 
to  his  room,  stretched  him  on  a  couch, 
covered  him  with  a  rug,  left  him  in  a 
heavy  sleep,  and  crept  down  the  stairs 
again.  It  did  not  escape  his  eye, 
quickened  by  the  minutes  he  had  spent 
with  Rosie  Fay,  that  Lois  lacked  color. 
For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  acutely 
observed  the  difference  between  a  plain 
woman  and  a  pretty  one. 

"Oh,  Thor,"  she  began,  as  soon  as  he 
came  out,  "I  don't  know  how  to  thank 
you  for  your  kindness  to  papa!  How 
is  it  to  go  on?  Where  is  it  to. end ?  Oh, 
Thor,  you're  a  doctor!  Tell  me  what 
you  think.   Is  there  anything  I  can  do?" 

His  kind,  searching  eyes,  as  he  stood 
with  one  hand  on  the  steering-wheel, 
rested  on  her  silently.  After  all,  she  was 
twenty-seven,  and  must  take  her  portion 
of  life's  responsibilities.  Besides,  what- 
ever she  might  have  to  bear  he  meant  to 
share  with  her.  She  should  not  be 
obliged,  like  Rosie  Fay,  for  instance,  to 
carry  her  load  alone. 

And  yet  she  didn't  look  as  if  she 
would  shirk  her  part.  With  that  tall, 
erect  figure,  delicate  in  outline  but  strong 
with  the  freedom  of  an  open-air  life, 
that  proud  head  which  was  nevertheless 
carried  meekly,  and  that  straightfor- 
ward gaze,  she  gave  the  impression  of 
being  ready  to  meet  anything.  The  face 


might  be  irregular,  lacking  in  many  of 
the  tender  prettinesses  as  natural  to 
other  girls,  even  at  twenty-seven,  as 
flowers  to  a  field;  but  no  one  could  deny 
its  force  of  character. 

"I'll  tell  you  something  you  could 
do,"  he  said,  at  last.  "You  could  see — 
or  try  to  see — that  he  doesn't  spend  too 
much."  A  slight  pause  marked  his  hesi- 
tation before  adding,  "That  no  one 
spends  too  much." 

"You  mean  mamma  and  me?" 

He  smiled  faintly.  "I  mean  whoever 
does  the  spending — but  your  father  most 
of  all,  because  I'm  afraid  he's  rather 
reckless.  He's  spent  a  good  deal  during 
the  last  twelve  or  fifteen  years,  hasn't 
he?" 

She  was  very  quick.  "More  than  he 
had  a  right  to  spend  ?" 

"Well,  more  than  my  father,"  he  felt 
it  safe  to  say. 

"But  he  had  more  than' your  father 
to  spend,  hadn't  he?" 

"Do  you  know  that  for  a  certainty?" 

"I  only  know  it  from  papa  himself. 
But,  oh,  Thor,  what  is  it?  Why  are  you 
asking?" 

He  ignored  these  questions  to  say: 
"Couldn't  your  mother  tell  us?  After 
all,  it  was  her  money,  wasn't  it?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "Oh,  mamma 
wouldn't  know.  If  you're  in  any  doubt 
about  it,  why  don't  you  ask  Mr.  Master- 
man?  He  could  tell  you  better  than 
any  one.    Besides,  mamma  isn't  in." 

He  spoke  with  a  touch  of  scorn.  "I 
suppose  she's  in  town." 

The  tone  evoked  on  Lois's  part  a  little 
smile.  They  had  had  battles  on  the 
subject  before.  "That's  just  where  she 
is. 

"That's  just  where  she  always  is." 

"Oh  no;  not  always.  Sometimes  she 
stays  at  home.  But  she's  there  pretty 
often,  I  admit.  She  has  to  make  calls, 
partly  because  I  won't — when  I  can 
help  it." 

He  spoke  approvingly.  "You,  at  any 
rate,  don't  fritter  away  your  time  like 
other  women." 

"It  depends  on  what  other  women 
you  mean.  I  fritter  away  my  time  like 
some  women,  even  though  it  isn't  like 
the  women  who  make  calls.  I  play 
golf,  for  instance,  and  tennis;  I  even 
ride." 


THE  SIDE  OF 

"All  the  same,  you  don't  like  the  silly 
thing  called  society  any  more  than  I  do." 

There  was  daylight  enough  to  show 
him  the  blaze  of  bravado  in  her  eyes. 
Her  way  of  holding  her  head  had  a  cer- 
tain daring — the  daring  of  one  too 
frank,  perhaps  too  proud,  to  shrink  at 
truth.  "Oh,  I  don't  know.  I  dare  say 
I  should  have  liked  society  well  enough 
if  society  had  liked  me.  But  it  didn't. 
As  mamma  says,  I  wasn't  a  success." 
To  compel  him  to  view  her  in  all  her  lack 
of  charm,  she  added,  with  a  persistent 
smile,  "You  know  that,  don't  you?" 

He  did  know  it,  though  he  could 
hardly  say  so.  He  had  heard  Claude 
descant  on  the  subject  many  a  time  in 
the  years  when  Lois  was  still  putting  in 
a  timid  appearance  at  dances.  Claude 
was  interested  in  everything  that  had 
to  do  with  girls,  from  their  clothes  to 
their  complexions. 

"Can't  make  it  out,"  he  would  say  at 
breakfast,  after  a  party;  "dances  well; 
dresses  well;  but  doesn't  take.  Fellows 
afraid  of  her.  Everybody  shy  of  a  girl 
who  isn't  popular.  Hasn't  enough  devil. 
Girl  ought  to  have  some  devil,  hang  it 
all!  Dance  with  her  myself?  Well,  I 
do — about  three  times  a  year.  Have 
her  left  on  my  hands  an  hour  at  a  time. 
Fellow  can't  afFord  that.  Think  we 
have  no  chivalry?  Should  come  to 
dances  yourself,  old  chap.  You'd  be 
a  godsend  to  the  girls  in  the  dump." 

Thor's  dancing  days  were  over  before 
Lois's  had  begun,  but  he  could  imagine 
what  they  had  been  to  her.  He  could 
look  back  over  the  four  or  five  years  that 
separated  her  from  the  ordeal,  and  still 
see  her  in  "the  dump" — tall,  timid,  fur- 
tively watching  the  young  men  with 
those  swimming  brown  orbs  of  hers, 
wondering  whether  or  not  she  should 
have  a  partner;  heartsore  under  her 
finery  often  driving  homeward  in  the 
weary  early  hours  with  tears  streaming 
down  her  cheeks.  He  knew  as  much 
about  it  as  if  he  had  been  with  her.  He 
suffered  for  her  retrospectively.  He  did 
it  to  a  degree  that  made  his  long  face 
sorrowful. 

The  sorrow  caused  Lois  some  impa- 
tience. "For  mercy's  sake,  Thor,  don't 
look  at  me  like  that!  It  isn't  as  bad 
as  you  seem  to  think.  I  don't  mind 
it." 


THE  ANGELS  409 

"But  I  do,"  he  declared,  with  indigna- 
tion, only  to  feel  that  he  was  slowly 
coloring. 

He  colored  because  the  statement 
brought  him  within  measurable  distance 
of  a  declaration  which  he  meant  to 
make,  but  for  which  he  was  not  ready. 

She  seemed  to  divine  his  embarrass- 
ment, speaking  with  forced  lightness. 
"Please  don't  waste  your  sympathy  on 
me.  If  any  one's  to  be  pitied,  it's 
mamma.  I'm  such  a  disappointment 
to  her.  Let's  talk  of  something  else. 
Where  have  you  been  to-day,  and 
what  have  you  been  doing?" 

He  was  not  blind  to  her  tact,  counting 
it  to  her  credit  for  the  future,  but  asked 
abruptly  if  she  knew  Fay,  the  gardener. 

"Fay,  the  gardener?"  she  echoed. 
"I  know  who  he  is."  She  went  more 
directly  to  the  point  in  saying,  "I  know 
his  daughter." 

"Well,  she's  having  a  hard  time." 

"Is  she?   I  should  think  she  might." 

His  face  grew  keener.  "Why  do  you 
say  that?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know — she's  that  sort. 
At  least,  I  should  judge  she  was  that 
sort  from  the  little  I've  seen  of  her." 

"How  much  have  you  seen  of  her?" 

"Almost  nothing;  but  little  as  it  was, 
it  impressed  itself  on  my  mind.  I  went 
to  see  her  once  at  Mr.  Whitney's  sug- 
gestion." 

"Whitney?  He's  the  rector  at  St. 
John's,  isn't  he?  What  had  he  to  do 
with  her?  She  doesn't  belong  to  his 
church  ?" 

Lois  explained.  "It  was  when  we 
established  the  branch  of  the  Girl's 
Friendly  Society  at  St.  John's.  Mr. 
Whitney  thought  she  might  care  to  join 
it." 

''And  did  she?" 

"No;  quite  the  other  way.  When  I 
went  to  ask  her,  she  resented  it.  She 
had  an  idea  I  was  patronizing  her. 
That's  the  difficulty  in  approaching 
girls  like  that." 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  challenging 
expression.    "Girls  like  what?" 

"I  suppose  I  mean  girls  who  haven't 
much  money  —  or  who've  got  to 
work." 

He  still  challenged  her,  his  head 
thrown  back.  "They  probably  don't 
consider  themselves  inferior  to  you  for 


410 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


that  reason.  It  wouldn't  be  American 
if  they  did." 

"And  it  wouldn't  be  American  if  I 
did;  and  I  don't.  They  only  make  me 
feel  so  because  they  feel  it  so  strongly 
themselves.  That's  what's  not  Amer- 
ican; and  it  isn't  on  my  part,  but  on 
theirs.  They  force  their  sentiment  back 
on  me.  They  make  me  patronizing 
whether  I  will  or  no." 

"And  were  you  patronizing  when  you 
went  to  see  Miss  Fay?" 

To  conceal  the  slightly  irritated  at- 
tentiveness  with  which  he  waited  for  her 
reply  he  began  to  light  his  motor  lamps. 
Condescension  toward  Rosie  Fay  sud- 
denly struck  him  as  offensive,  no  matter 
from  whom  it  came. 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know,"  she  replied, 
indifferently.  "There  was  something 
about  her  that  disconcerted  me." 

"She's  as  good  as  we  are,"  he  de- 
clared, snapping  the  little  door  of  one  of 
the  lanterns. 

"I  don't  deny  that." 

"A  generation  or  two  ago  we  were  all 
farming  people  together.  The  Willough- 
bys  and  the  Brands  and  the  Thorleys 
and  the  Fays  were  on  an  equal  footing. 
They  worked  for  one  another  and  inter- 
married. The  progress  of  the  country 
has  taken  some  of  us  and  hurled  us  up, 
while  it  has  seized  others  of  us  and 
smashed  us  down;  but  we  should  try  to 
get  over  that  when  it  comes  to  human 
intercourse." 

"That's  what  I  was  doing  when  I 
asked  her  to  join  our  Friendly  Society." 

"PfF!  The  deuce  you  were!  I  know 
your  friendly  societies.  Keep  those  who 
are  down  down.  Help  the  humble  to  be 
humbler  by  making  them  obsequious." 

"You  know  nothing  at  all  about  it," 
she  declared,  with  spirit.  "In  trying 
to  make  things  better  you're  content  to 
spin  theories,  while  we  put  something 
into  practice." 

He  snapped  the  door  of  the  second 
lamp  with  a  little  bang.  "Put  some- 
thing into  practice,  with  the  result  that 
people  resent  it." 

"With  the  result  that  Rosie  Fay  re- 
sented it;  but  she's  not  a  fair  example. 
She's  proud  and  rebellious  and  intense. 
I  never  saw  any  one  just  like  her." 

"You  probably  never  saw  any  one 
who  had  to  be  like  her  because  they'd 


had  her  luck.  Look  here,  Lois,"  he  said, 
with  sudden  earnestness,  "I  want  you 
to  be  a  friend  to  that  girh" 

She  opened  her  eyes  in  mild  surprise 
at  his  intensity.  "There's  nothing  I 
should  like  better,  if  I  knew  how." 

"But  you  do  know  how.  It's  easy 
enough.  Treat  her  as  you  would  a  girl 
in  your  own  class — Elsie  Darling,  for 
instance." 

"It's  not  so  simple  as  that.  When 
Elsie  Darling  came  back  after  five  or  six 
years  abroad  mamma  and  I  drove  into 
town  and  called  on  her.  She  wasn't  in, 
and  we  left  our  cards.  Later,  we  invited 
her  to  lunch  or  to  dinner.  I  should  be 
perfectly  willing  to  go  through  the  same 
formalities  with  Miss  Fay — only  she'd 
think  it  queer.  It  would  be  queer.  It 
would  be  queer  because  she  hasn't  got — 
what  shall  I  say? — she  hasn't  got  the 
social  machinery  for  that  kind  of  cere- 
moniousness.  The  machinery  means 
the  method  of  approach,  and  with  peo- 
ple who  have  to  live  as  she  does  it's  the 
method  of  approach  that  presents  the 
difficulty.    It's  not  as  easy  as  it  looks." 

"Very  well,  then;  let  us  admit  that 
it's  hard.  The  harder  it  is  the  more  it's 
the  job  for  you." 

There  was  an  illuminating  quality  in 
her  smile  that  atoned  for  lack  of  beauty. 
"Oh,  if  you  put  it  in  that  way — " 

"I  do  put  it  in  that  way,"  he  declared, 
with  an  earnestness  toned  down  by  what 
was  almost  wistfulness.  "There  are  so 
many  things  in  which  I  want  help,  Lois 
— and  you're  the  one  to  help  me." 

She  held  out  her  hand  with  character- 
istic frankness.  "I'll  do  anything  I  can, 
Thor.  Just  tell  me  what  you  want  me 
to  do  when  you  want  me  to  do  it — and 
HI  try." 

"Oh,  there'll  be  a  lot  of  things  in 
which  we  shall  have  to  pull  together," 
he  said,  as  he  held  her  hand.  "I  want 
you  to  remember,  if  ever  any  trouble 
comes,  that" — he  hesitated  for  a  word 
that  wouldn't  say  too  much  for  the 
moment — "that  I'll  be  there." 

"Thank  you,  Thor.  That's  a  great 
comfort." 

She  withdrew  her  hand  quietly. 
Quietly,  too,  she  assured  him,  as  she 
moved  toward  the  steps,  that  she  would 
not  fail  to  force  herself  again  on  Rosie 
Fay.    "And  about  that  other  matter — 


THE  SIDE  OF 

the  one  you  spoke  of  first — you'll  tell 
me  more  by  and  by,  won't  you?" 

After  her  capacity  for  ringing  true, 
his  conscientiousness  prompted  him  to 
let  her  see  that  she  could  feel  quite  sure 
of  him.  "I'll  tell  you  anything  I  can 
find  out;  and  one  of  these  days,  Lois,  I 
must — I  must — say  a  lot  more." 

She  mounted  a  step  or  two  without 
turning  away  from  him.  "Oh,  well," 
she  said,  lightly,  as  though  dismissing  a 
topic  of  no  importance,  "there'll  be 
plenty  of  time." 

But  her  smile  was  a  happy  one — so 
happy  that  he  who  smiled  rarely  smiled 
back  at  her  from  the  runabout. 

He  could  scarcely  be  expected  to 
know  as  yet  that  his  pleasure  was  not  in 
any  happiness  of  hers,  but  in  the  help 
she  might  bring  to  a  little  creature 
whose  image  had  haunted  him  all  the 
afternoon — a  little  creature  whose  des- 
perate flower-like  face  looked  up  at  him 
from  a  background  of  poinsettias. 

CHAPTER  V 

ON  coming  to  the  table  that  evening 
Claude  begged  his  mother  to  ex- 
cuse him  for  not  having  dressed 
for  dinner,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  an 
engagement  with  Billy  Cheever.  Mrs. 
Masterman  pardoned  him  with  a  gra- 
cious inclination  of  the  head  that  made 
her  diamond  ear-rings  sparkle.  No  one 
in  the  room  could  be  unaware  that  she 
disapproved  of  Claude's  informality. 
Not  only  did  it  shock  her  personal  deli- 
cacy to  dine  with  men  who  concealed 
their  shirt-bosoms  under  the  waistcoats 
they  had  worn  all  day,  but  it  contra- 
vened the  aims  by  which  during  her 
entire  married  life  she  had  endeavored 
to  elevate  the  society  around  her.  She 
herself  was  one  to  whom  the  refinements 
were  as  native  as  foliage  to  a  tree.  "It's 
all  right,  Claudie  dear;  but  you  do  know 
I  like  you  to  dress  for  the  evening, 
don't  you?"  Without  waiting  for  the 
younger  son  to  speak,  she  continued 
graciously  to  the  elder:  "And  you, 
Thor.  What  have  you  been  doing  with 
yourself  to-day?" 

Her  polite  inclusion  of  her  stepson 
was  meant  to  start  "her  men,"  as  she 
called  them,  in  the  kind  of  conversation 
in  which  men  were  most  at  ease,  that 


THE  ANGELS  411 

which  concerned  themselves.  Thor  re- 
plied while  consuming  his  soup  in  the 
manner  acquired  in  Parisian  and  Vien- 
nese restaurants  frequented  by  young 
men: 

"Got  a  patient." 

Hastily  Claude  introduced  a  subject 
of  his  own.  "Ought  to  go  and  see  'The 
Champion,'  father.  Hear  it's  awfully 
good.    Begins  with  a  prize-fight — " 

But  the  father's  attention  was  given 
to  Thor.    "Who've  you  picked  up?" 

"Fay's  wife — Fay,  the  gardener." 

"Indeed?  Have  to  whistle  for  your 
fee." 

"Oh,  I  know  that—" 

"Thor,  please  /"  Mrs.  Masterman 
begged.    "Don't  eat  so  fast." 

"If  you  know  it  already,"  the  father 
continued,  "I  should  think  you'd  have 
tried  to  squeak  out  of  it."  He  said 
"know  it  alweady"  and  "twied  to 
squeak,"  owing  to  a  difficulty  with  the 
letter  r  which  gave  an  appealing,  child- 
like quality  to  his  speech.  "If  you  start 
in  by  taking  patients  who  are  not  going 
to  pay — " 

Claude  sought  another  diversion. 
"What  does  it  matter  to  Thor?  In 
three  months'  time  he'll  be  able  to  pay 
sick  people  for  coming  to  him — what?" 

"That's  not  the  point,"  Masterman 
explained.  "A  doctor  has  no  right  to 
pauperize  people" — he  said  "pauper- 
wize  people" — "any  more  than  any  one 
else." 

"Oh,  as  to  that,"  Thor  said,  forcing 
himself  to  eat  slowly  and  sit  straight  in 
the  style  commended  by  his  step- 
mother, "it  won't  need  a  doctor  to 
pauperize  poor  Fay." 

"Quite  right  there,"  his  father  agreed. 
"He's  done  it  himself." 

Thor  considered  the  moment  a  favor- 
able one  for  making  his  appeal.  "Claude 
and  I  have  been  talking  him  over — " 

"The  devil  we  have!"  Claude  ex- 
claimed, indignantly. 

"What's  that?"  Masterman's  hand- 
some face,  which  after  his  day's  work 
was  likely  to  be  gray  and  lifeless,  grew 
sharply  interrogative.  Time  had  chis- 
eled it  to  an  incisiveness  not  incongruous 
with  a  lingering  air  of  youth.  His  hair, 
mustache,  and  imperial  were  but 
touched  with  gray.  His  figure  was  still 
lithe  and  spare.    It  was  the  custom  to 


412 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


say  of  him  that  he  looked  but  the 
brother  of  his  two  strapping  sons. 

Claude  emphasized  his  annoyance. 
"Talking  him  over!  I  like  that!  You 
blow  into  the  office  just  as  I'm  ready  to 
come  home,  and  begin  cross-questioning 
me  about  father's  affairs.  I  tell  you  I 
don't  know  anything  about  them.  If 
you  call  that  talking  him  over — well, 
you're  welcome  to  your  own  use  of 
terms." 

The  head  of  the  house  busied  himself 
in  carving  the  joint  which  had  been 
placed  before  him.  "If  you  want  in- 
formation, Thor,  ask  me." 

"I  don't  want  information,  father; 
and  I  don't  think  Claude  is  fair  in  saying 
I  cross-questioned  him.  I  only  said  that 
I  thought  he  and  I  ought  to  do  what  we 
could  to  get  you  to  renew  Fay's  lease." 

"Oh,  did  you?  Then  I  can  save  you 
the  trouble,  because  I'm  not  going  to." 

The  declaration  was  so  definite  that  it 
left  Thor  with  nothing  to  say.  "Poor 
old  Fay  has  worked  pretty  hard,  hasn't 
he?"  he  ventured  at  last. 

"Possibly.    So  have  I." 

"But  with  the  difference  that  you've 
been  prosperous,  and  he  hasn't." 

Masterman  laughed  good-naturedly. 
"Which  is  the  difference  between  me  and 
a  good  many  other  people.  You  don't 
blame  me  for  that?" 

"It's  not  a  question  of  blaming  any 
one,  father.  I  only  supposed  that  among 
Americans  it  was  the  correct  thing  for 
the  lucky  ones  to  come  to  the  aid  of  the 
less  fortunate." 

"Take  it  that  I'm  doing  that  for  Fay 
when  I  get  him  out  of  an  impossible 
situation." 

Thor  smiled  ruefully.  "When  you 
get  him  out  of  the  frying-pan  into  the 
fire?" 

"Well,"  Claude  challenged,  coming 
to  his  father's  aid,  "the  fire's  no  worse 
than  the  frying-pan,  and  may  be  a  little 
better." 

"I've  seen  the  girl,"  Mrs.  Masterman 
contributed  to  the  discussion.  "She's 
been  in  the  greenhouse  when  I've  gone 
to  buy  flowers.  I  must  say  she  didn't 
strike  me  very  favorably."  The  two 
brothers  exchanged  glances  without 
knowing  why.  "She  seemed  to  me  so 
much — so  very  much — above  her  sta- 
tion." 


"What  is  her  station?"  Thor  asked, 
bridling.  "Her  station's  the  same  as 
ours,  isn't  it?" 

The  father  was  amused.  "The  same 
as  what?" 

"Surely  we're  all  much  of  a  much- 
ness. Most  of  us  were  farmers  and 
market-gardeners  up  to  forty  or  fifty 
years  ago.  I've  heard,"  he  went  on, 
utilizing  the  information  he  had  re- 
ceived that  afternoon,  "that  the  Thor- 
leys  used  to  hire  out  to  the  Fays." 

"Oh,  the  Thorleys!"  Mrs.  Masterman 
smiled. 

"The  Mastermans  didn't,"  Archie 
said,  gently.  "You  won't  forget  that, 
my  boy.  Whatever  you  may  be  on  any 
other  side,  you  come  from  a  line  of 
gentlemen  on  mine.  Your  grandfather 
Masterman  was  one  of  the  best-known 
old-school  physicians  in  this  part  of  the 
country.  His  father  before  him  was  a 
Church  of  England  clergyman  in  Derby- 
shire, who  migrated  to  America  because 
he'd  become  a  Unitarian.  Sort  of 
idealist.  Lot  of  'em  in  those  days. 
Time  of  Napoleon  and  Southey  and 
Coleridge  and  all  that.  Thought  that 
because  America  was  a  so-called  repub- 
lic, or  a  so-called  democracy,  he'd  find 
people  living  for  one  another,  and  they 
were  just  looking  out  for  number  one 
like  every  one  else.  Your  Uncle  Sim 
takes  after  him.  Died  of  a  broken  heart, 
I  believe,  because  he  didn't  find  the 
world  made  over  new.  But  you  see  the 
sort  of  well-born,  high-minded  stock  you 
sprang  from." 

Thor  lifted  his  big  frame  to  an  erect 
position,  throwing  back  his  head.  "I 
don't  care  a  fig  for  what  I  sprang  from, 
father.  I  don't  even  care  much  for  what 
I  am.  It  strikes  me  as  far  more  impor- 
tant to  see  that  our  old  friends  and 
neighbors — who  are  just  as  good  as  we 
are — don't  have  to  go  under  when  we 
can  keep  them  up." 

"Yes,  when  we  can,"  Thor's  father 
said,  with  unperturbed  gentleness;  "but 
very  often  we  can't.  In  a  world  where 
every  one's  swimming  for  his  own  dear 
life,  those  who  can't  swim  have  got  to 
drown." 

"But  every  one  is  not  swimming  for 
his  own  dear  life.  Most  of  us  are  safe 
on  shore.  You  and  I  are,  for  example. 
And  when  we  are,  it  seems  to  me  the 


THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS 


413 


least  we  can  do  is  to  fling  a  life-preserver 
to  the  poor  chaps  who  are  throwing  up 
their  hands  and  sinking." 

Mrs.  Masterman  rallied  her  stepson 
indulgently.  "Oh,  Thor,  how  ridiculous 
you  are!    How  you  talk!" 

Claude  patted  his  mother's  hand.  He 
was  still  trying  to  turn  attention  from 
bearing  too  directly  on  the  Fays.  "  Don't 
listen  to  him,  mumphy.  Beastly  social- 
ist, that's  what  he  is.  Divide  up  all  the 
money  in  the  world  so  that  every- 
body '11  have  thirty  cents,  and  then  tell 
'em  to  go  ahead  and  live  regardless. 
That 'd  be  his  way  of  doing  things." 

But  the  father  was  more  just.  "Oh, 
no,  it  wouldn't.  Thor's  no  fool!  Has 
some  excellent  ideas.  A  little  exag- 
gerated, perhaps,  but  that  '11  cure  itself 
in  time.  Fault  of  youth.  Good  fault, 
too."  He  turned  affectionately  to  his 
elder  son.  "Rather  see  you  that  way, 
my  boy,  than  with  an  empty  head." 

Thor  fell  silent,  from  a  sense  of  the 
futility  of  talking. 

CHAPTER  VI 

AT  the  moment  when  Claude  was 
A\  excusing  himself  further,  begging 
to  be  allowed  to  run  away  so  as 
not  to  keep  Billy  Cheever  waiting,  Rosie 
Fay  was  noticing  with  relief  that  her 
mother  was  asleep  at  last.  Thor's 
sedative  had  taken  effect  in  what  the. 
girl  considered  the  nick  of  time.  Having 
smoothed  the  pillow,  adjusted  the  patch- 
work quilt,  and  placed  the  small  kero- 
sene hand-lamp  on  a  chair  at  the  foot  of 
the  bed,  so  as  to  shade  it  from  the 
sleeper's  eyes,  she  slipped  down-stairs. 

She  wore  a  long,  rough  coat.  Over  her 
hair  she  had  flung  a  scarf  of  some  gauzy 
green  stuff  that  heightened  her  color. 
The  lamplight,  or  some  inner  flame  of 
her  own,  drew  opalescent  gleams  from 
her  gray-greenish  eyes  as  she  descended. 
She  was  no  longer  the  desperate,  petu- 
lant little  Rosie  of  the  afternoon.  Her 
face  was  aglow  with  an  eager  life.  The 
diffe  rence  was  that  between  a  blossom 
wilting  for  lack  of  water  and  the  same 
flower  fed  by  rain. 

In  the  tiny  living-room  at  the  foot  of 
the  stairs  her  father  was  eating  the  sup- 
per she  had  laid  out  for  him.  It  was  a 
humble  supper,  spread  on  the  end  of  a 


table  covered  with  a  cheap  cotton  cloth 
of  a  red  and  sky-blue  mixture.  Jasper 
Fay,  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  munched  his 
cold  meat  and  sipped  his  tea  while  he 
entertained  himself  with  a  book  propped 
against  a  loaf  of  bread.  Another  small 
kerosene  hand-lamp  threw  its  light  on 
the  printed  page  and  illumined  his  mild, 
clear-cut,  clean-shaven  face. 

"She's  asleep,"  Rosie  whispered  from 
the  doorway.  "If  she  wakes  while  I'm 
gone  you  must  give  her  the  second  dose. 
I've  left  it  on  the  wash-stand." 

The  man  lifted  his  starry  blue  eyes. 
"You  going  out?" 

"I'm  only  going  for  a  little  while." 

"Couldn't  you  have  gone  earlier?" 

"How  could  I,  when  I  had  supper  to 
get — and  everything?" 

He  looked  uneasy.  "I  don't  like  you 
to  be  running  round  these  dark  roads, 
my  dear.  You've  been  doing  it  a  good 
deal  lately.    Where  is  it  you  go?" 

"Why,  father,  what  nonsense!  Here 
I  am  cooped  up  all  day — " 

He  sighed.  "Very  well,  my  dear.  I 
know  you  haven't  much  pleasure.  But 
things  will  be  different  soon,  I  hope. 
The  new  night  fireman  seems  a  good 
man,  and  I  expect  we'll  do  better  now. 
He'll  behere  atten.  Were  you  going  far?" 

She  answered  promptly.  "Only  to 
Polly  Wilson's.  She  wants  me  to" — 
Rosie  turned  over  in  her  mind  the  vari- 
ous interests  on  which  Polly  Wilson 
might  desire  to  consult  her — "she  wants 
me  to  see  her  new  dress." 

"Very  well,  my  dear,  but  I  hope 
after  this  evening  you'll  be  able  to  do 
your  errands  in  the  daytime.  You  know 
how  it  was  with  Matt.  If  he  hadn't 
gone  roaming  the  streets  at  night — " 

Rosie  came  close  to  the  table.  Her 
face  was  resolute.  "Father,  I'm  not 
Matt.  I  know  what  I'm  doing."  She 
added,  with  increased  determination, 
"I'm  acting  for  the  best." 

He  was  mildly  surprised.  "Acting  for 
the  best  in  going  to  see  Polly  Wilson's 
new  dress?" 

She  ignored  this.  "I'm  twenty-three, 
father.  I've  got  to  follow  my  own  judg- 
ment.   If  I've  a  chance  I  must  use  it." 

"What  sort  of  a  chance,  my  dear?" 

"There's  nothing  to  hope  for  here," 
she  went  on,  cruelly,  "except  from  what 
I  can  do  myself.    Mother's  no  good; 


414 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


and  Matt's  worse  than  if  he  was  dead. 
I  wish  to  God  he  would  die — before  he 
comes  out.  And  you  know  what  you 
are,  father/' 

"I  do  the  best  I  can,  my  dear,"  he 
said,  humbly. 

"I  know  you  do;  but  we  can  all  see 
what  that  is.  Everybody  else  is  going 
ahead  but  us." 

"Oh  no,  they're  not,  my  dear.  There 
are  lots  that  fall  behind  as  bad  as  we  do 
— and  worse." 

She  shook  her  head  fiercely.  "No, 
not  worse.  They  couldn't.  And  what- 
ever's  to  be  done,  I've  got  to  do  it. 
If  I  don't — or  if  I  can't — well,  we  might 
as  well  give  up.  So  you  mustn't  try  to 
stop  me,  father.  I  know  what  I'm 
doing.  It's  for  your  sake  and  every- 
body's sake  as  much  as  for  my  own." 

He  dropped  his  eyes  to  his  book,  in 
seeming  admission  that  he  had  no  ten- 
able ground  on  which  to  meet  her  in  a 
conflict  of  wills.  "Very  well,  my  dear," 
he  sighed.  "If  you're  going  to  Polly 
Wilson's  you'd  better  be  off.  You'll  be 
home  by  ten,  won't  you?  I  must  go 
then  to  show  the  new  fireman  his  way 
about  the  place." 

Outside  it  was  a  windy  night,  but 
not  a  cold  one.  Shreds  of  dark  cloud 
scudded  across  the  face  of  a  three- 
quarters  moon,  giving  it  the  appearance 
of  traveling  through  the  sky  at  an  in- 
credible rate  of  speed.  In  the  south 
wind  there  was  the  tang  of  ocean  salt, 
mingled  with  the  sweeter  scents  of 
woodland  and  withered  garden  nearer 
home.  There  was  a  crackling  of  boughs 
in  the  old  apple-trees,  and  from  the  ridge 
behind  the  house  came  the  deep,  soft, 
murmurous  soughing  of  pines. 

If  Rosie  lingered  on  the  door-step  it 
was  not  because  she  was  afraid  of  the 
night  sounds  or  of  the  dark.  She  was 
restrained  for  a  minute  by  a  sense  of 
terror  at  what  she  was  about  to  do. 
It  was  not  a  new  terror.  She  felt  it  on 
every  occasion  when  she  went  forth  to 
keep  this  tryst.  As  she  had  already  said 
to  her  father,  she  knew  what  she  was 
doing.  She  was  neither  so  young  nor  so 
inexperienced  as  to  be  unaware  of  the 
element  of  danger  that  waited  on  her 
steps.  No  one  could  have  told  her  bet- 
ter than  she  could  have  told  herself 


that  the  voice  of  wise  counsel  would 
have  bidden  her  stay  at  home.  But  if 
she  was  not  afraid  of  the  night,  neither 
was  she  irresolute  before  the  under- 
taking. Being  forewarned,  she  was  fore- 
armed. Being  forearmed,  she  could  run 
the  risks.  Running  the  risks,  she  could 
enjoy  the  excitement  and  find  solace 
in  the  romance. 

For  it  was  romance,  romance  of  the 
sort  she  had  dreamed  of  and  planned  for 
and  got  herself  ready  to  be  equal  to, 
if  ever  it  should  come.  Somehow,  she 
had  always  known  it  would  come.  She 
could  hardly  go  back  to  the  time  when 
she  did  not  have  this  premonition  of  a 
lover  who  would  appear  like  a  prince 
in  a  fairy-tale  and  lift  her  out  of  her  low 
estate. 

And  he  had  come.  He  had  come  late 
on  an  afternoon  in  the  preceding  sum- 
mer, when  she  was  picking  wild  rasp- 
berries in  the  wood  above  Duck  Rock. 
It  was  a  lonely  spot  in  which  she 
could  reasonably  have  expected  to 
be  undisturbed.  She  was  picking  the 
berries  fast  and  deftly,  because  the  fruit- 
man  who  passed  in  the  morning  would 
give  her  a  dollar  for  her  harvest.  Was 
it  the  dollar,  or  was  it  the  sweet,  wan- 
dering, summer  air?  Was  it  the  min- 
gled perfumes  of  vine  and  fruit  and  soft 
loam  loosened  as  she  crept  among  the 
brambles,  or  was  it  the  shimmer  of  the 
waning  sunlight  or  the  whir  of  the  wings 
of  birds  or  the  note  of  a  hermit-thrush 
in  some  still  depth  of  the  woodland 
ever  so  far  away?  Or  was  it  only  be- 
cause she  was  young  and  invincibly 
happy  at  times,  in  spite  of  a  sore  heart, 
that  she  sang  to  herself  as  her  nimble 
fingers  secured  the  juicy,  delicate  red 
things  and  dropped  them  into  the  pan? 

He  came  like  Pan,  or  a  faun,  or  any 
other  woodland  thing,  with  no  sound  of 
his  approach,  not  even  that  of  oaten 
pipes.  When  she  raised  her  eyes  he  was 
standing  in  a  patch  of  bracken.  She  had 
been  stooping  to  gather  the  fruit  that 
clustered  on  a  long,  low,  spiny  stem. 
The  words  on  her  lips  had  been: 

"At  least  be  pity  to  me  shown 
If  love  it  may  na  be — " 

but  her  voice  trailed  away  faintly  on  the 
last  syllable,  for  on  looking  up  he  was 
before  her.   He  wore  white  flannels,  and 


Drawn  by  Elizabeth  Ship  pen  Green 

"I'M    CLAUDE.    DON'T    YOU    REMEMBER  ME?" 


THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS 


415 


a  Panama  hat  of  which  the  brim  was 
roguishly  pulled  down  in  front  to  shade 
his  eyes. 

He  was  smiling  unabashed,  and  yet  with 
a  friendliness  that  made  it  impossible 
for  her  to  take  offense.  "  Isn't  it  Rosie  ?" 
he  asked,  without  moving  from  where  he 
stood  in  the  patch  of  trampled  bracken. 
"I'm  Claude.   Don't  you  remember  me?" 

A  Delphic  nymph  who  had  been  ad- 
dressed by  Apollo,  in  the  seclusion  of 
some  sacred  grove,  could  hardly  have 
felt  more  joyous  or  more  dumb.  Rosie 
Fay  did  not  know  in  what  kind  of  words 
to  answer  the  glistening  being  who  had 
spoken  to  her  with  this  fine  familiarity. 
Later,  in  the  silence  of  the  night,  she 
blushed  with  shame  to  think  of  the  figure 
she  must  have  cut,  standing  speechless 
before  him,  the  pan  of  red  raspberries  in 
her  hands,  her  raspberry-red  lips  apart 
in  amazement,  and  her  eyes  gleaming 
and  wide  with  awe. 

She  remained  vague  as  to  what  she 
answered  in  the  end.  It  was  confusedly 
to  the  effect  that  though  she  remem- 
bered him  well  enough,  she  supposed  that 
he  had  long  ago  forgotten  one  so  insig- 
nificant as  herself.  Presently  he  was 
beside  her,  dropping  raspberries  into  her 
pan,  while  they  laughed  together  as  in 
those  early  days  when  they  had  picked 
peas  by  her  father's  permission  in 
Grandpa  Thorley's  garden. 

Their  second  meeting  was  accidental — 
if  it  was  accidental  that  each  had  come 
to  the  same  spot,  at  the  same  hour,  on 
the  following  day,  in  the  hope  of  finding 
the  other.  The  third  meeting  was  also  on 
the  same  spot,  but  by  appointment,  in  se- 
cret, and  at  night.  Claude  had  been  careful 
to  impress  on  her  the  disaster  that  would 
ensue  if  their  romance  were  discovered. 

But  Rosie  Fay  knew  what  she  was 
doing.  She  repeated  that  statement  of- 
ten to  herself.  Had  she  really  been  a 
Delphic  nymph,  or  even  a  young  lady  of 
the  best  society,  she  might  have  given 
herself  without  reserve  to  the  rapture 
of  her  idyl;  but  her  circumstances 
were  peculiar.  Rosie  was  obliged  to 
be  practical,  to  look  ahead.  A  fairy 
prince  was  not  only  a  romantic  dream 
in  her  dreary  life,  but  an  agency  to 
be  utilized.  The  least  self-seeking  of 
drowning  maids  might  expect  the  hero 

[to  be  c 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783.-52 


on  the  bank  to  pull  her  out  of  the 
water.  The  very  fact  that  she  recog- 
nized in  Claude  a  tendency  to  dally  with 
her  on  the  brink  instead  of  landing  her 
in  a  place  of  safety  compelled  her  to  be 
the  more  astute. 

But  she  was  not  so  astute  as  to  be 
inaccessible  to  the  sense  of  terror  that 
assailed  her  every  time  she  went  to  meet 
him.  It  was  the  fright  of  one  accus- 
tomed to  walk  on  earth  when  seized  and 
borne  into  the  air.  Claude's  voice 
over  the  telephone,  as  she  had  heard 
it  that  afternoon,  was  like  the  call 
to  adventures  at  once  enthralling  and 
appalling,  in  which  she  found  it  hard  to 
keep  her  head.  She  kept  it  only  by  say- 
ing to  herself :  "  I  know  what  I'm  doing.  I 
know  what  I'm  doing.  My  fatheris  ruined ; 
my  brother  is  in  jail.  But  I  love  this  man 
and  he  loves  me.    If  he  marries  me — " 

But  Rosie's  thoughts  broke  off  abrupt- 
ly there.  They  broke  off  because  they 
reached  a  point  beyond  which  imagina- 
tion would  not  carry  her.  If  he  marries 
me!  The  supposition  led  her  where  all 
was  blurred  and  roseate  and  golden, 
like  the  mists  around  the  Happy  Isles. 
Rosie  could  not  forecast  the  conditions 
that  would  be  hers  as  the  wife  of  Claude 
Masterman.  She  only  knew  that  she 
would  be  transported  into  an  atmos- 
phere of  money,  and  money  she  had 
learned  by  sore  experience  to  be  the 
sovereign  palliative  of  care.  Love  was 
much  to  poor  Rosie,  but  relief  from 
anxiety  was  more.  It  had  to  be  so,  since 
both  love  and  light  are  secondary  bless- 
ings to  the  tired  creature  whose  first 
need  is  rest.  It  was  for  rest  that  Claude 
Masterman  stood  primarily  in  her  mind. 
He  was  a  fairy  prince,  of  course;  he  was 
a  lover  who  might  have  satisfied  any 
girl's  aspirations.  But  before  every- 
thing else  he  was  a  hero  and  a  savior,  a 
being  in  whose  vast  potentialities,  both 
social  and  financial,  she  could  find  refuge 
and  lie  down  at  last. 

It  needed  but  this  bright  thought  to 
brace  her.  She  clasped  her  hands  to  her 
breast;  she  lifted  her  eyes  to  the  swim- 
ming moon;  she  drew  deep  breaths  of 
the  sweet,  strong  air;  she  appealed  to 
all  the  supporting  forces  she  knew  any- 
thing about.  A  minute  later  she  was 
speeding  through  the  darkness. 

ITINUED.] 


Sophie  So-and-So 


BY  MARJORY  MORTEN 


T  was  in  the  women's 
lounge  of  the  Public  Li- 
brary that  I  found  her 
fast  asleep  on  a  green- 
velvet  sofa. 

Lying  on  her  side 
with  her  knees  drawn 
up  sharply,  she  suggested  a  pre-dynastic 
mummy,  and,  like  her  sinister  prototype, 
her  scant  garments  seemed  to  have  re- 
placed the  flesh,  veiling  her  bones.  Her 
thinness  and  her  pallor  aroused  my  in- 
terest rather  than  my  sympathy  as  I 
stood  looking  down  at  her. 

Tense  even  in  sleep,  she  suggested  an 
air  of  alertness,  of  guardedness;  she 
seemed  to  say,  "I  can  protect  myself — 
even  now  I  know  what  I  am  doing,"  and 
there  was  something  shameless  in  the 
way  the  crude  green  covering  of  the  sofa 
threw  into  relief  her  black  shabbiness, 
her  youth,  her  utter  lack  of  softness  and 
roundness. 

Suddenly  she  opened  her  eyes  and 
fixed  them  upon  me  with  a  look  at  once 
biting,  shrewd,  and  sardonic.  "This 
new  room  is  so  clean  and  the  cushions  so 
fresh  and  all,  I  don't  belong  here,  do  I  ? 
There's  a  matron  somewhere  about — 
you'd  call  her  a  maid.  Why  don't  you 
tell  her  to  put  me  out?" 

"Oh  no,  please!"  I  stammered  in  my 
eagerness  to  reassure  her.  "I  beg  your 
pardon  for  watching  you  as  you  slept. 

If  j) 
m  sorry — 

She  sat  up,  yawned  widely,  shut  her 
mouth  with  a  snap,  and  lifted  her  hands 
to  her  hair  with  the  unconscious  charm- 
ing gesture  common  to  waking  woman- 
kind. 

"Well,  if  you're  sorry,  sit  down  for  a 
moment  and  talk.  I  won't  bite,  though 
I've  a  hungry  look.  Is  my  hair  untidy? 
I've  only  got  two  hair-pins  left.  Try  to 
imagine  being  so  poor  you  can't  afford 
to  buy  a  package  of  hair-pins — and  my 
clothes!  Fortunate,  isn't  it,  that  it's  the 
fashion  not  to  wear  too  many  clothes?" 

She  crossed  her  thin  legs  and  slouched 


forward  with  her  hands  on  her  hips  in  an 
attitude  which  was  an  absurd  imitation 
of  the  affected  gawkiness  of  our  young 
girls.  I  wanted  to  slap  her,  I  wanted  to 
weep,  and  I  said,  somewhat  painfully: 

"What  in  the  world  are  you?  You 
don't,  somehow,  belong  here  like  this." 

"What  am  I?  Just  a  starving  girl; 
hungry — hungry  in  every  bit  of  me! 
Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  in  this 
glorious  city  of  ours  they  only  feed  one 
part  of  us  richly  and  free  of  charge? 
They  let  us  fill  our  minds  here  with  all 
the  accumulated  brain  food  of  the  ages 
from  8  a.m.  till  10  p.m.,  without  a  penny 
to  pay;  but  no  one  will  give  me  a  scrap 
of  food  for  my  heart,  and  as  for  my 
body — "  She  ended  with  a  despairing 
gesture.  "And  the  funny  thing  is  that 
your  brain  is  the  only  part  of  you  that  is 
self-sustaining.  Oh,  quite!  I  don't  need 
other  people's  thoughts;  I've  got  my 
own,  though  they're  devilish  black  ones 
just  now." 

I  stirred  uneasily,  fingering  my  purse. 
She  went  on: 

"Oh,  well,  in  another  minute  you'll 
look  at  your  watch  and  say  you've  got 
an  engagement.  You're  a  little  bit 
touched,  a  little  amused,  and  very 
much  puzzled;  and  you're  wondering 
what  you  can  do  for  me,  and  what  on 
earth  your  husband  would  say  if  you 
took  me  home  with  you.  But  of  course 
you  can't  do  that,  for  I  might  be  a 
woman  of  the  street,  for  all  you  know." 

I  sat  myself  down  beside  her  on  the 
stuffy  couch,  and  said,  sharply:  "I  do 
want  to  help  you.  I'm  not  stupid  about 
it.  I'm  an  understanding  person.  Talk 
to  me." 

Her  penetrating  glance  fastened  on 
me.  "Oh  no,"  she  declared,  "you're 
not  really  understanding.  You  want  to 
pigeonhole  and  docket  everybody  you 
meet.  You're  great  on  '  types.'  You 
can't  fit  me  into  any  of  your  pigeon- 
holes! But  I  like  your  eyes.  When  I 
woke  and  found  you  looking  at  me,  I 


Drawn  by  Howard  Giles 

•'I    DON'T    NEED    OTHER    PEOPLE'S    THOUGHTS;    I'VE    GOT    MY  OWN" 


SOPHIE  SO-AND-SO 


417 


said,  'There's  a  pair  of  warm  eyes;  she 
won't  try  to  patronize  me.'  Then  I  said 
something  saucy  to  you  because  if  you 
startle  a  woman  she  becomes  real  for  a 
moment,  and  if  you  begin  real  you  may 
get  somewhere.  And  you  see  I  had  to 
find  somebody  to-day — I'm  so  beastly 
tired — somebody  intelligent  enough  to 
help  me  in  my  way.  You're  wondering 
if  I've  had  anything  to  eat.  Well,  I  had 
some  luncheon.  It  was  bad,  indigestible 
food,  and  I  hate  bad  food;  it  makes  me 
ill.  But  I've  money  enough  to  buy  more 
to-night,  so  don't  think  of  that." 

She  leaned  back  and  shut  her  eyes  for 
a  moment,  and,  as  her  eyes  closed,  a 
guarded,  knowing  smile  appeared  about 
the  corners  of  her  mouth.  She  was,  it 
was  evident,  determined  that  I  should 
not  see  her  face  relaxed,  defenseless. 

I  could  only  repeat,  somewhat  self- 
consciously, "Go  on — talk  to  me." 

"Well—"  She  folded  her  arms, 
crossed  her  muddy  shoes,  and  eyed  me 
boldly.  "Well,  I  can  talk  to  almost  any 
one.  What  do  you  want  to  hear — the 
truth?  I  usually  start  with  the  truth, 
and  if  I  meet  with  a  blank  look  I  follow 
it  up  with  lies.  The  truth's  only  for 
those  who  can  stand  it." 

I  was  looking  at  her  hands  as  she 
spoke;  I  have  theories  about  hands. 
Hers  were  long,  flexible,  at  once  capable 
and  sensitive.    She  caught  my  look. 

"I'm  not  a  criminal  type?  Really, 
I've  not  any  Lombrosial  points.  Now 
what  shall  I  tell  you?  Do  you  think  I'm 
a  waif — homeless?  Well,  I've  a  place  to 
sleep  in — one  of  those  demoralized 
streets  east  of  lower  Fifth  Avenue;  one 
of  those  diverted  sections  where  shady 
brown-stone  lodging-houses  are  hedged 
between  loft-buildings.  The  street  is 
very  dirty.  They  only  care  for  the  gar- 
bage-cans when  they  please.  No  traffic 
but  trucks  and  delivery-wagons,  no  chil- 
dren, no  hucksters.  Now  and  again  a 
knife-sharpener  ringing  his  bell.  In  my 
block  there's  a  woman's  trade-union, 
a  very  shady  table  d'hote,  a  Yiddish 
delicatessen  shop,  and  about  nineteen 
houses  where  Jews  make  collars  and 
waists  and  petticoats. 

"Well,  I've  got  a  top  hall  bedroom  in 
a  house  where  very  queer  things  happen 
— very  queer,  but  I  don't  mind.  I'd 
be  queer  myself  if  I  wanted  to  be.  Don't 


wince.  I  don't  want  to  do  that  sort  of 
queer  thing.  I  don't  want  to  marry, 
either.  Oh,  I  was  engaged  once!  That 
was  before  mother  was  ever  arrested. 
He  was  a  friend  of  my  father's — a  pro- 
fessor in  the  City  College.  He  had  a 
bald,  cone-shaped  head,  small  eyes,  the 
longest  nose  in  the  world,  and  a  queer 
stomach — fat  and  loose.  He  bought  me 
things,  and  took  me  to  lectures;  and 
father  said,  'For  God's  sake,  marry  him, 
Sophie!'  But  one  day  —  a  cold  day; 
we'd  been  out  walking — he  was  tired 
and  sleepy,  and  sat  all  hunched  up  be- 
fore the  fire,  with  his  chin  tucked  in.  I 
couldn't  stand  it  any  longer,  and  I 
laughed  and  laughed.  He  asked  what 
was  the  matter,  and  I  said,  'Oh,  you 
look  just  like  that  funny  old  bird  up  at 
the  Bronx — the  one  with  the  long  bill 
that  sits  in  the  mud  and  makes  a  snufHy 
sound.'  I  laughed  and  laughed  long 
after  he'd  gone  out  of  the  room  and  out 
of  the  house  and  down  the  street;  and 
then  I  cried.  Father  never  understood; 
but  mother  did.  She  said,  'Well,  he 
does  look  like  a  queer  bird,  only  I  don't 
know  the  one  at  the  Zoo.'  That's  a 
funny  thing  about  mother — she's  got  a 
sense  of  humor,  yet  how  can  any  one 
with  humor  steal  dozens  and  dozens  of 
pairs  of  Lisle-thread  stockings  when  she 
never  wears  anything  but  silk!" 

I  shivered.  "How  can  you  speak  so 
of  your  mother?    Did  she  really  steal?" 

All  trace  of  bitter  amusement  left 
Sophie's  face,  and  for  the  first  time  she 
looked  very  young  and  appealing. 

"  Of  course  she  stole.  She  steals,  rather. 
Why  should  I  invent  such  a  horrid  lie? 
I  may  as  well  tell  you  the  whole  thing. 
My  father  was  a  school-teacher — dead 
languages — and  my  mother  was — is — 
what  you  call  a  shoplifter.  Of  course 
she  wasn't  born  a  shoplifter;  neither  was 
she  born  a  lady.  She's  rather  handsome, 
only  she's  got  too  fat.  Father  died  three 
years  ago,  and  I  have  never  been  able  to 
understand  why  mother  couldn't  have 
gone  instead.  She's  getting  worse 
and  worse." 

"But  don't  you  know,"  I  interrupted, 
"that  this  failing,  kleptomania,  is  recog- 
nized as  a  moral  disease?  They  treat  it 
by  hypnotic  suggestion.  It's  like  tuber- 
culosis, or  any  other  disease;  it  cant  be 
overcome  by  force  of  will." 


418 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"I  don't  agree  with  you,"  said  my 
young  woman,  flatly.  "I've  thought 
about  it  for  years  and  years,  and  I  realize 
that  we  all  have  thieving  impulses  in  one 
form  or  another,  Some  of  us  want  to 
steal  things;  some  want  to  loot  each 
other's  brains  and  take  ideas  and  opin- 
ions. Most  opinions  are  stolen  goods. 
Some  want  affection,  and  take  each 
other's  husbands  and  wives.  Some  want 
money,  and  some — they're  deadly — take 
and  use  the  vitality  of  others.  Oh  no! 
The  instinct  to  take  is  in  all  of  us,  and 
most  of  us  succumb  sooner  or  later. 
Now  you  would  scorn  to  take  anything 
but—" 

I  jumped  up  hastily.  Somewhere  in 
the  building  sounded  the  muffled  chime 
of  a  clock.  I  looked  at  my  watch  and 
then  held  out  both  hands  to  my  extraor- 
dinary young  person. 

"I  must  go.  And  I'll  be  frank  with 
you.  You  do  puzzle  me,  and  amuse  me, 
and  touch  me.  At  any  rate,  I  don't 
want  to  lose  you,  you  appalling  child. 
Suppose  you  come  to  lunch  with  me  to- 
morrow at  one  o'clock  ?"  I  gave  her  my 
card. 

"  What  will  your  husband  say?" 

"I  have  no  husband,  only  a  brother 
who  doesn't  lunch  at  home." 

''Oh,  I  might  have  known  you  were 
a  widow." 

I  ignored  this  remark,  and  repeated 
as  I  gathered  up  my  belongings:  "To- 
morrow at  one  o'clock?" 

In  the  morning  I  was  almost  con- 
vinced that  I  had  dreamed  Sophie  or 
that  I  had  read  a  fantastic  tale  at  the 
Library  in  that  dim  hour  when  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  define  the  real  from  the  unreal. 
But  at  one  o'clock  she  arrived,  looking 
amazingly  presentable.  Her  shoes  were 
polished,  her  scant  black  frock  had  been 
pressed  and  cleaned,  and  she  had  added 
a  really  fine  lace  collar  and  a  pair  of  long 
suede  gloves.  She  caught  me  noticing 
these  additions,  waited  till  Beeman  had 
left  the  room  (it  spoke  volumes  for  her 
appearance  that  Beeman  had  accepted 
her  without  a  questioning  eyebrow), 
then  she  said,  maliciously: 

"You  thought  I'd  disturb  your  butler 
— your  man — didn't  you  ?  Well,  a  tailor 
lives  on  our  first  floor,  and  he  sponged 
and  pressed  me  in  return  for  two  fashion 
drawings.  The  collar  and  gloves  mother 


took  long  ago,  but  she  wasn't  arrested 
that  time,  and,  as  father  had  to  pay  for 
everything,  I  thought  I  might  as  well 
use  them.  Oh,  don't  look  so  distressed! 
I  sha'n't  talk  this  way  at  the  table." 
And  indeed  she  did  not.  It  was: 
"What  are  you  reading — Bergson?  Your 
type  of  woman  adores  him." 

"Have  you  read  him,  Sophie?" 

She  selected  a  fish-fork  after  some 
deliberation.  "I  understand  he  has  re- 
placed Godey  s  Lady  s  Book.  Oh  no,  I 
don't  read  him — I've  read  about  him; 
his  philosophy  is  soft  to  the  touch  and 
smells  sweet.  I  go  through  the  Chron- 
icle Book  Review  every  month  to  see 
what  people  are  up  to.  There's  nothing 
being  written  now  that  I  must  read. 
Our  writers  are  only  trying  to  tickle  tired 
emotions,  to  supply  opinions  to  the  lazy, 
to  dope  the  minds  of  nervous  people  so 
that  they  may  sleep.  Why  should  you 
read?  When  you're  bored  or  tired  or 
stuffy  try  tucking  your  head  under  your 
wing  and  thinking  for  an  hour.  It's 
much  more  amusing  than  reading." 

After  luncheon  I  took  Sophie  into  the 
drawing-room  and  asked  her  if  she  would 
like  to  look  at  the  pictures,  half  hoping 
that  she  knew  nothing  whatever  about 
them.  I  really  haven't  acquired  the 
showman's  manner  common  to  collect- 
ors, but  we're  reasonably  proud  of  our 
small  American  collection.  Sophie  ran  a 
shrewd  eye  about  the  walls. 

"I  know  them  all  pretty  well,"  she  re- 
marked. "They're  good,  our  men; 
there's  nothing  great.  If  you  had  a  great 
picture  it  would  dominate  the  room, 
make  a  distinct  sound.  I  hear  only  a 
polite  murmur. 

Sophie,  it  seemed,  had  painted — fash- 
ion-plates, miniatures,  small  pastel  por- 
traits. "I  paint  so  badly  and  get  such 
good  likenesses,"  she  said,  complacent- 
ly, "that  I  could  make  a  living  at  it, 
but  there  are  some  things  we  do  not  per- 
mit ourselves  to  do." 

I  soon  realized  that  there  was  little 
Sophie  had  not  done  after  a  fashion  in 
the  twenty-three  years  of  her  life.  She 
had  begun  in  a  shop  and  had  enjoyed 
making  women  buy  all  manner  of  things 
they  did  not  want.  "Then  mother  ap- 
peared, and  with  utter  lack  of  tact  stole 
three  yards  of  machine-made  lace.  They 
didn't  catch  her  at  it,  but  of  course  I  had 


SOPHIE  SO-AND-SO 


419 


to  go,  and  mother  gave  the  lace  to  her 
laundress !" 

She  had  done  newspaper  work;  she 
had  played  companion  to  an  old  woman, 
very  rich  and  very  fat,  who  adored  her. 
"Mother  spoiled  that,  too — came  to  the 
house  as  a  book-agent  and  walked  off 
with  a  jade  snuff-box." 

Tea-time  came  before  we  knew  it,  and 
I  was  thinking  of  asking  my  young 
woman  to  stay  to  dinner  when  she 
turned  to  me  and  with  a  sudden  move- 
ment caught  a  fold  of  my  dress  in  her 
hands  and  patted  it  appealingly. 

"Listen,  please.  You  like  me.  At 
least  you're  not  sure  that  you  like  me, 
but  you're  getting  fond  of  me  and  you're 
interested  in  me.  Now  I've  a  proposi- 
tion to  make."  She  slipped  to  her  knees 
on  the  floor  beside  my  chair  and  turned 
up  her  face — her  sharp,  malicious,  guile- 
ful little  face — to  mine.  "I'm  utterly 
tired  out — this  is  one  of  my  'down' 
times.  The  map  of  me  is  very  moun- 
tainous— up  and  down,  up  and  down.  I 
think  it  will  always  be  so.  I  shall  have 
some  great  climbs!  But  now  I'm  very 
thin,  and  I've  got  indigestion  from  bad 
food;  I'm  living  up  my  vitality  every 
minute,  and  when  that's  gone  I  sha'n't 
be  able  to  carry  out  any  of  my  schemes. 
Of  course  my  head  is  full  of  schemes. 

"Now,  if  you  like,  I'll  come  and  live 
with  you  for  two  months — just  two! 
You'll  feed  me  and  buy  me  clothes — I 
really  have  nothing  left — and  I'll  amuse 
you  and  stimulate  you  and  give  you  all 
sorts  of  new  ideas.  I  promise  not  to  let 
your  brother  make  love  to  me." 

I  smiled  at  the  thought  of  my  sleek, 
conventional  Edgely  making  love  to  the 
little  waif. 

She  caught  my  smile  and  nodded 
wisely.  "Oh,  he'll  want  to  because  I'm 
different;  but  /  promise.  Now  your 
instinct  tells  you  that  I  play  fair;  I'm 
perfectly  straight  with  people  I  like.  Of 
course  I  can't  answer  for  my  mother. 
She  may  find  me  and  come  to  call. 
There's  no  use  putting  her  on  her  honor, 
for  she  hasn't  got  any;  but  she's  a 
charming  person,  and  I'll  watch  her  if 
she  comes;  you  can  depend  on  that. 
It's  September  and  you're  not  doing 
much,  are  you,  but  suffrage  and  charity 
work,  which  bores  you  at  bottom  ?  What 
do  you  say?   Two  months;  and  if  I  find 


we're  not  getting  on  before  the  time  is 
up,  I'll  simply  fade  away.  What  do  you 
say?" 

Edgely  said  a  great  deal.  "Oh,  you 
new  women!  You're  mood-mad !  There's 
no  peace  for  a  man  nowadays!  I'd  like 
to  take  you  to  Turkey  and  put  you  in 
4  pur 'da  for  the  rest  of  your  life — a  yash- 
mak and  a  zither  and  a  barred  window 
is  what  you  need,  my  dear  sister!  You've 
filled  our  house  with  Polish  girl  strikers, 
and  suffragettes,  and  sheep-faced  poets, 
and  people  with  cults;  but  I'll  be  hanged 
if  I  take  a  gutter-snipe  to  live  with  us!" 

I  could  only  repeat:  "Wait  until  you 
see  her.  You'll  like  her;  she'll  amuse 
you. 

"Well,  you  don't"  amuse  me;  you 
make  me  sick;  you  make  me  tired!"  said 
my  dear  Edgely,  stretching  his  neck  and 
patting  his  hair  anxiously  to  see  if  it  was 
quite  smooth,  as  he  always  does  when 
he's  enraged. 

The  next  day  Sophie  came. 

I  shall  never  forget  that  first  evening 
at  dinner.  Sophie,  with  a  bronze  fillet 
in  her  hair  and  a  smocked  frock  of  leaf- 
green  chiffon,  looked  about  sixteen.  We 
had  shopped  all  afternoon  and  brought 
the  things  home  in  a  cab.  For  all  her 
cleverness,  she  could  not  seem  demure, 
but  she  was  very  composed  and  quiet, 
alarmingly  quiet. 

Edgely  ate  his  dinner  in  sulky  silence, 
and  I  was  too  tired  and  dazed  to  talk. 

After  the  roast,  Sophie  looked  at  me 
with  a  glitter  in  her  eye.  "Is  your  brother 
waiting  for  me  to  talk  to  him?"  she 
asked,  in  a  small,  husky  voice. 

Edgely  became  extremely  pink  and 
muttered  something  under  his  breath. 

"I've  been  trying  to  think  of  things 
to  talk  about,"  she  went  on,  turning  her 
remarkable  pale  eyes  on  my  poor  broth- 
er, "but  it  is  difficult.  You  see,  you're 
interested  in  golf  and  polo  and  bridge, 
and  money,  and  I  know  nothing  what- 
ever about  those  things.  And  as  for 
sport,  the  only  taste  of  that  I've  had 
was  a  rather  funny  swordfishing  experi- 
ence off  Montauk  Point." 

"Swordfish?"  Edgely  pricked  his 
ears  and  began  to  look  normal  again. 
Whereupon  Sophie  folded  her  long  hands 
on  the  edge  of  the  table  and  told  her  tale. 
She  began  quietly,  and  very  gradually 
worked  up  to  a  dramatic  pitch  which 


420 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


culminated  in  the  description  of  the 
swordfish  piercing  the  bow  of  the  boat, 
tearing  a  rent  in  Sophie's  frock,  and 
scaring  her  father,  who  had  been  ill,  so 
that  he  fell  overboard. 

She  wound  up  with:  "Of  course,  we 
lost  the  swordfish  in  catching  father, 
and  the  skipper  was  very  much  annoyed. 
Father  lay  perfectly  flat  on  deck  for  a 
long  time,  and  finally  asked  in  a  faint 
voice,  'Sophie,  where  is  the  nasty 
thing?' " 

Beeman  was  rooted  to  the  floor  by  the 
pantry  door,  and  Edgely  was  so  diverted 
that  he  forgot  all  about  an  engagement 
at  his  club  and  looked  distinctly  disap- 
pointed when  Sophie  excused  herself  at 
nine  o'clock  and  went  to  bed.  She  told 
me  later  that  the  only  swordfish  she'd 
ever  seen  was  at  the  Natural  History 
Museum,  and  that  she  wasn't  at  all  sure 
that  it  was  not  an  extinct  species.  But 
the  battle  was  won  that  night  when 
Edgely  admitted,  sheepishly,  that  Sophie 
was  an  amusing  little  cuss. 

Nothing  had  ever  seriously  disturbed 
him,  and  I  found  myself  hoping  that 
Sophie  would  be  the  means  of  violently 
unsettling  my  brother.  I  saw  that  pres- 
ently— very  soon,  in  fact — he  would 
have  become  too  settled,  too  heavy,  to 
be  moved  at  all.  But  if  I  expected 
Sophie  to  focus  her  attention  on  us,  I 
was  soon  disappointed.  She  talked  to 
us  because  an  audience  was  essential  to 
her;  but  she  did  not  really  consider  us 
very  much  more  than  she  did  Beeman, 
or  the  cook,  or  my  cat  Mahmoud.  Some- 
times she  made  me  wonder  if  we  have 
not — all  of  us — a  sneaking  respect  and 
admiration  for  unwavering  egotism.  I 
never  loved  Sophie.  But  as  time  went 
on  I  grew  extremely  fond  of  her,  and  in 
a  queer  way  I  envied  her. 

It  was  not  possible  really  to  know  her; 
her  frankness  was,  it  seemed,  not  frank- 
ness at  all.  She  recounted  bits  of  her 
extraordinary  life  because  it  amused  her 
to  talk,  and  above  all  because  it  amused 
her  to  shock  me.  But  she  withheld  her 
father's  name,  her  birthplace,  her  ad- 
dress, and  many  details  which  would 
have  enabled  me  definitely  to  place  her. 

Her  mother  did  not  appear,  and  I  do 
not  know  if  Sophie  saw  her  at  all.  She 
made  frequent  trips  to  her  lodging  for 
her  mail,  and  there,  too,  I  fancy,  she  met 


the  people  who  were  in  touch  with  her 
at  the  time.  At  any  rate,  she  had  no 
visitors  while  she  was  with  me,  and  she 
very  shortly  made  it  clear  that  my 
friends  bored  her.  Suffragists  they  were, 
for  the  most  part,  and  Sophie  refused  to 
meet  them. 

"What's  the  use?  I  always  hurt  their 
feelings;  and  they've  got  such  nice  feel- 
ings! They  are,  you  know,  rather  like 
the  Boy  Scouts — busy  and  useful  in  a 
way,  and  beautifully  organized;  but 
what  of  it?  This  widespread  confidence 
in  the  power  of  organization  is  a  stupid 
thing.  Organize  a  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  peacocks  and  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  cows  and  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  toy  poodles,  and  what  do 
you  have?  The  deafening  racket  of  a 
million  peacocks  and  cows  and  poodles. 
It  may  be  amusing  for  them;  but  what 
are  they  doing?" 

"Sophie,  do  you  realize  at  all  what 
these  splendid  women  are  working  for?" 

She  waved  me  aside.  "I  asked  your 
Mrs.  Black  the  other  day  what  was  the 
most  essential  thing  in  the  world  to  work 
for,  and  she  said,  'The  economic  inde- 
pendence of  women.'  Now  to  me  there's 
something  droll  about  a  horde  of  women 
working  for  the  economic  independence 
of  their  sex  while  they  themselves  are 
nicely  supported  by  their  husbands  and 
fathers  and  sons.  Women  have  just  dis- 
covered that  they're  individuals.  Well, 
let  them  prove  it  practically,  and  they 
can  do  anything  they  like! 

"And  this  eternal  busyness  with 
others'  affairs!  Why,  I'm  probably  the 
only  woman  you  know  who'll  admit  that 
she's  more  interested  in  herself  than  in 
her  sister-kind." 

About  her  ambitions,  her  schemes, 
Sophie  would  say  nothing.  When  I 
questioned  her  she  gave  me  a  deep  look 
in  which  affection  and  malice  blended. 
She  vowed  that  for  the  time  she  had 
only  one  ambition — to  grow  fat  and 
strong  and  calm.  "When  my  hair  shines 
and  my  eyes  shine  and  my  bones  are  cov- 
ered, I'll  talk  of  the  future — not  now." 

And  indeed  she  made  a  business  of 
eating  and  sleeping  and  caring  for  her 
small,  meager  body.  She  breakfasted  in 
bed,  walked  in  the  Park,  and  went  to  bed 
early,  although  she  did  not  sleep  till  after 
midnight. 


SOPHIE  SO-AND-SO 


421 


I  went  to  her  room  every  evening  for 
a  chat  and  found  myself  looking  forward 
to  that  hour,  which  often  stretched  itself 
to  two  or  three — a  time  of  strange  con- 
fidences and  stranger  reticences  when 
Sophie,  becapped  and  wrapped  in  a  rosy 
gown,  sat  hugging  her  knees  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  bed.  She  looked  adorable  in 
cap  and  frills;  in  fact,  she  wore  every- 
thing so  charmingly  that  we  spent  days 
in  the  shops.  I  bought  lavishly;  then 
Sophie  turned  the  tables  and  declared 
that  I  needed  clothes  myself. 

"Why  do  you  try  to  look  artistic? 
It's  not  your  type  at  all — traily  things 
and  lumpy  beads,  and  your  hair  in  loops! 
Now  you're  essentially  modern,  and 
should  wear  ultra-smart  things — pearls 
in  your  ears,  and  smart  hats,  and  your 
hair  dressed  by  Maurice.  I'll  make  you 
look  as  an  English  duchess  should  and 
doesn't,  in  no  time." 

In  years  I  had  not  been  so  extrava- 
gant, and  I  was  vastly  pleased  with  the 
result.  Edgely  wasn't.  He  said,  "You 
don't  look  decent, somehow, sister.  What 
have  you  been  doing  to  yourself?" 

"That's  just  it,"  crowed  Sophie. 
"Only  an  utterly  respectable  woman  can 
afford  to  look  like  that.  Now  I'm  not 
respectable — I  must  always  be  conserva- 
tive in  my  clothes." 

Sophie  made  Edgely  squirm  in  every 
fiber  of  his  being.  She  shocked  him,  she 
took  his  breath  away,  she  seized  his  pet 
convictions  and  his  orderly  prejudices 
and  turned  them  inside  out.  She  left 
him  red  and  floundering;  but  when  he'd 
got  his  breath  he  came  back  for  more. 

Men  had  played  strange  parts  in 
Sophie's  life;  but  she  had,  to  the  best  of 
my  belief,  given  them  nothing.  She  used 
them  craftily;  told  them  that  she  was 
using  them,  and  so  disarmed  them.  One 
touch  of  sentiment  had  come  to  her  in 
her  eighteenth  year  in  the  person  of  an 
anemic  young  socialist,  a  pupil  of  her 
father's.  They  had  gone  off"  for  a  day  in 
the  country  with  a  box  of  sandwiches 
and  Henry  George's  Social  Problems. 

It  was  springtime,  and  the  sky  was 
gray  after  a  morning  of  heavy  showers. 
The  ground  was  quite  muddy,  and,  as 
Sophie  put  it,  all  the  green  things  looked 
like  salad  that  had  soaked  for  a  long 
time  in  French  dressing.  They  sat  on  a 
rock,  and  could  not  read;  they  opened 


their  lunch-box,  and  could  not  eat;  they 
tried  to  talk  and  found  themselves  ut- 
tering inanities. 

"He  touched  me  once  and  his  hand  was 
quite  clammy.  I  wanted  him  to  kiss  me 
awfully,  and  he  wanted  to;  but  he 
didn't,  and  I  cried  all  the  way  home.  I 
never  saw  him  again,  because  I  found 
that  he  made  my  mind  feel  cloudy — and 
he  was  too  poor  to  be  anything  but  a 
socialist — ever." 

After  a  long  pause  Sophie  went  on, 
briskly:  "Father  still  hoped  I'd  be  a 
teacher;  he  wouldn't  see  how  absurd  the 
idea  was.  I  tried  to  show  him  how  I  felt, 
and  my  views  upset  him  very  much.  I 
said  that  I  thought  the  printing-press 
had  been  responsible  for  more  madness 
than  the  wine-press;  and  I  refused  to 
aid,  abet,  or  in  any  way  encourage  the 
present  criminal  system  of  education. 
Then  father  said,  elongating  his  upper 
lip,  'Well,  Sophie,  perhaps  it  is  wiser 
that  you  do  not  undertake  the  career  of 
a  teacher.'  Mother  said:  'Do  anything 
you  like.  You've  got  brains  enough, 
only  I  hope  you  won't  marry.  It's  an- 
noying to  have  a  resident  critic  in  the 
house  all  one's  life.  I  know  you'd  find 
it  annoying,  Sophie.'  That  was  rather 
rough  on  father  under  the  circumstances, 
but  mother  was  right  in  a  way. 

"Then  I  went  to  an  art-school  for  a 
year,  but  they  wouldn't  let  me  talk; 
they're  a  deadly  bloodless  lot,  those  art- 
students,  anyway.  I  decided  that  the 
time  had  come  for  me  to  try  my  per- 
sonality, to  see  if  it  would  serve  me 
properly  with  all  kinds  of  people.  So  I 
went  into  a  shop.  I  found  it  worked 
very  nicely;  I  could  sell  almost  any- 
thing, and  the  women  used  to  ask  for  me. 
I  seemed  to  know  instinctively  just  the 
right  word  or  look  to  rouse  a  woman's 
interest  in  me,  or  my  lace,  or  her  own 
self,  as  I  chose.  It  was  good  practice, 
but  I  was  really  quite  ready  to  go  when 
mother  took  that  piece  of  insertion." 

Sophie  had  not,  I  gathered,  always 
lived  in  New  York,  and  she  did  not  mean 
to  stay.  "It's  not  my  field — too  full  of 
waste  matter.  We  say  New  York  is  the 
place  to  live  because  it's  the  center,  be- 
cause every  one  who  is  doing  anything 
real  comes  here  sooner  or  later.  We  for- 
get the  hordes  of  people  who  come  to 
live  vicariously  on  the  activity  of  others. 


422 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


For  every  busy  person,  there's  a  score 
of  parasites  lapping  up  the  overflow. 
Now  these  creatures  get  in  the  way — 
always  under  one's  feet.  They  disturb 
one's  calculations,  and  there's  no  earthly 
way  to  use  them!" 

In  the  weeks  that  followed,  Edgely 
was  completely  demoralized.  He  was 
rude  to  Sophie  and  very  rude  to  me.  He 
lost  his  appetite  and  his  pinkness,  and 
he  threatened  to  buy  a  monoplane.  I 
was  not  in  the  least  sorry  for  him.  All 
manner  of  unsuspected  things  were 
struggling  to  the  surface  of  Edgely,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  found  my 
brother  interesting  as  a  human  being. 

Sophie  grew  sleek;  one  by  one  she 
announced  the  departure  of  her  "dear 
bones"  as  they  disappeared  under  a 
layer  of  rosy  flesh,  a  layer  so  charm- 
ingly, so  cleverly  spread  that  she  lost 
nothing  of  delicacy.  Plump  she  could 
never  be,  and  I  saw  that  she  would  not 
lose  her  hungry  look,  which  was  the 
physical  mark  of  her  greedy  spirit.  She 
was  hungry,  she  said,  for  everything  but 
sensations — "They're  so  cheap."  She 
stretched  her  long  arms  in  an  immense 
gesture,  and  gloated,  "Oh,  life — life's  so 
fat,  so  rich,  so  luscious,  so  bursting  with 
things,  that  I  must  live  a  hundred  years !" 

I  had  by  this  time  realized  that  when 
the  two  months  were  ended  Sophie 
would  not  suggest  a  longer  visit.  Hav- 
ing got  what  she  wanted,  she  would  go, 
and  her  leave-taking  would  be  as  casual 
as  her  coming.  By  no  possible  chance 
would  she  come  to  me  and  say:  "I  must 
go.  You've  been  awfully  good  to  me, 
and  I'm  sorry  to  leave."  She  was  in- 
capable of  gratitude,  and  consequently 
of  ingratitude.  I  remember  her  say- 
ing: "Why  are  people  always  embar- 
rassing each  other  with  thank-you's? 
One  does  what  one  can,  and  that's  the 
end  of  it."  She  had  amused,  interested, 
and  upset  us  to  an  extent  which  more 
than  paid  for  our  hospitality,  and  she 
would  not  be  sorry  to  go.  Already  she 
showed  signs  of  restlessness. 

One  day  early  in  November — a  bleak, 
gusty  afternoon — I  came  home  at  the 
tea-hour  and  went  directly  to  my  sitting- 
room  fire.  From  the  library  across  the 
hall  came  the  sound  of  voices.  I  listened 
deliberately    as   I   took  off  my  furs. 


Sophie's  treble  carried  distinctly.  Edge- 
ly's  low  voice  sounded  a  troubled,  vehe- 
ment note  new  to  my  sister-ears. 

Sophie  was  saying:  "Oh  no,  you 
don't;  you  couldn't  want  to  marry  me. 
Mother  would  get  away  with  the  wed- 
ding-presents under  the  noses  of  the 
detectives.  And,  anyway,  I  don't  want 
to  marry."  Edgely  broke  in  violently; 
then  came  Sophie's  cool  protest:  "I 
can't,  and  I  won't — I  don't  want  to. 
You're  not  amusing  enough,  and  I  don't 
care  to  arrange  my  life  that  way.  You 
see,  there's  nothing  you  can  think  of 
that  will  do.  If  I  stayed  here  any  longer 
you'd  kiss  me  again,  and  your  sister 
wouldn't  like  it  at  all.  I  shouldn't, 
either.    So  I  must  go — just  disappear." 

Edgely's  voice  came  faintly,  resign- 
edly, and  then: 

"I'm  sorry  to  leave  your  sister;  she's 
a  dear.  I've  done  a  great  deal  for  her. 
It's  almost  impossible  to  shock  her  now, 
and  she's  not  so  faddy  as  she  was.  She'll 
have  to  get  along  without  me.  And  you, 
you  nice  thing,  will  grow  pink  again 
very  soon;  you're  naturally  a  pink  per- 
son. You'll  never  forget  me  as  long  as 
you  live.  Good-by!  No,  stay  just 
where  you  are,  please.  Good-by!" 

I  heard  the  library  door  close,  and 
Sophie's  footsteps  sounded  on  the  stairs. 
Beeman  was  dressing  for  dinner,  and  the 
new  maid  was  foraging  in  the  pantry 
ice-box,  so  Sophie  let  herself  quietly  out 
of  the  house. 

After  a  few  moments,  I  listened  at  the 
door  of  the  library,  but  Edgely  made  no 
sound.  In  Sophie's  room  I  found  her 
trunk  and  valises  assembled  at  the  foot 
of  the  great  bed  from  the  depths  of 
which  she  had  spun  her  nightly  droll- 
eries. Everything  was  locked  and 
strapped  and  neatly  labeled,  "To  be 
called  for."  I  looked  about  the  charm- 
ing room,  half  hoping  to  find  a  note,  a 
word  for  me,  but  there  was  nothing. 

That  night  we  dined  alone  with  an 
empty  plate  between  us.  After  the 
savory,  Edgely  said,  frowning  (he  al- 
ways frowns  when  he  lies) : 

"Where  is  Sophie?" 

I  looked  at  my  dear  brother  steadily 
for  a  moment  before  replying,  "Where, 
indeed  ?" 

And  that  was  the  end  of  that. 


The  Colleges  and  Mediocrity 


BY  HENRY  SEIDEL   CAN  BY 

Assistant  Professor  of  English,  Yale  University 


HE  writer  of  fiction  may 
be  said,  with  only  a  par- 
donable exaggeration, 
to  put  himself  in  the 
place  of  the  Almighty. 
Venturing  to  create  a 
man,  he  shapes  the 
character  of  his  creature,  molds  and  re- 
fines his  brain,  and  prepares  a  living  in- 
strument by  which  events  and  circum- 
stances can  be  controlled  or  directed 
toward  a  reasonable  destiny.  If  he  is  a 
bad  writer  the  results  deceive  only  chil- 
dren. But  if  he  is  modest  enough  to 
study  life  and  imitate  it,  then  he  shares 
the  mysterious  power  of  creative  evolu- 
tion and  earns  his  tribute  of  respect. 

The  teacher  also  feels — at  least  in  his 
remote  subconsciousness — that  he  shares 
or  should  share  this  power.  He,  too, 
must  make  character,  brains,  efficiency; 
and  if  the  part  he'  plays  is  relatively 
small,  at  least  when  he  labors  over  a  boy 
in  whom  the  man  is  still  uncreated,  he  is 
engaged  in  no  work  of  the  imagination 
merely.  Except  for  the  parent  he  is  the 
only  professional  on  the  job;  and  next 
to  the  parent  he  is  held  most  responsible 
for  the  result.  The  praise  usually  goes 
to  the  amateur  elements  in  the  task — 
friends,  college  spirit,  the  rigors  of 
athletics,  and  environment;  the  blame 
falls  upon  the  professional  educators — 
the  parents  and  himself. 

I  am  not  much  concerned  with  the 
justice  or  the  injustice  of  his  claim  for 
services  rendered.  This  is  one  of  the 
questions  that  must  go  up  to  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  Last  Judgment,  for 
no  sublunary  arbitrator  can  disentangle 
the  evidence.  I  merely  wish  to  explain 
the  earnestness  with  which  each  college 
professor  accepts  his  responsibility,  and 
asks,  as  he  looks  over  his  entering  classes, 
"Who  among  you  shall  be  saved?" 

He  means,  of  course,  "Who  among 
you  shall  be  educated?" — that  he  iden- 
tifies salvation  and  education  is  due  to 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783.-53 


his  professional  bias,  and  may  be  taken 
for  what  it  is  worth.  When  a  college 
education  became  fashionable,  when  the 
little  file  of  the  sons  of  ministers  and 
lawyers  entering  the  college  gates  was 
joined  and  submerged  by  the  multitude 
of  everybody's  sons — rich,  poor,  stupid, 
brilliant,  ambitious,  and  the  opposite — 
his  question  first  became  acute.  Now 
it  is  burning.  Shall  the  colleges  spend 
their  abundant  energies  and  their  great, 
if  not  too  effective,  powers  upon  the  few 
fit,  or  upon  the  mass,  the  multitude  of 
the  mediocre?  Shall  we  seek  quality  or 
quantity?  I  know  that  the  question 
has  been  answered  a  hundred  times  in 
history;  but  it  has  not  been  answered 
for  twentieth  -  century  America.  For 
America  just  now  provides  the  greatest 
exhibit  the  world  has  ever  seen  of  suc- 
cessful mediocrity. 

There  are  no  contented  poor  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic  except  in  the  back- 
waters of  the  East.  There  is  no  single 
class  content  to  recognize  the  intellec- 
tual or  material  superiority  of  the  rest. 
Every  one  is  pushing  onward  and  up- 
ward. The  poor  man,  as  we  are  told 
every  day,  may  be  rich  to-morrow;  the 
ignorant  goes  to  night-school  and  will 
learn;  the  drummer  hopes  to  run  the 
business  for  which  he  is  traveling;  the 
hired  man  will  own  land  as  good  as  that 
he  plows;  the  clerk  will  be  a  partner  in 
the  firm.  Even  in  the  universities  no 
institutions  like  the  fellowships  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  can  exist.  In  America 
not  even  the  scholar  is  willing  to  stop  at 
such  a  position.  He  must  go  on — or  try 
to  go  on — as  far  as  the  rest.  Never  be- 
fore has  a  nation  exhibited  so  complete  a 
spectacle  of  millions  of  insects  all  swarm- 
ing upward  toward  the  light. 

This  view  may  be  optimism.  I  do  not 
think  so.  For  in  nine  hundred  cases  out 
of  a  thousand  the  goal  of  all  this  striving 
is  mediocrity.  Your  son  nowadays  does 
not  hope  to  be  President.    He  climbs 


424 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


toward  a  much  lower  round  in  the  lad- 
der. The  laborer  wishes  to  reach  the 
middle  class.  The  middle  class  wishes  to 
be  richer.  The  upper  class — if  we  have 
one — hopes  to  make  sure  of  its  perch. 
Our  cities  reflect  the  spirit.  They  rise 
like  the  wind  from  the  empty  prairie  or 
the  dense  forest  into  a  reasonable  simili- 
tude of  the  "business  district"  of  St. 
Louis  or  Chicago,  and  then  stick  at  a 
level  of  ugliness  which  is  not  the  less  ugly 
for  being  metropolitan.  Our  homes 
show  it.  A  semi-colonial  with  porcelain 
tubs  and  hardwood  floors  bounds  the 
imagination  of  all  but  the  artistic  tem- 
perament or  the  millionaire.  Our  litera- 
ture shows  it  most  distinctly  of  all. 
American  newspapers  and  magazines 
maintain  a  higher  average  of  composi- 
tion than  is  to  be  found  elsewhere, 
perhaps,  and  seldom  rise  above  that 
average.  We  show  it  ourselves;  for  con- 
sider how  much  the  speech  of  one  Amer- 
ican business  man  resembles  that  of  an- 
other. You  can  sojourn  for  days  in 
smoking-cars,  hotel  corridors,  or  cafes 
without  encountering  an  idea  which 
descends  to  the  naive  ignorance  of  the 
peasant  or  rises  above  mediocrity.  Even 
our  multimillionaires,  the  characteristic 
"great  men"  of  America,  although  in  the 
manipulation  of  natural  resources  they 
have  risen  above  the  ordinary,  seem  to 
be  mediocre  as  personalities.  The  news- 
papers are  generous  of  space  to  every 
episode  in  their  domestic  history;  yet 
what  could  be  flatter  than  their  remarks 
to  strangers  who  entertain  royalty  un- 
awares in  a  broken-down  automobile; 
what  less  illuminating  than  their  com- 
ments on  success  in  life;  what  less  in- 
teresting than  their  lives  when  once  the 
millions  have  been  made?  As  a  nation 
we  are  mediocre. 

This  may  be  pessimism.  I  do  not 
think  so.  It  is  the  very  essence  of  the 
American  experiment  that  a  vast  body 
of  men  and  women  should  be  raised  as 
a  whole  to  a  level  of  comfort,  of  intelli- 
gence, of  happiness,  which,  if  far  below 
the  best,  should  be  also  far  above  the 
worst.  And  this  involves,  this  requires 
an  enormous  increase  in  the  total  amount 
of  mediocrity.  Democracy  and  free  im- 
migration combined  inevitably  make 
for  such  a  result.  It  had  to  come;  and 
our  day's  work  is  still  to  bring  more  and 


more  of  the  illiterate,  the  incapable,  the 
unfortunate  up  to  the  level  of  the  medi- 
ocre, even  though  the  burden  weighs 
us  down,  and  the  result  seems  to  point 
toward  a  future  that  is  drab  and  dull 
and  commonplace.  No  race  can  escape 
from  its  circumstances,  and  these,  in  part 
by  choice,  in  part  by  the  chance  of  in- 
heritance in  a  rich  and  undeveloped 
continent,  are  ours. 

I  would  not  deal  so  freely  in  generali- 
zations if  I  did  not  feel  that  they  were 
self-evident;  nor  would  I  write  of  this 
subject  at  all  if  I  did  not  believe  that  it 
lay  on  the  very  heart  of  the  American 
colleges.  I  do  not  suppose  that  the  col- 
lege is  more  vital  in  American  life  than 
any  one  of  a  dozen  agencies  committed 
by  nature  to  idealism  -and  usefulness. 
But  I  think  that  no  individual  confronts 
more  inevitably  the  problem  of  the  me- 
diocre than  the  professor  in  an  American 
college. 

For  see  the  mass  of  undergraduates 
that,  drawn  from  all  the  social  classes, 
but  chiefly  from  those  that  have  already 
attained  mediocrity,  are  flung  at  his 
head.  Among  them,  to  be  sure,  are  a 
few  of  the  brilliantly  ambitious  who  will 
use  more  than  can  be  given  to  them;  but 
in  far  greater  numbers  are  the  brilliant 
and  unambitious  who  will  use  nothing 
unless  it  is  forced  upon  them,  the  stupid 
but  well-meaning  who  have  to  be  fed 
with  a  spoon,  and  the  backward  and  un- 
meaning who  must  be  cudgeled  along 
after  the  rest.  Where  shall  the  bewil- 
dered teacher  apply  his  goad?  Whom 
shall  he  permit  to  fall  behind?  How 
shall  he  keep  pace  with  the  leaders  with- 
out scattering  the  herd  ? 

There  can  be  no  question  as  to  per- 
sonal choice.  I  have  heard  more  than 
one  man  of  experience  remark  that  there 
is  no  pleasure  in  teaching  an  undergrad- 
uate whose  grade  is  below  seventy-five 
per  cent.;  and,  while  I  do  not  believe  it, 
I  have  seldom  heard  the  statement  con- 
tradicted. Indeed,  in  the  universities, 
the  best  scholars  on  the  faculty,  unless 
they  love  teaching  for  itself  or  are  con- 
trolled by  necessity  or  circumstance, 
gravitate  generally  toward  small  and  se- 
lected classes  or  graduate  work.  And  it 
would  be  easy  and  pleasant  for  all  of  us 
to  concentrate  upon  the  exceptional  stu- 
dents— to  educate  them,  even  if  the  rest 


THE  COLLEGES  AND  MEDIOCRITY 


425 


should  go  unwashed  by  the  waters  of 
knowledge.  When  circumstances  are 
favorable,  the  forcing  of  a  needle  into 
soft  iron  is  not  more  difficult  than  to 
push  one  really  new  idea  into  an  imma- 
ture brain.  But  if  circumstances  are 
unfavorable,  if  there  are  thirty  brains 
of  all  ranges  of  capability  to  be  manip- 
ulated, the  difficulty  is  multiplied.  I 
can  give  one  or  two  men  with  good  minds 
and  a  good  environment  behind  them — 
I  can  give  them,  if  they  want  it,  a  com- 
prehension of  the  strange  and  moving 
literary  force  called  romanticism,  which, 
springing  from  obscure  reactions  in  the 
psychology  of  a  race,  spreads  through 
thought  and  speech  and  action  until  it 
transmutes  into  literature  and  becomes 
a  rosy  semblance  of  the  life  men  would 
desire  to  lead  in  a  world  shaped  by  their 
imagination.  Or  I  can  try  to  give  the 
same  conception  to  all,  knowing  that 
half  the  minds  will  be  as  blank  as  before, 
that  most  of  the  remainder  will  return 
confused  and  broken  images  of  the  truth 
perhaps  less  valuable  than  blankness, 
and  that  the  few  fit  will  profit  less,  be- 
cause, of  necessity,  less  has  been  given 
them. 

The  literal-minded  will  probably  re- 
ply, "Don't  try  to  teach  romanticism." 
Well,  I  do  not — to  elementary  classes. 
But  this  merely  alters  the  terms  of  the 
problem — the  solution  will  be  the  same. 
It  would  be  easiest,  it  would  be  pleasant- 
est,  it  would  seem  to  be  most  efficient  in 
the  American  colleges,  to  sacrifice  the 
mediocre  to  the  able,  to  dismiss  quantity 
and  hold  fast  to  quality.  And  yet  every 
one  knows  that  this  is  precisely  what  we 
do  not  do.  Every  one  knows,  or  can  find 
out  for  the  asking,  that  in  our  schools 
and  all  our  undergraduate  departments 
nine-tenths  of  our  labor  is  spent  upon 
those  least  able  or  least  likely  to  profit 
by  the  results. 

The  cynic  will  remark  that  our  per- 
versity is  due  to  the  attitude  of  the 
powers  that  be,  who,  in  the  contemporary 
college,  are  almost  as  sensitive  to  the 
merits  of  quantity  as  the  "boosters"  of 
a  Western  town.  The  cynic  would  be 
partly  right.  We  are  still  in  the  pio- 
neering stage  in  the  college  world — or 
think  that  we  are — where  sheer  numbers 
seem  necessary  in  order  to  hold  down  the 
investment.    And  yet  the  pressure  sup- 


posed to  be  exerted  upon  the  underlings 
in  order  to  keep  classes  large  is  so  much 
less — at  least  in  colleges  of  a  high  rank — 
than  is  popularly  supposed,  that  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  this  motive  unimportant 
in  the  problem. 

It  is  not  a  crude  desire  to  keep  the  col- 
lege "big";  nor  is  it  weak  human  na- 
ture, hesitating  to  eliminate  a  nuisance 
when  that  nuisance  is  a  friendly,  fresh- 
spirited  boy;  it  is  the  American  passion 
for  democracy  that  makes  us  lavish  our 
energies  upon  the  multitude  of  the  medi- 
ocre. For  a  belief  that  the  right  to  an 
education  is  as  universal  as  freedom  is 
ingrained  in  the  American  mind.  The 
college  professor  may  never  have  recog- 
nized this  as  the  cause  of  his  perverse  de- 
votion to  the  mediocre.  He  may  never 
have  said,  he  may  never  have  thought, 
"If  the  republic  is  to  be  saved  it  is  by 
raising  the  average  of  intelligence." 
But  his  actions  prove  that  somewhere  in 
his  subconsciousness  this  belief  is  stir- 
ring. It  is  this  hidden  passion  that 
manifests  itself  in  the  attitude  I  have 
called  perverse. 

This  passion  for  democracy  is  the 
most  sincere  and  possibly  the  most  valu- 
able quality  in  our  whole  educational 
system.  When  I  glimpse  its  subter- 
ranean motives  I  know  why  my  heart  is 
sore  if  the  ninety-and-nine  average  men 
are  unmoved  by  my  teaching,  even 
though  the  hundredth  man  has  re- 
sponded beyond  my  hopes.  But  when 
I  calculate  its  effects  I  realize  that  it  is 
responsible  for  some  of  the  difficulties  in 
which  American  education  flounders. 
It  is  the  quintessence  of  a  noble  idealism; 
but  we  have  followed  it  blindly;  and 
sometimes  it  has  led  us  into  the  mire. 

Everywhere  but  in  so-called  graduate 
work,  and  in  some  measure  even  there, 
this  desire  to  do  something  for  every  one 
has  made  us  neglect  the  exceptional  man 
and  actually  favor  the  mediocre.  There 
is  no  question,  I  think,  as  to  the  fact,  and 
a  comparison  of  the  best  products  of 
English  and  Continental  training-schools 
with  our  own  graduates  will  bring  it 
home.  They  permit  fewer  men  to  call 
themselves  educated;  but  these  men  are 
more  highly  trained,  more  efficient  in- 
tellectually, than  ours.  In  science,  in 
scholarship,  as  in  literature,  we  still  look 
eastward  for  leaders. 


426 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


In  the  past  our  deficiencies  were  due 
to  inferior  equipment  and  less  extensive 
resources.  But  now  we  can  offer  neither 
poverty  nor  immaturity  as  an  excuse. 
Our  failure  to  provide  the  best  possible 
education  for  the  best  men  can  be  at- 
tributed only  to  our  desire  to  give  every 
man  his  equal  chance,  a  desire  which, 
more  deeply  interpreted,  means  that  we 
have  preferred  universal  mediocrity  to 
an  aristocracy  of  brains  and  a  common- 
alty of  ignorance.  We  educate  a  class, 
not  individuals.  We  boast  of  the  type, 
of  the  average  our  colleges  produce.  In 
my  own  university  one  hears  far  less  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  of  Evarts,  of  Cal- 
houn, or  of  Stedman  than  of  the  "Yale 
man."  This  indirect  evidence,  I  think, 
is  even  more  significant  than  the  results 
of  matching  Harvard  with  Oxford  or 
Columbia  with  Berlin. 

Are  we  wrong?  Am  I  absurd  when 
I  feel  that  my  class  must  come  forward 
as  a  body — the  lazy  millionaire's  son, 
the  earnest  child  of  an  uncouth  immi- 
grant, the  able  inheritor  of  sufficient 
brains — must  come  forward,  all  of  them, 
or  the  year's  work  is  not  well  done?  I 
do  not  think  so — for  I  believe  in  the 
American  experiment.  I  believe  in  the 
passion  for  democracy — even  when  mis- 
guided, even  when  blind. 

But  it  is  blind.  That  is  the  chief  crit- 
icism one  has  to  offer.  The  French  of 
the  Revolution  were  so  afraid  of  aristoc- 
racy that  in  the  new  republic  they  re- 
duced all  titles  to  "citizen."  We  have 
been  so  afraid  of  slighting  the  democracy 
that  in  the  colleges  we  have  reduced  all 
education  to  an  average.  The  needless 
folly  of  limiting  ourselves  to  such  a  pro- 
gramme is  manifest.  We  have  energy 
enough  and  to  spare,  and  money  to  make 
the  mare  go  faster  and  farther  than  any 
one  has  yet  driven  her.  It  is  perfectly 
possible  to  give  signal  ability  its  proper 
opportunity  without  failing  in  our  duty 
to  the  multitudinous  mediocre.  This  is 
not  an  argument  for  aristocracy  in  edu- 
cation. It  is  common  sense.  For  we 
need  leaders  in  the  American  experiment 
quite  as  much  as  a  continuously  rising 
democracy.  And  in  the  next  stage 
of  development  we  shall  need  them 
more. 

The  establishment  of  "honor"  schools 
and  "honor"  courses  is  a  tardy  and  so 


far  rather  imperfect  recognition  of  this 
fact.  I  have  no  programme  to  propose 
for  their  development.  The  details  must 
be  worked  out  in  the  class-room,  not  in  an 
essay.  But  when  we  see  that  our  admira- 
ble loyalty  to  the  democratic  ideal  has 
held  us  back  at  the  same  time  that  it  has 
kept  us  true  to  destiny,  we  shall  put  more 
intelligence  into  our  reforms.  The  col- 
lege must  continue  to  be  an  institution 
for  the  increase  of  mediocrity,  for  me- 
diocrity is  infinitely  preferable  to  ig- 
norance; but  it  must  also  provide  the 
exceptional  man  with  the  training  by 
which  he  alone  can  profit.  Like  the 
Yankee  contrivance  which  can  be  used 
for  both  ladder  and  chair,  it  must  per- 
form both  the  functions  demanded  of  it, 
even  at  the  risk  of  being  less  than  best 
in  one  of  them. 

The  worst  fault,  however,  into  which 
our  age-long  service  of  mediocrity  has  led 
us  is  a  weak-kneed,  pusillanimous  defer- 
ence to  mediocrity  itself.  The  college 
has  borrowed  the  vice  from  every-day 
American  life.  For  example,  the  most 
deadly  weapon  in  the  yellow  journalist's 
armory  is  the  term  "high- brow."  A 
politician  may  be  called  "grafter," 
"boss,"  or  even  "muckraker,"  and  es- 
cape unscratched;  but  if  he  is  denounced 
as  a  "high-brow,"  and  the  label  sticks, 
his  career  is  ended.  A  playwright  or  a 
novelist  may  be  written  down  as 
"cheap,"  he  may  be  said  to  plagiarize, 
he  may  be  shown  to  be  vicious  or  un- 
clean, without  serious  damage  to  his 
reputation;  but  let  him  be  proved  a 
"high- brow"  and  the  public  will  fly 
from  him  as  if  he  were  a  book-agent. 
Now  the  widespread  American  belief 
that  knowledge  makes  a  man  imprac- 
tical is  responsible  for  some  of  this  curi- 
ous odium;  but  far  more  is  due  to  our 
servile  deference  to  mediocrity.  The 
weight  of  public  opinion  is  usually 
against  the  expert,  the  specialist,  the 
thinker,  the  exceptional  man  in  general, 
for  public  opinion,  whether  right  or 
wrong,  is  always  mediocre;  and  there 
are  few  among  us  who  do  not  in  this  re- 
spect yield  somehow,  somewhere,  to  pub- 
lic opinion.  The  doctor  distrusts  the 
advanced  political  theorist,  the  politi- 
cian distrusts  the  advanced  dramatist, 
the  dramatist  sneers  at  the  innovations 
of  science.    We  are  all  made  timid  by 


THE  COLLEGES  AND  MEDIOCRITY 


427 


the  enormous  majorities  which  uphold 
mediocrity. 

The  college  is  like  a  salt-pool  on  the 
ocean  shore,  where  young  sea-things  are 
growing  in  the  gentle  wash  of  waves  that 
come  from  the  world  without.  There  is  a 
public  opinion  in  college  which  is  as  like 
the  public  opinion  without  as  a  micro- 
cosm can  be  to  a  macrocosm.  And  just 
as  the  public  opinion  without  favors  me- 
diocrity in  everything  but  making  mon- 
ey, so  this  public  opinion  encourages 
mediocrity  in  everything  but  athletics 
and  social  advance.  No  need  to  dwell 
upon  this.  The  fact  is  better  known 
than  the  gradual  change  which  has  come 
over  college  ideals  in  the  last  decade,  un- 
til now  the  minority  in  favor  of  culture, 
knowledge,  mental  keenness,  and  other 
attributes  of  a  high  civilization  is  com- 
fortably large. 

But  the  majority  still  exists,  and  its 
burden  weighs  heavily.  It  is  curiously 
difficult  for  a  teacher  who  is  no  mental 
machine,  but  human,  to  estimate  at  his 
true  intellectual  value  a  fine  young  fellow 
who  already  possesses  the  "push"  and 
the  "punch"  which  are  still  sufficient 
for  a  reasonable  financial  success  in 
America.  It  is  enormously  difficult  to 
insist  upon  standards  of  intellectual  ac- 
complishment above  the  mediocre  level 
with  which  the  public  is  content.  Let 
the  graduate  be  deficient  in  some  cate- 
gory that  even  mediocrity  has  mastered 
— say,  spelling,  or  letter-writing,  or 
punctuation — and  opinion  howls  him 
down;  but  in  the  higher  departments  of 
theoretical  knowledge  the  world  outside 
is  quite  content  with  a  fifty  or  sixty  per 
cent,  efficiency,  and  deprecates  more  as 
an  accumulation  of  material  not  readily 
transmutable  into  cash. 

All  this  the  teacher  feels,  and  as  his 
class  become  personalities  to  him,  he  in- 
clines further  and  further  toward  their 
own  opinion,  the  college  world's  opinion, 
everybody's  opinion  of  what  a  student 
should  do  and  know.  Then,  at  the 
crisis,  the  insidious,  unrecognized  pas- 
sion for  democracy,  the  subconscious 
feeling  that  it  his  duty  to  raise  this  dead- 
weight as  much  as  may  be  permitted 
him,  enters  to  complicate  the  situation. 
He  begins  to  overestimate  mediocrity, 
knowing  that  he  must  serve  it.  His 
pride  dictates,  "The  results,  all  things 


considered,  are  not  so  bad."  He  blames 
himself  for  a  meticulous  idealism.  He 
makes  the  fatal  error  of  assenting  to 
mediocrity,  and  thereby  ends  his  career 
as  an  agent  for  raising  it.  Or  he  vio- 
lently reacts  against  the  service  required 
of  him,  antagonizes  his  class,  and  be- 
comes equally  valueless,  except  for  grad- 
uate work.  Here  is  a  familiar  college 
tragedy. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  fulminate  from 
without  against  the  "low  standards"  of 
the  colleges.  Try  to  raise  them  and  you 
will  find  that  America  is  on  the  other  end 
of  the  lever.  It  is  difficult  to  meet 
such  a  situation  without  truckling  to 
mediocrity;  it  is  very  difficult  to  fight 
the  mediocre  while  loving  democracy. 

It  is  difficult,  but  not  impossible,  and 
the  difficulty  would  be  less  if  those 
chiefly  concerned — the  faculty,  the  un- 
dergraduates, and  the  parents — could 
see  the  situation  for  what  it  is,  and,  so  far 
as  weak  human  nature  permits,  direct 
themselves  accordingly. 

The  faculty,  unfortunately,  are  not 
exempt  from  the  circumstances  of  the 
age  in  America.  If  you  prick  a  college 
professor  he  will  show  mediocrity  as  fre- 
quently as  his  fellow-Christian.  But  he 
has  this  advantage — his  profession  must 
bear  the  brunt  of  the  struggle  to  attain 
that  comfortable  average  of  intelligence 
which  the  American  experiment  de- 
mands. His  profession  must  also  sweat 
and  toil  to  train  the  leaders  without 
whom  that  experiment  must  fail.  If  re- 
sponsibility breeds  strength,  then  he 
cannot  remain  mediocre.  But  it  is  not 
of  his  occasional  mediocrity  that  I  com- 
plain; it  is  of  his  frequent  and  unneces- 
sary lack  of  vision,  his  failure  to  see  that 
both  of  these  ends  must  be  sought.  As 
a  class,  the  teaching  profession  is  most 
reprehensible  for  the  first  of  the  two 
errors  of  democracy  which  I  have  dis- 
cussed in  this  essay — the  failure  to  en- 
courage the  exceptional  man. 

Those  faculty  meetings  whose  rum- 
blings echoed  in  our  undergraduate 
world  present  to  the  philosophic  mind 
a  spectacle  of  earnest  scholars  anguish- 
ing through  precious  evening  hours  over 
Reilley's  deficiencies  in  history,  or  the 
hopeless  befuddlement  of  Jenkinson  in 
the  presence  of  untranslated  French. 
The  capable  undergraduate  who  is  doing 


428 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


his  work,  and  beginning  to  profit  by  his 
education,  has  little  place  in  their  de- 
liberations, which,  to  paraphrase  Dog- 
berry, seem  often  to  have  for  text,  "If 
a  man  can  learn,  let  him  alone  lest  he 
learn  more;  but  if  he  can  learn  nothing, 
let  him  be  taught."  And  yet  beneath 
this  haze  of  cross-purposes  there  lies,  as 
I  have  tried  to  show,  an  intuitive  per- 
ception of  a  great  service.  They  have 
pledged  themselves,  these  scholars,  to 
the  democracy,  and  nobly,  if  sometimes 
blindly,  they  are  laboring  in  its  behalf. 
When  their  vision  clears  they  will  spend 
not  more,  perhaps,  but  certainly  as 
much  energy  upon  the  intellectually  pre- 
destined as  upon  the  mentally  unregen- 
erate  in  the  American  colleges. 

The  undergraduate  and  his  parents 
are  guilty  under  the  second  count  of  the 
general  indictment.  They  cater  to 
mediocrity.  As  I  talk  to  the  loyal,  ener- 
getic undergraduate  outside  of  the  class- 
room, where  he  is  not  afraid  to  be  him- 
self, and  as  I  meet  his  parents  in  the 
course  of  every-day  life,  I  am  convinced 
that  here  again  the  difficulty  is  quite  as 
much  a  defect  of  vision  as  the  pressure 
of  unescapable  circumstance.  If  the 
undergraduate  could  see  the  situation  as 
it  is,  what  would  happen?  If  he  could 
see  what  the  time  spirit  sees,  that  he  has 
consented  to  be  part  of  the  dead-weight 
of  crude  Americanism,  to  be  raised  with 
infinite  pains  to  an  intellectual  level  only 
a  little  higher,  where  he  may  view  the 
world  only  a  little  more  broadly,  with 
but  a  trifle  more  of  truth!  Would  he  be 
content  with  his  part?    I  doubt  it.  For 


if  there  is  one  thing  experience  in  an 
American  university  teaches  it  is  this, 
that  the  undergraduate  (who,  after  all, 
is  a  picked  man,  not  the  average  of  his 
race)  is  not  so  mediocre  as  he  seems — is 
not  nearly  so  mediocre  as  the  education 
he  seems  to  desire. 

And  the  parents! — if  they  could 
glimpse  what  even  the  college  sees:  that 
when  they  send  us  their  children  with 
injunctions  to  think  well,  but  not  too 
well,  they  are  bowing  down  to  the  leaden 
calf  of  mediocrity.  If  only  they  could 
realize  that  their  boys  are  held  back  by 
such  influence,  are  caught  fast  in  the 
sands  of  mediocrity !  If  they  could  know 
that  the  college  which  loves  their  sons 
and  daughters  fears  them  often  enough, 
as  counterweights  in  the  slow  uplift  to 
which  it  is  pledged !  If  they  saw  all  this, 
would  they  be  content  with  their  part  in 
American  education?  More  than  one 
encouraging  experience  makes  me  sure  of 
the  response. 

And  we  need  their  aid — the  aid  of  the 
parents  and  the  aid  of  the  undergradu- 
ates; for,  until  democracy  reaches  the 
level  of  its  opportunities,  or  is  proved  a 
failure,  the  problem  of  mediocrity  will 
continue  to  exist.  We  cannot  solve  it 
by  educating  the  best  men  only.  We 
cannot  solve  it  by  slighting  the  able. 
We  cannot  escape  it  by  pretending  that 
mediocrity  is  good  enough.  We  must 
bear  the  burden.  But  as  we  push  on 
toward  a  distant  and  uncertain  victory  a 
clearer  sight  of  the  path  we  have  chosen 
would  save  us  from  stumbling  blindly 
and  stupidly  beneath  its  weight. 


The  Return  of  Martha 


BY  ALICE  BROWN 


;ARTHA  JAMES  and 
her  sister  Lucy  were 
moving  back  into  the 
old  house  at  Bosford. 
It  was  early  spring, 
with  the  taste  of  winter 
in  it  still,  overlaid  by 
beguiling  hints  of  coming  warmth  and 
beauty.  The  "going"  was  so  bad  that 
Martha  really  thought  the  load  of  goods 
might  be  stuck  on  the  way  from  the 
station.  Yet  the  birds  were  singing  so 
remindingly  and  the  sound  of  running 
water  was  so  loud  and  free  that  she  con- 
cluded recklessly  it  would  not  matter 
much  if  the  goods  stayed  all  night  by  the 
way.  Some  of  the  happy  abandon  of 
her  youth  had  entered  into  her  with  the 
sight  of  the  old  home  and  the  feel  of 
spring  together,  and  she  told  Lucy,  who 
only  looked  at  her  in  a  mild  wonderment, 
that  she  hardly  cared  what  did  happen. 
Martha  was  a  woman  of  middle  age 
now,  but  so  intrenched  in  the  endurance 
of  her  wiry  type  that  she  hardly  ever 
had  to  consider  how  far  she  had  left  her 
youth  behind.  She  was  slim  and 
straight,  with  a  fine,  clarified  face  and 
an  abundance  of  rich  brown  hair.  Per- 
haps she  had  never  been  pretty  in  the 
enchanting  ways  of  youth,  but  now  there 
was  an  added  appeal  in  her  clear  eyes, 
and  often  she  did  look  young,  in  a  grave 
fashion,  like  a  maiden  given  to  serious 
thoughts.  Lucy  was  different — blond, 
wistful,  and  like  a  child. 

This  coming  back  to  the  old  home- 
stead a  year  after  their  mother's  death 
had  been  Martha's  impulsive  decision. 
She  had  seen  that  she  must  give  up  her 
work  in  the  shop,  since  mother  was  no 
longer  there  to  be  with  Lucy,  who  was 
pathetically  not  herself,  and  had  not 
been  since  the  time,  years  ago,  of  what 
Lucy  proudly  called  her  "accident." 
That,  at  least,  she  did  remember.  The 
horse  had  run  away,  and  Lucy  had  been 
thrown  out,  and  since  then,  though  she 
had  kept  her  full  measure  of  strength, 


her  mind  had  never  been  the  same. 
Other  sadnesses  had  followed  the  acci- 
dent. Martha  had  told  Jason  West  that 
she  couldn't  leave  Lucy  to  marry  him, 
and  he  had  gone  away,  hot  with  rage, 
swearing  she  never  had  cared  about  him 
at  all,  or  she  wouldn't  have  allowed  even 
Lucy  to  stand  between  them.  So 
Martha  had  proposed  letting  the  old 
house  and  moving  to  Mill  Village,  where 
it  would  be  easier  to  make  a  living  and, 
her  grieving  heart  told  her,  where  she 
would  not  be  reminded  of  Jason  at 
every  turn. 

About  three  o'clock  of  this  spring  day 
the  furniture  came,  and  the  Peabody 
boys,  who  looked  middle-aged  when 
Martha  was  young,  brought  it  in  and 
disposed  it  in  its  wonted  places.  They 
were  silent,  round-shouldered  men,  with 
faded  thick  hair  that  had  once  been  red, 
and  they  were  glad  to  have  Martha 
back.  She  watched  them  in  a  dream 
as  they  set  up  the  old  clock  in  the  corner 
and  put  mother's  worn  sofa  between  the 
east  windows,  without  a  word  from  her. 
It  seemed  to  her,  hearing  the  birds  and 
the  rush  of  liberated  streams,  that  some- 
thing had  come  back  with  the  spring. 
The  Peabody  boys  were  silently  rebuild- 
ing for  her  the  house  of  life  as  it  had 
been.  She  almost  forgot  Lucy,  who 
wandered  up  and  down,  a  little  shawl 
over  her  shoulders,  and  seemed,  in  a 
puzzled  way,  to  be  trying  to  acquaint 
herself  with  the  face  of  long-past  days. 
But  after  the  Peabody  boys  had  gone 
and  the  sisters  had  drunk  a  cup  of  tea, 
the  dusk  and  stillness  began  speaking  to 
them  in  a  moving  way.  Martha  felt  the 
pang  of  loss.  This  was  the  time  of  day 
when  lonesomeness  walks  in  with  the 
dark  and  you  must  be  very  happy  or 
hopeful  to  meet  it.  Lucy,  she  saw,  was 
not  going  to  be  able  to  meet  it  at  all. 
Lucy  sat  rocking  back  and  forth  by  the 
front  window,  looking  out  on  the  moss- 
rose  bush,  and  moaning:  "I  want  to 
see  mother.    I  want  to  see  mother." 


430 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Martha,  going  back  and  forth  in  the 
familiar  rooms  and  over  the  worn  stairs, 
flouted  at  every  step  by  the  ghosts  of 
memory,  heard  the  lament  echoing  in 
her  own  heart  and  wondered  if  she  could 
bear  it.  She  stopped  on  the  way  down- 
stairs and  leaned  against  the  wall,  stay- 
ing herself  by  her  outstretched  hands. 

"I  can't  stand  it,"  she  said,  aloud. 
"I  can't  stand  it  another  minute." 

But  she  did  get  hold  of  herself  because 
she  must.  The  dusk  was  coming  faster, 
and  that  itself  might  frighten  Lucy  if 
no  one  were  near  to  touch  her  hand  and 
say  little  things  in  a  steady  voice.  She 
straightened,  went  down  the  stairs  and 
into  the  sitting-room. 

"Lucy,"  said  she,  in  that  tone  of  com- 
fortable cheerfulness  she  and  her  mother 
had  learned  to  use  to  her — "Lucy,  don't 
you  want  a  bite  o'  suthin'  more  'fore 
we  go  to  bed?" 

But  Lucy  hardly  noticed  her.  She  did 
look  up  eagerly  when  Martha  entered 
the  room,  but  only  to  drop  her  eyes 
again  to  her  lap  where  her  hands  lay 
clasped.  Now  she  varied  her  lament, 
but  only  to  make  it  the  more  poignant. 

"I  want  my  mother,"  said  she;  "I 
want  my  mother." 

Martha  drew  up  a  chair  and  sat  down 
opposite  her,  so  that  their  knees  touched. 
Lucy,  in  contrast  with  her,  ashy  white 
now,  and  with  a  piteous  look  of  the  eyes, 
seemed  little  more  than  a  child.  Martha 
bent  forward  and  laid  her  firm  hands 
on  her  sister's  trembling  ones. 

"Lucy,"  said  she,  "you  hear  to  me. 
Mother  can't  come  just  now.  She's  left 
us  together.  Don't  you  want  to  behave 
nice  and  pretty  same  's  mother'd  want 
we  should?" 

But  Lucy  shook  her  head  and  kept  on 
with  her  unhappy  moaning,  "I  want  my 
mother." 

"I  don't  see  what's  the  matter  of  us 
all  of  a  sudden,"  said  Martha.  She  was 
despairing,  and  two  tears  ran  down  her 
cheeks  and  splashed  her  hands.  "You 
never  missed  her  so  'fore  we  come  here." 

Then  she  knew.  It  was  the  house. 
The  spell  of  memory  was  on  them  both. 
She  herself  was  walking  among  the 
ghosts  of  the  dead  days,  and  Lucy,  too, 
through  her  cloud,  was  getting  confused 
messages.  Mother  had  been  the  center 
of  the  house  when  they  were  happy  in  it. 


It  was  she  the  walls  were  calling  for. 
Martha  made  one  more  trial. 

"Lucy,"  said  she,  "don't  you  think 
you  could  behave  like  a  good  girl  same 's 
mother'd  want  us  to?" 

But  again  Lucy  cried  out  in  answer, 
and  though  the  words  were  unchanged, 
they  rang  more  piercingly,  and  Martha 
caught  away  her  hands  from  those  weav- 
ing fingers  and  clapped  them  to  her  ears. 
She  got  up  and  ran  out  of  the  room  and 
up-stairs  again,  to  stand  before  the  old 
mirror  that  had  used  to  hang  in  this  very 
place,  and  looked  at  herself,  because  it 
seemed  to  her  she  must  meet  sane  human 
eyes,  if  only  her  own,  before  she  could 
encounter  that  lament  again.  Then  she 
spoke  aloud: 

"I  look  for  all  the  world  as  mother 
used,  to.  It  won't  take  much  more  to 
make  me  look  like  her  at  the  last — not 
much  more." 

Hurriedly,  and  not  quite  knowing 
why  it  was  to  comfort  her,  she  pulled 
down  her  hair,  parted  it  and  brought  it 
smoothly  over  her  ears  and  into  a  coil 
behind.  And  then  she  ran  up  into  the 
attic  to  the  chest  of  mother's  clothes 
that  had  just  been  set  there  out  of  the 
way  so  that  Lucy  should  not  come  upon 
them,  and  took  out  an  every-day  ging- 
ham, an  apron,  and  wide  collar  of  the 
sort  mother  wore.  She  had  been  old- 
fashioned  in  her  dress,  and  Martha  had 
laughed  at  her  for  it,  yet  with  a  fond 
certainty  that  no  other  mother  looked 
so  sweet.  Martha  went  down  to  her  own 
room  again  and  took  off  her  dress.  She 
slipped  on  the  gingham  and  clasped  the 
embroidered  collar  with  mother's  cameo. 
That  was  in  her  own  bureau  drawer,  and 
so  were  the  gold-bowed  spectacles  moth- 
er had  inherited  from  Grandma  True. 
For  a  long  minute  Martha  looked  at 
the  spectacles,  and  then  she  went  to 
the  hearth  and  laid  them  on  it,  and 
carefully  pounded  out  the  glass.  This 
troubled  her  a  little.  She  spoke  as  she 
did  it,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  mother 
must  certainly  hear. 

"I've  got  to  do  it.  Don't  you  see  I've 
got  to?  You'll  be  willin'  when  you  see 
why." 

She  swept  the  powdered  glass  into  the 
ashes,  and  slipped  on  the  empty  bows. 
Then  she  looked  in  the  mirror.  It  was 
darker  now,  but  the  figure  she  saw  there 


THE  RETURN 

startled  her.  "My  soul!"  she  said  in 
wonder.    Then  she  went  down-stairs. 

Lucy  was  not  lamenting  now.  She 
was  always  a  little  timid  in  the  dark, 
and  wanted  some  one  by  her  until  the 
lamp  was  lighted.  But  she  did  look  up, 
and  Martha,  who  did  not  dare  to  hesi- 
tate lest  her  courage  fail,  walked  quickly 
forward.    Lucy  gave  a  little  cry: 

"Oh,  mother,  you've  come  back!" 

Martha  was  sure  she  had  done  well. 
She  sat  down  again  in  the  chair  opposite 
Lucy's.  This  was  as  mother  had  used 
to  sit,  to  wear  away  the  twilight.  "Yes," 
she  said.  "Now  don't  you  want  a  mite 
o'  suthin'  to  eat?" 

Lucy  laughed  a  little.  It  was  a  pretty 
laugh,  not  a  silly  one.  She  had  pleasant 
ways  still  when  she  was  at  ease. 

"Cookies,"  she  said.  "I  know  where." 

She  got  up  and  went  in  her  light  yet 
drifting  way  into  the  kitchen  and 
straight  to  the  corner  cupboard  where 
the  old  cooky-jar  used  to  sit.  And  by 
some  miracle,  Martha  thought,  it  was 
there  still.  It  had  survived  their  exile 
and  was  back  again,  though  there  were 
no  cookies  in  it.  Lucy  opened  it  and 
put  in  her  hand.  But  she  was  not  dis- 
turbed to  find  it  empty.  It  had  often 
been  empty  in  the  old  days.  Perhaps 
that  made  it  seem  the  more  familiar. 
She  laughed  a  little.  "To-morrow!"  she 
chanted,  hopefully. 

"Yes,"  said  Martha.  "To-morrow 
we'll  make  some  more." 

So  they  ate  quite  happily  some  odds 
and  ends  they  had  brought  with  them, 
and  then  they  "fastened  up"  and  went 
to  bed.  Lucy,  as  she  brushed  her  long 
hair — for  this  she  did  faithfully  and  as  if 
it  were  an  absorbing  game — sang  a  little 
in  her  sweet,  thin  voice,  a  song  about 
Long  Ago,  and  when  she  was  in  bed  she 
called  out  to  Martha  in  her  bed  across 
the  entry,  "Mother!" 

Martha  raised  herself  on  her  elbow. 
Her  heart  beat  thickly.  She  wondered 
if  the  spell  would  last.  "What  is  it, 
Lucy?"  she  called  back. 

Lucy  laughed.  It  was  her  little  joke, 
an  old  one  Martha  knew.  "Good  night! 
That's  all." 

Next  day  the  neighbors  began  to  run 
in.  The  first  was  Miss  Annie  Lovett, 
who  had  been  the  village  dressmaker 
even  in  their  mother's  time.  She  stopped 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  783.-54 


OF  MARTHA  431 

on  her  way  home  from  Briar  Lane, 
where  she  had  been  sewing.  Martha, 
meeting  her  at  the  door,  was  struck  by 
its  being  so  queer  that  Miss  Lovett  had 
not  changed  at  all.  She  had  always  been 
withered  and  dry  of  speech  as  of  flesh, 
and  she  was  no  more  than  that  to-day. 
Martha  had  forgotten  her  own  mas- 
querading costume  until  she  saw  Miss 
Lovett  was  standing  still  and  staring  up 
at  her  with  no  pretense  at  shaking  hands. 
Miss  Lovett's  voice  came  to  her  in  a 
crackly  rush. 

"Why,  Marthy  James,"  said  she, 
"this  ain't  you?" 

"Who 'd  you  think  'twas?"  said  Mar- 
tha, with  a  clutch  at  pleasantry. 

"Why,"  said  Miss  Lovett,  "I  thought 
for  all  the  world  'twas  your  mother. 
And  then  it  come  over  me  she'd  passed 
away.    It  give  me  quite  a  turn." 

Martha  had  recovered  her  rather 
humorous  calm.  "I've  been  said  to 
resemble  mother,"  she  remarked,  soberly. 
"Walk  in,  Miss  Lovett." 

Miss  Lovett  did  come  in  and  laughed 
a  little  still.  "I  can't  get  over  it,"  said 
she.  "You're  the  very  image  of  her, 
and  you  ain't  more'n  forty-three,  and 
she  was  seventy  if  she  was  a  day.  How 
old  was  your  mother?" 

"Seventy-three  this  June,"  said  Mar- 
tha. She  drew  forward  the  rocking- 
chair  and  took  her  visitor's  little  sewing- 
bag,  as  she  persuaded  her  to  sit. 

Miss  Lovett  accepted  the  chair,  but 
she  sat  on  the  edge  of  it  and  stared  at 
Martha.  "Well!"  she  said  at  length. 
"Well!  When  I  see  you  standin'  there 
in  the  dusk,  you  could  ha'  knocked  me 
down  with  a  feather." 

Martha  sat  in  the  big  arm-chair,  her 
hands  folded  in  her  lap.  Having  entered 
into  her  part,  she  was  quietude  itself. 
"Yes,"  said  she,  "I  feel  pleased  to  think 
I  resemble  mother.  Lucy  takes  real 
comfort  in  it." 

Miss  Lovett  caught  herself  back  from 
her  wonder  to  meet  the  formalities  of  a 
call.    "How  is  Lucy?"  she  asked. 

"Lucy's  about  the  same." 

"I  thought  maybe  she'd  be  here  and 
I'd  have  a  word  with  her.  I  always 
liked  Lucy." 

"She's  gone  to  bed,"  said  Martha. 
"She  goes  early.  Some  days  she's  tired 
as  a  child." 


432 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


They  sat  in  the  dark  and  talked  of  one 
and  another  incident  of  the  neighbor- 
hood life,  and  it  was  nine  o'clock  before 
Miss  Lovett  got  up  to  go.  Martha 
lighted  the  little  kitchen  lamp  to  see  her 
out,  and  Miss  Lovett,  the  minute  she 
saw  her  in  the  light,  was  transfixed 
again. 

"  I  can't  get  over  it,"  said  she.  "You 
do  look  so  like  your  mother.  Why, 
Marthy  James,  you  hain't  got  any  glass 
in  your  spe'tacles." 

"I  broke  'em,"  said  Martha,  calmly. 

"Well,  I  should  think  you'd  miss  'em. 
When  d'you  expect  to  have  'em  fixed  ?" 

"I  dunno,"  said  Martha.  "I  can't 
leave  Lucy  long  to  a  time." 

"  But  how  d'you  expect  you  can  sew?" 

"I  don't  have  much  time  for  sewin'." 

Miss  Lovett  was  vibrating  in  an 
ecstasy  of  interest.  "But  Marthy 
James,"  said  she,  "if  you  don't  use  your 
spe'tacles,  for  mercy  sakes  what  makes 
you  wear  the  bows  ?" 

"Folks  get  used  to  their  spe'tacles," 
said  Martha.  She  kept  an  innocent  and 
unmoved  front.  "Spos'n'  you  hadn't 
got  any  glass,  don't  you  think  you'd  like 
the  feeiin'  o'  the  bows?" 

"Well,"  said  Miss  Lovett,  vaguely,  "I 
dunno.  Seems  if  you'd  changed  more'n 
any  of  us.  In  a  way  you  hain't.  And 
then  again  you  have.  You've  got  a  real 
good  complexion,  same  as  you  always 
had,  but  I  can't  get  over  the  way  you've 
fixed  yourself  up.  Why,  you  might  be 
a  hunderd!" 

"Oh  no,"  said  Martha,  "I  ain't  a 
hunderd."  She  held  the  light  to  show 
Miss  Lovett  the  step.  "You  better  tell 
the  neighbors,"  she  called  after  her. 

"Tell  'em  what?"  Miss  Lovett  called 
back.  She  was  finding  her  way  past  the 
thicket  of  moss  roses. 

"Tell  'em  how  much  I  look  like  moth- 
er, and  how  I  might  be  a  hunderd.  Then 
when  they  see  me  they  won't  be  so 
struck  up  and  we  sha'n't  have  to  go  over 
it  all  again.    Good  night." 

Martha  went  back  into  the  sitting- 
room  and  walked  up  to  the  mirror.  She 
held  the  lamp  so  that  she  could  see 
plainly.  She  looked  at  first  seriously, 
and  then  with  a  little  smile.  It  made 
her  face  quite  sweet  and  tender.  "I 
guess,"  said  she,  "it's  goin'  to  be  a 
comfort  to  me,  too  " 


From  this  time  neighbors  kept  calling, 
but  they  were  all  tactfully  silent  over 
Martha's  changed  looks.  She  judged 
Miss  Lovett  had  prepared  them,  and  she 
was  glad.  She  found  a  strange  restful- 
ness  in  her  sober  masquerading.  Her 
own  trials  seemed  to  have  ceased.  She 
had  taken  on  mother's  calmness  with  her 
dress. 

So  life  went  even  happily  until  the  day 
Jason  West  came  back.  He  walked  past 
the  rose-bushes  up  to  the  front  door  with 
his  old  hurried  stride,  and  Martha  knew 
him  at  once.  It  was,  she  thought  in  that 
minute  by  the  window,  because  he  had 
never  worn  a  beard  and  was  clean- 
shaven still.  He  was  a  little  more  intent 
of  gaze,  but  that  was  all.  He  had  kept 
the  look  of  youth.  Srie  stepped  back 
from  the  window  before  he  lifted  his  eyes 
to  hers,  and  when  he  knocked  she  stood 
immovable,  crowded  into  a  corner,  her 
hand  at  her  heart.  Lucy  looked  up 
from  her  work  of  sewing  patchwork 
squares — a  pastime  she  loved,  doing  it 
sometimes  well  and  sometimes  ill. 

"Mother,"  said  she,  "there's  some- 
body on  the  step.  Don't  you  want  me 
to  go?" 

So  Martha  went.  She  looked  at  Jason 
through  the  screen  door,  but  she  did  not 
open  it.  He  started  a  little  when  he 
saw  her.   The  look  cut  her  to  the  heart. 

"How  do  you  do?"  he  said.  "Is 
Marthy  to  home?" 

To  her  surprise,  Martha  found  herself 
unreasonably  stirred  at  this.  She  was 
changed,  and  by  her  own  act,  and  she 
was  full  of  an  honest  desire  that  he 
should  go  away  without  knowing  her  at 
all.  Yet,  because  he  did  not  know  her, 
she  was  hurt.  "If  you  mean  Marthy 
James,"  said  she,  "I'm  Marthy  James." 

Jason  smiled  suddenly,  the  old  flash- 
ing smile  he  had  had  years  ago  when  he 
teased  her.  "Why,  Marthy,"  said  he, 
"I  never  should  have  know  ye.  How 
you've  changed!" 

The  red  ran  up  over  her  face.  Tears 
burned  her  eyes.  But  she  recovered  her- 
self. "Well,"  said  she,  "of  all  the  old 
neighbors  you've  changed  the  least. 
Won't  you  step  in  and  see  Lucy?" 

"Why,  yes,"  said  Jason,  as  if  he  won- 
dered that  she  could  ask,  since  that  was 
what  he  came  to  do.  "Course  I'm 
comin'  in." 


Drawn  by  C.  E.  Chambers 

"WHY,    MARTHY    JAMES,    YOU    HAIN'T    GOT    ANY    GLASS    IN    YOUR    SPE'TACLES " 


THE  RETURN 

And  Lucy  knew  him.     She  greeted 
him,  Martha  thought,  as  if  he  had  been 
in  every  day  without  a  break. 
I     "Jason,"  said  she,  "d'you  bring  me 
I  an  orange?" 

He  took  an  orange  out  of  his  pocket 
and  gave  it  to  her.  Martha  thought  it 
was  like  witch-work. 

"I  used  to  fetch  'em  to  her  when  she 
fust  had  her  accident,"  said  he.  "Don't 
you  remember?" 

"How'd  you  come  on  oranges  this 
time  o'  year?"  asked  Martha.  She  was 
glad  he  had  remembered.  "She  hain't 
had  one  since  last  March.  Then  I  got 
a  dozen." 

Jason  began  to  talk — all  about  him- 
self— and  Lucy  sat  and  ate  her  orange 
peacefully.  Jason  had  a  great  deal  to 
tell.  He  had  done  very  well  in  the  West, 
and  now  he  had  come  back  to  the  old 
place  to  develop  water-power  in  Dog 
River,  about  five  miles  from  here,  to 
start  an  electric  plant.  He  said  aston- 
ishing things — blunt,  reckless  things,  ex- 
actly as  he  had  twenty  years  ago. 

"What  do  you  think,  Marthy?"  said 
he.  "It  ain't  more'n  a  couple  o'  years 
since  I've  got  over  bein'  mad  with  you." 

Martha  blushed  under  mother's  cap, 
but  she  answered,  primly,  "I  don't 
know  as  anybody's  any  call  to  be  mad 
with  me." 

"I  was,"  said  Jason,  "mad  as  fire 
because  you  wouldn't  give  up  everybody 
— you  know — and  come  and  foller  me. 
I  never  begun  to  see  your  side  of  it  till 
about  two  years  ago,  when  mother  had 
her  stroke.  I  guess  that  kinder  softened 
me  up,  and  I  see  how  'twould  be  if  any- 
body wanted  me  to  go  off  and  leave  her. 
Why,  I  wouldn't  do  it,  that's  all." 

"I  understand,"  said  Martha,  stiffly, 
"your  mother's  passed  away." 

"Yes.  Last  February  'twas.  But  if 
she  hadn't,  Marthy,  I  was  comin'  just 
the  same.  I  was  goin'  to  say,  you  bring 
your  mother  'n'  Lucy  and  I'll  bring 
mother,  and  we'll  pitch  our  tent  to- 
gether." 

"Mother  passed  away  some  time  be- 
fore yours  did,"  said  Martha.  She  won- 
dered what  else  she  could  have  said. 
But  Lucy  innocently  broke  the  awkward 
moment. 

"Mother,"  said  she,  "where  '11  I  put 
my  orange-skins?" 


OF  MARTHA  433 

Martha  got  up  and  took  them;  and 
when  she  came  back  to  her  chair  Jason 
was  looking  at  her  frowningly,  shaking 
his  head  and  pursing  up  his  lips.  That 
meant  some  quick  emotion  in  him. 

"She  called  you  Mother,'"  said  he. 

Martha  nodded,  with  an  effect  of 
hushing  him. 

"I  s'pose  she  misses  her,"  said  Jason. 

"Not  now,"  said  Martha;  "not  since 
she's  begun  to  think — " 

"George!"  said  Jason,  "I  believe 
you've  dressed  that  way  a-purpose." 

"There!  there!"  said  Martha.  But 
Lucy  had  not  noticed.  She  was  rocking 
and  singing  her  little  song  of  Long 
Ago. 

"By  George!"  said  he  again.  There 
were  tears  in  his  eyes.  "How's  anybody 
goin'  to  make  up  to  you  for  all  them 

years  r 

"You  hain't  changed  a  mite,  Jason 
West,"  said  Martha,  tartly.  "You 
speak  quicker  'n  you  think." 

"Well,"  said  Jason,  also  in  a  flash, 
"what  I  say  I'll  stand  to."  But  he 
went  off  into  talk  about  the  old  neigh- 
bors, and  he  knew  more,  although  he  had 
been  home  but  a  day,  than  Martha  did 
after  her  four  weeks.  It  was  not  until 
he  got  up  to  go  that  he  told  her  he  had 
actually  come  for  good.  "I'm  stayin' 
over  to  Taylor's,"  said  he.  "Remember 
that  bobtailed  cat  they  had  twenty 
years  ago,  and  the  one-legged  gander? 
Well,  they've  got  a  bobtailed  cat  now, 
and  if  I  look  round  a  little  I  expect  I 
shall  see  the  gander." 

Martha  went  ceremoniously  to  the 
door  to  bid  him  good-by.  He  shook 
hands  with  her.  Then  he  looked  at  her 
hair. 

"Marthy,"  said  he,  "you  hain't  got  a 
gray  thread.  Don't  you  remember  how 
I  used  to  tousle  up  your  hair  to  make 
you  mad?  Hanged  if  I  wouldn't  like 
to  do  it  now  to  get  it  back  up  over  your 
ears  and  make  you  look  as  you  used  to." 

"I  ain't  concerned  about  my  looks," 
said  Martha.  But  her  cheeks  were  burn- 
ing so  that  she  was  ashamed  of  them, 
and  when  she  went  in  she  stopped  before 
the  glass.  She  stood  there  staring  at 
herself  until  Lucy  asked: 

"What  is  it,  mother?" 

Martha  did  not  answer.  She  heard 
Jason  whistling   along   the   road  and 


434 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


thought  she  was  angry  with  him.  It 
seemed  to  her  time  had  hardly  touched 
him,  while  it  had  brought  her  hair  down 
over  her  ears  and  clothed  her  in  the 
fashion  of  a  bygone  day.  And  then  she 
remembered  it  was  she  herself  who  had 
drawn  her  hair  down,  for  Lucy's  sake, 
and  that  she  had  felt  it  a  happy  thing 
to  be  wearing  mother's  clothes. 

Lucy  was  singing  Jason's  name  in  a 
little  chant.  "Jason  West,"  she  sang. 
"Jason  West."  _ 

"There,"  said  Martha,  when  the 
chant  hurt  her,  jarring  out  old  memories, 
"nevermind.   He  won't  come  again." 

But  he  did  come,  nearly  every  day, 
chiefly  at  dusk,  after  his  running  here 
and  there,  engaging  workmen  and  laying 
out  his  plans,  and  always  he  behaved  as 
if  he  and  Martha  were  old  friends,  con- 
firmed in  an  assured  relation. 

He  was  very  good  to  Lucy,  too.  He 
brought  her  presents,  none  of  them  cost- 
ing much,  but  such  as  to  keep  her  in  a 
delighted  expectation.  She  was  quite  at 
ease  with  him,  and,  perhaps  because  he 
treated  her  like  a  woman  and  not  a 
child,  she  was  every  day  more  like  her 
old  self.  He  put  quiet  questions  to  her, 
and  she  would  answer  sensibly. 

"I  never'll  forget  it  in  you,"  said 
Martha,  impulsively,  when  she  went  to 
the  door  with  him  one  night.  "Never, 
so  long's  I  live." 

"What?"  asked  Jason. 

"Bein'  so  good  to  Lucy.  You're 
kinder  bringin'  her  out." 

"Lucy  never'll  be  what  she  was,  but 
she's  got  a  good  deal  left,"  said  Jason, 
gravely.  "Folks  hadn't  ought  to  treat 
her  as  if  she  wa'n't  growed  up.  You  give 
me  a  word  with  her  now  and  then  alone, 
Marthy,  and  see  if  she  don't  set  up  and 
answer  like  a  major." 

Martha  did  it  the  very  next  night. 
She  went  off  into  the  kitchen  to  sponge 
bread,  and  from  there  she  heard  the  even 
flow  of  Jason's  voice.  He  was  telling 
Lucy  a  story,  she  judged,  for  now  and 
then  Lucy  laughed  a  little.  It  sounded 
very  cozy  and  pleasant,  and  she  took  a 
long  time  to  sponge  the  bread. 

Jason,  at  the  window,  heard  Martha 
lay  down  her  knife  and  spoon  in  the 
sink,  and  then  he  put  his  hands  on 
his  knees  and  bent  forward  a  little. 
"Lucy,"  said  he,  "you  look  at  me." 


She  looked  at  him,  smiling  in  her 
pretty  way. 

"Lucy,"  said  he,  "where's  Marthy?" 

Instantly  her  face  drew  itself  together 
into  a  little  frown.  "Marthy?"  she  re- 
peated, helplessly. 

"Yes,"  said  Jason.    "Where's  Mar- 

thy-" 

Lucy  gazed  at  him  in  a  wistful  appeal, 
as  if,  having  thought  of  Martha,  she 
would  beg  of  him  to  find  her.  The  step 
in  the  kitchen  neared  the  door. 

"Never  mind,"  said  Jason,  with  his 
ready  cheerfulness.  "We'll  find  her. 
Some  other  day.   Mother's  comin'  now." 

But  Lucy  was  still  troubled,  and 
Martha,  seeing  it,  went  to  her  at  once. 

"What  is  it,  dear?"  she  asked. 

Martha  was  not  much  used  to  tender 
words,  but  mother  had  been,  and  they 
were  every  day  more  'natural  to  her 
tongue. 

Lucy  looked  at  her  still  from  a  cloud 
of  doubt. 

"I  guess  she  thought  she'd  lost  some- 
thin',"  said  Jason,  carelessly.  "Didn't 
you,  Lucy?" 

"Your  knittin'  ?"  asked  Martha. 
"Here  'tis."  And  Lucy  had  forgotten 
what  it  was  that  troubled  her. 

Day  after  day  Jason  snatched  at  pre- 
texts for  a  word  with  Lucy  alone,  and 
every  time  he  talked  about  Martha. 
Once  he  was  quite  explicit,  in  a  careless 
way,  painting  before  her  the  picture  of 
Martha  as  she  had  been.  This  was  a 
late  afternoon  when  Martha  was  safely 
away  for  half  an  hour,  helping  Miss 
Annie  Lovett  take  her  finished  quilt  out 
of  the  frames.  Jason,  lounging  in  the 
big  chair  by  the  window,  casting  a  . glance 
at  Lucy  now  and  then,  looked  very  pur- 
poseful. Lucy,  happily  sewing  her 
patchwork  and  vaguely  aware  of  a  pleas- 
ure in  it  because  the  orange-colored 
square  was  laid  against  a  blue,  glanced 
up  at  him  from  time  to  time  and  an- 
swered in  an  absorbed,  contented  way. 

"Lucy,"  said  Jason,  "we  used  to  have 
proper  good  times  together,  you  and 
Marthy  and  me." 

"Yes,"  said  Lucy,  smiling. 

"You  remember  that  time  I  clim'  the 
old  nut-tree  and  fell  half-way  down,  and 
Marthy  screamed  out:  Til  ketch  you. 
I'm  holdin'  my  apron'?" 

"Yes,"  said  Lucy,  "I  remember." 


THE  RETURN  OF  MARTHA 


435 


"Then  there  was  that  time  your 
mother  went  to  camp-meetin'  and  stayed 
through  the  week,  and  Marthy  kep' 
house,  and  I  come  to  supper  every 
night." 

"Yes,"  said  Lucy,  delightedly.  She 
was  holding  up  her  squares  to  the  light, 
and  Jason  could  not  tell  whether  she  was 
content  over  the  recalling  of  old  days 
or  the  sunlight  through  the  orange  and 
the  blue. 

"I  never  minded  your  mother's  goin' 
away  and  stayin'  a  week  at  a  time,"  said 
he,  "if  only  Marthy'd  keep  house.  I 
was  glad  to  have  her  go  and  get  a  rest." 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Lucy.  "So  was  I, 
Jason;  so  was  I." 

Then  Jason  put  his  unfailing  ques- 
tion. He  leaned  forward  and  compelled 
her  glance.  "Lucy,"  said  he,  "I  want  to 
see  Marthy.    Don't  you?" 

Lucy  had  laid  down  her  patchwork. 
She  looked  at  him  in  a  puzzled  question- 
ing. "Yes,"  said  she.  "Yes,  Jason. 
You  find  her." 

"That's  about  it,"  said  Jason. 
"We've  got  to  find  her.  You  do  it, 
Lucy.  When  mother  comes  in,  you  ask 
where  Marthy  is." 

While  Lucy  was  still  regarding  him, 
now  with  a  frightened  gaze,  Martha  did 
come,  warm  from  her  walking,  a  whole- 
some veil  of  pink  over  her  cheeks.  First 
her  eyes  sought  Lucy,  though  in  passing 
she  gave  Jason  a  smiling  nod.  But  Lucy 
could  not  wait  for  any  greeting.  She 
stretched  up  trembling  hands  to  her. 
"Mother,"  said  she,  "where's  Marthy?" 

Martha  stepped  back  a  pace.  Then 
she  looked  at  Jason.  He  met  her  eyes 
gravely. 

"Yes,"  said  he,  "she's  kinder  home- 
sick for  old  times.  We've  been  talkin' 
'em  over.  I  don't  know  what  she's  goin' 
to  do  if  you  can't  find  Marthy  for  her." 

Perhaps  it  was  the  steadying  sugges- 
tion of  his  tone  that  kept  Lucy  to  the 
point.  She  was  holding  Martha  now  by 
both  hands,  and  her  face  fell  into  pa- 
thetic lines.  "Oh,  mother,"  she  cried, 
"you  find  Marthy.  If  you  don't  find 
Marthy  I  shall  die." 

Jason  rose  from  his  chair. 

"All  right,"  said  he,  cheerfully;  "we'll 
find  Marthy.  We  won't  be  long  about 
it,  either.  You  sit  here  like  a  good  girl, 
and  fold  your  patchwork  up,  and  we'll 


see  what  we  can  do."  He  turned  about 
and  held  the  door  for  Martha,  and  they 
left  the  room.  Jason  shut  the  door  be- 
hind them.  Then  he  took  Martha  into 
his  arms  and  kissed  her.    He  laughed. 

"Marthy,"  said  he,  "your  eyes  are  big 
as  saucers.  You've  got  awful  pretty 
eyes.  Now  I'm  goin'  to  pull  your  hair 
down,  and  you  run  and  do  it  up  same's 
you  used  to.  And  take  off  that  collar 
and  stick  on  a  bow  or  somethin'.  Put 
on  the  youngest  thing  you've  got.  You 
don't  want  Lucy  to  set  there  cryin'  for 
her  sister  when  you  could  put  the  clock 
back  twenty  year  if  you  wa'n't  so  set. 
George!  I  never  see  so  much  hair.  You 
roll  it  up  on  the  top  o'  your  head  and 
be  down  here  'fore  Lucy  has  time  to  cry 
her  eyes  out." 

Martha  ran  up  the  stairs  without  a 
word.  He  heard  the  door  latch  after  her. 
Jason  stood  in  the  front  doorway  and 
looked  off"  over  the  moss-rose  bushes. 
He  was  not  sure  she  would  come 
back  at  all,  but  he  stood  there  and 
hoped.  In  a  little  time  she  came.  She 
wore  a  white  dress,  and  her  lovely  hair 
was  coiled  on  the  top  of  her  head.  She 
even  had  a  blue-ribbon  belt,  and  that 
was  exactly  like  long  ago,  for  Jason  had 
given  it  to  her.  This  he  did  not  know, 
but  it  moved  him  in  some  way  not  clear 
to  him,  and  the  tears  came  into  his  eyes. 
Martha,  soberly,  yet  not  hesitating, 
came  down  the  stairs.  Her  eyes  were 
steadfastly  upon  him,  and  he  could  see 
her  breath  come  fast.  Jason  felt  as  if  he 
were  there  to  receive  his  bride,  and  he 
held  out  his  arms.  He  kissed  her  softly, 
and  Martha  received  the  kiss  like  a  wife 
who  has  learned  the  expectation  of  love. 
Then  they  went  in  to  Lucy.  She  had 
been  obedient.  Her  patchwork  lay  ex- 
actly folded,  and  she  was  watching  the 
door.  At  the  sight  of  them  her  face 
flushed  all  over  in  its  lovely  pink. 

"Oh,  Marthy!"  she  cried.  "You've 
come  back,  hain't  you  ?  Don't  you  ever 
go  away  any  more."  Then  she  saw  that 
Jason  was  holding  Martha's  hand,  and 
that  they  stood  there  together  not  quite 
as  she  had  seen  them.  "Why,"  said 
she,  "you  hain't  got  married?" 

"No,"  said  Jason.  He  drew  Martha 
forward  a  step,  so  that  he  seemed  to  be 
giving  her  to  Lucy.  "No,  we  hain't. 
But  we're  going  to  be  in  a  few  days." 


In  Shakespeare's  America 


BY  WILLIAM  ASP  EN  WALL  BRADLEY 


'LD  English  and  Scot- 
tish popular  ballads  are 
not  the  only  legacy  of 
the  Old  World  to  the 
New  that  time  has  kept 
more  or  less  intact  in 
the  dark  hollows  of  the 
Kentucky  hills.  Sink  a  shaft  almost 
anywhere  in  the  obscure  social  and  spir- 
itual strata  of  that  secluded  section  and 
you  will  make  striking,  often  startling, 
discoveries.  The  very  language  itself, 
far  from  being,  as  is  too  commonly  sup- 
posed, a  mere  uncouth  dialect,  preserves 
in  many  respects  the  obsolete  idiom  of 
our  ancestors,  and  is  starred  with  inter- 
esting and  significant  survivals. 

It  is  said  that  when  the  mountaineer 
begins  to  read  at  all,  he  displays  so 
marked  a  preference  for  Shakespeare 
that  it  is  invariably  the  works  of  that 
poet  that  have  most  frequently  to  be 
rebound  in  any  library  to  which  he  has 
access.  The  reason  he  himself  gives  for 
this  predilection  is  that  the  things 
Shakespeare  makes  his  characters  do  al- 
ways seem  so  "natural." 

So  also  must  seem  the  things  he  makes 
them  say.  Words  and  turns  of  expres- 
sion employed  by  Shakespeare  and  in  the 
King  James  version  of  the  Bible  are  of 
such  common  occurrence  in  the  moun- 
tain speech  that  it  is  quite  possible  for  a 
native  student  of  his  own  people's  pe- 
culiar characteristics  to  argue,  with  no 
small  show  of  reason,  that  "the  purest 
English  on  earth  is  that  of  the  Kentucky 
mountains  —  however  unpolished  and 
crude  it  may  be  grammatically.  An- 
other asseits  that  this  racy  idiom  is  the 
one  real  literary  dialect  as  yet  produced 
in  America. 

A  teacher  in  a  settlement  school  told 
me  that  her  greatest  trouble  was  getting 
the  children  to  talk  "good  English. " 
Yet  the  natural,  untutored  speech  of 
these  children  (and  of  the  grown  people 
as  well,  when  they  have  remained  un- 
contaminated  by  outside  influences)  is 


of  a  pristine  poetic  quality  seldom  found 
save  among  the  very  primitive. 

Just  because  the  mountaineers  are,  for 
the  most  part,  either  illiterate  or  able 
to  see  few  newspapers,  they  have  no 
stereotyped  forms  of  expression.  For 
them  the  language  is  in  the  same  state  of 
fluidity  and  flux  that  it  was  for  Shake- 
speare and  his  contemporaries,  so  that 
they  are  always  free  to  vary  and  invent, 
and  are  often  forced  to  feel  around,  as  it 
were,  not  only  for  the  right  word,  but  for 
their  own  word,  which,  since  they  have 
a  natural  esthetic  instinct  for  verbal 
shapes  and  sounds,  gives  their  speech  a 
remarkable  sense  of  freshness  and  stylis- 
tic distinction.  Moreover,  the  very  fact 
that  their  vocabulary  is  extremely  lim- 
ited tends  to  foster  a  fanciful  and  figura- 
tive form  of  expression,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  old  preacher  who,  referring  to  the 
white-haired  among  his  auditors,  called 
down  a  blessing  upon  those  "whose 
heads  were  bloomin'  for  the  grave." 

There  is  much  that  is  coarse  and  crude 
in  the  mountaineer's  method  of  expres- 
sion, reflecting,  frequently,  the  condi- 
tions under  which  he  lives. 

But  what  at  first  sight  appears  most 
corrupt  or  colloquial  often  proves  on 
closer  acquaintance  to  possess  unexcep- 
tionable linguistic  credentials.  What, 
for  example,  could  possibly  have  a  more 
bucolic  or  Boeotian  flavor  than  the  use 
of  the  verb  "to  talk"  in  the  sense  of 
"to  court"  or  "to  woo" ?  Yet,  in  "King 
Lear"  we  find  Regan  saying,  precisely: 

My  lord  is  dead;  Edmund  and  I  have  talked. 

In  Shakespeare  also  we  find  "holp" 
for  "  helped,"  a  form  of  the  preterite 
very  common  in  the  mountains,  as  are 
also  "whup"  for  "whipped,"  "wrop" 
for  "wrapped,"  "clomb"  for  "climbed." 
If  a  mountain  man  becomes  suddenly 
bereft  of  his  senses,  it  is  said  of  him 
that  "he's  tuk  a  franzy  spell,"  and  this 
rustic  pronunciation  has  the  authority 
of  no  less  a  poet  than  Sir  Philip  Sidney. 


IN  SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICA 


437 


There  is  also  sound  logic,  if  not  liter- 
ary authority,  for  "ary"  and  "nary," 
which  are  nothing  more  or  less  than  con- 
tractions  or  e  er  a  and  ne  er  a  — 
corruptions,  if  one  chooses,  but  notably 
euphonious  and  convenient — and  the 
forms  "farder"  and  "furder"  for  "far- 
ther" and  "further"  have  exactly  the 
same  justification  from  an  etymological 
point  of  view  as  "murder,"  which  used 
to  be  written  "murther";  while  the  im- 
personal pronoun  "hit"  is  no  mere 
cockneyism  for  "it,"  but  the  original 
Anglo-Saxon  form  of  the  word. 

It  is  the  custom  of  the  city-bred  to 
scorn  the  provincial;  but  words,  or  the 
uses  of  words,  so  labeled  in  the  diction- 
ary, are  often  those  which  best  repay 
the  attention  of  the  student.  Thus  the 
visitor  to  the  Cumberlands  is  sure  to  be 
struck  by  the  use  of  the  word  "genera- 
tion" without  temporal  significance  and 
as  an  exact  synonym  of  "breed"  or 
"race."  For  example,  "Thar's  a  power- 
ful generation  o'  them  Holmeses."  But 
this  is  merely  a  forgotten  Elizabethan 
use  of  the  word,  and  might  be  made  to 
throw  an  interesting  light  upon  the  exe- 
gesis of  the  text  in  which  Christ  charac- 
terized his  hearers  on  one  occasion  as  a 
"generation  of  vipers." 

The  quaint,  picturesque,  and  archaic 
"begone,"  which  Shakespeare  could  put 
in  the  mouth  of  a  king  issuing  orders  to 
his  loyal  lieges,  is  now  used  only  when 
addressing  a  dog,  and  never  even  to  the 
humblest  man  or  woman. 

Old  customs  naturally  preserve  traces 
of  an  ancient  terminology.  Thus  the 
mountain  marriage  observances,  which 
have  kept  intact  an  unusual  element  of 
traditionalism,  even  for  this  conserva- 
tive section,  present  the  word  "infare" 
as  the  name  for  the  bridegroom's  frolic. 
This  precedes  the  wedding  proper,  cele- 
brated the  following  day  at  the  home  of 
the  bride's  parents,  whither  all  repair  on 
horseback,  the  bride  seated  on  a  pillion 
behind  her  future  lord  and  master.  The 
attendants  of  the  bridal  pair  are  termed 
"waiters"  and  "waitresses." 

Another  use  of  the  verb  "to  wait"  is 
"to  attend,"  as  in  the  case  of  a  nurse  or 
a  doctor,  while  still  a  third  is  "to  say 
grace."  This  last  is  a  wholly  exotic  or 
"fotcht-on"  custom,  and  is  rarely  found 
save  in  those  families  affected  by  outside 


religious  influences.  But  if  you  are  a 
guest  in  a  mountain  home,  and  are 
thought  to  be  a  "missionary"  (since 
"Bible  readers"  and  "missionaries"  are 
almost  the  only  visitors  in  certain  re- 
mote sections),  you  are  quite  likely  to 
be  asked  to  "wait  on  the  table,"  and 
you  will  not  be  able  to  escape  the  per- 
formance of  this  rite,  although  in  some 
cases  your  host  may  politely  inquire  in 
advance  whether  you  "follow  talkin'," 
so  that  you  can  ask  a  blessing  or  not,  as 
you  choose. 

If  he  is  one  of  those  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  ask  it  themselves,  he  will  take 
a  preliminary  look  around  the  table  and 
caution  the  children  to  "act  pretty," 
just  as,  when  you  have  arrived  at  his 
house,  he  said  he  was  "proud"  to  see 
you  looking  so  "stout,"  and  asked  you 
to  sit  down  and  make  yourself  "pleas- 
ant" while  waiting  for  dinner. 

The  most  common  and  familiar 
words  often  express  a  most  uncommon 
and  unfamiliar  shade  of  meaning  in  the 
mountains,  where  "nice"  means  "so- 
ber" (in  the  alcoholic  sense);  where  to  be 
"ambitious"  is  to  be  "angry"  and  ready 
to  fight;  where  "to  cook"  is  "to  boil," 
"to  boil"  is  merely  "to  heat  up"  on 
the  fire,  and  to  roast -is  "to  smother." 
Where  "ivy"  is  "laurel,"  "laurel"  is 
"rhododendron,"  a  "flower-pot"  is  any 
kind  of  bouquet,  and  "lilies "  are  "  roses" 
(of  Sharon);  where  "worried"  or  "wor- 
ritted"  means  "tired";  where  "death" 
may  be  merely  a  temporary  loss  of  con- 
sciousness; where  a  "funeral"  is  quite 
difFerent  from  a  "burying";  where  peo- 
ple always  speak  of  "these  molasses"  in 
the  plural,  and  of  a  "creek  o'  land,"  just 
as  they  do  of  a  "nap  o'  sleep"  or  a 
"meal  o'  vittles";  where  a  "limb"  is  a 
"branch,"  and  a  "branch,"  like  a 
"prong,"  is  but  the  "fork"  of  a  creek; 
where  "several"  is  "plenty,"  and  "plen- 
ty" a  number  past  all  computing;  and, 
lastly,  where,  if  a  man  tells  you  he 
doesn't  "keer"  to  do  a  thing,  you  may 
be  certain  that  he  really  wants  to  do  it! 

The  mountaineer  still  retains  the  word 
"house"  in  many  combinations  from 
which  we  have  long  since  dropped  it  as 
no  longer  necessary  to  express  our  mean- 
ing. Thus  we  continue  to  say  "school- 
house"  and  "court-house"  (as  well  as 
"bath  -  house,"  "ice  -  house,"  "smoke  - 


438 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


house,"  etc.),  but  the  mountaineer,  more 
logical  and  consistent,  says  also  "church 
house"  and  "jail  house." 

A  traveler  arrived  at  a  certain  county- 
seat.  Seeing  several  men  seated  along  a 
rail  fence,  he  asked  them  which  house 
was  the  hotel.  They  told  him,  and  he  in- 
vited them  to  join  him  and  have  a  drink. 
All  accepted  except  one,  who  retained 
his  solitary  seat  on  the  court-house  fence. 

"Why  doesn't  he  come?"  asked  the 
stranger.   "Doesn't  he  want  a  drink?" 

"Oh,  that  feller!"  exclaimed  the 
spokesman.  "He  knows  I  won't  let  him. 
You  see,  stranger,  he's  in  jail,  and  I'm 
the  jailer!" 

In  mountain  usage,  present  participles 
have  the  full  force  of  adjectives,  and 
one  never  hesitates  to  treat  them  as 
such  by  coining  a  superlative  for  them 
upon  occasion.  Thus  I  have  heard  men 
called  the  "talkingest,"  horses  the  "sin- 
gle-footingest,"  girls  the  "smilingest," 
and  certain  kinds  of  wood  the  "lasting- 
est "  or  "  lastiest."  The  stranger  never 
fails  to  be  afforded  additional  surprises  in 
this  particular  genre.  One  commented 
to  a  mountain  woman  on  her  skill  in  knit- 
ting as  she  walked  along  the  rough  moun- 
tain roads  or  climbed  the  steep  trails. 

"Oh,  that's  nothing!"  the  woman  ex- 
claimed. "Now  ther's  Aunt  Mandy. 
She's  the  knittingest  woman  ever  I  saw. 
She  takes  her  yarn  to  bed  with  her 
every  night,  and  ever'  now  and  then  she 
throws  out  a  sock!" 

The  mountaineer,  moreover,  makes 
many  compound  words.  Thus  he  never 
refers  to  a  mouth  specialist  save  as  a 
"tooth-dentist,"  and  children  who  see  a 
certain  exotic  fruit  for  the  first  time, 
have  been  known  to  christen  it  an 
"orange-apple,"  and  in  the  same  way 
we  have  a  "Bible-book,"  a  "pallet-bed," 
and  a  "poppet-doll." 

Mountain  dolls  are  cut  out  roughly 
from  a  block  of  wood  with  a  knife,  and 
their  hair  is  of  wool  or  of  hemp  dyed 
red,  yellow,  or  black.  All  mountain 
toys  are  of  similar  household  manufac- 
ture, as  were  those  of  children  a  hundred 
years  or  so  ago  generally. 

The  mountain  boys  make  their  own 
marbles,  or  "marvles,"  out  of  what  they 
call  "black  limestone."  To  do  this  they 
roughly  shape  a  piece  of  stone  by  knock- 


ing it  against  another  stone.  Then  they 
make  a  hole  in  a  large  rock  and,  putting 
the  small  stone  in  the  end  of  a  split 
stick,  they  work  it  round  and  round  in 
the  hole  until  it  is  perfectly  smooth  and 
spherical.  It  takes  about  six  hours  to 
make  a  single  marble. 

The  children  also  have  a  great  variety 
of  games,  most  of  which  are  clearly  tra- 
ditional, and  have  been  identified  with 
English  games  whose  names  are  often 
but  slightly  altered  in  the  mountain  ver- 
sion. Thus  "Blind  Man's  Buff"  has  be- 
come in  Kentucky  "Blind  Pole"  (Fold); 
"Chickamy"  has  become  "ChickieMy 
Cranie  Crow,"  and  "Round  and  Round 
the  Village,"  "Round  the  Levee," 
"Hooper's  Hide,"  "Hoop  Hide,"  etc. 
But  the  most  popular  of  these  mountain 
games,  as  far  as  my  own  observation 
goes,  is  one.  whose  title,  "Old  Bald 
Eagle,"  seems  to  indicate  that  it  has  an 
American,  if  not,  indeed,  a  local,  origin: 

Old  bald  eagle  sails  around, 

Daylight's  gone. 
Watch  Miss  Maggie  sail  around, 

Daylight's  gone. 
Back  and  forth  across  the  floor, 

Daylight's  gone. 
Swing  your  partner  on  the  floor, 

Daylight's  gone. 

Another  favorite  with  the  children, 
though  it  is  not  a  play-song,  strictly 
speaking,  is  "The  Swapping  Song." 
Part  of  this — the  first  part — is  the  nur- 
sery rhyme  which  everybody  knows: 

When  I  was  a  little  boy  I  lived  by  myself, 
And  all  the  bread  and  cheese  I  had  I  put 
upon  the  shelf  .  .  . 

But  in  the  mountain  version  the  real  fun 
doesn't  begin  until  after  the  termina- 
tion of  this  introduction  by  the  wheel- 
barrow catastrophe.  For  then  the  hero, 
left  with  a  useless  wife  upon  his  hands, 
trades  her  off  for  a  horse,  which  in  turn 
he  exchanges  for  a  cow,  the  cow  for  a 
calf,  the  calf  for  a  sheep,  the  sheep  for  a 
goat,  and  so  on,  until  he  finally  ends 
with  nothing  at  all.  Each  distich  ends 
with  a  nonsense  refrain,  as  here,  at  the 
end: 

Then  I  traded  my  mouse  for  a  blind  old  mole, 
And  the  daggone  thing  ran  straight  for  its 
hole, 


A  WAYSIDE  COTTAGE  IN  THE  SOUTHERN  MOUNTAINS 


With  a  wing-wang-w  addle  and  a  jack-straw- 
straddle. 

And  a  J ohn-f air-f addle,  and  a  long  way  home. 

On  the  whole  there  is  a  notable  ab- 
sence of  ritual  and  ceremonial  obser- 
vance connected  with  traditional  holi- 
days, such  as  May  Day  and  Hallowe'en, 
for  example.  A  trace,  at  least,  of  the 
orgiastic  May  Pole  revelry  has,  it  is 
true,  been  ingeniously  detected  in  the 
words  still  sung  to  the  tune  of  one  of 
the  popular  "country  dances": 

One  and  one  are  two, 
Two  and  one  are  three,  • 

Winding  up  the  maple-leaf, 
Busy  as  a  bee. 

Here  the  word  "maple"  is  unquestion- 
ably a  corruption  of  "May-pole." 

But  the  most  remarkable  survival  of 
this  sortisthe  so-called  "Old  Christmas." 
In  Trinity  Churchyard,  in  New  York, 
there  is  an  elder-bush  that  was  brought 
to  this  country  from  Glastonbury,  Eng- 
land, and  whose  anticipated  breaking 
into  bloom  is  awaited  each  year  about 
the  sixth  of  January  by  those  familiar 
with  the  legendary  Yule-tide  lore  of  Old 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  783.-55 


England.  This  lore  is  well-nigh  uni- 
versal in  the  Cumberlands,  where  Old 
Christmas  is  still  observed  by  thousands, 
and  where  children  who  have  never 
heard  of  Santa  Claus,  and  hardly  even 
of  the  Christ  story,  believe  implicitly 
that,  just  at  midnight,  not  only  do  the 
elder-bushes  bloom,  but  the  cows  and 
oxen  kneel,  lowing,  in  their  stalls. 

The  attempt  has  been  made  to  con- 
nect these  beliefs  with  the  old  English 
observance  of  Twelfth  Night,  since  Old 
Christmas  occurs  just  twelve  days  later 
than  the  customary  celebration  of 
Christ's  nativity.  But  this,  of  course,  is 
absurd.  Old  Christmas  is  merely  the 
Christmas  that  was  celebrated  in  Shake- 
speare's day,  before  the  change  that  was 
made  in  the  calendar  about  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Many  at 
that  time  in  England  refused  to  accept 
this  "impious"  change,  and  among  these, 
no  doubt,  were  the  ancestors  of  the  early 
settlers  in  Kentucky;  unless,  perhaps,  a 
truer  explanation  is  that  these  early  set- 
tlers, already  buried  in  the  wilderness 
when  the  change  occurred,  have  re- 


PRIMITIVE  BUT  GENEROUS  HOSPITALITY  MEETS  THE  WAYFARER  EVERYWHERE 


mained  unaware  of  it  in  many  cases  until 
the  present  day! 

Now  often  both  Christmases  are  ob- 
served in  the  same  community — Old 
Christmas  by  the  old  folks;  New  Christ- 
mas by  the  young  people,  who  have 
undergone  outside  influences  and  rebel 
against  the  tyranny  of  separate  tradi- 
tions. But  while  the  former  make  of 
their  festival  a  "mighty  solemn  occa- 
sion," sitting  and  holding  their  hands  all 
day  and  refusing  to  eat,  the  latter  cele- 
brate theirs  in  a  lively  fashion  with 
frolics  of  all  sorts.  Indeed,  the  25th 
of  December  has  become  in  many  sec- 
tions of  the  mountains  a  day  of  marked 
disorder,  when,  more  than  at  any  other 
time,  the  men  and  boys  drink  and  shoot 
up  the  settlements.  So  that  the  peace 
of  the  Cumberlands  has  not,  on  the 
whole,  been  promoted  by  this  belated 
rectification  of  the  calendar! 

The  mountaineer  is  a  great  believer 
in  signs  and  portents.    It  is  interest- 


ing in  this  connection  to  recall  that  it 
was  in  the  person  of  a  mountain  man, 
Owen  Glendower,  from  the  wilds  of 
Wales,  that  Shakespeare  himself,  with 
delightful  humor,  satirized  such  beliefs 
in  his  own  time: 

At  my  nativity, 
The  front  of  heaven  was  full  of  fiery  shapes, 
Of  burning  cressets. 

So  spoke  the  Welsh  chieftain,  fore- 
runner, in  this  respect,  of  the  great 
Wallenstein.  And  so  also,  a  glare  in  his 
eye  and  his  speech  shot  through  with 
apocalyptical  splendors,  spoke  the  old 
man  who  told  me  that  he  was  born  the 
"night  the  stars  fell."  Only  his  explana- 
tion of  this  meteoric  phenomenon  that 
marked  his  natal  hour  was  quite  im- 
personal, and  had  nothing  to  do  with  his 
own  humble  destiny.  The  angels  of  the 
Lord,  he  said,  and  the  angels  of  Satan, 
had  fought  a  great  "surgin"'  battle. 
The  latter  was  defeated  and  flung  head- 
long from  heaven.    But  as  he  fell,  "the 


IN  SHAKESPEARE'S  AMERICA 


441 


old  Sarpint,"  seeking  to  do  one  last 
"devilment,"  clutched  at  the  stars  and 
"drug"  one-fourth  of  them  down  with 
him  from  their  places  in  the  "firma- 
ment." 

Nor  is  there  one  of  the  ingredients  in 
the  broth  brewed  by  the  witches  in 
"Macbeth"  unknown  to  the  mountain 
wizards  and  warlocks.  For  the  state  of 
Massachusetts  and  the  town  of  Salem 
have  had  no  monopoly  of  the  magic  arts 
in  this  country. 

Less  than  fifty  years  ago  the  belief  in 
witchcraft  had  quite  a  following  in  the  Ken- 
tucky mountains.  Nor  has  it  died  out  yet. 
There  are  numbers  and  numbers  of  women 
and  men  in  the  mountains  who  are  credited 
with  the  powers  of  witchcraft,  and  who  be- 
lieve themselves  to  be  gifted  with  those 
strange  powers. 

So  writes  Mr.  Josiah  H.  Combs,  him- 
self a  mountain  man,  in  his  valuable 
little  treatise  entitled  The  Kentucky 
Highlanders.  Personally,  I  confess  I 
never  happened  to  meet  any  one  who 
claimed  to  be  a  witch  or  a  wizard,  though 
I  knew  several  who  were  said  to  possess 
charms  of  one  sort  or  another.  There 
was  still  living  not  long  ago,  in  one  local- 


ity which  I  visited,  an  old  woman  who 
asserted  that  she  could  cure  almost 
anything,  including  cancer.  She  said 
that  in  order  to  work  a  cure,  however, 
she  must  first  know  the  full  name  of  the 
person,  together  with  the  "nater"  of  the 
trouble,  and  that  then  she  had  to  go 
out  and  look  at  a  green  apple-tree,  saying 
a  few  "words  of  ceremony." 

These  were  her  secret.  She  could  not 
reveal  it  to  another  woman  without  los- 
ing her  power.  For  a  woman  could  tell 
it  only  to  three  men,  and  a  man  to  three 
women.  She  herself  had  been  taught  the 
charm  many  years  before  by  an  old  man 
who,  in  turn,  may  have  received  it  from 
another  woman,or  from  the  devil  himself. 
For  there  are  those  in  the  mountains 
who  are  supposed  to  have  sold  their 
souls  quite  in  accordance  with  the  best 
Faustian  traditions. 

In  the  Cumberlands  there  has  never 
been  felt  any  of  that  odium  theologicum 
toward  witches  found  elsewhere  in  mod- 
ern times.  They  have,  it  is  true,  been 
feared;  and,  if  we  are  to  credit  the  tales 
current  in  the  country,  individual 
witches  have,  when  taken,  been  sub- 
jected to  cruel  punishments — even  put 


THE  BRIDE  REPAIRS  TO  THE  WEDDING  SEATED  BEHIND  HER  FUTURE  LORD 


442 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


to  death.  But  there  has  never,  so  far 
as  I  have  heard,  been  any  systematic 
persecution  of  those  suspected  of  dia- 
bolic practices;  and  this  accords  with 
the  simpler  and  more  natural  sentiment 
on  the  subject  in  primitive  Catholic, 
rather  than  Protestant,  countries,  where 
there  are  always  adequate  means  with 
which  to  combat  this  particular  spiiitual 
evil. 

There  are,  of  course,  no  priests  in  the 
Cumberlands  to  make  the  sign  of  the 
cross,  sprinkling  a  little  holy  water  on 
the  infected  place  or  on  the  person  sus- 
pected of  suffering  from  a  malefice.  But 
there  are  almost  as  many  witch  doctors 
as  there  are  witches,  and  their  charms 
make  it  very  dangerous  for  the  latter  to 
attempt  anything  serious  against  human 
life.  Besides,  witches  are  always  liable 
to  painful  accidents  in  the  pursuit  of 
their  unhallowed  profession. 

Many  years  ago  [writes  Mr.  Combs]  a 
man's  wife,  who  was  a  witch,  went  one  night 
to  attend  a  meeting  of  the  witches.  In  the 
guise  of  a  black  cat  she  came  home  to  where 
her  husband  was  sitting  by  the  fireside  and 
threw  her  paws  upon  his  knees.  Not  espe- 
cially in  love  with  the  salutation  of  this 
strange  visitor,  he  chopped  one  of  her  paws 


off,  and  immediately  the  hand  of  a  woman 
lay  upon  his  knee.  The  next  morning  his 
wife  complained  of  sickness,  and  was  not  dis- 
posed to  get  out  of  bed.  The  husband  was 
suspicious  and  asked  her  to  reach  out  her 
right  arm.  She  did  so,  and  the  hand  was 
missing. 

I  myself  have  heard  this  story  told  in 
varying  versions.  I  have  also  heard 
another  of  the  same  sort,  concerning  a 
woman  who  every  night  turned  a  young 
man  into  a  horse,  and  rode  him  so  hard 
that  the  following  morning  he  was  ex- 
hausted. A  stranger  who  happened  to 
be  staying  in  the  house  where  this  oc- 
curred observed  the  young  man  wasting 
from  day  to  day,  and  suspected  the 
woman  of  sorcery.  So  he  lay  awake  one 
night  and  saw  her  come  to  her  victim's 
bedside,  shake  a  bridle  over  him,  and 
say  three  times,  "Up  'devil;  put  on 
bridle!"  Then,  as  he  changed  shape,  she 
leaped  on  his  back  and  dashed  through 
the  door.  The  next  night  the  stranger 
turned  the  tables  on  the  enchantress; 
and,  when  he  had  changed  her  into  a 
mare,  rode  her  straight  up  the  creek  to  a 
blacksmith's  shop,  where  he  dismounted 
and  gave  her  a  full  set  of  shoes.  Then, 
after  riding  her  all  night,  he  brought  her 


A  HUMBLE  CABIN  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 


THE  FAMTLY  DINNER 


back  to  the  cabin  and  restored  her  to 
her  proper  form.  But  the  shoes  still  re- 
mained fixed  with  cruel  nails  to  her 
hands  and  feet. 

The  imagination  of  the  mountain  peo- 
ple is  very  limited.  It  is  hard  for  them 
to  visualize  things  and  events  beyond 
the  narrow  range  of  their  exceedingly 
restricted  personal  experience.  But  at 
the  same  time  this  narrow  imaginative 
faculty  is  very  intense  and  clothes  the 
most  extraordinary  incidents  with  the 
matter-of-fact  colors  of  reality.  This,  as 
we  have  seen,  is  what  gives  the  homely, 
racy  touch  to  their  ballad  literature,  re- 
creates this,  and  imparts  to  its  tradi- 
tional treasures  something  of  the  value 
of  original  expression.  And  in  the  same 
way  it  gives  to  these  folk-tales,  whose 
motives  are  among  the  commonplaces 
of  popular  imagination,  a  real  savor  of 
the  soil,  a  richness  of  racial  genius.  The 
humble  mountain  cabin,  its  gallery  or 
"dog  run"  hung  with  saddles,  bunches 
of  onions,  and  bundles  of  broom-corn, 
— this  is  the  customary  setting  for  stories 
that  are  worthy  of  Grimm,  and  that  will 
perhaps  some  day  find  a  Grimm  to  col- 
lect them. 

For  the  most  part,  the  operations  of 
mountain  witches  are  confined  to  such 


simple  tricks  as  spells  cast  upon  cows, 
which  can  easily  be  counteracted  either 
by  putting  a  silver  dollar  or  half-dollar 
in  the  churn,  or  else  sharpening  the  edge 
of  the  coin  on  a  "grinding-stone"  and 
cutting  the  afflicted  beast's  tongue  with 
it.  Still,  there  are  interesting  instances 
of  the  survival  of  "sympathetic  magic," 
so-called,  where  the  magician  seeks  the 
life  of  his  enemy  through  the  agency  of  a 
simulacrum.  Mr.  Combs  reports  such 
an  instance  from  Knott  County.  There, 
once  upon  a  time,  a  wizard  became  jeal- 
ous of  another  man.  This  man  sud- 
denly dropped  dead  between  his  plow- 
handles  one  day  while  plowing  in  his 
corn-field.  When  those  who  ran  to  his 
aid  lifted  him  up,  his  head  fell  back  and 
a  "witch  ball"  rolled  from  his  mouth. 
The  case  was  "investigated,"  and  it  was 
found  that  the  wizard  had  gone  into  the 
woods,  drawn  a  picture  of  his  enemy  on 
a  tree,  and  shot  it  with  a  ball  made  from 
the  hair  of  a  horse  or  a  cow. 

The  anecdote  makes  a  curious  con- 
tribution to  the  study  of  the  Cumberland 
vendetta.  It  seems  odd  at  first  that 
men  accustomed  to  fight  with  fists  and 
with  guns  should  have  recourse  to  such 
secret  methods  of  assassination.  But, 
then,  is  it  so  strange,  on  reflection,  after 


444 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


all?  Is  the  envoutement,  practised  as  a 
form  of  private  vengeance,  any  less  se- 
cret, really,  than  the  shooting  from  am- 
bush which  has  been  so  characteristic  of 
this  country,  and  which  has  so  severely 
taxed  the  skill  of  its  apologists? 

Not  that  he  has  always  fought  this 
way,  by  any  means,  or  feared  to  meet 
his  foe  face  to  face.  From  the  earliest 
days,  when  the  rifle  had  not  yet  entirely 
superseded  the  old-fashioned  "fist  and 
skull"  fight,  down  to  the  present,  for  the 
settling  of  disputes  and  the  assertion  of 
personal  prowess,  the  Cumberlands  have 
not  lacked  their  "bullies"  or  "cham- 
pions," and  anecdotes  concerning  them 
not  infrequently  have  the  true  ring  or 
flavor  of  the  Iron  Age. 

Thus  a  Knott  County  man  rode  over 
to  Hazard  in  Perry  County  one  court 
day.  There  was  a  big  crowd  around  the 
court-house,  trading  horses  and  waiting 
for  court  to  begin.  A  citizen  rode  up  to 
him  and  said: 

"You're  Bill  Judd,  hain't  you?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  replied  the  first  man. 


"Well,  I've  heard  you're  the  best  man 
in  Knott  County,"  continued  the  second. 

"I've  heard  it,  too,"  was  the  quiet 
answer. 

"I'm  the  best  man  in  Perry,  and  a 
better  man  than  you,"  came  the  chal- 
lenge. 

"That's  for  you  to  say  and  for  me  to 
find  out,"  was  its  acceptance. 

"Will  you  make  it  ten  or  twenty 
paces: 
len. 

So  they  backed  off  ten  paces  and 
drew.  They  fired  five  or  six  times  at 
each  other,  until  the  Perry  man  got  a 
bullet  through  his  body  and  fell  over 
his  horse's  neck. 

"Paw  got  one  through  his  stomach," 
said  the  son  of  the  Knott  County  cham- 
pion, who  told  the  story,  "and  had  a 
right  smart  trouble  with  his  eating  for 
some  time  arter." 

Even  among  the  incontestable  "bad 
men"  of  the  Kentucky  mountains  there 
is  to  be  noted  at  least  one  striking  sur- 
vival of  chivalric  psychology  or  senti- 


A  TYPICAL  HOME  IN  THE  CUMBERLAND  MOUNTAINS 


THEY  BACKED  OFF  TEN  PACES  AND  DREW 


ment.  In  Shakespeare's  "King  Henry 
IV.,"  when  that  monarch,  "great  Bol- 
ingbroke,"  has  chided  his  son  for  his 
wayward  courses  and  his  time  wasted 
with  wastrels,  citing  the  high  example 
of  Harry  Hotspur  for  his  confusion,  the 
young  Prince  Hal,  stirred  with  a  sudden 
sense  of  shame,  announces  his  resolution 
to  reform  and,  in  especial,  to  humble 
Harry  Percy.  "For  the  time  will  come," 
he  says, 

"That  I  shall  make  this   northern  youth 
exchange 

His  glorious  deeds  for  my  indignities. 
Percy  is  but  my  factor,  good  my  lord, 
To  engross  up  glorious  deeds  on  my  behalf." 

Now    this   sentiment,  which   is  ex- 


pressed by  both  Prince  Hal  and  Harry 
Hotspur,  the  flower  of  chivalry  in  their 
day,  and  which  perhaps  springs  from 
some  primitive  religious  instinct  that 
you  actually  appropriate  the  virtue  of 
your  victim  and  make  it  yours,  is  pre- 
cisely the  motive  of  the  mountain  "bad 
man"  who,  stirred  by  the  blood  lust, 
instinctively  seeks  some  one  with  a 
"record"  even  longer  than  his  own,  so 
that  he  can,  as  it  were,  annex  it — add 
as  many  notches  on  his  own  gun-barrel 
as  the  other  had  on  his.  In  such  strange 
forms,  and  in  such  unexpected,  out-of- 
the-way  places,  do  those  ideals  and  aspi- 
rations still  survive  that  once  shaped 
history! 


Roscoe  the  Invincible 


BY  J  LICE  COWDERY 


^^^^^»OM  PARKER  burst 
^^^^^^^^^S  forth  from  business  and 
JjSj  r  p  jffiL  joined  the  crowd  of 
Ms  |ffi  home-going  commuters. 

J  djl  Tom  was  thrilled;  he 
^^^^^^^^^g  had  an  idea — the  first 
^^^^^^^^^  in  two  weeks.  The  very 
opening  words,  the  very  closing  ones  of 
his  story  had  sprung  out  sparkling  and 
seductive.  He  stopped  just  short  of  the 
curb,  drew  out  his  pen  and  an  unpaid 
bill,  intending  to  scratch  down  the  pos- 
sibly immortal  things;  but  he  did  not. 
The  blast  of  a  siren  in  his  left  ear  pre- 
cipitated him  upon  the  sidewalk.  As 
Tom  turned  an  irate  eye  upon  the  enor- 
mous limousine  rounding  the  corner,  he 
was  conscious  of  another  fixing  him 
through  the  window  of  the  car. 

Tom  shook  a  fist  at  it,  automatically, 
and  was  about  to  continue  his  sparkling 
phrases  from  the  haven  of  the  sidewalk. 
But  again  he  did  not.  A  hand  slapped 
down  on  his  shoulder  with  a  vigor  that 
completed  the  nerve-shock  of  the  siren 
blast,  and  a  voice,  loud  and  exulting, 
cried: 

"Well,  well,  Tom  Parker!  To  think 
that  my  new  sixty-horse-power  gas- 
wagon  nearly  ran  you  down!" 

Tom,  thoroughly  irritated,  turned  and 
glared  at  his  accoster. 

"Never  thought  in  the  old  days  I'd  be 
able  to,  eh?"  The  fatuous  joy  of  the 
speaker  merged  into  amazement.  "Say, 
I  believe  you  don't  remember  me!" 

"Well,"  said  Tom,  still  resentful,  "I 
won't  forget  you."  He  looked  at  the 
other  grudgingly.  "Prep  school,  wasn't 
it  r 

"Sure.    Phipps — Roscoe  Phipps." 

"How  are  you,  Phipps?  You've — en- 
larged," Tom  added  by  way  of  apology. 

The  other  protruded  his  portly  front 
proudly:  "Should  say  I  have — all 
round,"  and  he  slapped  his  pocket 
knowingly.  "And  to  think,"  he  added, 
"that  I  pay  my  man  two  hundred  a 
month  to  run  down  my  old  pal!" 


Pal!  What  rot!  A  fat-headed,  fat- 
legged,  full-fed  youth,  years  Tom's  se- 
nior, who  had  hung  on  at  school  until 
the  authorities  had  passed  him  in  des- 
peration to  get  rid  of  him. 

"Well,"  said  Tom,  false  but  polite, 
"glad  to  Jve  met  you  again.  So  long. 
Catching  a  boat." 

"Hold  on!  Hop  in,"  cried  Roscoe. 
He  propelled  Tom  toward  the  car. 
"Come  have  a  drink." 

Tom  didn't  want  a  drink.  He  didn't 
want  Roscoe.  He  wanted  to  make  his 
boat,  and  Constance,  and  his  evening  of 
writing.  But  there  was  a  persistency 
about  Roscoe. 

Roscoe  was  full  of  his  new  car.  He 
snapped  buttons  exposing  desk  and  dress- 
ing-table, he  bade  Tom  note  the  bunch 
of  orchids,  the  pale  gray  and  silver  fit- 
tings, the  chinchilla  robes.  And  his 
apartments!  Tom  would  be  astonished 
when  he  saw  those.  Tom,  with  a  firm 
resolve  never  to  do  so,  sat  back  in  his 
corner,  emitting  an  occasional  grunt  to 
be  interpreted  as  admiration  if  Roscoe 
chose.    Roscoe  did  choose. 

"How  did  all  this  grandeur  come 
about?"  asked  Tom. 

"Aunt  Martha  and  wool,"  Roscoe 
beamed,  exultingly.  "You,  by  the  way, 
went  in  for — ?" 

"  Banking." 

"Ah!"   Roscoe's  glance  that  had  been  , 
shifting  along  the  streets  that  it  might 
miss  no  efFect  of  his  progress  on  passing 
notice,  came  back  to  Tom  with  respect. 
"Thought  it  was  to  be  the  army." 

Tom  explained  that  his  father  had 
died,  and  that  he  had  had  to  go  to  work 
immediately.  "Bank  clerk,"  he  ex- 
plained, shortly. 

"Clerk!"  Roscoe  stared  at  him. 
"Too  bad,"  he  murmured,  "too  bad. 
Hard  lines.  Times  changed,  didn't 
they?  By  Jove!"  he  added,  buoyantly, 
"and  I  pay  a  mere  chauffeur  two  hun- 
dred a  month.    Well,  well!  Married?" 

"Yes,"  said  Tom,  again,  shortly. 


"SAY,  I  BELIEVE  YOU  DON'T  REMEMBER  ME!" 


"So'm  I.  Most  beautiful  woman  in 
San  Francisco.  Pure  gold,  her  hair,  sir, 
and  sixty-nine  inches  long.  And  dress! 
There  is  a  woman  who  can  show  money. 
We'll  have  to  get  together,  all  of  us. 
Mustn't  let  you  mould  away  over  in  the 
suburbs." 

Tom,  resenting  decidedly  the  "mould- 
ing away,"  admitted  vaguely  that  they 
must  all  get  together,  but  meanwhile  he 
had  missed  his  boat.  He  must  telephone 
his  wife  he'd  be  late  for  dinner. 

"Have  dinner  with  me,"  said  Roscoe. 
"My  wife's  away  till  to-morrow." 

"But  she  takes  such  pains,  you 
know."  Tom  was  impulsive  before  the 
vision  of  Constance.  "She's  getting  to 
be  the  greatest  little  cook." 

"Cook!"  Roscoe's  tone  was  commis- 
erating. "Tell  her  to  come  over,  too," 
he  called  after  him.  Tom  reappeared 
briskly  from  the  telephone-booth. 

"She  can't  make  it.    Well,  so  long." 

"See  here;   I'll  phone  her.  What's 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783.-56 


the  number?"  Roscoe  plunged  into  the 
booth.  He  reappeared,  beaming.  "It's 
all  settled.  You're  both  coming  to  din- 
ner to-morrow.  And  I  told  her  I'd  keep 
you  now."  Tom  glared  speechless  at 
Roscoe.  He  began  to  understand  how 
Roscoe  had  achieved  limousines  and 
things.  Roscoe  propelled  him  through 
dinner,  theater,  and  supper,  shot  him 
down  finally  in  time  for  the  last  boat. 
The  great  story  seemed  a  flat,  dead 
thing.  Possibly  he  would  get  fifty  for  it 
when  he  had  worked  two  weeks  upon  it. 
Roscoe  had  spent  half  that  in  this  mis- 
erably wasted,  head-splitting  night. 

At  two  o'clock  Tom  left  the  station 
and  went  up  the  one  hundred  and  eighty 
steps  that  led  from  the  lower  road  to  the 
bungalow  he  had  leased  for  this  first 
year  of  their  married  life.  A  light  came 
through  the  trees.  He  wondered  if  Con- 
stance were  still  awake.  The  front  door 
was  ajar  in  rural  custom.    He  could  see 


448 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


into  the  bedroom  as  he  stepped  across 
the  living-hall,  and  the  sight  held  him 
silent.  On  the  floor,  in  a  litter  of  scraps 
and  feathers  and  artificial  flowers,  sat 
Constance  in  her  nightgown.  The  elec- 
tric light  shone  on  her  lovely  little  face, 
her  dark  hair  was  tousled  and  askew. 
She  frowned  and  stared  before  her,  and 
then  she  reached  forth  and  picked  up 
some  article  from  the  maelstrom,  thrust 
it  at  arm's-length,  dropped  it  again. 
Thus  occupied,  she  did  not  see  Tom  until 
he  stood  in  the  doorway. 

"What  in  thunder  are  you  doing?" 

Constance  held  up  a  large  black  ob- 
ject. "I  made  it,"  she  said.  There  was 
a  curious  mingling  of  triumph  and  dis- 
gust in  her  tone. 

"What  is  it?" 

"Oh!"  Constance  pealed  in  momen- 
tary mirth.  "A  hat,  idiot!  When  Mr. 
What's-his-name  rang  up  I  had  just 
time  to  go  down  to  the  village  and  get 
some  wire  and  buckram,  and  I  cut  up 
that  old  black  velvet  skirt  of  mine,  and 
ironed  it,  and — "  Constance  arose,  trail- 
ing robes  of  whiteness,  and  went  to  her 
mirror.  She  crammed  the  hat  down 
over  her  ]  tousled  hair,  powdered  her 
nose,  and  turned  to  him.  "Isn't  it  be- 
coming?" Triumph  and  disgust  still 
hung  in  the  balance. 

"Well — "  Tom  hesitated  a  fatal 
second. 

She  hurled  the  hat  from  her  across  the 
room.  "It  isn't!"  she  cried.  "It's 
loathsome!  Oh,  I'm  so  tired,  and  I  had 
such  a  good  dinner  for  you,  and  you 
didn't  come,  and  I  haven't  a  thing  to 
wear  to-morrow  night."  And  Constance 
abandoned  herself  to  her  pillows.  Tom 
looked  at  her  helplessly.  He  confounded 
the  poverty  that  wouldn't  let  him  say  in 
manly,  husbandly  fashion,  "Here,  go 
buy  yourself  something."  Instead  he 
repeated : 

"To-morrow  night?  That  confounded 
dinner?   We  won't  go,  darling." 

Constance  removed  an  eye  from  her 
eclipse.    "We  don't  have  to?" 

"No,"  said  Tom,  sturdily.  "And 
what's  more,"  he  reiterated,  "we  won't." 

"How  can  we  get  out  of  it?"  asked 
Tom,  waking  abruptly  after  four  hours' 
sleep.  Had  he  been  asleep?  Sunlight 
trickled  through  the  curtains,  but  there 


under  the  electric  light  by  the  mirror 
stood  Constance,  the  hat  on  her  head. 
He  rubbed  his  eyes  and  stared.  "You 
been  there  all  night?" 

"I've  been  planning  what  to  do  with 
this  thing  almost  all  night,"  said  Con- 
stance, petulantly.  "Buying  buckram, 
and  losing  sleep  and  everything —  Of 
course  we'll  have  to  go — to  use  it." 

Her  reasoning  seemed  logical.  It  held 
Tom  silent  a  moment.  A  whistle 
sounded  from  the  cove  below. 

"There's  the  six-thirty  boat,"  he 
cried,  leaping  forth.  "Half  an  hour  for 
mine.    How  about  breakfast?" 

"Get  it  on  the  boat." 

"My  darling,  I  can't  charge  it  on  the 
boat.  I've  just  enough  to  last  me  for 
lunch."  Tom  went  out  to  build  the 
fire  and  put  water  on  for  shaving  and 
coffee. 

"Where's  my  dress-suit?"  he  shouted 
from  the  kitchen.  Constance  turned  to 
the  closet,  fumbled  a  moment  there,  and 
then  emerged,  guilt  on  her  face,  holding 
an  odd  bunch  of  garments.  She  felt 
Tom's  eye  from  the  doorway. 

"They  must  have  slipped  off  the  hang- 
ers," she  murmured,  apologetically. 

"Good  Lord!"  cried  Tom.  "  Yours 
never  slip  off  the  hangers,  do  they?  You 
take  good  care  of  that.  That  means," 
he  added,  gloomily,  "taking  'em  to  a 
tailor — more  expense.  Then  up  to  some 
feller's  room  to  change — more  bother. 
Twenty  minutes,"  he  shouted,  chatter- 
ing now  under  a  cold  shower.  "Hurry 
up  with  that  toast,  Constance!" 

"You're  lucky,"  said  Constance, 
tensely,  as,  kimono-wrapped,  she  evolved 
a  sketchy  breakfast;  "you  don't  have  to 
make  your  clothes  yourself  and  then 
wear  them." 

There  was  a  passionate  five  minutes 
of  suit-case,  studs,  ties.  "Look  on  the 
closet  floor  where  you  keep  my  suit," 
shouted  Tom,  "or  in  the  coal-bin!"  His 
sarcasms  flying,  his  hair  erect,  Tom  al- 
ways struck  Constance  as  screamingly 
funny  under  stress.  "No  sleep  to-night, 
either,"  he  muttered.  "See  here;  what 
was  our  object  in  coming  to  the  country, 
anyway?  To  be  let  alone,  wasn't  it? 
To  economize  in  peace;  cut  out  all  this 
cafe,  theater,  dress-suit  stufF,  wasn't  it? 
Now,  wasn't  it?" 

Constance,  convulsed  with  mirth  and 


ROSCOE  THE  INVINCIBLE 


449 


the  necessity  for  suppressing  it  in  those 
tense  moments,  lest  it  rouse  more  ire, 
scramblingly  got  him  off  at  last.  He 
kissed  her  in  a  quick,  hearty  grasp. 

"Now,  remember,  darling  —  never 
again.  Be  firm  next  time.  I  must  have 
my  sleep  and  my  evenings.  There's  the 
boat.  Go'-by.  Meet  you  at  the  ferry. 
For  Heaven's  sake,  try  and  be  on  time." 

Constance,  with  a  sigh,  went  back  to 
her  hat. 

All  that  day  she  sat  in  the  mael- 
strom— beds  unmade,  dishes  unwashed, 
bath-room  littered  as  only  Tom  could 
litter  a  bath-room;  now  shedding  a  few 
nervous  tears,  now  fierce  and  deter- 
mined, making  and  remaking  her  hat. 
The  five-thirty  must  be  caught,  tailor 
suit  pressed,  spot  removed.  One  shoe 
lacked  a  button.   At  four  she  ripped  the 


black-and-gold  cord  from  her  tea-gown 
and  wound  it  about  the  hat.  She  looked 
with  hatred  on  her  costume.  Even  if  she 
wore  her  lingerie  gown,  like  a  school-girl, 
she  had  no  suitable  wrap.  And  then,  the 
rain!  The  roads  turned  to  rivers  of 
mud;  the 'bus  leaked. 

As  she  got  off  the  boat  brooding  upon 
her  wrongs  and  that  damp  car  ride 
through  the  rain  with  Tom,  she  noticed 
a  limousine  drawn  up  at  the  curb.  Some 
happy  being,  fresh,  French-hatted,  rain- 
proofed— not  to  be  unwrapped  like  a  damp 
old  bundle  from  a  rummage  sale.  And 
where  was  Tom?  Why  wasn't  he  wait- 
ing? Did  he  expect  her  to  wait?  She 
was  concentrating  emotionally  when 
Tom  himself  stepped  forth  from  the 
limousine  with  a  grin. 

"He  sent  it  for  me  to  pick  you  up. 


450 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Awfully  decent — but — I'd  like  to  fur- 
nish my  own  conveyance." 

"Put  these  galoshes  in  your  pocket," 
said  Constance.  "And  this  soggy  veil 
and  these  old  gloves."  She  lay  back 
with  twenty-four  hours'  deferred  relaxa- 
tion in  her  sigh.  As  they  sped  up  the 
glistening  street  they  suddenly  leaned 
toward  each  other  and  kissed. 

"If  we  were  only  going  some  place  we 
wanted  to  go,  in  this — just  you  and  I!" 
sighed  Constance. 

They  went  through  the  gilded  halls  up 
to  Roscoe's  apartment.  A  valet  opened 
the  door;  beyond  him,  Roscoe,  shining 
and  expansive,  greeted  them  exuber- 
antly. 

"Thought  we'd  better  meet  here  than 
at  the  restaurant;  want  you  to  see  our 
rooms — just  done  over,  absolutely  per- 

"Why,  Roscoe,  they're  not  at  all 
what  I  want,  and  you  know  it."  With 
this  thrust  at  her  husband,  a  large 
blonde  turned  to  greet  them  calmly. 
Roscoe,  nothing  dimmed  by  her  rebuff, 
surveyed  her  proudly,  watching  the 
others  also  to  note  her  effect.  She  wore  a 
black  velvet  skirt  and  a  jet  girdle,  and 
her  sixty-nine  inches  of  golden  hair  was 
crowned  by  a  hat — oh,  a  perfect  hat! 
As  Constance  absorbed  that  hat  the  last 
shred  of  faith  in  her  own  went  down  be- 
fore it. 

"See  here,  Tom;  come  over  here. 
Guess  you  never  saw  anything  like  these, 
did  you?"  Roscoe  rolled  back  the  panels 
of  a  bookcase  and  paraded  the  ranks  of 
immaculate  editions  de  luxe.  "Look  at 
'em!  Not  one  cost  me  less  than  fifty." 
He  passed  a  volume  with  elaborate  care- 
lessness to  Tom. 

Tom  touched  the  uncut  leaves  with 
the  contrastive  awe  that  seemed  ex- 
pected of  him. 

"They  cost;  but  they  fit — all  this;  eh, 
my  boy?" 

"Show  'em  that  lace,  Clarisse,"  he 
added.  Clarisse  languidly  led  the  way 
to  a  piece  of  filet.  Her  white  fingers 
caressed  it  lightly. 

"Two  women  went  blind  making  it, 
mother  and  daughter.  I  bought  it  the 
last  time  I  was  in  Italy.  You  can't  get 
anything  over  here."  Roscoe  beamed 
proudly.    "Perfect  taste,  my  wife's,"  he 


assured  Tom  in  a  voice  that  was  meant 
to  carry.   Clarisse  graciously  accepted  it. 

"All  of  this,"  she  confided  to  Con- 
stance, "is,  of  course,  just  temporary. 
Roscoe's  interests  keep  us  here.  But 
there's  nothing  in  America  for  me." 
Her  tone  implied  such  martyrdom  that 
Constance  looked  as  sympathetic  and 
as  doubtful  of  America's  possibilities 
as  she  could.  "I  just  live,"  continued 
Clarisse,  in  a  louder  tone,  and  glancing  at 
Roscoe,  "for  my  next  trip  abroad." 

For  an  instant  it  seemed  that  Roscoe 
was  inclined  to  take  issue  with  her  on 
this  point,  but  his  proud  smile  shone  out 
again.  "Did  you  show  her  the  pin  we 
got  this  morning?"  Clarisse  exhibited 
rather  wearily  a  large  cluster  of  dia- 
monds on  her  shoulder. 

"Lovely!"  cried  Constance.  Tom 
muttered  his  appreciation  and  turned 
abruptly  away.  The  tiny  diamond  he 
had  saved  up  for,  through  so  many 
months,  looked  like  a  baby's  first  on 
Constance's  finger. 

A  maid  brought  in  a  tray.  Clarisse,  as 
she  nibbled  a  caviare  sandwich,  kept  her 
violet  orbs  on  Constance,  and  Constance 
knew  that  no  thread  of  her  apparel 
escaped  that  luminous  gaze. 

After  dinner  they  entered  the  limou- 
sine. Rain  had  ceased,  but  the  windows 
were  kept  tight  shut.  Through  the  park 
and  along  the  beach.  Back  along  the 
beach  and  through  the  park.  Roscoe 
acted  as  if  he  owned  the  park,  the  cliff, 
the  very  waves. 

"What  do  you  two  do  on  Sundays 
over  there?"  he  said,  concluding  his 
patronizing  of  the  light  effects. 

Tom,  coming  out  of  a  moody  trance, 
was  indiscreet.  "Why,  nothing,"  he  re- 
plied. "Just  loaf  around  after  break- 
fast; take  a  tramp,  usually." 

"You  won't  have  to  tramp  this  Sun- 
day," cried  Roscoe.  "I'll  bring  the  car 
over;  we'll  go  for  a  long  ride  and  have 
lunch  somewhere."  He  turned  a  beam- 
ing face  to  the  others. 

"But — "  Tom  searched  for  Con- 
stance's foot  with  his  own  to  press  warn- 
ing and  alarm. 

"No,  no,"  Roscoe  continued;  "no 
trouble  at  all.  We'll  come  over  on  the 
ten.  Air  '11  do  us  all  good.  Eh,  honey?" 
to  his  wife. 

"Anything  for  a  change,"  murmured 


ROSCOE,  NOTHING  DIMMED  BY  HER  REBUFF,  SURVEYED  HER  PROUDLY 


Clarisse,  wearily.  And  Roscoe's  last 
words  were: 

"Sunday.  Ten  sharp.  Now  remem- 
ber." 

Saturday  afternoon,  sleepy  and  dis- 
satisfied, Tom  came  home  and  plodded 
up  the  one  hundred  and  eighty  steps. 
It  seemed  unbelievable  that  they  had 
contracted  for  a  year  of  those  steps. 
And  where  was  the  usual  zest  of  an  an- 
ticipated Sunday  in  the  spring  fields 
with  Constance?  Was  it  true,  or  was  it 
some  hideous  nightmare,  that  he  must 
sit  through  more  weary  hours  listening 
to  Roscoe's  prosperity? 

Constance,  flushed  and  tired  after  a 
day  of  thorough  and  belated  house- 
cleaning,  was  in  the  kitchen.  She 
greeted  him  reproachfully.    "We  won't 


have  to  have  them  here  for  supper  to- 
morrow,  will   we?     If  you  do  want 
em — 

"  Want  'em!"  cried  Tom,  flinging  his 
evening  paper  upon  the  table  and  pacing 
about  the  kitchen.    "Want  'em!" 

"If  you  do,"  continued  Constance, 
slamming  the  oven  door,  "it's  too  late  to 
order.  You'll  have  to  go  down  to  the 
village  and  get  beer  and  cheese  and  gin- 
ger-ale and  some  cold  meat  and  olives 
and — " 

"Good  Lord!    I'm  tired." 

"Very  well.    I'll  go." 

"Don't  be  ridiculous." 

Constance  shrugged  a  shoulder,  and, 
holding  a  saucepan  full  of  carrots  over 
the  sink  at  arm's-length,  screwed  her 
face  away  in  distaste,  and  poured  off  the 
boiling  water. 


452 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"It's  easy  for  her"  she  murmured. 
"She  just  pushes  an  enameled  button." 

"See  here" — Tom  stared  at  her 
gloomily — "you  knew  what  you  were 
getting  into  when  we  married.  Now 
didn't  you?" 

"No,"  said  Constance,  stirring  butter 
viciously  into  the  carrots. 

"You  knew,"  Tom  paused  by  the 
stove  and  fixed  her  with  a  stern  eye — 
"you  knew  we  were  going  to  cut  out  all 
this  darn  foolishness — give  me  a  chance 
to  work  on  my  stories — " 

Constance  shrugged  a  shoulder  and 
pounded  at  the  potatoes  with  a  slim,  hot 
hand.  Tom  took  a  turn  from  the  stove 
to  the  sink. 

"And  why  do  I  want  to  work  on  them 
— why?  To  get  out  of  debt.  To  get 
money  for  you — for  you,  so  you  won't 
have  to  do  this  sort  of  thing.  You  know 
that,  don't  you?" 

Constance  raised  a  slightly  misty 
glance  to  his. 

"If  I  had  a  thousand  ahead,  I'd  throw 
up  that  infernal  bank — " 

"Oh,  Tom,  do  stop!  If  we  only  did 
have  that!  When  I  think  of  what  I've 
wasted  at  home,  with  mother — "  Con- 
stance cast  a  reminiscent  eye  on  past 
extravagances. 

"Where  are  the  chops?"  asked  Tom, 
abruptly.    "I'll  fry  'em." 

"No." 

"And  I'll  do  the  dishes." 
"No." 

"Yes."  Tom  dumped  the  chops  into 
the  frying-pan.  Suddenly  they  leaned 
above  the  sizzling  stove  and  kissed. 

"As  for  the  Phippses,"  said  Tom,  em- 
phatically, "to-morrow  we'll  get  rid  of 
them  for  ever.   Won't  we,  darling?" 

Constance  nodded,  but  doubt  lingered 
in  her  eye. 

Sunday  morning  from  sun-up  to  ten 
o'clock,  Constance,  glowing  with  sacrifi- 
cial hospitality,  sang  about  her  house- 
work. She  longed  to  get  off  alone 
with  Tom  for  a  picnic  lunch  on  an  eme- 
rald hill,  but  she  made  her  little  house 
beautiful  with  wild  flowers,  and  laid  out 
her  supper-table  with  her  best  bridal 
linen  and  silver.  It  would  be  her  first 
real  supper-party.  She  drew  her  dining- 
room  curtains  and  lit  her  yellow  candles 
about  a  centerpiece  of  flaming  poppies, 


and  then  called  Tom  to  see  it.  It  did 
look  gay  and  happy,  they  agreed.  Con- 
stance blew  out  the  candles. 

"Maybe  they'll  seem  nicer  over  here," 
she  said,  hopefully. 

"There's  the  car  now,"  said  Tom  as 
the  siren  ordered  them  forth. 

"Hop  in,"  cried  Roscoe  after  the  pre- 
liminary greetings.  "Did  you  see  her 
take  the  hill?   Great  car!" 

"Don't  you  want  to  come  in  and  see 
our  bungalow  first?"  asked  Constance. 

Clarisse,  over  her  corsage  bouquet 
of  orchids  and  valley  lilies,  raised  the 
tortoise-shell  lorgnon  she  affected  and 
surveyed  the  lowly  cot.  "Charming," 
she  said.  "So  really  quaint.  But  I 
won't  get  out  now,  dear." 

"It's  sweet"  said  Constance,  a  little 
defiantly.   Tom  gave  her  a  quick  smile. 

"Nice  little  place,"  said  Roscoe. 
"Hop  in,  hop  in."  As  they  hopped,  Ros- 
coe recounted  at  length  his  idea  of  buy- 
ing a  large  estate  some  day.  He  im- 
plied that  he'd  show  'em  what  a  country 
home  should  be — as  he'd  shown  'em 
what  hats,  books,  diamonds,  limousines, 
apartments  should  be.  The  car  leaped 
forward  until  golden  fields,  purple  fields, 
luscious  greens  were  a  vague,  impres- 
sionistic blur. 

"Some  car,  eh?"  cried  Roscoe,  exult- 
ing. Oh,  he'd  show  'em  what  country 
rides  should  be,  country  luncheons — 
yes,  and  road-house  suppers. 

"But  we  want  you  to  have  supper 
with  us,"  faltered  Constance  from  where 
she  lay  entombed  by  Clarisse. 

"Don't  you  bother  about  supper," 
said  Roscoe. 

"But  I  thought — I'd  planned — "  mur- 
mured Constance,  biting  her  lip  before 
the  vision  of  her  softly  shining  little 
table,  to  keep  back  a  quiver.  Again 
Tom  turned  and  smiled  at  her. 

"  Just  you  wait  and  see,"  said  Roscoe. 
"I'll  give  you  a  supper!" 

And  the  four  little  candles  were 
snuffed  out  in  the  glare  of  road-house 
lights. 

"Well,"  said  Tom,  buoyed  to  brisk- 
ness at  sight  of  home  once  more,  and 
handing  Constance  out,  "thank  you." 

"Couldn't  you  stay  to-night?"  asked 
Constance,  roused  once  more  to  hospi- 
tality.   "We've  couches." 


ROSCOE  THE  INVINCIBLE 


453 


"I  haven't  a  thing  to  dress  with,"  said 
Clarisse,  and  her  tone  precluded  the  pos- 
sibility of  Constance's  having  sufficient. 

"Good  night,  then,"  said  Constance. 
"And  thanks  for  a  lovely  time."  Tom* 
joined  in  the  paean  of  gratitude. 

"Hold  on.  I  nearly  forgot."  Roscoe 
stuck  out  his  head.  "  I  got  tickets  for  us 
all  for  the  'Green  Pig,'  Tuesday.  Come 
over  to  dinner." 

Tom  touched  Constance's  foot  with 
his,  and  she  faltered,  "Tuesday  we're 
— we're  dining  in  town  with  mother." 

"Too      bad,"      murmured  Tom. 
"Thanks  just  the  same." 

"Only  a  family  party?"  insisted  Ros- 
coe. "Then  you  can  meet  us  later. 
Here."  He  took  two  tickets  from  his 
pocket-book.  Now  that's  settled.  You 
can  leave  a  family  dinner.  Where's 
your  mother  live?  I'll  send  the  car  for 
you. 

"No,"  said  Tom,  "we—" 

"All  right.  But  we'll  do  the  show, 
anyhow.  Now  remember!"  Roscoe 
shouted  above  the  car's  chug.  He 
thrust  the  tickets  upon  Tom.  "We'll 
take  a  spin  after,"  he  shouted  back 
again  as  they  went  down  the  hill. 

"I  was  firm,  Tom,"  said  Constance. 
"No,  don't  tear  them.  Now,"  she 
moaned,  "we've  begun  to  lie." 

"Thanks;  oh,  thanks,"  muttered  Tom, 
savagely,  as  he  stalked  ahead  into  the 
house. 

"Thanks — that  will  be  lovely,"  he  mut- 
tered as  he  prepared  for  bed.  "Thanks. 
How  wonderful!"  he  continued  to  mut- 
ter at  intervals,  pounding  his  head  into 
his  pillow.  "No!"  he  cried,  fiercely;  and 
then,  in  a  weak  falsetto,  "Oh,  lovely. 
Thanks."  He  stuck  his  head  forth  and 
glared  at  Constance,  brushing  her  hair. 
"If  I  have  to  thank  Roscoe  again,  I'll — 
Are  we  weak-minded,  or  what?"  he 
cried,  abruptly.  "I  don't  see  that  we 
make  ourselves  so  blamed  fascinating." 

Constance  vented  slightly  hysterical 
mirth.  "We're  the  perfect  contrast — 
poor,  but  not  too  embarrassingly  shab- 
by. He  wants  some  one  to  make  him  feel 

big:' 

"And  he  gets  what  he  wants,  does 
he?"  cried  Tom.  "By  heavens!  he 
won't  get  us  again,  I  tell  you."  Tom's 
eye  fell  on  the  tickets  lying  on  the  table, 
and  his  glance  shifted  gloomily  to  his 


watch.  "He  permits  me  five  hours' 
sleep  to-night,"  he  murmured,  with  in- 
finite sarcasm. 

They  began  to  dread  the  sound  of  the 
telephone  lest  it  summon  them  to  some 
new  festivity.  Constance's  energies  were 
concentrated  on  keeping  a  city  wardrobe 
in  repair  for  emergencies.  Bills  increased 
subtly.  Roscoe  was  served  up  for  break- 
fast and  dinner.  Domestic  conversa- 
tions became  little  more  than  indig- 
nation meetings.  The  awful  truth 
confronted  them'  that,  in  the  parting 
burst  of  craven  gratitude,  you  couldn't 
adequately  rebuff  the  occasion  for  fur- 
ther gratitude — an  interminable  chain. 

"I  can't  bear  to  think  of  it,"  wailed 
Constance.  Life  seemed  to  resolve  into 
one  hundred  and  eighty  stair-steps  at 
midnight.  "But  we've  certainly  got 
to  ask  them  here  for  dinner,  very  soon." 

Tom  hooked  an  aiding  arm  through 
hers. 

"It's  the  only  way  we  have,"  con- 
tinued Constance,  wearily,  "of  repaying 
them." 

"Repaying!"  cried  Tom,  fiercely. 
"He's  spent  over  five  hundred  on  us  al- 
ready, besides  the  car.  I  counted  it  up 
to-night." 

"Everything's  comparative,"  said 
Constance.  "You  compare  the  work 
it  '11  mean  for  me,  and  the  extra  cost — " 

Tom  stood  mulishly.  "How  much 
extra  cost?" 

"Oh,  a  Jap  for  the  evening,  and  roast 
and  wine  and  cigars  and  caviare  and 
cigarettes,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

"I'll  be—" 

"And  listen,  Tom,"  she  cried,  in- 
spired.   "Roscoe  '11  have  to  thank  us" 

Even  in  the  darkness  a  certain  calm 
seemed  to  emanate  from  Tom.  "By 
Jove!"  he  exclaimed,  softly. 

The  dinner  set  Constance  two  days 
back  in  her  housework,  and  Tom  a  week 
in  his  living  expenses,  but,  seduced  by 
the  idea  of  evening  things  up,  he  was 
recklessly  genial.  Roscoe,  too,  was  ge- 
nial; approved  of  them  as  toy  house- 
keepers, admitted  there  might  be  some- 
thing, after  all,  in  simple  country  life  for 
a  man  of  the  world  whose  liver  wasn't 
quite  all  a  liver  should  be.    Clarisse  de- 


454 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


clared  it  a  real  little  picnic.  As  the  last 
toot  of  the  departing  limousine  floated 
back  up  the  hill,  the  exotic  joy  of  being 
thanked  still  glowed  in  the  Parker 
hearts.  They  hurled  themselves  into 
each  other's  arms  on  the  moonlit  road 
and  did  a  one-step.  The  clatter  of  the 
Jap  washing  up  was  sweet,  luxurious 
music.  They  sat  long  before  the  wood 
fire,  relaxed  to  the  calm  of  a  great  debt 
liquidated — at  least  comparatively. 

"Roscoe  told  me,"  murmured  Con- 
stance, dreamily,  "that  he's  going  to  do 
something  for  you — stuck  in  that  old 
bank." 

Tom  flung  away  his  cigarette  and  sat 
upright.  "  He  is,  is  he  ?"  he  cried,  imme- 
diately irate.  "What?" 

"Just  mentioned  it." 

"Well,  he  won't.  I'll  manage  my 
work  in  my  own  way.  And  now  let's 
settle  this  thing  definitely.  We've 
worked  'em  off.  Very  well.  Now  when 
they  ring  up  to-morrow,  what  are  you  go- 
ing to  say?"  There  was  cold  challenge 
in  Tom's  tone. 

"I  shall  say,"  replied  Constance,  firm- 
ly, "that  we're  engaged." 

Tom  sniffed.  "You've  said  that  be- 
fore, I  believe.  And  when  they  ring  up 
the  next  day,  what  '11  you  say?" 

"111." 

"And  when  you  thank  'em  for  the 
flowers  and  books  occasioned  by  your 
illness,  what  '11  you  say?" 

"Still  ill — engaged." 

"Rather  raw,  eh?" 

"Then  I  shall  say,  frankly — " 

Tom  snorted. 

"I  shall  say,"  continued  Constance, 
with  dreamy  eyes  on  the  fire — "I  shall 
say — "  She  turned  to  Tom  earnestly. 
"But  we've  got  to  say  the  same  thing." 

"You're  going  to  do  the  talking,"  said 
Tom.    "I'm  too  busy." 

"I  shall  say,  ' Roscoe — or  Clarisse — 
Tom  and  I  are  going  to  be  frank.  Life 
is  impossible  without  frankness.'" 

"Very  well.    Go  on." 

" 'We  must  all  be  frank  together.  We 
must — er — give  all  this  up.  We  live  in 
different  spheres.  We're  poor,  and  very 
busy;  you're  rich,  with  lots  of  spare 
time.'  You  know,  Tom — make  it  seem 
they're  too  grand — it  '11  soften  it." 

Tom  nodded,  appreciatively.  "You 
better  memorize  it." 


"I'll  write  it  out  and  put  it  by  the 
phone." 

"Then  we  can  be  natural  again.  0 
Lord!  how  good  it  will  seem!"  Tom 
yawned,  stretched,  hugged  her,  then 
dropped  his  arms  abruptly.  "But  sup- 
pose you  have  to  say  it  to  their  faces?" 

They  looked  at  each  other  doubt- 
fully. Suddenly  Constance  jumped  up, 
grabbed  a  pillow  from  the  couch.  "Put 
that  under  your  vest,"  she  commanded. 

Tom  stared. 

"Put  it  so.  Now — clear  your  throat. 
Patronize."  She  faced  Tom,  smiling 
alluringly.  "Now,  dear  Roscoe,  you're 
so  big,  you'll  understand" — Constance's 
voice  became  a  seductive  coo — "Tom 
and  I  have  decided  to  be  frank — " 

Tom  rose  to  the  spirit  of  the  affair  and 
became  Roscoe  brilliantly.  Then  he 
took  out  the  pillow  and  crowned  himself 
with  Constance's  despised  hat  and  be- 
came the  proud,  weary  Clarisse.  The 
air  of  the  bungalow  was  saturated  with 
unyielding  frankness. 

At  five-thirty  the  next  day  the  tele- 
phone rang.  Constance  picked  up  the 
phone  and  glued  her  eyes  to  the  formula 
she  had  prepared;  she  felt  slightly  ner- 
vous, but  still  very  frank.  At  five-forty 
she  slammed  up  the  phone,  lit  the  fire 
with  many  slams,  slammed  on  the  kettle, 
slammed  on  her  hat,  and  slammed  down 
to  meet  Tom.  Tom,  already  relaxing  to 
the  glory  of  anticipated  victory,  came 
out  from  the  throng,  grinning. 

"She  says,"  Constance  flung  the 
words  at  him  in  breathless  staccato, 
"they  had  such  a  good  time  last  night 
over  here  that  Roscoe's  gone  crazy  about 
the  country.  She  says  he  wanted  to  sur- 
prise us,  but  I  must  come  over  to-mor- 
row and  help  her  select  furnishings — " 

"Furnishings?"  Tom  stared  at  her, 
his  thoughts  all  concentrated  to  a  dark 
foreboding. 

"They've  taken  a  house-boat  in  the 
cove  for  the  summer,  and  the  yellow  cot- 
tage on  the  beach  for  the  servants,  and 
they're  going  to  get  a  steam  -  launch, 
and — "  They  plodded  up  the  nine  thou- 
sand and  ninety-nine  stairs. 

Roscoe  anchored  the  house-boat  where 
the  vista  up  the  stairs  commanded  a  full 
view  of  the  Parker  bungalow.  Stairs 


EXPANDING  PROUDLY  AS  HE  AWAITED  THEIR  PLAUDITS — AS  IF  HE  HAD  MADE  THE  MUSIC ! 


were  no  barrier  to  Roscoe.  He  got  a 
megaphone  and  a  yodel — got  them  a 
megaphone  also  in  which  to  shout  back 
their  prompt  and  merry  acceptance  of 
what  treat  he  might  devise.  A  great 
van  preceded  them,  laden  with  furniture, 
awnings,  exotic  plants,  chests  of  linen 
and  silver,  butler,  maid,  cook.  A  deco- 
rator transformed  the  interior  into  a 
glowing  boudoir.  Clarisse  moaned  at 
everything,  but  Roscoe  dominated  all 
by  his  liver  and  his  sudden  passion  for 
simple  outdoor  life.  And  every  night 
the  summons  yodeled  forth. 

They  were  spared  the  agitation  of  re- 
newed hospitality.  Roscoe  made  it  clear 
that  he  intended  to  be  perpetual  host. 
His  was  the  natural  center  of  gravitation, 
not  only  because  his  liver — not  to  men- 
tion his  stomach — made  it  easier  for 
them  to  come  down  than  for  him  to 
climb  up,  but  because  he  had  all  the  con- 
comitants of  festivity  on  perpetual  tap. 

Constance  looked  about  her  own 
porch  that  had  hitherto  seemed  so  simple 
and  desirable.  "  It  looks  dank — buggy," 
she  said. 

"The  nerve  to  come  to  our  own  coun- 
try and  show  us  how  much  better  they 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783.-57 


can  do  it — the  nerve"  muttered  Tom. 
But  every  night  the  summons  yodeled 
forth.  They  scrambled  through  dinner 
— when  they  were  permitted  to  have  it 
at  home — left  the  dishes,  were  dashed  up 
to  San  Quentin  in  the  launch,  and  then 
back  to  hear  the  phonograph.  Roscoe 
fell  easily  into  habits.  These  things 
pleased  him.  But  at  the  sight  of  a  pho- 
nograph— for  ever  after  a  glint  of  hatred 
would  shoot  through  Tom's  eye.  Tom 
was  smoking  entirely  too  much.  It  was 
all  that  kept  him  quiescent  before  that 
figure  of  Roscoe,  beaming,  as  he  inserted 
disks  and  needles  and  wound  the  ma- 
chine hour  after  hour.  Roscoe  frowned, 
indignant,  if  a  word  was  spoken  while  he 
played.  He  reduced  them  all  to  limp 
silence,  bowing  at  the  end,  expanding 
proudly  as  he  awaited  their  plaudits — 
as  if  he  had  made  the  music !  To  be  sure, 
he  had  bought  it.  It  was  all  one  to 
Roscoe. 

One  night  as  they  crossed  the  wharf 
and  went  up  the  stairs  Constance  began 
to  weep  softly. 

"It's  that  steady  roar  of  canned 
music,  and  not  being  allowed  to  talk, 
and  a  toothache,"  she  sobbed,  bitterly. 


456 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Can't  I  even  have  a  toothache  by  my- 
self?" 

"No,  poor  child,"  said  Tom,  with  equal 
bitterness;  "no." 

"I  could  go  home  to  m-mother," 
sobbed  Constance,  "and  y-you  could  get 
a  r-room  in  s-some  slum — " 

"He'd  find  us." 

"  C-can't  we  even  get  a  S-sunday  off?" 
"We'd  only  have  to  come  back." 
There  was  no  denying  that. 

But  it  was  Clarisse  who  brought  the 
first  gleam  of  hope  into  those  dark  days. 
She  had  all  the  ports  of  the  house-boat 
closed  against  the  nerve-racking  air- 
currents,  and  shut  herself  up  on  the 
divan  in  the  salon.  She  refused  to  be 
comforted,  and  made  continuous  moan 
for  Paris  and  new  fall  clothes;  dwelt  in 
subtle,  ceaseless  manner  on  foreign  spas 
as  the  only  hope  for  a  liver  growing 
obviously  worse. 

On  that  glad  evening  when  the  heav- 
ing van  crawled  down  the  road  to  the 
ferry,  the  Parkers  clasped  and  clung  on 
the  hill  above;  and  they  flung  the  mega- 
phone far  into  the  night.  Three  months 
of  freedom  had  been  promised  them. 

False  dawn — mirage.  Was  it  freedom, 
with  the  thought  of  that  return  hanging 
over  them,  when  postals  inundated  tell- 
ing of  future  reunions? 


They  had  news  of  Roscoe's  illness  in 
Paris.  They  dared  not  meet  each 
other's  eye,  where  lay  the  guilty  hope  of 
further  respite.  Two  weeks  more,  and  a 
telegram  told  of  Roscoe's  death. 

They  spoke  of  him  now  in  mellowed, 
kindly  tones. 

"He  certainly  wasn't  close"  said  Tom. 

"It  was  the  only  solution,"  said  Con- 
stance. "It's  awful  we  can't  feel  worse 
about  it." 

"Poor  Roscoe!  he  was  never  close" 
reiterated  Tom. 

"We're  sorry  it  had  to  come  that 
way,  aren't  we,  Tom?" 

"  Sure.  But  we're  free  of  him,  at  last. 
/  couldn't  beat  him,"  admitted  Tom. 
"He  was  beaten,"  he  added,  senten- 
tiously,  "only  by  death."  But  Tom  was 
mistaken. 

Constance  met  him  at  the  station  a 
few  evenings  later.  There  was  a  strange 
light  in  her  eyes,  a  stranger  twist  on  her 
lips.  She  got  him  away  from  the  crowd 
and  handed  him  a  letter.  As  Tom  read 
it  the  same  strange  light  came  into  his 
eyes,  the  same  twist  about  his  lips.  He 
folded  the  letter  gently  and,  fixing  his 
gaze  on  the  far  tip  of  a  redwood,  he 
murmured,  "Roscoe,  you  win." 

Roscoe  had  indeed  won.  He  had  left 
Tom  two  thousand  dollars.  It  took 
more  than  death  to  beat  Roscoe. 


When  Life  Comes  Knocking  at  Thy  Door 

BY  LUCINE  FINCH 

WHEN  Life  comes  knocking  at  thy  door, 
O,  Servant, 
What  wilt  thou  give  him  for  his  portion — 
Thou,  his  servant? 
My  young,  cool  heart! 
My  little  heart 
For  his  warm  hands  to  hold. 

When  Death  comes  knocking  at  thy  door, 
O,  Servant, 

What  wilt  thou  give  him  for  his  portion — 

Thou,  his  servant? 

My  wild,  wild  heart! 

My  flaming  heart 

For  his  quiet  hands  to  cool. 


Recent  Experiments  with  Homing  Birds 


BY  JOHN  B.  WATSON 

Professor  of  Comparative  and  Experimental  Psychology,  Johns  Hopkins  University 


^^^^fe|^^NTIL  the  advent  of 
^S^^^^^^^g  telegraphy  the  most  de- 
2s  T  r  K  pendable  quick  bearer 
W&  W$k  of  news  was  the  now 

ffljf  V-^  4J1  almost  unnoticed  bird, 
^^^^I^J^  the  homing  -  pigeon. 
^^^^^fc^J^  Few  of  us  realize  the 
vast  influence  this  bird  exercised  in 
its  day  over  the  destinies  of  nations. 
Historical  references  show  that  the 
pigeon  was  known  and  used  in  very  an- 
cient times  (500  B.C.).  Even  as  early  as 
a.d.  1200  the  "pigeon  post"  had  be- 
come a  well-established  institution  over 
Persia,  Servia,  and  Egypt.  The  cotes 
were  owned  by  the  government,  and 
attached  to  each  cote  was  an  official 
post-office  and  postmaster. 

Probably  the  use  of  these  birds  in 
times  of  war,  and  especially  in  besieged 
fortresses,  is  best  known.  So  important 
was  their  function  in  this  respect  that 
until  1850  almost  every  army  post  and 
fort  had  its  cote  and  was  supplied  with 
pigeons  from  other  military  stations. 
Indeed,  the  French  army  extended  the 
use  of  the  homing  pigeon  to  the  field  by 
equipping  the  cotes  with  wheels  (travel- 
ing-cotes) and  training  the  birds  to  re- 
turn to  these  rolling  habitations,  regard- 
less of  their  location.  The  French  navy 
established  cotes  on  board  war-vessels, 
but  the  experiment  was  given  up,  largely 
because  the  pigeon  does  not  home  well 
over  water  from  distances  greater  than 
two  hundred  miles.  The  commercial 
value  of  the  pigeon  post  has  been  very 
great  indeed.  Practically  all  of  the 
boards  of  trade  in  the  large  cities  of 
Europe  were  supplied  with  these  pig- 
eons. Their  use  in  obtaining  advance 
information  concerning  crops,  local  in- 
surrections, rumors  of  war,  etc.,  can 
hardly  be  overestimated.  Newspapers 
likewise  were  supplied  with  pigeon  posts. 
After  the  introduction  of  the  microscope 
and  photography  very  long  messages 


could  be  sent.  The  material  was  written 
out  and  then  micro-photographed.  Some 
fifty  thousand  words  could  be  sent  in  one 
despatch,  and  the  total  weight  of  the 
paper  and  the  carrying-quill  was  less 
than  0.5  gram.  The  recipient  of  the 
despatch  could  read  it  with  an  ordinary 
low-power  microscope. 

Although  the  telegraph  and  the  tele- 
phone have  robbed  the  homing-pigeon 
of  his  utilitarian  value,  the  mystery  of 
how  he  effects  a  return  over  mountain 
and  valley,  over  trackless  waste,  forest, 
and  stream,  is  possibly  as  unsolved  to- 
day as  it  was  in  the  twelfth  century, 
when  his  commercial  value  was  highest. 

During  the  last  few  years  many  ex- 
periments have  been  tried  which  have 
had  for  their  purpose  the  unraveling  of 
the  difficult  and  delicate  problems  con- 
nected with  homing.  In  a  previous  num- 
ber of  Harper  s  (October,  1909)  I  gave  a 
brief  sketch  of  some  work  I  had  been 
doing  on  homing  in  Dry  Tortugas, 
Florida,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Ma- 
rine Biological  Laboratory  of  the  Car- 
negie Institution  of  Washington.  The 
Dry  Tortugas  group  of  islands  lies  well 
out  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  some  seventy- 
eight  miles  due  west  of  Key  West,  about 
four  hundred  miles  south  of  Mobile,  and 
nine  hundred  miles  east  of  Galveston.  To 
Bird  Key,  one  of  the  tiny  islands  com- 
posing this  group,  a  vast  colony  of  noddy 
and  sooty  terns  comes  annually  for  its 
nesting  season.  These  birds  are  quite 
similar  to  the  gulls  which  one  sees  in 
almost  every  harbor.  On  account  of  its 
insular  position  Bird  Key  is  wonderfully 
suited  for  carrying  out  experiments  in 
homing.  The  work  there  has  been  con- 
tinued by  Dr.  K.  S.  Lashley  and  the 
writer. 

We  have  been  primarily  engaged  in 
testing  to  what  extent  the  "visual-land- 
mark theory"  will  account  for  the  facts 
of  homing.    It  may  be  mentioned  that 


458 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


there  are  many  theories  of  homing, 
such  as  the  magnetic  theory  of  Thau- 
zies;  the  contrepied  ("back-tracking") 
theory  of  Reynaud,  and  the  inherited 
memory  theory  of  Kingsley,  as  well  as  a 
host  of  others;  but  to  all  of  them,  with 
the  exception  of  the  visual-landmark 
theory,  there  are  fatal  objections.  The 
visual -landmark  theory,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  been  widely  accepted  and  is  to- 
day the  prevailing  one.  Possibly  the  best 
way  to  give  a  clear  understanding  of 
both  the  good  and  the  bad  points  of  this 
theory  is  to  consider  it  in  connection 
with  certain  experiments  which  are  now 
going  on. 

In  all  of  the  work  on  homing  a  distinc- 
tion is  made  between  what  is  called 
proximate  orientation  and  distant  orienta- 
tion. Proximate  orientation  refers  to 
the  method  the  animal  uses  to  get  back 
to  the  goal  (goal  is  a  general  term  to 
cover  nest,  burrow,  cote,  etc.)  when  the 
goal  itself,  or  objects  in  its  immediate 
neighborhood,  lie  within  the  range  of 
vision  or  of  some  other  sense  organ. 
This  on  first  sight  might  seem  not  to 
involve  any  problem  of  return.  It  does 
not  in  the  case  of  a  homing-pigeon  which 
lives  in  a  large  and  visually  prominent 
cote,  but  if  we  consider  other  birds  the 
problem  presents  difficulties.  In  the 
case  of  the  sooty  tern,  one  of  the 
species  of  tropical  birds  nesting  in  Tor- 
tugas,  proximate  orientation  is  a  life- 
and-death  matter.  These  birds  dig  a 
small  round  hole  in  the  sand  which  they 
use  as  a  nest.  These  holes  are  dug 
usually  in  the  open  stretches  of  the 
island.  The  nesting- areas  are  greatly 
congested — one  nest  lying  often  less  than 
ten  inches  from  its  neighbor.  During 
the  nesting  season  the  birds  are  quarrel- 
some and  guard  the  small  areas  around 
their  nests  jealously.  A  given  bird,  hav- 
ing gone  out  for  food,  must,  on  its  return, 
pick  out  its  own  nest  from  a  thousand 
others.  To  the  human  observer  this 
seems  to  be  an  almost  impossible  task, 
yet  the  birds  do  it  with  extreme  accuracy 
and  with  great  rapidity.  At  first  sight 
there  seem  to  be  no  guiding  signs  or 
landmarks  which  can  aid  the  birds.  In 
my  preliminary  study  I  was  not  able  to 
find  out  how  the  birds  accomplished  it. 
I  found  that  I  could  dig  the  nest  up  and 
then  remake  it  without  disturbing  the 


bird.  Yet  if  I  obliterated  the  old  nest 
and  made  another  only  a  few  inches  to 
the  right  or  left  of  the  old  one,  the  bird 
invariably  went  back  to  the  original 
nest-site,  and  only  by  degrees  learned  to 
take  the  nest  in  its  new  position. 

Recently  Dr.  Lashley  has  made  a 
thorough  study  of  this  problem.  He 
finds  that  the  birds  do  not  necessarily 
use  the  objects  immediately  around  the 
nest  in  proximate  orientation.  When 
the  birds  fly  in  from  the  sea  they  direct 
their  flight  by  the  more  prominent 
features  of  the  island,  such  as  the  build- 
ings, prominent  bushes,  etc.  This  leads 
them  to  the  general  area  in  which  the 
nest  is  situated  and  to  a  fixed  alighting- 
place.  Once  at  the  alighting-place,  the 
rest  of  the  journey  is  made  partly 
through  using  certain  small,  inconspicu- 
ous visual  objects  as  guides,  and  partly 
through  the  use  of  the  'muscular  sense. 
Thus  in  a  crowded  locality  where  vision 
could  only  lead  it  astray  the  bird 
relies  upon  the  muscular  sense  some- 
what as  does  the  blind  man,  or  as  the 
normal  man  does  in  passing  through  a 
familiar  room  in  the  dark.  These  ex- 
periments of  Lashley's  seem  to  show 
that  in  short  flights  the  birds  do  not  need 
any  mysterious  "sixth  sense"  to  guide 
them.  Vision,  aided  by  the  muscular 
sense,  will  account  for  the  facts. 

Yet  it  may  be  asked  what  bearing 
such  experiments  have  upon  the  more 
distant  flights — upon  the  factors  in- 
volved in  distant  orientation.  The  bear- 
ing is  very  close  indeed.  Many  investi- 
gators argue  that  since  the  birds  can 
form  habits  of  reacting  to  the  nest  itself, 
to  proximate  landmarks,  etc.,  and  can 
be  guided  back  in  this  way  from  short 
flights,  the  same  process,  elaborated, 
will  account  for  the  longer  flights,  or 
in  general  for  so-called  distant  orienta- 
tion. It  can  be  gathered  from  this  that 
there  is  in  the  minds  of  many  a  serious 
doubt  as  to  whether  there  is  any  such 
thing  as  true  distant  orientation.  The 
adherents  of  the  visual-landmark  theory 
maintain  that  the  method  of  training  the 
pigeons  for  long  flights  finally  gives 
the  bird  as  great  familiarity  with  the 
whole  country  as  the  ordinary  animal 
has  with  the  surroundings  of  its  home; 
hence,  that  when  a  bird  is  trained  and 
then  sent  one  thousand  miles  away, 


A  COLONY  OF  SOOTY  TERNS  NESTING  IN  THE  SAND — BIRD  KEY 


on  release  it  makes  for  the  first  familiar 
landmark,  say  a  mountain-peak  one 
hundred  miles  away.  Arriving  there, 
without  breaking  the  flight,  it  goes 
toward  the  next  landmark,  say  a  large 
city.  By  following  back  these  land- 
marks it  finally  arrives  in  a  neighbor- 
hood where  it  can  see  the  cote.  To  one 
familiar  only  with  the  flights  of  the 
homing-pigeons  this  theory  seems  emi- 
nently sane  and  reasonable  on  first  sight; 
more  thorough  examination  of  the  flights 
of  the  homing-pigeon,  however,  leads  us 
into  difficulties. 

We  are  led  into  still  deeper  waters 
when  we  consider  homing  and  migration 
in  other  birds.  Let  us  glance  for  a  mo- 
ment at  the  present  world-record  flights 
of  homers  and  at  the  way  in  which  such 
birds  are  trained.  In  1901  the  world 
record  for  time  and  distance  in  the  case 
of  the  pigeon  was  one  thousand  miles 
in  about  nine  days.  Since  that  time 
the  fanciers  in  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana, 
have  obtained  some  startling  records. 

The  present  world  champion  is  Bullet 
D-1872,  owned  by  Mr.  O.  W.  Anderson  of  the 
above  city.  The  bird  was  hatched  in  1909. 
When  four  and  a  half  months  of  age,  training 
was  begun.  She  was  taken  first  two,  then 
five,  eight,  fifteen,  twenty-five,  forty,  and 


then  seventy-five  miles  away  and  allowed  to 
return.  (This  training  was  distributed,  of 
course,  over  several  weeks.)  She  was  then 
entered  in  the  one-hundred  and  two-hundred 
mile  races.  In  1910  she  was  again  given  the 
above  preliminary  training  races,  and  al- 
lowed to  compete  in  the  two-hundred,  three 
hundred,  four-hundred,  and  five-hundred 
mile  races.  In  191 1  and  1912  she  was  given 
the  same  amount  of  training.  In  1913,  after 
the  preliminary  flights,  she  won  the  two- 
hundred  and  the  five-hundred  mile  races, 
flying  the  five-hundred-mile  race  in  about 
eleven  hours.  Shortly  after  this  flight  the 
bird  was  sent  to  Abilene,  Texas,  one  thousand 
and  ten  miles  (air-line  measure)  from  Fort 
Wayne.  The  bird  was  liberated  at  4.30  a.m., 
July  11,  1913,  and  homed  at  4  p.m.,  July 
12th,  the  flying  time  being  one  day,  eleven 
hours,  thirty  minutes,  and  six  seconds.  In 
this  same  race  a  bird  belonging  to  Mr.  John 
Schilling  homed  at  11.30  A.M.  the  following 
day  (July  13th),  and  a  third  bird,  belonging 
to  Mr.  F.  Nahrwald,  a  half-hour  later.  All 
of  the  above  races  were  flown  under  the  rules 
of  the  American  Racing  Pigeon  Union.  The 
best  previous  record  for  one  thousand  miles 
was  made  by  a  pigeon  belonging  to  H.  Beech 
of  Fort  Wayne,  in  191 2,  the  time  being  two 
days,  nine  hours,  and  some  odd  minutes. 
And  this  record  lowered  the  time  made  in 
1910  by  a  bird  belonging  to  Mr.  L.  Gebfert  of 
the  same  city,  this  time  being  three  days, 
eleven  hours,  and  some  odd  minutes.  Such 


460 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


records  will  probably  never  be  beaten  except 
by  happy  combinations  of  strong  favorable 
wind  and  clear,  warm  weather. 

Even  in  such  amazing  flights  as  these 
the  supporters  of  the  visual-landmark 
theory  find  nothing  really  more  wonder- 
ful than  what  we  see  every  day  around 
a  pigeon-loft — viz.,  the  bird  flying  first 


Sw.' 


APPARATUS  FOR  TESTING  THE  SEN- 
SITIVITY   OF   BIRDS   TO  LIGHT-RAYS 


to  one  familiar  object  of  sight  and  then 
to  the  next  one.  Hachet-Souplet,  one  of 
the  ablest  supporters  of  this  theory,  has 
recently  made  some  experiments  with 
the  homing  -  pigeon  which  lend  some 
slight  support  to  such  a  view.  In  order 
to  test  whether  the  birds  can  return  over 
areas  unknown  to  them  he  resorted  to 
the  use  of  traveling-cotes.  Before  any 
final  tests  were  made,  the  birds,  through 
experiments  in  other  localities,  were 
made  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  out- 
side of  their  own  cotes.  In  a  given  test 
the  cote  was  taken  first  into  a  strange 
locality  and  allowed  to  remain  there  for 
two  or  three  days.  We  shall  call  this 
point  A.  Several  birds  were  then  put 
into  a  basket  and  left  at  A,  while  the 
cote  was  driven  on  some  four  or  five 
miles  to  a  point  B.  The  birds  at  A  were 
then  released.  The  birds,  on  release, 
mounted  rapidly  in  the  air  and,  spying 
the  cote,  at  once  flew  to  it.  Repeated 
tests  showed  that  the  distance  between 


A  and  B  could  be  increased  up  to  about 
seven  miles  before  the  birds  lost  the 
ability  to  return.  If  the  distance  was 
increased  to  eight  miles ,  none  of  the  birds 
returned. 

After  determining  this  distance,  the 
experiment  was  modified :  Upon  arriving 
at  point  A,  two  birds  at  a  time  were 
tethered  to  the  cote  by  means 
of  a  cord  one  hundred  feet  in 
length  and  allowed  to  fly  to 
that  height  and  survey  the  sur- 
rounding country.  This  was 
repeated  for  two  or  three  days, 
then,  as  in  the  test  above, 
these  pigeons  were  left  at  A 
while  the  carriage  was  sent  to 
B.  It  was  found  after  many 
experiments  that  such  birds  as 
were  allowed  preliminary  ob- 
servation could  -return  to  the 
cote  when  the  distance  be- 
tween A  and  B  was  sixty-five 
miles.  Hachet  -  Souplet  be- 
lieves that  the  birds'  view  from 
the  carriage  at  A  gave  them 
a  set  of  "visual  memories" 
which  enabled  them  to  fly  to 
the  cote  even  when  the  latter 
was  not  directly  visible.  The 
birds  probably  first  flew  to 
one  distant  familiar  point,  and 
then,  if  the  cote  itself  was  not 
visible,  to  another,  etc.,  until  at  some 
point  the  cote  became  visible. 

These  experiments  were  made  only  a 
short  time  ago  and  have  not  been  con- 
firmed by  other  experimenters.  While 
they  were  inadequate  to  bring  out  the 
facts  for  which  they  were  planned,  they 
serve  to  show  quite  clearly  the  method 
by  which  the  adherents  of  this  theory 
would  attempt  to  explain  even  the  long 
flights  obtained  in  the  world  records. 

Some  of  us,  however,  are  not  satisfied 
that  such  a  theory  will  account  for  the 
facts  of  homing  and  migration.  Even  in 
advance  of  actual  facts  to  the  contrary, 
there  happen  to  be  obvious  theoretical 
weaknesses  in  the  theory  of  Hachet- 
Souplet.  In  the  first  place,  our  labora- 
tory experiments  have  shown  that  the 
bird  is  exceedingly  slow  in  forming 
visual  habits  of  a  kind  to  aid  him  in  such 
flights.  Certainly  those  of  us  familiar 
with  the  laboratory  display  of  ingenuity 
in  this  bird  can  hardly  convince  our- 


RECENT  EXPERIMENTS  WITH  HOMING  BIRDS  461 


selves  that  the  few  training  flights  such 
as  we  have  already  witnessed  in  the  case 
of  Bullet,  the  present  world's  champion, 
can  give  the  bird  such  a  rapid  command 
of  so  vast  a  territory  as  would  be  called 
for  in  her  later  performances.  In  the 
second  place,  convenient  landmarks  are 
not  always  at  hand.  When  we  consider 
the  distance  at  which  objects  can  be  seen 
even  by  the  sharpest  human  eye  (and 
the  human  eye  is  probably  much  keener 
than  the  bird's  eye)  we  become  still  more 
skeptical.  Mathematical  considerations 
show  that  if  the  bird  is  at  a  given  dis- 
tance from  its  cote  it  must  fly  to  a  cer- 
tain height  in  order  to  see  it. 

To  point  out  the  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  this  theory,  Dr.  Lashley  and  I  have 
recently  made  a  series  of  calculations  to 
show  the  height  to  which  the  bird,  at  a 
given  distance  from  the  cote,  must  fly 
in  order  to  see  the  cote.  We  have  made 
our  calculation  (allowing  for  refraction) 
to  suit  the  conditions  at  Tortugas.  The 
birds  nest  there  on  or  near  the  ground, 
which  is  not  much  above  sea-level.  On 
one  of  the  near-by  islands,  however, 
there  is  a  lighthouse  one  hundred  and 
fifty-one  feet  in  height.    In  order  to  be 


fair  to  the  theory  we  must  suppose  that 
the  birds  use  the  upper  part  of  this  as  a 
landmark.  As  a  result  of  this  calcula- 
tion we  find  that  when  the  bird  is  one 
hundred  miles  away  it  has  to  fly  ap- 
proximately nine-tenths  of  a  mile  high; 
when  two  hundred  miles  away,  approxi- 
mately three  miles  high;  when  five  hun- 
dred miles  away,  twenty-five  miles  high; 
and  finally  when  nine  hundred  miles 
away,  eighty-five  miles  high !  When  we 
consider  how  rarefied  the  air  becomes, 
and  how  low  the  temperature  of  the  air 
is,  at  even  two  or  three  miles  above  the 
earth's  surface,  we  may  be  sure  that  few 
birds  (certainly  few  tropical  birds)  ever 
reach  even  a  height  of  one  mile.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  homing-pigeon  rarely 
rises  above  six  hundred  to  nine  hundred 
feet,  and  the  terns  at  Tortugas  usually 
fly  at  a  height  of  less  than  three  hundred 
feet. 

Certain  investigators  (e.g.,  Duchatel), 
realizing  the  danger  to  the  visual-land- 
mark theory  from  this  source,  have  been 
driven  to  the  extreme  position  of  main- 
taining the  view  that  the  bird  does  not 
use  ordinary  rays  of  light  for  vision; 
but  that  its  retina  is  sensitive  to  infra- 


NESTING  AFTER  A  SUCCESSFUL  FLIGHT 
The  post  and  attached  tag  may  be  seen  in  the  background  marking  the  nest  from  which  the  bird  was  taken. 


462 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


luminous  rays  and  sensitive  especially 
to  the  long  rays  (infra-red).  They  sup- 
pose, further,  that  the  infra-red  rays  fol- 
low the  surface  of  the  earth.  An  animal 
using  such  rays  could  see  its  goal  directly 
from  great  distances — the  curvature  of 
the  earth  not  interfering  with  the  con- 


A  BIRD  THAT  HOMED  NEARLY  SIX  HUNDRED 
MILES     ACROSS     THE     GULF     OF  MEXICO 

The  markings — three  bars  across  the 
bird's   head  —  are   distinctly  visible. 


tinuity  of  vision.  Such  a  theory  is  based 
upon  poor  physical  grounds.  Had  it 
been  based  upon  the  assumption  that  the 
bird  is  especially  sensitive  to  the  short, 
or  ultra-violet,  rays,  it  would  have  been 
physically  more  defensible.  The  violet 
rays  undergo  greater  refraction  than  the 
other  rays  by  the  earth's  atmosphere, 
and  it  is  conceivable  that  a  bird  having 
a  retina  very  sensitive  to  such  rays  might 
see  its  goal  by  rising  to  a  slightly  less 
height  than  man. 

We  have  recently  entered  into  a 
somewhat  elaborate  test  of  the  general 
question  as  to  whether  birds  use  rays  of 
light  to  which  the  human  retina  is  not 


sensitive.    The  experiment  was  carried 
out  with  the  apparatus  shown  (page  460), 
which  is  used  as  follows:  The  apparatus 
is  set  up  in  a  dark  room;  through  a  small 
window  one  allows  a  beam  of  colored 
light  (monochromatic)  to  fall  upon  the 
plaster-of-Paris  surface  X;    the  other 
plaster-of-Paris  surface,  Xi,  is 
not  illuminated.    The  animal 
is  kept  in  compartment  H  in 
darkness.    The  door  E  is  then 
raised,  and  the  animal  allowed 
to  go  either  toward  X,  the 
lighted  side,  or  toward  Xi,  the 
unlighted  side.    If  he  goes  to- 
ward the  lighted  side  he  may 
pass  on  around  through  the 
door  Di  to  food  in  compart- 
ment Fi.    The  door  Di  is  then 
closed  behind  him.     After  a 
moment  the  animal  is  let 
through  a  side-ddor  again  into 
H  for  another  trial.     If,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  animal 
goes  to  the  unlighted  side,  he 
finds  the  door  D  closed.  Be- 
fore obtaining  food  he  must 
retrace  his  steps  and  finally 
pass  through  Di  to  the  food. 
The  apparatus  is  so  arranged 
that  the  light  may  be  made  to 
fall  either  upon  X  or  Xi.  The 
animal  must  learn  to  go  always 
to  the  lighted  side. 

The  homing-pigeon  and  the 
chick  learn  to  do  this  very 
readily  after  a  few  trials, 
rarely  making  an  error.  We 
usually  train  the  animal  upon 
green.     When   perfect  upon 
this  we   gradually  change 
the  wave-length  of  the  light — i.e.,  pass 
successively  through  yellow,  green,  or- 
ange, red,  etc.,  until  we  come  to  the  deep 
red.   We  finally  reach  a  point  where  the 
animal  "breaks  down" — i.e.,  goes  as  often 
to  the  dark  side  as  to  the  light  side.  This 
point  gives  us  the  limit  of  spectral  sen- 
sitivity in  the  red.   We  next  retrain  our 
animal  upon  green  until  he  is  running 
perfectly,  and  then  gradually  shorten 
the  wave-length — i.e.,  pass  through  the 
blue  into  the  violets,  etc.    After  a  long 
series  of  such  experiments  we  have  found 
that  the  pigeon's  spectral  range  almost 
exactly  coincides  with  man's.  Ducha- 
tel's  speculation  therefore  falls  to  the 


RECENT  EXPERIMENTS  WITH  HOMING  BIRDS  463 


ground.  If  we  are  to  explain  hom- 
ing in  terms  of  the  visual-landmark 
theory,  we  cannot  assume  any  su- 
perhuman powers  of  vision  for  the 
bird. 

Such  unsatisfactory  experimentation 
upon  distant  orientation  as  we  have  here 
set  forth  led  us  to  consider  possible  ways 
of  making  a  crucial  test  as  to  whether 
birds  can  home  from  great  distances  over 
a  territory  which  can  offer  no  familiar 
landmarks.  We  decided  that  under  the 
ordinary  conditions  of  training  and  fly- 
ing homing  -  pigeons  we  could  never 
reach  dependable  results.  If  the  pigeon 
could  home  over  long  stretches  of  water 
there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  making 
such  a  test.  A  moment's  consideration, 
however,  will  show  that  the  pigeon  can- 
not possibly  home  over  water  for  a 
period  longer  than  twelve  or  fourteen 
hours,  and  the  distance  covered  in  a 
day's  flight  is  rarely  more  than  four  to 
five  hundred  miles.  This  limitation  is 
forced  upon  the  pigeon  by  reason  of  the 
fact  that  it  can  neither  sleep  upon  the 
water  nor  can  it  obtain  food  while  flying 
over  the  water.  To  make  such  an  ex- 
periment we  must  use  birds  which  are  as 
much  at  home  upon  the  water  as  upon 
the  land.  Fortunately,  as  we  have  al- 
ready noted,  the  conditions  at  Tortugas 
are  almost  ideal  for  making  such  an 
experiment.  In  the  first  place,  the  nod- 
dy and  sooty  terns  are  tropical,  spend- 
ing their  winters  along  the  shores  of 
the  Caribbean  Sea.  On  or  about  the 
25th  of  April  they  leave  that  region  in 
a  body  and  fly  north  to  Bird  Key.  They 
remain  there  until  the  activities  con- 
nected with  nesting,  brooding,  and  the 
rearing  of  the  young  are  complete. 
While  nesting  they  rarely  leave  Bird 
Key  for  distances  greater  than  twenty 
miles.  Consequently  it  becomes  possi- 
ble to  send  the  birds  anywhere  north 
into  a  region  never  before  visited  by 
them.  In  the  second  place,  Bird  Key 
is  the  last  point  of  land  between  Key 
West  and  Galveston,  which  is  about 
nine  hundred  miles  distant.  This  gives 
us  a  magnificent  opportunity  to  test 
whether  the  birds  can  home  over  a  nine- 
hundred-mile  stretch  of  water  which  can 
offer  apparently  no  possible  visual  land- 
marks. With  these  birds  in  this  locality 
we  can  realize  conditions  which  cannot 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783.-58 


be  realized  in  any  homing-pigeon  loft  at 
the  present  time. 

In  my  previous  article  in  Harper  s  I 
gave  the  results  of  some  successful  test 
where  the  birds  were  sent  one  thousand 
miles  north  to  Cape  Hatteras.  Three 
out  of  five  birds  sent  to  this  point  homed 
with  ease,  and  in  a  time  which  was  then 
below  the  world's  record  for  the  homing- 
pigeon.  These  results  were  found  to 
be  out  of  harmony  with  the  visual-land- 
mark theory.  Several  of  the  adherents 
of  this  theory  wrote  to  me,  however, 
and  tried  to  explain  the  returns  by  as- 
suming that  the  birds  had  been  sent  into 
a  country  colder  than  that  to  which  they 
were  accustomed,  and  that  they  instinc- 
tively flew  along  the  shores  of  Florida 
toward  a  warmer  region.  Arriving  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Key  West,  they 
were  able,  in  high  circling  flights,  to  see 
Tortugas  (seventy-eight  miles  distant). 
Possibly  such  a  theory  of  their  return  is 
correct,  but  it  must  be  said  that  this 
explanation  does  not  lend  any  support 
to  the  visual-landmark  theory. 

At  that  time  I  had  not  been  able  to 
get  any  successful  flights  over  the  nine- 
hundred-mile  water  stretch  between 
Galveston  and  Bird  Key.  Our  last 
season's  work  in  Tortugas  was  successful 
in  this  respect  by  reason  of  the  fact  that 
our  early  unsuccessful  efforts  led  us  to 
establish  a  better  technique  of  capturing 
and  marking  the  birds,  feeding  them  en 
route,  etc.  In  considering  these  experi- 
ments on  the  terns  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  we  did  not  have  to  deal  with 
a  tame  pigeon  which  is  used  to  a  ship- 
ping-basket and  to  being  fed  and  wa- 
tered by  man.  The  terns  are  wild  birds, 
wholly  unused  to  man  and  to  the  ways 
of  civilization  in  general.  Furthermore, 
they  are  water-birds,  drinking  sea-water, 
and  getting  their  food  by  picking  up  live 
minnows,  which,  when  attacked  by  large 
fish,  spring  out  over  the  surface  of  the 
water.  Methods  of  capturing  the  birds, 
and  especially  of  caring  for  them  on 
their  long  journeys,  had  to  be  learned  by 
bitter  experience.  On  a  given  day  when 
we  had  made  arrangements  for  shipping 
(always  a  difficult  task)  we  began  to 
capture  the  birds.  As  one  passes  over 
the  island  the  boldest  of  them  stay  on  the 
nests,  or,  if  they  do  leave,  they  fly  back 
while  the  experimenter  is  standing  close 


464 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


to  the  nest.  These  bold  birds  are  the 
ones  always  captured. 

Before  passing  over  a  given  area  for 
the  purpose  of  capture,  stakes  about 
twelve  inches  long  and  one  inch  square 
are  made.  A  large  Dennison  tag  and  a 
small  tag  are  attached  to  the  end  of  the 
stake,  the  small  tag  being  attached  loose- 
ly. The  two  tags  bear  identical  legends. 
The  large  tag  will  have  written  upon  it 
in  waterproof  ink,  e.g.,  "Sooty,  Galves- 
ton, removed  May  16th,  marked  with 
scarlet  lake,  3  bars  on  head  and  neck." 
When  a  sooty  is  captured  the  stake  is 
pushed  down  into  the  sand;  when  a 
noddy  is  taken  the  tag  is  tied  to  a  con- 
venient twig.  The  small  tag,  bearing  a 
duplicate  of  the  above  legend,  is  pulled 
off.  The  bird  and  small  tag  are  handed 
to  an  assistant,  who  ties  the  tag  around 
the  bird's  neck  and  puts  the  animal  into 
a  portable  cage.  When  enough  birds  have 
been  collected  the  lot  is  taken  back  to  the 
house  and  the  birds  are  marked  with  oil- 
paints  as  indicated  by  the  card  attached 
to  each  bird's  neck.  The  illustrations 
(pp.  461,  462),  show  the  clearness  with 
which  themarkingsappearafterthereturn 
of  the  birds.  The  two  birds  shown  in  the 
photographs  actually  homed  from  five 
hundred  and  eighty-five  miles  over  open 
water.  After  the  birds  are  thus  cap- 
tured and  marked  they  are  put  into  a 
shipping-cage  and  sent  to  Key  West, 
where  a  large  supply  of  minnows  is  ob- 
tained for  feeding  them  en  route.  On  the 
trip  in  which  successful  results  were 
obtained  Dr.  Lashley  took  the  birds  in 
charge,  and  at  Key  West  boarded  the 
Mallory  steamer  which  sailed  directly 
for  Galveston.  The  birds  were  released 
at  two  points  intermediate  between  Bird 
Key  and  Galveston,  and  also  in  Galves- 
ton Harbor.  Ten  birds  were  released 
when  five  hundred  and  eighty-five  miles 
out;  eight  of  them  returned  to  the  nest. 


Two  birds  were  released  at  night  in  a 
driving  rain  when  seven  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  out.  Both  returned.  Twelve 
birds  were  released  in  Galveston  Har- 
bor, eight  hundred  and  fifty-five  miles 
from  Bird  Key.  Only  three  birds  re- 
turned. That  only  three  birds  returned 
is  not  surprising,  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
by  the  time  Galveston  was  reached  the 
birds  were  in  poor  condition — they  had 
to  be  forcibly  fed.  When  released  they 
flew  at  once  to  the  shore  to  rest,  and 
many  were  doubtless  captured  by  the 
hawks  which  line  the  Galveston  snores. 

This  is  certainly  the  most  astonishing 
record  of  returns  ever  obtained  under 
experimental  conditions.  We  have  here 
large  numbers  of  birds  returning  over  open 
water  from  all  distances  up  to  approxi- 
mately nine  hundred  miles.  Here  there 
can  be  no  question  of  flymg  high  enough 
to  see  Bird  Key  directly,  nor  of  an  in- 
stinctive following  of  a  coast-line  into  a 
warmer  climate,  since  Galveston  lies  in 
approximately  the  same  latitude  as  Bird 
Key.  Nor  can  there  be  any  question  of 
visual  landmarks  in  the  customary 
meaning  of  that  term.  That  reasonable 
landmark  theory  which,  if  it  were  true, 
would  explain  all  of  the  flights  of  homing- 
birds  on  the  ordinary  grounds  of  habit 
formation  seems  here  to  break  down 
completely.  We  are  left  apparently  with 
the  inference  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  distant  orientation,  but  without  any 
explanation  of  how  it  is  effected.  Strange 
as  it  may  seem,  this  does  not  discourage 
us;  the  mere  establishment  of  the  fact 
that  there  is  a  genuine  problem  in  hom- 
ing will  give  to  scientific  investigators 
a  stimulus  to  further  work  which  has 
been  lacking  before.  It  is  unbelievable 
that  the  problems  connected  with  hom- 
ing and  migration  can  long  resist  the 
combined  attacks  of  scientific  stu- 
dents. 


Mr.  Durgan  Rides  Down  Cupid 


BY  MAUDE  RADFORD  WARREN 


S  I  look  back  on  that 
particular  stage  of  Mr. 
Durgan's  courtship  of 
me  I  cannot  make  up 
my  mind  how  much  of 
what  occurred  he  really 
planned  and  how  much 
just  happened.  The  one  thing  I  am  sure 
of  is  that  there  is  always  something  new 
that  we  can  learn  about  the  ways  of  love. 

I  had  always  said  that  lovers'  misun- 
derstandings were  so  silly.  The  two 
have  a  little  quarrel  that  a  few  plain 
words  would  set  right,  but  they  go 
around  with  their  heads  in  the  air,  not 
seeming  to  know  how  to  say  the  words, 
and  making  themselves  unnecessarily 
wretched.  Another  thing  I  could  not 
understand  was  the  vagaries  of  jealousy. 
Of  course,  now  and  then  Mr.  Durgan  has 
made  me  uncomfortable  by  paying  too 
much  attention  to  a  girl,  but  that  wasn't 
jealousy;  it  was  only  my  feeling  that  he 
oughtn't  to  waste  his  time  on  people  not 
worth  his  while.  What  most  disgusted 
me  in  love-affairs  was  the  way  the  cooler- 
headed  of  a  pair  of  lovers  would  call  out 
that  unreasonable  passion  of  jealousy  to 
further  his  or  her  private  ends.  He,  or 
she,  wishing  to  bring  the  other  one  to 
heel,  would  begin  to  pay  violent  atten- 
tion to  a  third  person.  I  have  always 
said  that  I  did  not  see  how  any  lover 
could  be  so  deceived. 

I  did  not  say  much  about  my  theories 
to  Mr.  Durgan,  for  I  was  too  busy  try- 
ing to  combat  his  methods  of  courtship, 
which  were  too  much  like  the  methods 
of  business.  He  insisted  on  definiteness, 
and  from  the  very  day  he  addressed  me 
he  wanted  me  to  tell  him  the  exact  day 
and  hour  when  I  would  marry  him. 

He  would  bring  up  the  subject  at  all 
sorts  of  unexpected  times.  As  I  look 
back  on  it  now,  the  most  decisive  con- 
versation on  the  point,  and,  indeed,  the 
most  momentous  event  of  my  life, 
started  one  day  when  we  were  coming 
back  from  the  Ragged  Mountains.  Ran- 


dall Craig  was  on  the  road,  and  he 
turned  back  and  rode  half  a  mile  with 
us.  I  never  saw  any  one  look  so  well 
on  a  horse  as  Randall — he's  so  big  and 
triumphant. 

"And  to  think/'  Mr.  Durgan  said, 
after  Randall  had  left  us,  "that  that 
man  is  a  minister!  Why,  he  ought  to  be 
a  warrior,  riding  down  bloody  enemies." 

I  never  can  get  used  to  the  unreason- 
ableness and  set  ideas  of  men.  Randall 
Craig  did  ride  down  enemies  of  sin  and 
pain,  but  just  because  he  did  it  with  a 
smile,  and  in  a  big,  powerful  way,  Mr. 
Durgan  felt  he  had  no  right  to  be  a  ser- 
vant of  the  church,  but  ought  to  be  in 
Wall  Street,  or  some  place  else,  doing 
the  devil's  work. 

I  might  have  said  something  if  I  had 
not  seen,  through  the  trees,  a  figure  in  a 
habit  I  knew  well.    I  gasped. 

"Honey,"  I  said,  "I  do  believe  that's 
Annabel  Carson  come  back!  No  one 
else  would  have  the  courage  to  wear  a 
scarlet  riding-habit." 

Annabel  was  walking  through  a  path 
in  the  woods,  her  horse's  bridle  over  her 
arm.  Her  blue  eyes  were  shining  out  of 
her  pale  face  like  radiant,  far-off  stars, 
and  her  mouth  was  like  a  flower.  I 
thought  she  would  stop  and  speak  to  me, 
but  she  only  said  in  her  softest  voice: 

"To-morrow,  Sallie.  Aunt  Edwina  is 
waiting  tea,  and  I  can  feel  in  my  mar- 
row how  cross  she  is." 

I  could  see  her  absorbing  Mr.  Durgan. 
As  for  him,  he  stopped  his  horse  and 
gazed  after  her  as  she  went*  sidling 
through  the  green  trees. 

"Sallie  Rives,"  he  sighed,  "that  girl  is 
a  queen.  She's  the  sort  to  make  even 
another  girl  gasp  and  look  again  hard,  to 
see  if  there  isn't  some  imperfection. 
She's  the  sort  to  make  a  married  man 
think,  'Oh,  if  only  I  were  not  married!' 
and  the  average  engaged  man  think, 
'Oh,  why  was  I  in  such  a  hurry?'  and  a 
free  man  to  think,  'I've  met  my  fate 
this  time.    Lead  me  to  her.'" 


466 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"I  can  lead  you  to  Annabel  as  soon  as 
you  like,"  I  remarked,  coldly. 

"I  said  'the  average  engaged  man,'" 
Mr.  Durgan  reminded  me.  "If  you  lead 
me  to  her,  I'll  show  her  a  peach  beside 
whom  she  is  a  prune." 

I  was  just  thinking  that  behind  his 
deplorable  language  Mr.  Durgan  had 
pleasant  meanings,  when  he  said  in  a 
snappy  tone: 

"But  if  I  have  to  be  an  engaged  man 
much  longer,  riding  horseback,  and  get- 
ting indigestion  from  miserable  cooking, 
and  never  knowing  where  any  of  my 
things  are,  by  Jove!  I'm  going  to  such 
distraction  wherever  I  can  find  it!" 

"It's  only,"  I  said,  fibbing  a  little  I 
am  afraid,  "that  I  want  to  give  you 
time  to  get  used  to  the  idea  of  a  church 
wedding  and  a  big  reception  afterward." 

"Well,  I'm  used  to  it,"  he  returned. 
"  Only,  I'm  not  going  to  wait  much 
longer  for  you  to  name  the  day." 

"If  I  haven't  named  it  in  three  weeks, 
honey,  you  can  name  it  for  your  own 
self,"  I  promised. 

Mr.  Durgan  was  so  pleased  that  he 
began  to  gallop,  and  we  flew  over  the 
ground.    But  by  and  by  he  said: 

"Sallie,  I  can't  get  your  Annabel  Car- 
son out  of  my  mind.    She's  wonderful." 

Then  I  saw  that  I  must  put  Mr.  Dur- 
gan right  as  to  the  sort  of  person  Anna- 
bel was.  "Don't  call  her  my  Annabel," 
I  said,  coldly;  "she  is  not  at  all  an  ad- 
mirable person." 

"Tell  me,"  Mr.  Durgan  begged  in 
that  eager  way  men  show  when  they 
scent  news  which  approaches  the  scan- 
dalous. 

"Annabel  Carson  lives  with  her  aunt 
Edwina,"  I  told  him.  "Her  aunt  eloped 
long,  long  ago  with  Randall  Craig's 
uncle,  and  was  miserable  ever  after  until 
Annabel's  parents  died  and  she  took 
her.  Annabel,  as  you  see,  has  some 
good  looks,  and  'most  all  the  young  men 
went  mad  over  her,  especially  Randall 
Craig  and  Philip  Fleury.  Her  aunt  Ed- 
wina never  did  let  her  see  them  alone, 
because  she  didn't  trust  men,  on  account 
of  her  own  experiences.  And  she'd  for- 
bid men  the  house  on  very  slight  pre- 
texts. She  forbade  Randall  to  come,  be- 
cause he  was  his  uncle's  nephew;  she 
forbade  Phillie  Fleury  to  come,  because 
he  was  what  you  would  call  an  idler, 


and  what  Annabel  and  I  call  a  man  of 
leisure.  It  certainly  did  annoy  Annabel. 
So  one  evening  she  eloped  with  Phillie. 
Randall  Craig  met  them,  and  made  her 
come  home.  Her  aunt  Edwina  took  her 
abroad  the  very  next  week,  and  none  of 
us  have  seen  her  since  till  to-da}/\  Phillie 
went  away  soon  after,  and  has  never 
come  back." 

"How  did  it  all  leak  out?"  Mr.  Dur- 
gan asked.  "Craig  doesn't  look  like  a 
man  who'd  tell  he  had  been  bashing 
love's  young  dream." 

"Oh,  of  course  he  wouldn't  tell,"  I 
said,  right  shocked.  "It  all  came  out 
through  her  aunt  Edwina's  negroes. 
Aunt  Edwina  talks  loudly  and  clearly 
when  she's  angry,  and  of  course  the  ser- 
vants were  at  the  keyholes.  Then  they 
told  other  people's  negroes.  It's  a 
strange  thing  that  while  no  one  would 
dream  of  listening  to  servants'  gossip, 
yet  sometimes  they  begin  things  before 
you  can  stop  them,  and  then,  of  course, 
you  have  to  let  them  finish,  in  order  to 
tell  them  that  they  must  be  mistaken, 
and  must  be  sure  and  not  repeat  what 
they  said  to  any  one  else." 

The  next  day  Annabel  came  to  see 
me  just  after  dinner,  and  at  once  began 
raving  about  Mr.  Durgan.  When  he 
rode  up,  a  few  minutes  afterward,  looking 
so  straight  and  strong,  she  let  so  much 
admiration  show  in  her  eyes  that  she 
appeared  right  silly.  One  would  almost 
have  thought  she  was  his  fiancee.  The 
surprising  part  of  it  was  that  Mr.  Dur- 
gan seemed  to  respond  to  her  admira- 
tion. When  she  had  at  last  gone  he  told 
me  that  he  thought  she  was  even  more 
attractive  than  she  had  seemed  at  first. 

"She  hits  me  where  I  live,"  he  said. 

"I  certainly  agree  with  some  of  what 
you  say  about  her  face,"  I  told  him, 
"but  I  have  my  doubts  about  her  soul." 

"What  do  you  mean — soul?"  asked 
Mr.  Durgan,  blankly. 

I  felt  a  little  relieved,  for  when  a  lover 
isn't  thinking  of  anything  but  another 
girl's  face,  his  fiancee  may  feel  safe. 

"Honey,"  I  replied,  "you  will  admit, 
surely,  that  there  is  something — not 
nice — about  a  girl  who  elopes,  or  tries  to 
elope.  A  marriage  should  be  solemnized 
after  deep  thought,  and  before  all  the 
close  friends  of  the  couple.  When  a  girl 
thinks  so  lightly  of  her  future  as  to  run 


MR.  DURGAN  RIDES  DOWN  CUPID 


467 


away  from  her  friends  and  surrepti- 
tiously marry,  there  is  something  wrong 
with  her  character." 

"Oh,  she  only  tried  to  do  it,"  said  Mr. 
Durgan,  easily,  "and  that  makes  her  all 
the  more  interesting." 

I  decided  then  and  there  that  I  did 
not  intend  for  Mr.  Durgan  to  see  much 
of  Annabel;  not  that  I  was  afraid  of  her, 
but  I  knew  she  would  not  be  a  good  in- 
fluence for  him.  But  in  less  than  twenty- 
four  hours  I  saw  that  I  should  have  not 
only  Annabel  to  reckon  with,  but  Mr. 
Durgan.  Annabel  came  to  my  house 
every  day;  every  day  Mr.  Durgan 
dragged  me  up  to  her  house,  or  else  he 
went  alone. 

I  do  not  think  I  was  really  jealous,  for 
it  did  not  seem  like  Mr.  Durgan  could 
possibly  care  more  for  Annabel  than  for 
me.  Yet  I  did  have  a  queer,  miserable 
sinking  of  the  heart  whenever  he  spoke 
of  her.  What  especially  worried  me  was 
a  change  in  his  opinion  as  to  what  her 
future  should  be.  In  the  beginning  he 
said  he  hoped  she  would  some  day  marry 
Craig.  But  later  he  said  that  a  girl  like 
that  should  not  marry.  She  ought  to 
remain  a  beautiful,  unattached  creature 
for  ever,  to  teach  young  men  the  ways  of 
love,  and  to  afford  recreation  to  jaded 
married  men.  That  worried  me,  for  I 
am  acquainted  with  that  kind  of  un- 
attached woman,  and  I  know  she  can 
make  good  wives  miserable.  She's  some- 
how worse  than  a  widow. 

Meanwhile,  we  all  went  to  call  on 
Annabel's  aunt  Edwina,  for  she  was  not 
exactly  reticent.  She  spoke  to  her 
friends  with  great  freedom  and  bitter- 
ness about  Annabel.  She  said  she  had 
carried  her  to  the  most  beautiful  places 
in  Europe,  and  that  Annabel  had  walked 
through  it  all  like  an  automaton.  Anna- 
bel had  refused  to  be  presented  at  court, 
and  she  wouldn't  say  a  word  to  the 
young  men  that  swarmed  at  her  feet. 
If  she  wasn't  to  be  allowed  to  marry 
Phillie  Fleury,  she  said,  she  wouldn't 
marry  any  one;  instead,  she  would  im- 
prove her  mind  and  become  as  unat- 
tractive as  possible. 

Annabel's  aunt  Edwina  also  said  that 
she  was  worn  out  dragging  Annabel  over 
the  Continent  like  a  block  at  the  end  of  a 
rope,  and  supposing,  after  four  years, 
that  Phillie  Fleury  was  safely  married, 


she  had  returned.  Then,  to  her  great 
disgust,  she  found  that  Phillie  also  had 
been  away  traveling.  For  all  she  knew, 
he  and  Annabel  may  have  been  in  com- 
munication. At  any  rate,  she  wanted 
the  news  spread  far  and  wide  that  if 
Annabel  married  Phillie  Fleury  she 
would  never  see  her  again  and  never 
leave  her  a  penny.  We  spread  the  news 
for  her. 

I  was  riding  one  day  with  Mr.  Dur- 
gan, wishing  that  Annabel  had  never 
come  home,  and  wishing  that  Craig,  who 
seemed  to  be  avoiding  her,  would  renew 
his  old  devotion,  when  Mr.  Durgan  said, 
suddenly: 

"Seems  to  me  I've  never  before  seen 
the  man  that's  riding  toward  us." 

I  'most  fell  off  my  horse,  for  there, 
cantering  up  to  us,  was  Philip  Fleury, 
whom  I  thought  of  as  on  the  boulevards 
of  Paris,  when  I  thought  of  him  at  all. 
He  stopped  his  horse  and  leaned  over 
to  shake  hands  with  me. 

"Here's  your  bad  penny  turned  up 
again,  Miss  Sallie,"  he  said. 

"Phillie  Fleury!"  I  cried. 

As  I  introduced  him  to  Mr.  Durgan  I 
could  see  he  didn't  like  him. 

"Come  and  see  me  right  soon,  Phil- 
lie!" I  called.  "Come  this  evening  to 
supper." 

"Nothing  I'd  rather  do,  Miss  Sallie," 
he  said. 

"So,"  said  Mr.  Durgan,  as  we  rode  on, 
"that's  your  Phillie  Fleury!  I  had  a 
feeling  he  was  a  loafer;  I  bet  he  never 
did  anything  harder  than  raising  those 
supercilious  eyebrows  of  his  up  to  his 
curls.  Phillie  Fleury — nice  flower-gar- 
den sort  of  name." 

I  smiled  absently.  I  was  thinking 
that,  now  Phillie  Fleury  had  come  back, 
maybe  he  and  Annabel  would  renew. 

When  Mr.  Durgan  left  me  at  my  gate, 
he  said:  "I  guess  I'll  ride  up  to  Anna- 
bel's and  tell  her  not  to  come  to  sup- 
per here  to-night.  Now  that  I've  seen 
Fleury,  I'm  not  going  to  let  her  waste 
herself  on  him.  I  don't  mean  to  bring 
them  together." 

Before  I  could  reply  he  rode  off.  I 
sat  staring  after  him,  and  I  was  still 
staring  when  Randall  Craig  rode  by. 
Seeing  him,  I  had  an  inspiration.  If  I 
could  put  two  men  on  Annabel's  trail, 
she'd  certainly  not  have  very  much  time 


468 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


left  to  devote  to  Mr.  Durgan.  I  told 
Randall  that  Phillie  had  come  back  and 
that  I  had  every  reason  to  believe  that 
he  would  again  press  his  suit  with  Anna- 
bel.  Randall  had  always  confided  in  me. 

"He  won't  if  I  can  help  it,  Miss 
Sallie,"  he  said. 

I  went  into  the  house  to  give  Mammy 
Rose  some  orders  for  supper.  Then  I 
put  on  my  prettiest  dress.  If  Mr.  Dur- 
gan persisted  in  calling  Phillie  Fleury 
"mine,"  I  meant  to  make  a  real  effort 
to  have  him  look  like  mine,  at  least 
temporarily.  Just  after  Phillie  came,  a 
negro  boy  brought  a  note  from  Mr. 
Durgan  saying  that  Annabel  was  upset 
with  the  news  he  had  given  her,  and  he 
thought  he'd  stay  to  supper  with  her  and 
comfort  her. 

The  next  day  when  he  came  to  see  me, 
I  acted  like  I  felt  dignified  toward  him, 
but  he  did  not  seem  to  observe  it. 

"Sallie  Rives,"  he  called,  "what  do 
you  think?  Annabel  Carson  was  seen 
out  riding  this  morning  with  your  Phillie 
Fleury." 

I  was  so  excited  that  I  forgot  to  be 
cool.  "Honey,  hush!"  I  cried.  "Who 
told  you?" 

"Why — er — old  Uncle  Henry  men- 
tioned it  when  he  brought  round  my 
horse  this  morning." 

"Did  he  say  where  they  went?" 

"I  don't  know  anything  more  about 
it,"  he  said,  right  sulkily. 

He  really  was  cross,  and  when  Randall 
Craig  rode  by  he  called  out  to  him,  and 
said  he'd  join  him  in  a  gallop.  I  was 
right  disturbed,  for  Mr.  Durgan  is  natu- 
rally sweet-tempered.  I  couldn't  help 
thinking  that  if  only  I  named  the  day, 
like  he  wanted  me  to,  he'd  be  amiability 
itself.  But  about  noontime  he  came 
back,  mighty  sweet-tempered,  and  with 
a  look  on  his  face  that  told  me  something 
had  happened  to  interest  him. 

"Sallie  Rives,"  he  said,  after  we  were 
sitting,  on  the  porch,  "guess  what 
chanced  after  Craig  and  I  left  you!" 

I  had  a  disagreeable  premonition  that 
it  was  something  about  Annabel,  but  of 
course  I  said  I  couldn't  imagine,  for 
when  a  man  asks  you  to  guess  what  has 
happened  he  expects  you,  if  you  guess 
at  all,  to  guess  wrong. 

"Well,"  Mr.  Durgan  went  on,  "Craig 
wanted  to  make  a  short  cut  among  the 


butternut  woods,  and  so  I  agreed.  I  was 
riding  pretty  nearly  flat  on  the  saddle 
through  a  tangle  of  trees,  and  I  thought 
I  heard  voices  ahead  of  me.  When  I  got 
to  a  cleared  place  I  sat  up.  There,  if 
you  please,  were  Annabel  Carson  and 
Fleury,  standing  by  their  mounts;  and 
there  was  Craig,  sitting  on  his,  as  still 
as  a  statue.  And  Annabel  Carson  was 
talking. 

"Whatever  was  she  saying?"  I  cried. 

"These,  Sallie  Rives,  were  her  words: 
'How  do  you  do,  Keeper  Randall  Craig? 
Are  you  still  at  your  self-imposed  task 
of  shepherding  what  you  regard  as  little 
fool  sheep  from  what  you  consider  dan- 
ger? 

"Fleury  laughed  in  a  hateful  sort  of 
way.  Craig  took  ofF  his  hat,  and  said, 
'Good  morning,  Annabel;  I  am  glad  you 
have  come  back  home  at  last.'  And  she 
said,  'You  haven't  answered  my  ques- 
tion. Are  you  spying  on  me  again?' 
Craig's  face  got  red,  and  he  said,  'I  cer- 
tainly don't  intend  for  any  harm  to 
happen  to  you,  Annabel,  as  long  as 
there  is  life  in  my  body/  Then  they 
appeared  to  see  me,  and  stopped  talking." 

"What  did  you  say,  honey?"  I  asked, 
breathlessly. 

"Oh,  I  talked  about  the  weather,  of 
course,  and  said  it  was  a  fine  day  for 
riding.  Then  Craig  said  to  me:  'It  is, 
indeed,  and  I  am  sorry  that  your  engage- 
ment with  Miss  Sallie  prevents  you  from 
going  farther  with  me.  I'll  join  Annabel 
and  Fleury.'  So  of  course  I  backed  out 
of  there,  Sallie,  and  fled  to  you." 

"Mr.  Durgan!"  I  gasped,  "that's  a 
mighty  funny  way  for  Randall  Craig  to 
behave.  Do  you  reckon  he  means  to 
force  himself  on  them?" 

"It  looked  that  way  to  me,"  Mr.  Dur- 
gan said,  "and  Phil-lillie  Fleury  isn't 
big  enough  to  stop  him." 

"But  Annabel  is  twenty-three  now," 
I  said,  "quite  old  enough  to  know  her 
own  mind.  If  she  wants  Phillie  Fleury 
still—" 

"She  oughtn't  to  want  him,"  inter- 
rupted Mr.  Durgan,  gravely.  "Don't 
you  see,  Sallie,  that  if  Craig  interferes, 
it's  not  only  because  he'd  like  the  girl 
himself,  though  that's  plain;  it's  because 
he  knows  Fleury  —  knows  something 
about  him  that  goes  to  show  he  wouldn't 
make  Annabel  Carson  happy!" 


MR.  DURGAN  RIDES  DOWN  CUPID 


469 


"I  reckon  so,"  I  said,  doubtfully. 

"Craig  is  pretty  thoroughly  in  earnest 
about  this,"  Mr.  Durgan  said.  "He 
told  me  he  was  giving  up  his  church  in 
Charlottesville  to  take  a  little  pastorate 
up  in  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains — a 
quixotic  trick,  of  a  piece  with  his  general 
scheme  of  life.  Why,  that  man  could 
make  thousands  in  a  New  York  church!" 

"But,  Mr.  Durgan,"  I  said,  "this  is 
very  unfortunate.  Randall  can't  keep 
Annabel  and  Fleury  from  meeting;  and 
if  he  joins  them  when  they  do  meet, 
he'll  put  himself  in  a  ridiculous  position 
in  the  eyes  of  the  whole  county.  Some- 
how I'd  like  to  save  Randall  the  mor- 
tification," I  murmured. 

"And  so  you  shall,"  Mr.  Durgan  said, 
with  a  self-sacrificing  air. 

I  drew  a  long,  inward,  miserable  sigh. 
If  there  is  anything  that  ever  clouds  my 
perfect  happiness  with  Mr.  Durgan,  it  is 
when  he  begins  to  play  Providence.  Al- 
most I  was  tempted  to  say  to  him: 

"Honey,  let's  let  other  people  alone, 
and  think  of  ourselves.  How  should  you 
like  us  to  be  married  three  months  from 
to-day?" 

I  didn't  say  it,  but  I  wish  with  all  my 
heart  I  had.  .  For  the  next  two  or  three 
days  gossip  fairly  hummed.  Then  things 
changed,  and  gossip  hummed  harder 
than  ever.  Annabel  was  seen  no  more 
with  either  Phillie  or  Randall,  but  she 
was  seen  constantly  with  Mr.  Durgan. 
One  evening  when  I  was  expecting  Mr. 
Durgan  he  did  not  arrive  till  'most  sup- 
per-time, and  then  he  came  in  beaming. 
"Sallie,"  he  said,  "I've  found  a  way 
out  of  Annabel's  difficulties.  I've  had 
her  out  in  the  car.  What  I  mean  to  do 
is  to  teach  Annabel  to  run  the  car,  and 
then  lend  it  to  her." 

"You  mean  the  car  will  take  her  mind 
off  Phillie?"  I  asked. 

"Precisely,"  said  Mr.  Durgan,  bland- 
ly, "for  the  car  is  new  to  her,  and  Phil- 
Mlie  isn't!" 

"I  hope  Annabel  is  a  bright  student?" 
I  asked. 

"Well,  no,  no,"  said  Mr.  Durgan,  in  a 
measured  tone.  "She's  a  bit  slow.  I'd 
not  dream  of  giving  so  much  time  to  her 
if  Fleury  was  not  with  you  so  much. 
I  know  you  won't  be  lonely." 

It  was  true  that  Phillie  spent  almost 
as  much  time  with  me  as  Mr.  Durgan 


did.  I  did  not,  of  course,  flirt  with  him, 
but  I  let  him  confide  in  me,  which  is  the 
next  thing  to  flirting,  I  reckon. 

Mr.  Durgan  found  it  necessary  to 
spend  hours  with  Annabel  every  day, 
driving  her  all  over  the  country. 

"Honey,"  I  said  to  him,  "don't  you 
reckon  the  neighbors  will  be  talking 
about  how  much  you  are  driving  around 
with  Annabel  ?" 

"Why  should  they?  I'm  driving  with 
her,  but  I'm  thinking  of  you." 

Of  course,  after  that  there  was  nothing 
for  me  to  say.  It  was  not  till  the  follow- 
ing week  that  I  began  to  feel  right  un- 
happy. For  then  Mr.  Durgan  was  with 
Annabel  far  more  than  he  was  with  me. 
They  would  spend  the  whole  day  driv- 
ing, and  sometimes  at  night  Mr.  Dur- 
gan would  come  to  see  me  and  tell  me 
all  they  had  seen  and  said,  and  some- 
times he  would  send  a  note  by  a  negro, 
saying  he  was  too  tired  to  call,  but  would 
be  at  my  door-step  early  in  the  morning. 
Mr.  Durgan  sent  me  splendid  gifts  every 
day — out-of-season  fruit,  and  books  with 
wonderful  bindings — but  his  manner 
when  he  was  with  me  defied  my  analysis. 
He  seemed  as  affectionate  as  ever,  but  he 
was  one  shining,  slippery  surface.  Ques- 
tions and  suggestions  rolled  off  him  in- 
effectively. He  did  not  seem  to  consider 
that  he  was  doing  anything  unusual,  and 
he  did  not  seem  to  notice  any  change  in 
my  manner. 

What  hurt  me  most  of  all  was  that  the 
three  weeks  were  more  than  up  at  the 
end  of  which  I  had  said  that  he  might 
name  the  day  if  I  had  not  already  done 
so,  and  he  had  made  no  allusion  to  that 
conversation,  nor,  indeed,  to  our  future 
together.  My  pride  would  not  permit 
me  to  do  so.  I  was  perfectly  wretched, 
and  what  I  was  afraid  of  was  that  I 
would  get  to  the  point  where  I  didn't 
care  who  knew  it.  I  hated  to  believe 
that  Mr.  Durgan  was  falling  in  love  with 
a  person  so  unworthy  of  him  as  Annabel 
Carson,  and  yet  he  certainly  wasn't  act- 
ing as  if  he  were  in  love  with  me. 

One  night  Mr.  Durgan  told  me  that  he 
had  lent  Annabel  the  car  for  a  week 
without  reservation,  because  she  'said 
that  she  and  her  aunt  Edwina  wanted  to 
go  into  Charlottesville  'most  every  day 
to  shop.  The  next  morning  she  drove 
past  my  house  alone;  a  little  while  after, 


470 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


she  repassed,  with  Phillie  Fleury  beside 
her.  I  could  not  repress  a  malicious 
smile.  If  Mr.  Durgan  had  wanted  to 
separate  her  from  Phillie,  he  had  not 
succeeded;  and,  moreover,  he  had  ar- 
ranged matters  so  that  Randall  Craig 
could  not  act  as  watch-dog.  No  horse 
could  keep  up  with  Mr.  Durgan' s  car. 

That  evening  and  night  and  the  next 
morning  Mr.  Durgan  spent  in  Char- 
lottesville, talking  business  with  some  of 
his  Wall  Street  friends.  Just  before  noon 
I  was  right  surprised  to  see  him  galloping 
down  the  road  to  my  house,  leading  his 
second  horse. 

"Sallie,"  he  said  to  me,  not  even  dis- 
mounting, "I  want  you  to  have  this 
horse  saddled  and  come  for  a  ride." 

"I  have  a  headache,  and  I  don't  feel 
like  riding,"  I  said,  coolly,  "and  if  I  did 
Td  ride  my  own  horse.  Besides,  I've 
had  no  dinner." 

"I  don't  think  you  have  a  headache, 
Sallie,"  he  said;  "and  I  not  only  want 
you,  but  I  need  you.  So  please  be  as 
quick  as  you  can.  I've  some  sandwiches 
which  we  can  eat  as  we  ride." 

I  don't  know  why  I  did  like  he  said, 
but  I  did,  with  a  queer  sense  of  premo- 
nition, his  manner  was  so  strange.  I 
wondered  if  he  meant  to  carry  me  out  of 
sight  of  all  the  dear  places  where  we 
had  been  so  happy,  and  tell  me  that  he 
no  longer  cared  for  me. 

We  set  off  in  the  direction  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  Mountains,  and  Mr.  Durgan  cer- 
tainly was  in  a  hurry.  Much  as  he  hates 
galloping,  he  galloped  all  the  horses 
could  stand.  He  didn't  speak  a  word, 
and  neither  did  I,  but  I  marked,  as  we 
passed  them,  those  places  in  the  road 
which  were  endeared  to  me  because  they 
meant  something  in  our  love.  An  hour 
passed  without  a  word  from  Mr.  Dur- 
gan, two  hours,  and  then  three  hours. 
Never  had  we  ridden  so  long  and  so  far 
together.  When  we  struck  into  a  steep 
road  leading  up  one  of  the  Blue  Ridge 
Mountains,  I  ventured  to  speak. 

"Mr.  Durgan,"  I  said,  "our  horses 
won't  be  able  to  get  us  back  to-day  if  we 
go  much  farther." 

"I  know,  I  know,  Sallie,"  he  said,  his 
eyes  on  the  road. 

It  was  a  steep  road,  possible  for  carts, 
but  I  thought  I  saw  upon  its  mud  the 
recent  impress  of  a  tire.    On  we  went, 


and  at  last  we  stopped  at  a  little  set- 
tlement. Mr.  Durgan  dismounted  and 
went  into  the  small  log  house  that  served 
as  post-office  and  grocery-store.  Pres- 
ently he  came  out. 

"Sallie,  are  you  pretty  tired?"  he 
asked,  and  there  was  a  wistful,  cherish- 
ing note  in  his  voice  that  'most  brought 
the  tears  to  my  eyes. 

"I  can  go  as  far  as  you  like,"  I  said, 
in  a  choked  voice,  "but  we  have  to 
think  about  the  horses  and  getting  back." 

"That's  my  brave  girl,"  he  said. 
"It  '11  be  all  right  about  the  horses;  they 
say  we  can  get  two  at  Johnson's  place, 
five  or  six  miles  on.  I  thought  we  could 
get  them  here,  but  Craig  took  the  only 
one. 

We  rode  on  side  by  side,  still  in  silence. 
Presently  Mr.  Durgan  said,  gently: 

"Don't  cry,  Sallie;  don't  cry.  I've 
been  waiting  to  fight  down  my  temper 
till  I  could  tell  you.  I've  been  such  an 
infernal  fool!  The  fact  is,  I — I'm  pur- 
suing my  car!" 

"Your  car?"  I  cried. 

"Yes;  and  if  I'm  any  judge  of  the 
road,  in  a  few  miles  we'll  come  up  to 
that  car,  all  right.  The  fact  is,  Sallie, 
Craig  telephoned  me  from  this  little 
place  we've  just  passed.  This  morning 
Annabel  Carson's  aunt  Edwina  sent  for 
him.  She  said  that  last  night  she  saw 
Annabel  and  Fleury  in  my  car.  Annabel 
saw  her,  too,  and  I  guess  the  old  lady 
felt  she  had  to  uphold  her  own  authority. 
Anyhow,  she  forbade  Annabel  ever  to 
speak  to  Fleury  or  to  use  the  car  again. 
She  said  if  Annabel  had  anything  more 
to  do  with  Fleury  she  could  take  her 
things  and  leave,  and  the  money  should 
go  to  charity.  Annabel  said  she  was 
sick  of  hearing  of  the  old  money.  All 
this  was  after  breakfast.  Annabel 
walked  out  of  the  house  and  drove  off 
in  my  car.  Half  an  hour  later  the  aunt 
saw  her  and  Fleury  driving  off  together 
in  this  direction.  She  sent  for  Craig  and 
told  him,  and  begged  him  to  stop  them. 
Craig  was  quick-witted;  he  took  the 
train  as  far  as  it  went,  and  that  gave 
him  an  advantage.  They  were  ahead  of 
him,  but  he  traced  them  to  that  little 
store  where  we  stopped  awhile  back. 
Then  he  telephoned  me  to  get  you  to  fol- 
low him  and  them  and  bring  Annabel 
back." 


Drawn  by  Walter  Biggs 

"ARE    YOU    SPYING    ON    ME    AGAIN?"    SHE  DEMANDED 


MR.  DURGAN  RIDES  DOWN  CUPID 


471 


"I  don't  see  why  we  should  stop 
them,"  I  murmured. 

"Because — because  I  don't  want  An- 
nabel to  marry  Fleury,"  Mr.  Durgan 
said,  and  he  actually  laughed. 

Maybe  I  ought  to  have  felt  wretched, 
but  in  some  way  I  was  rather  cheered. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  Mr.  Durgan's  rea- 
son for  wanting  Annabel  not  to  marry 
Phillie  could  not  be  purely  personal. 
Yet,  as  I  discovered  later,  in  one  way  it 
was  personal. 

The  road  grew  steeper  and  steeper. 
Mr.  Durgan  frowned  and  muttered 
prophecies  about  the  state  of  his  car. 

"Besides,"  he  said,  exasperatedly, 
"where  were  they  going,  anyhow?  Why 
in  thunder  didn't  they  light  out  for 
Richmond  or  some  civilized  spot?" 

At  last  we  reached  Johnson's  place, 
only  to  find  the  house  shut  up. 

"Well!"  exploded  Mr.  Durgan. 

"You  won't  get  any  horses  here,  Mr. 
Durgan,"  I  said,  with  a  calm  I  was  far 
from  feeling.  "Evidently  these  people 
have  gone  away,  like  such  people  some- 
times do,  to  visit  their  kin  for  a  few 
days.  If  they  hadn't,  there'd  be  dogs 
around.  They've  ridden  their  own 
horses.    You  go  to  the  barn  and  see." 

When  Mr.  Durgan  came  back  he  said: 
"Don't  you  worry,  Sallie.  I  don't  see 
that  it's  really  necessary  to  get  back 
to-night;  but  if  it  is,  we'll  find  horses 
somewhere." 

I  said  nothing,  for  I  was  too  confused 
and  depressed  to  know  how  to  answer. 
But  of  one  thing  I  was  determined,  and 
that  was  that  I  should  go  back  to  my 
own  house  that  very  night.  We  picked 
our  way  for  maybe  another  hour,  and 
then  it  began  to  rain.  And  such  a  rain! 
Mr.  Durgan  put  his  coat  over  me,  and 
there  was  something  in  the  way  he  did 
it  that  made  me  feel  he  was  blaming 
himself. 

"Never  mind,"  I  whispered;  "we'll 
get  to  a  cabin  soon." 

"You're  a  trump,  now  and  for  ever," 
Mr.  Durgan  said,  and  I  am  almost  sure 
he  added  "darling." 

We  were  not  in  the  worst  of  the  rain 
for  more  than  fifteen  minutes.  For  as 
I  was  plodding  along  behind  Mr.  Dur- 
gan I  heard  him  give  an  exclamation 
that  sounded  like  a  curse.  Then  he 
added,   with    a    short   laugh,  "Well, 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783.-59 


here's  some  sort  of  shelter,  anyway, 
Sallie." 

The  shelter  consisted  of  Mr.  Durgan's 
own  car,  palpably  stuck.  Tied  to  a  tree 
near  by  was  a  horse.  Inside  the  car,  and 
sitting  as  far  from  one  another  as  pos- 
sible, were  Annabel,  Phillie,  and  Ran- 
dall." 

"Hello!"  said  Mr.  Durgan  in  a  casual 
tone,  but  with  a  broad  smile.  "Room 
for  any  more?" 

Randall  gave  us  a  welcoming,  if  rather 
painful,  smile;  Phillie  scowled,  and  An- 
nabel screamed. 

"Come,  come,"  said  Mr.  Durgan  to 
Phillie,  "you  mustn't  mind  my  getting 
into  my  own  car." 

He  helped  me  in,  and  went  off  to  tie 
our  horses.  Annabel  at  once  laid  her 
head  on  my  shoulder  and  began  to  cry 
and  say  incoherent  things.  By  the  time 
Mr.  Durgan  had  joined  us  I  was  able  to 
make  out  her  words: 

"And  three  weeks  has  been  more  than 
enough  to  prove  to  me  that,  whether  or 
not  I  loved  Phillie  four  years  ago,  I  don't 
love  him  now.  And  he  doesn't  love  me, 
either;  he  just  wants  to  spite  Aunt 
Edwina.  And  I  only  meant  to  assert 
myself  to  Aunt  Edwina  when  I  let  Phillie 
come  along  to-day.  And  he  took  the 
wheel  after  a  while.  And  then  he 
wouldn't  turn  back,  for  he  said  I  had  to 
elope  with  him.  And  I  didn't  know 
what  to  do.  And  I  tried  being  angry 
and  coaxing  and  everything.  And  then 
I  tried  jumping  out.  And  I  tried  scream- 
ing, but  nobody  heard." 

Annabel  sobbed  a  little  longer  and 
continued:  "And  if  any  one  thinks  I 
ought  to  protect  Phillie,  I  don't,  and  I 
won't.  He  hasn't  acted  like  a  gentle- 
man, running  away  with  me  against  my 
will  like  this.  And  he  says  we  never  can 
get  back  to-night,  and  that  I'll  be  hope- 
lessly compromised.  And  I  know  Aunt 
Edwina,  with  her  queer,  old-fashioned 
view,  will  think  so.  And  I  want  to  go 
back  to  Aunt  Edwina,  and  stop  quarrel- 
ing, and  inherit  her  money,  for  Randall 
says  a  person  can  do  so  much  good  with 
money." 

It  took  Annabel  a  long  time  to  say 
this.  The  rain  was  pouring  down  and 
it  was  beginning  to  get  dark.  While  I 
had  listened  to  all  she  said,  my  mind 
fastened  on  but  one  point.    "Mr.  Dur- 


472 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


gan,"  I  said,  "you  can  drive  us  back, 
can  t  you  r 

Mr.  Durgan  shook  his  head.  "Can't 
be  done,  Sallie.  Mr.  Fleury,  Esquire, 
has  been  a  none  too  careful  driver.  We 
can't  get  back  to-night  if  we  tramp  the 
ten  miles  or  so  between  us  and  possible 
horses." 

I  shivered  a  little.  For  our  little  com- 
munity is  conservative,  and  no  story  of 
broken-down  cars  would  quite  suffice. 

"It's  fifteen  miles  to  a  horse,  I  am 
afraid,"  Randall  said  in  a  worried  voice. 

"Then  we  must  just  go  to  some 
cabin,"  I  replied,  resignedly. 

"The  trouble  is,"  Randall  said,  "that 
there  is  no  cabin  within  several  miles. 
Fleury  took  the  wrong  road  —  an  old 
timber  road." 

Then  Annabel  wept  more  loudly  than 
ever;  the  rain  dripped  on  the  roof  of  the 
car,  and  the  horses  drooped  wearily. 

"We've  got  to  spend  the  night  some- 
where. We  can't  sit  up  in  this  car  all 
night,"  Phillie  said,  sulkily. 

I  really  felt  that  silence  from  him 
would  be  appropriate. 

"I've  got  it!"  Randall  cried.  "My 
new  church!  I  know  a  short  cut  to  it, 
of  perhaps  four  miles  —  pretty  steep 
mountain  paths,  but  the  girls  can  ride. 
I  can  make  a  fire  to  dry  us  out,  at  least." 

There  was  little  discussion,  and  within 
a  few  minutes  we  were  on  our  way  to 
Randall's  church.  I  shall  say  nothing 
of  the  difficulties  of  that  dreadful  jour- 
ney. At  eight  o'clock  we  arrived,  and 
in  half  an  hour  after  that  we  were  sitting 
around  a  fire,  eating  Mr.  Durgan's  sand- 
wiches. 

Then  Mr.  Durgan  gave  me  a  surprise 
which  nothing  else  can  ever  equal.  He 
had  been  speaking  to  Randall,  and  they 
had  been  examining  a  piece  of  paper. 
They  passed  it  to  me.  It  was  a  marriage 
license  in  his  name  and  mine. 

"You  know  you  said  I  could  name  the 
day,  Sallie,"  he  remarked. 

Annabel  screamed.  I  certainly  don't 
like  that  girl. 

"Oh,  do!  You  mean  marry  her  now, 
don't  you,  Mr.  Durgan?  Oh,  that  will 
make  it  look  all  right  to  Aunt  Edwina, 
Sallie.  Oh,  we  can  say  that  Randall 
wanted  you  to  be  the  first  couple  married 
in  his  new  church.   Oh,  you  can  say  Mr. 


Durgan  didn't  want  a  fuss  at  his  wed- 
ding, and  so  you  did  it  quietly.  Oh,  save 
me,  Sallie!" 

"I  will  never  do  it,"  I  said;  "but  if  I 
should,  it  wouldn't  be  to  save  you,  Anna- 
bel, but  to  please  the  very  best  man  in 
the  world." 

Then  I  wept  a  little,  and  Mr.  Durgan 
put  his  arm  around  me,  and  Annabel 
went  over  and  wept  on  Randall's  shoul- 
der, and  there  didn't  seem  anything  for 
Phillie  to  do  except  go  outside  and  see  if 
it  was  still  raining.  To  this  day  I  don't 
know  why  I  consented,  when  I  remem- 
bered all  I  had  said  about  the  quality  of 
a  girl's  character  who  would  elope.  But 
I  knew  Mr.  Durgan  would  never  re- 
mind me  of  it,  and  it  did  seem  a  relief 
not  to  have  to  get  my  house  ready  for  a 
wedding  reception.  Annabel  kept  on 
babbling  of  what  an  advantage  it  would 
be  to  her  and  to  me,  and  how  Mr.  Dur- 
gan and  I  could  go  straight  off  to  Europe. 
Mr.  Durgan  didn't  say  one  word,  but 
his  arm  about  me  was  eloquent. 

So  Randall  put  on  his  surplice,  and 
Mr.  Durgan  and  I  stood  up  before  him 
and  were  married.  Nobody  said  much, 
and  it  really  was  very  sweet  and  solemn. 
Then  Phillie  announced  that  it  had 
stopped  raining  and  the  moon  was  out. 
Annabel  and  I  mounted  the  two  horses 
that  were  least  tired;  Mr.  Durgan  led 
mine,  and  so  we  set  out  for  our  first 
wedding  journey.  It  was  three  in  the 
morning  when  we  came  to  the  nearest 
railroad  town.  There  was  a  freight  due 
at  half-past  three.  We  got  that,  and 
were  home  in  an  hour.  I  took  Annabel 
into  my  house,  while  Mr.  Durgan  went 
to  his  and  packed  a  trunk.  I  sat  up, 
packing,  too,  and  at  six  he  called  for  me 
again,  in  a  borrowed  car,  and  we  drove 
to  Charlottesville,  whence  we  were  to  go 
to  New  York. 

I  sat  up  beside  Mr.  Durgan,  and  I 
know  my  face  was  more  plain  and  old 
and  tired  than  it  had  ever  been,  but  I 
know  it  was  lovely  to  him. 

"Sallie,"  he  confessed,  "I  more  than 
half  planned  this  after  we  got  up  in  the 
mountains.  For  I  just  began  to  despair 
of  getting  you." 

"If  only  you'll  just  always  keep  me," 
I  whispered,  putting  my  head  against 
his  shoulder. 


A DAY  is  a  natural  thing.  It  records 
by  means  of  its  light  and  darkness 
the  rotation  of  the  earth  on  its 
axis;  and  a  year  is  a  natural  thing;  it 
records  the  earth's  revolution  round 
the  sun.  In  a  poorer  way,  in  the  way 
of  timing  the  relations  of  such  an 
inferior  luminary  as  the  moon  to  our- 
selves, a  month  is  very  well.  It  is  some- 
thing natural,  actual,  not  to  be  spurned 
as  an  artifice,  the  weak  invention  of  man 
to  help  him  get  through  his  history. 
But  what  is  a  week?  What,  worse  yet, 
is  a  century?  Palpable  conventions, 
makeshifts  of  the  mind,  with  no  more 
reality  in  them  than  the  excuses  one 
offers  for  not  accepting  an  invitation  to 
dinner.  To-day,  yesterday,  to-morrow, 
are  tangible  experiences;  but  what  is  a 
week,  with  its  division  into  seven  parts 
named  after  heathenish  deities?  One  is 
never  in  doubt  whether  this  is  to-day 
or  to-morrow,  but  how  often  do  we  hear 
distracted  mothers  or  fathers  of  families 
asking,  "Is  this  Thursday?"  and  when 
told  it  is  Saturday,  saying,  "Dear  me! 
I  thought  it  was  Tuesday."  This  alone 
shows  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
week;  and  as  for  centuries,  even  the 
few  men  who,  in  spite  of  rum  and  to- 
bacco, live  to  see  one  in  and  out,  have 
nothing  but  the. almanac  to  support 
them  in  their  pretension  that  there  is 
any  such  division  of  time.  Yet  the  rest 
of  us  go  on  glibly  talking  of  this  century 
and  that,  and  feigning  that  one  morally 
or  materially  differs  from  another  ac- 
cording as  it  is,  say,  the  nineteenth  or 
twentieth.  Does  anybody  who  has  lived 
round  the  corner  of  the  last  century  feel 
himself  at  all  another  man  in  his  condi- 
tioning and  circumstancing,  except  as 
he  is  better  or  worse,  or  richer  or  poorer, 
by  his  own  doing?  Yet  it  is  but  a  little 
while  ago,  a  few  of  those  honest  days  of 
the  honest  years,  that  we  were  feigning 
something  thinkable,  something  tangi- 
ble in  the  close  of  the  century  that  is 
gone;  and  a  very  good  riddance  in  lots 


of  things.  The  French  phrased  this 
attribution  of  mood  or  quality  to  those 
last  days  or  years,  and  we  called  it,  after 
them,  fin  de  siecle.  The  notion  took  our 
fancy  so  much  that  for  the  time  we  be- 
gan to  believe  in  it;  but  when  the  end 
of  the  century  had  come  and  gone,  who 
would  have  known  it,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  German  Emperor's  contention 
that  the  new  one  began  in  1900  instead 
of  1901 ? 

For  these  reasons  (they  seem  very  like 
reasons  to  us)  we  are  glad  to  have  Mr. 
Gaillard  Hunt  call  his  very  interesting 
book  about  Life  in  America  One  Hun- 
dred Years  Ago  by  that  name  instead 
of  some  name  recognizing  the  nine- 
teenth century  as  divisible  in  char- 
acter from  the  twentieth.  He  is  often 
obliged  to  say  this  or  that  was  so 
in  1816  or  1817  instead  of  1815;  but 
he  saves  himself  by  frankly  dating 
the  facts,  instead  of  loosely  assigning 
them  to  a  conventional  period.  He  does 
not  urge  the  nineteenth  or  twentieth 
century  upon  the  reader's  consciousness, 
but  leaves  him  comfortably  to  those 
hundred  appreciable  years,  free  in  their 
play  of  a  few  less  or  a  few  more,  to 
imagine  how  it  was  with  us  in  our  growth 
from  provincial  to  national  life.  The 
appearance  we  made  to  ourselves  and  to 
others;  our  means  of  getting  about  from 
place  to  place,  or  from  this  part  of  the 
country  to  that;  the  sort  and  fashion  of 
the  things  we  wore;  the  songs  we  sang, 
or  tried  to  sing;  the  plays  we  saw;  the 
sins  we  committed  and  the  vices  we  in- 
dulged; the  punishments  we  inflicted 
upon  one  another,  and  our  attempts  to 
reform  our  fellow-criminals  by  putting 
them  in  prisons  which  we  began  to  call 
penitentiaries  in  recognition  of  the  re- 
gret they  were  supposed  to  instil  in  the 
convicts;  our  advance  from  a  spelling- 
book  and  a  dictionary  of  our  own  to  a 
literature  of  our  own;  our  methods  of 
dealing  with  the  sick  by  means  of  medi- 
cine, and  with  the  well  by  a  character- 


474 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


istic  cuisine;  our  phases  of  poverty  and 
industry;  our  spectacle  of  a  house  di- 
vided against  itself  by  slavery,  and  al- 
ready tottering;  our  anomalous  civiliza- 
tion disfigured  by  barbarism:  these  and 
many  others  are  the  heads  of  his  profi- 
tably and  pleasantly  varied  discourse. 
There  is  no  pose  for  that  effect  of  pic- 
turesqueness  or  drama  which  was  once 
the  bane  of  such  lighter  historic  study. 
It  is  of  a  simple  and  quiet  dignity  which 
does  not  feel  itself  impaired  when  it 
stoops  to  any  detail  in  our  people's  life. 

Often  the  record  is  discouraging  and 
mortifying;  we  wish  we  had  not  been  so 
ignorant  and  braggart,  so  swollen  with 
conceit  of  our  present  as  well  as  our 
future;  that  we  had  been  a  little  mod- 
ester,  a  little  honester,  a  little  decenter. 
But  it  is  best  we  should  see  our  life  as 
it  was  then,  and  the  sight  may  suggest 
useful  question  of  our  life  now.  Perhaps 
if  the  affair  were  prospect  instead  of 
retrospect,  the  world  of  191 5  would  not 
show  so  much  better  to  that  world  of 
1 81 5.  Would  that  bygone  date  be  over- 
awed or  overwhelmed  by  the  surpassing 
beauty  and  sublimity  of  ours?  If  181 5 
could  speak  to  191 5,  would  it  be  in 
terms  of  just  subordination,  spiritual 
or  material?  Leaving  out  the  long  tale 
of  comforts  and  conveniences  which  this 
western  part  of  the  world  began  the  tell- 
ing of  and  has  carried  forward  to  no 
imaginable  close,  what  have  we  gained 
over  that  far-off  date  of  1815?  Is  it 
much  to  brag  of  that  after  a  hundred 
years  Europe  is  again  plunged  in  a  uni- 
versal war  more  hideous  and  atrocious 
than  that  which  it  had  then  just 
emerged  from?  Is  the  German  Kaiser 
an  improvement  on  the  French  Em- 
peror? 

But  not  to  dwell  upon  that  forbidden 
ground  where  the  feet  of  this  maga- 
zine may  not  stray,  is  there  much  to 
be  glad  of,  to  boast  of,  in  the  advance 
of  this  fair  land  of  liberty,  equality,  and 
neutrality?  Well,  yes  (rather  unex- 
pectedly to  ourselves),  we  think  there  is; 
and  in  proof  we  would  fain  invoke  the 
witness  of  Mr.  Hunt's  book  in  greater 
detail  than  is  quite  practicable.  We 
have  not,  indeed,  got  much  beyond 
Washington's  ideal  of  neutrality;  he 
left  Mr.  Wilson  little  to  imagine  of  that 
in  circumstances  of  much  greater  diffi- 


culty. But  in  those  other  matters, 
dearer  to  the  heart,  our  1915  is  far  ahead 
of  our  18 1 5.  Not  only  is  chattel  slavery 
an  evil  dream  of  the  past,  but  industrial 
slavery  is  greatly  tempered,  and  there 
are  visionaries  who  fancy  our  waking 
from  it  altogether.  In  the  minor  morals, 
which  we  will  suppose  are  the  manners 
and  customs,  there  is  much,  very  much, 
to  choose  between  1815  and  191 5.  A 
berth  in  a  Pullman  sleeper,  especially 
one  over  the  trucks,  is  not  unalloyed 
luxury;  but  what  about  sitting  up  all 
night  in  a  stage-coach,  floundering 
through  mud  and  mire  from  dark  till 
dawn,  and  arriving  at  the  breakfast  of  a 
wayside  tavern?  Surely  walking  for- 
ward through  at  least  five  coaches  and 
famishing  till  you  can  get  a  place  in  the 
dining-car  is  better  than  that.  If  the 
instance  is  too  crucial,  any  reader  can 
supply  an  abundance  of  others.  But 
it  is  not  in  creature  comforts  so  much 
as  in  things  of  the  mind  and  soul  that 
191 5  can  look  back  upon  1815  with  com- 
placency. We  are  really  an  improve- 
ment on  that  poor  period  in  these,  and 
though  we  are  not  yet  a  burning  and  a 
shining  light  before  the  nations,  we  are 
not  such  a  smudge  as  our  people  were 
then  at  times. 

It  may  be  contended  with  a  great  deal 
of  reason  that  in  the  matter  of  public 
men  we  cannot  claim  equality  with 
181 5.  We  have  hardly  any  such  states- 
men as  that  time  could  boast,  but  we 
have  a  great  many  more  statesmen,  and 
what  we  want  in  quality  we  more  than 
make  up  in  quantity.  Generally  speak- 
ing, our  public  men  do  not  write  as  good 
a  style  as  the  public  men  wrote  then, 
but  perhaps  a  good  style  is  not  now  so 
much  needed,  general  education  having 
gone  so  far  with  us  all  that  we  are  able 
to  dispense  with  a  good  style  in  them. 
We  far  surpass  181 5  in  the  arts  and 
letters,  both  qualitatively  and  quanti- 
tatively. We  have,  or  have  lately  lost, 
far  greater  sculptors  and  architects  if 
not  painters;  and  in  the  article  of 
novelists  there  is  no  possible  comparison. 
We  have  rather  got  past  having  great 
poets,  but  we  are  by  way  of  having 
them  again,  we  believe,  and  in  18 15  they 
had  in  a  manner  none.  In  the  whole 
book-world  they  had  only  one  big-seller, 
such  as  we  have  or  have  had  by  the 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


475 


dozen.  Webster's  spelling-book  sold  a 
million  or  more,  and  it  must  be  owned 
that  it  was  better  literature  than  most 
of  our  fiction.  Webster's  dictionary 
came  later,  but  as  far  as  simplified  spell- 
ing went,  the  public  mind  seemed  riper 
for  it  then  than  now.  The  good  Father 
Noah  was  able  to  stamp  the  u  out  of  all 
the  Latin  forms  where  English  reverence 
for  the  misspelling  of  the  Norman 
French  had  put  it;  and  he  elided  other 
silent  letters,  dumb  dogs  which  served 
no  earthly  use,  whereas  now  our  re- 
colonizing  Anglomaniacs  are  putting 
them  all  back.  If  they  do  not  restore 
the  k  to  its  place  in  musick  and  physick, 
as  they  do  the  u  in  honour  and  labour, 
it  is  because  the  English  themselves  have 
dropped  it,  and  they  cannot  well  be 
more  English  than  the  English. 

In  religion  we  have  no  longer  the  wild 
revivals  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  but 
an  actual  evangelist  is  able  to  repeat  the 
emotioning  of  the  camp-meeting  in  our 
largest  cities,  and  probably  others  could 
do  the  like.  In  the  mean  time  we  have 
got  rid  of  the  terrible  unscriptural  New 
England  Sabbath  in  New  England  it- 
self; and  we  do  not  drink  strong  waters 
nearly  so  much,  or  chew  tobacco,  in  the 
North  at  least.  To  be  sure,  some  of  our 
women  have  tried  to  take  up  smoking 
cigarettes,  but  that  is  not  so  bad  as 
chewing  tobacco  or  rubbing  snuff*. 

To  turn  again  to  our  material  supe- 
riorities, there  was  not  one  sky-scraper 
in  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land  in  1815,  nor  one  building  heated  by 
steam  or  lighted  by  electricity;  and  now 
look  at  them!  Our  women  in  181 5  still 
felt  the  Greek  impulse  of  the  French 
Empire  in  their  dress,  and  they  did  not 
totter  about  on  heels  as  high  and  as  crea- 
tive of  callosities  as  those  we  nowsee  mar- 
tyrizing the  feet  of  fashion.  Except 
in  the  Land  of  Steady  Habits,  as  Con- 
necticut was  called,  our  actual  divorce  li- 
cense was  unknown,  and  the  marriage  li- 
cense was  more  frequent.  People  married 
sooner  if  not  in  more  haste  than  now, 
and  used  a  longer  leisure  in  repenting; 
but  whether  this  was  better,  upon  the 
whole,  is  doubtful.  Certainly  people 
think,  or  at  least  talk,  more  seriously 
about  marriage  in  191 5  than  in  181 5; 
they  seem  not  to  have  heard  of  eugenics 
then,  and  our  time,  until  all  Europe 


went  about  carrying  off  the  effects  of 
them,  seemed  to  hear  of  little  else. 
We  incline  to  believe  that  in  the  article 
of  matrimony  1915  is  wiser  than  1815, 
because  it  could  not  be  more  ignorant. 
Early  marriages  and  large  families  were 
the  rule  then,  but  as  more  mothers  and 
children  seem  to  survive  now,  the  theory 
and  practice  of  191 5  is  at  least  not 
without  its  excuses.  Perhaps  now,  if  the 
cannon  keeps  roaring  louder  and  louder 
for  its  food,  statesmanship  will  assume 
an  authority  in  the  matter  hitherto  left 
to  the  church  and  the  conscience.  One 
reads  that  a  doubt  is  felt  in  behalf  of 
the  women  about  to  become  unmarried 
mothers  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
English  training-camps  (their  number  is 
put  at  twenty  thousand  by  perhaps 
wholesale  statisticians),  and  it  is  serious- 
ly questioned  whether  they  ought  to  be 
devoted  to  the  infamy  that  such  mater- 
nity entails  in  times  of  peace.  We  have 
made  some  attempts  by  public  discus- 
sion and  by  statute  to  abolish  white 
slavery;  but  in  181 5  no  such  thing  was 
imagined  possible  or  altogether  desi- 
rable. The  other  slavery,  the  black 
slavery,  was  almost  universally  con- 
demned in  principle,  for  the  cotton-gin 
had  not  yet  revealed  that  an  institution 
soon  to  become  so  profitable  was  divine- 
ly ordained.  Now  that  slavery  exists 
only  as  a  fact  of  history,  and  as  a  per- 
petual warning  against  any  and  every 
form  of  slavery.  In  the  section  which 
it  corrupted  and  ruined  its  specter 
lingers  still  in  the  shape  of  child  labor, 
but  even  there  the  law  will  eventually 
pursue  and  banish  it. 

In  181 5  people  began  to  doubt 
whether  they  ought  not  to  reform  rather 
than  punish  criminals,  and  invented  the 
name  in  the  hope  that  the  nature  of  the 
penitentiary  would  follow.  As  yet  the 
substance  has  not  overtaken  the  shadow. 
The  state  continues  to  steal  the  earn- 
ings of  the  prisoner  and  to  punish  his 
family  by  depriving  it  of  his  support 
while  it  tries  to  reform  him.  Its 
methods  of  reform  are  otherwise  crude 
enough,  and  it  casts  him  out  at  the  end 
of  his  term  a  very  impenitent  sinner, 
with  the  reasonable  certainty  of  welcom- 
ing him  back  again  and  again.  But  in 
191 5  it  has  been  imagined  in  several 
states  that  he  is  the  ward  of  the  state 


476 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


with  civic  rights  suspended,  but  with 
human  rights  in  full  force  with  the  pub- 
lic, inviolable  and  irrefragable.  This 
has  not  been  done  without  some  humor- 
ous and  cynical  comment  from  the 
public  press,  or  without  prophecy  of 
failure  in  a  region  where  the  system  of 
1815  had  triumphed  in  the  indefinite 
multiplication  of  prisons  and  prisoners. 

Men,  women,  and  children  continue 
to  die  in  this  era  as  in  that,  but  not  so 
hopelessly  as  under  a  system  of  medicine 
no  less  self-confident  than  ours.  Very 
possibly  our  own  theory  and  practice 
will  show  as  grotesque  in  2015  as  that  of 
1 8 1 5  shows  now;  but  in  the  mean  time 
many  diseases  have  been  reduced  from 
the  proud  proportions  of  epidemics  to 
those  of  mild  sporadic  cases.  Every  day 
scores,  perhaps  hundreds,  of  lives  saved 
from  appendicitis  cry  against  the  old 
dictum  that  to  open  the  abdominal 
cavity  was  murder;  malaria  has  re- 
solved itself  into  a  mosquito  which  may 
be  hunted  to  its  stagnant  habitat  and 
driven  away  with  yellow  fever  under  its 
wings  to  perish  miserably.  Germs,  mi- 
crobes, bacteria,  infections,  with  all 
their  tenements  and  hereditaments  have 
been  hopelessly  exiled;  and  the  dread 
doom  of  heredity  has  been  recognized  as 
propinquity  and  lifted,  where  there  had 
in  1 8 1 5  seemed  no  hope  of  escape  from 
it.  We  would  not  be  too  positive  in 
asserting  the  advantages  of  1915,  and 
we  will  not  say  that  medicine  has  con- 
ferred more  blessings  on  our  time  than 
religion,  politics,  and  morals  put  to- 
gether, but  something  like  this  we 
should  not  mind  another's  saying.  In 
morals,  perhaps  the  greatest  advance  has 
been  made  toward  a  reasoned  temper- 
ance. Nearly  every  one  would  be 
ashamed  now  to  drink  to  drunkenness, 
but  in  18 15  people  of  all  sorts  and  con- 


ditions got  drunk  not  only  without 
shame,  but  almost  without  blame.  Now 
in  1915,  total  abstinence  has  been  or- 
dained in  the  largest  empire  under  the 
sun  by  one  of  those  acts  of  beneficent 
despotism  which  have  sometimes  en- 
amoured men  of  the  despotic  ideal,  and 
you  can  no  more  get  a  drink  without 
crossing  from  Russia  into  Germany  than 
you  can  without  going  into  New  Hamp- 
shire if  you  are  athirst  in  Maine.  This 
is  an  excess  of  virtue,  but  without  a 
ukase  people  have  long  been  turning 
from  spirits  to  the  fermented  and 
malted  liquors,  and  the  average  man  of 
191 5  no  more  thinks  of  drinking  to  ex- 
cess than  the  average  woman  of  18 15. 

Mr.  Hunt's  conscience,  however,  will 
not  let  him  flatter  our  self-esteem  to  our 
undoing.  He  holds  the  balance  between 
that  time  and  this  with  an  unwavering 
hand,  and  we  go  up  or  we  go  down  ac- 
cording to  our  moral  weight.  In  the 
national  characteristic  of  graft,  for  in- 
stance, we  cannot  greatly  congratulate 
ourselves  from  his  sparing  instances  of 
public  corruption.  There  was  graft  then 
as  there  is  now,  but  it  was  not  an  ac- 
cepted condition.  Yet  we  have  not 
now,  to  our  knowledge,  any  high  officer 
of  our  army  in  the  pay  of  a  foreign 
potentate  as  General  Wilkinson  was,  a 
little  earlier  than  181 5,  in  that  of  the 
Spanish  king.  It  was  a  more  brutal 
time,  but  apparently  not  so  violent,  and 
murder,  if  we  may  trust  the  report  of 
our  daily  press,  did  not  rage  so  openly 
and  constantly.  To  be  sure,  the  daily 
press  was  not  so  observant  of  murder 
then  as  now,  or  possibly,  indeed,  murder 
was  too  common  for  notice.  From  this 
conclusion,  though,  we  shrink;  we  al- 
most prefer  to  believe  that  fewer  dis- 
appointed lovers  shot  their  sweethearts 
in  1 8 15  than  in  191 5. 


HOW  many  of  our  readers,  we  won- 
der, attach  such  importance  to 
the  serial  novel  as  to  feel  a 
grievous  disappointment  at  its  acciden- 
tial  absence  from  one  or  even  two  or 
three  numbers  of  their  magazine? 

Good  novels,  outside  of  magazines,  are 
to  be  had  for  the  asking.  Few  of  our 
readers  have  read  all  of  them,  probably 
not  all  those  of  the  current  year.  The 
volume  of  fiction  is  not  diminished  in 
the  numbers  lacking  the  serial  novel. 
There  are  short  stories  enough — eight  or 
nine  in  a  single  issue  of  this  Magazine, 
and  very  likely  part  of  a  short  serial  of 
the  lighter  sort,  in  addition — enough  al- 
together to  satisfy  the  most  voracious 
appetite  for  fiction.  What  is  lack- 
ing? What  particular  exaction  is  not 
met? 

The  unusual  break  of  a  tenacious  cus- 
tom leads  naturally  to  inquiry  as  to  the 
virtue  of  the  custom  itself.  If  "  blessings 
brighten  as  they  take  their  flight,"  the 
momentary  loss  becomes  a  test  of  our 
appreciation.  Many  who  refuse  to  read 
a  serial  until  it  is  concluded  and  in 
covers  are  glad  every  month  to  have  the 
visible  reminder  of  their  continence  and 
a  tempting  glimpse  of  the  accumulating 
treat  in  store  for  them.  For  the  con- 
tinued story  has  not  been  merely  a 
device  of  the  publishers  to  sustain  the 
interest  of  readers  from  month  to  month. 
It  was  such  a  device  and  served  well  its 
purpose  in  isolated  communities  and 
before  books  were  abundant  and  acces- 
sible— served  also  to  convert  a  periodical 
miscellany  into  some  semblance  of  or- 
ganic continuity.  But  readers  would 
have  demanded  it  if  it  had  not  been 
provided  for  them,  for  the  same  reason 
that  they  wanted  a  periodical  publica- 
tion at  all — a  daily,  a  weekly,  or  a 
monthly;  and  in  early  "  Peter  Parley" 
times  they  craved  an  "Annual"  as  well. 
This  sort  of  publication  began  with  the 
almanac. 

The  world  as  an  orderly  institution 


was  set  a-going  that  way,  as  recorded  in 
the  Book  of  Genesis — time  being  divided 
out  to  us  by  the  "lights  in  the  firma- 
ment." Our  living,  both  in  creative 
specialization  and  in  conventional  ordi- 
nance, is  divided  unto  us.  Hence,  in  due 
time,  periodical  literature — one  of  the 
most  characteristic  functions  of  that  in- 
stitution being  the  serial  publication  of 
fiction, — at  least  it  came  to  be  that  when 
fiction  itself  began  to  be  tolerated  out- 
side of  religious  allegory  and  the  didactic 
moral  tract — which  was  about  the  time 
when  this  Magazine  began,  sixty-five 
years  ago. 

The  exceptional  reader  who  refuses  to 
take  ten  or  a  dozen  bites  at  his  cherry 
is  a  very  independent  person,  rejecting 
the  serial  tradition.  Is  there  a  class  of. 
him?  And  is  this  class  somehow  ac- 
countable for  the  growing  favor  accorded 
to  the  short  story  and  the  short  poem — 
those  pieces  of  literature  for  which  Poe 
decreed  a  reading  of  at  one  sitting?  But 
Poe  himself  seems  to  have  taken  a  lively 
interest  in  the  serial  novel,  as  was  shown 
by  his  brilliant  attempt  to  forecast  from 
its  opening  chapters  the  whole  plot  of 
Barnaby  Rudge,  By  the  way,  how  much 
of  the  fascination  of  the  continued  story 
depends  upon  the  problem  it  presents  to 
an  imaginative  curiosity  as  to  its  denoue- 
ment? We  have  known  this  suspense  to 
affect  the  peace  of  mind  of  readers  who 
have  followed  the  course  of  a  story 
nearly  to  the  final  lifting  of  the  curtain, 
but  who  fear  to  be  cheated  of  that  dis- 
closure by  their  own  demise. 

This  element  of  suspense  in  the  publi- 
cation of  a  novel  makes  fiction  seem 
more  like  life,  coming  to  us  in  parts,  with 
intervals  that  give  room  for  the  play  of 
imaginative  or  merely  fanciful  conjec- 
ture. In  the  mid-Victorian  era  this 
method  of  publication  was  adopted  out- 
side of  magazines,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Pickwick  Papers  and  many  novels. 

Still  we  wonder  if  readers  of  to-day 
are  as  slavishly  addicted  to  the  serial 


478 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


habit  as  they  were  fifty  or  sixty  years 
ago.  The  organic  continuity  of  a  maga- 
zine no  longer  depends  upon  the  serial 
story.  A  magazine  of  any  vitality  could 
not  long  be  held  in  that  dependence; 
it  of  necessity  comes  very  soon  not 
merely  to  reflect  the  life  and  thought  of 
its  time  in  every  important  phase  of 
social  development,  but  to  be  intimately 
and  initiatively  participant  in  move- 
ments not  distinctively  literary.  It  may 
become  so  profoundly  and  essentially 
timely  as  to  have  no  space  for  the  cur- 
rent actualities  which  belong  to  journal- 
ism, or  even  for  allusion  to  them,  and 
yet  be  in  no  sense  "purely  literary." 
But  organic  it  must  be,  even  in  the  con- 
stitution of  an  individual  number — as 
complexly  organic  as  contemporary  so- 
ciety. 

The  main  thing  binding  the  magazine 
to  the  serial  novel  is  the  imperative 
necessity  that  it  shall  present  creatively 
imaginative  work,  as  it  presents  Science, 
in  the  very  making — that  it  shall  be  in 
at  the  birth.  How  is  it  in  the  case  of 
Science?  Here  is  a  new  disclosure  as  to 
the  very  constitution  of  matter,  fresh 
from  the  laboratory.  It  may  have  as  yet 
been  unheralded  to  the  world,  or  only  in 
such  terms  as  have  stimulated  general 
curiosity.  The  class  of  readers  eagerly 
awaiting  such  disclosures  is  not  confined 
to  specialists,  and  it  is  not  a  chance  hap- 
pening that  some  periodical,  organized 
to  meet  such  moments,  and  therefore 
counting  among  its  constituency  this 
class  of  readers,  is  the  direct  medium  of 
communication  between  the  laboratory 
and  the  world. 

By  the  same  peculiar  fitness  new  reve- 
lations of  genius  in  creative  fiction  are 
delivered  fresh  from  the  source  through 
well-developed  channels  of  familiar  com- 
munication. Such  a  channel  for  our 
most  brilliant  essayists  was  offered  two 
generations  ago  by  the  Lyceum  Lecture, 
their  audiences  having  a  pleasing  sense 
of  social  community  in  the  reception  of 
this  direct  ministration.  Not  so  visibly, 
but  no  less  really,  has  a  bond  socially 
united  the  readers  of  any  abidingly 
cherished  modern  magazine  with  one 
another  and  with  their  favorite  authors, 
as  if  they  were  gathered  about  the  same 
board  for  a  common  festival.  The  sense 
of  this  sociableness  has  probably  done 


more  than  anything  else  to  heighten  the 
lively  expectation  of  readers  for  the 
serial  novel,  not  as  the  only  attractive 
course  of  the  feast,  but  as  the  especial 
piece  de  resistance. 

There  is  a  delightful  sense  of  fountain- 
like freshness  when  each  new  instalment 
seems  to  come  direct  from  the  novelist's 
mint.  In  the  heyday  of  the  serial  novel 
the  publishers  themselves  had  no  com- 
plete copy  of  the  manuscript  beforehand. 
In  fact,  three  of  the  most  eminent  writers 
of  serial  fiction — Bulwer,  Thackeray, 
and  Dickens — died  with  work  in  hand 
unfinished.  To  The  Mystery  of  Edwin 
Drood  was  added  that  other  mystery  of 
its  conclusion,  which,  ever  since  the 
sudden  interruption  of  that  serial,  has 
busied  many  active  imaginations  to  un- 
ravel. 

Fiction,  in  its  main  current  and  im- 
pulse, has  for  a  century  and  a  half  been, 
first  of  all,  social,  and  has  become  itself 
inevitably  the  chief  organ  as  well  as  the 
most  significant  reflex  of  evolutionary 
social  movement.  Only  the  writers  who 
count  in  this  great  reckoning  really  count 
at  all  as  distinguished  from  those  who 
exercise  the  showman's  ancient  and  hon- 
orable, but  not  essentially  vital,  func- 
tion of  a  passing  entertainer.  The  com- 
pass of  the  short  story  is  not  too  brief 
to  exclude  it  from  the  higher  office,  if 
the  work  is  creative,  as  in  George  Eliot's 
Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  and  Margaret 
Deland's  Old  Chester  Tales;  but  it  is  not 
adequate  to  the  delineation  of  social  life 
on  even  so  limited  a  scale  as  that  of 
Cranford.  A  survey  of  the  record  of 
serial  fiction  in  this  Magazine  will  show 
an  unbroken  succession  of  novels  from 
the  great  masters  of  the  whole  period 
dealing  interpretatively  with  the  suc- 
cessive stages  of  English  and  of  Amer- 
ican social  development — creations,  in 
most  instances,  severally  designated 
each  as  the  most  eminent  novel  of  the 
year  in  which  it  has  thus  appeared. 
Such  a  record — sustained  down  to  Tar- 
kington's  late  contribution,  and  with  fair 
promise  of  continuance  in  the  serial 
story  begun  in  the  current  number — 
illustrates  the  working  of  a  principle  of 
selection  upon  which  our  readers  have 
learned  to  depend,  and  is  also  the  most 
convincing  evidence  of  the  holding  value 
of  this  form  of  publication. 


A  Dumb-waiter  Destiny 


BY  DANA  BURNET 


THIRD  FLOOR  FRONT  was  a  woman- 
hater. 
Mrs.  Trimble's  Brooklyn  boarding- 
house  (references  required  and  refine- 
ment guaranteed)  hummed  like  a  beehive 
with  the  news.  Tongues  long  starved  for  a 
bit  of  gossip  wagged  furiously  through  Mrs. 
Trimble's  long,  gray,  perpetually  twilit  halls. 
Ears  grown  dull  with  the  familiar  chatter 
of  the  boarding-house  were  laid  with  re- 
newed hope  to  the  cracks  of  the  dumb-waiter. 
Third  Floor  Front  was  a  woman-hater! 

This  much  had  the  house  gleaned  from 
Mrs.  Trimble  herself.  Mrs.  Trimble  felt,  she 
said,  that  any  further  discussion  of  her 
guest's  queerness  would  scarcely  be  refined; 
and  refined  Mrs.  Trimble  was  resolved  to  be, 
though  she  lost  trade  by  it.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  Mrs.  Trimble  had  found  the  new 
boarder  remarkably  barren  of  confidences. 
But  she  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  report 
this  to  the  others. 

The  others,  therefore, 
formed  themselves  by 
mutual  impulse  into  a 
general  committee  for  the 
exploration  of  Third  Floor 
Front.  Through  partly 
opened  doors  they  ob- 
served him  descend  the 
stairs  each  morning  at 
eight  o'clock  precisely — a 
tall,  grim,  rugged  man, 
slightly  gray  at  the  tem- 
ples, and  fundamentally 
shabby.  What  his  busi- 
ness was  no  one  knew.  It 
seemed  very  tiring,  to  say 
the  least  of  it.  He  usually 
returned  to  the  boarding- 
house  quite  worn  out, 
his  eternal  suit  of  rusty 
black  exuding  an  added 
air  of  somberness  picked 
up  somehow,  you  would 
have  said,  from  the  per- 
petual dusk  of  Mrs.  Trim- 
ble's front  hall.  This  rusty 
black  suit  was  accorded 
almost  as  much  attention 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  783—60 


as  its  mysterious  possessor.  It  was,  by  Mrs. 
Trimble's  sworn  deposition,  the  only  suit 
that  Third  Floor  Front  had  to  his  name. 

One  suit  to  one's  name  is  scarcely  an 
extensive  wardrobe.  It  suggests  vaudeville 
possibilities.  It  is,  in  fact,  intrinsically  preca- 
rious— likely  to  lead  one  into  surprising  situ- 
ations. Third  Floor  Front's  one  suit  might 
have  lasted  him  to  the  grave — an  undertaker 
would  have  been  instinctively  pleased  with 
it — except  for  the  fact  of  a  nail  in  the  top 
of  Third  Floor  Front's  battered  hair  trunk. 
It  was  this  nail,  or  at  least  the  unguarded 
point  of  it,  that  completely  altered  the  des- 
tiny of  Mrs.  Trimble's  mysterious  boarder. 
I  defy  any  man  to  sit  down  upon  the  point 
of  a  nail,  clothed  in  the  only  suit  he  possesses, 
and  come  ofT  without  altering  his  destiny. 
Let  us  proceed  to  our  story. 

At  precisely  4.30  p.m.  of  a  certain  May 
afternoon,  Miss  Elizabeth  Worthington  Re- 


FROM  THE  ROOM  OVERHEAD  HAD  SOUNDED 
A  MUFFLED   CRY,  AS  OF  A  PERSON  IN  PAIN 


480 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


veil,  family  seamstress,  dropped  her  sewing 
with  a  sudden  startled,  "Oh!"  From  the 
room  overhead  had  sounded  a  muffled  cry, 
as  of  a  person  in  pain.  Then  followed  an 
excited  series  of  thumps — up  the  room  and 
down  the  room,  four  thumps  and  turn.  Miss 
Elizabeth  was  Second  Floor  Front.  Those 
thumps,  as  she  well  knew,  could  mean  only 
that  something  of  importance  had  happened 
to  the  mysterious  boarder. 

The  thumps  ceased  abruptly.  Miss  Eliza- 
beth, caught  in  the  grip  of  a  consuming  curi- 
osity, cast  longing  eyes  at  the  little  closed 
door  of  the  dumb-waiter.  Would  she  come 
to  that,  after  all?  Would  she  fling  her  gentle- 
woman's scruples  to  the  wind  and  join  the 
awful  sisterhood  of  Those  Who  Snooped? 

Rising  swiftly,  she  took  an  uncertain  step 
toward  the  dumb-waiter. 

She  was  still  standing  undecidedly  in  the 
middle  of  the  room  when  something  occurred 
that  settled  definitely  the  question  of  the 
debated  Snoop.  That  something  was  a  slight 
noise  in  the  dumb-waiter,  a  sort  of  scrape 
and  a  sort  of  tap  and  a  sort  of  rustle  com- 
bining the  two.  Her  heart  in  her  throat, 
Miss  Elizabeth  hurried  to  the  dumb-waiter 
and  opened  the  sliding  door. 


STARED  AS  THOUGH  FASCINATED  AT  THE  STUMP 
OF  LEAD-PENCIL  DANGLING  ON  THE  BROWN  STRING 


A  sheet  of  white  paper  and  a  stump  of  lead- 
pencil,  suspended  by  a  brown  string,  swung 
idly  before  her  astonished  eyes.  She  was 
about  to  slam  the  sliding  door  in  a  panic, 
lest  it  be  some  despicable  buffoonery, 
when  the  idly  swaying  bit  of  paper  half 
whirled  about  and  disclosed  her  name  written 
upon  it  in  large,  firm  characters. 

Attention,  Miss  E.  Revell,  Second  Floor  Front! 

"Can  it  be  for  me?"  whispered  Miss  Eliza- 
beth, already  reaching  a  trembling  hand  for 
the  lazily  turning  lure.  Obviously  it  could 
be  for  no  one  else.  She  tweaked  the  paper 
from  the  string,  spread  it  smooth,  and  read 
as  follows: 

Dear  M  adam, — Would  you  help  a  gentleman 
in  extreme  distress?    Pencil  attached.  R.S.V.P. 
William  Straight,  Third  Floor  Front. 

Miss  Elizabeth  dropped  her  hands  to  her 
sides  and  stared  as  though  fascinated  at  the 
stump  of  lead-pencil  dangling  on  the  brown 
string.  Over  and  above  the  unconvention- 
ality  of  the  message,  that  blunt  question  rose 
up  and  dared  Miss  Elizabeth  to  answer  it 
by  anything  but  "Yes"  or  "No."  Con- 
sequently Miss  Elizabeth  seized  the  bit  of 
pencil  and  wrote,  for  the  glory  and  justifica- 
tion of  her  sex: 

That  depends. 

The  paper  fluttered  up  the  dumb-waiter 
shaft  like  a  white  bird,  like  a  spotless  dove. 
And  after  a  slight  wait  it  fluttered  down 
again.    Miss  Elizabeth  read: 

Depends  on  what? 

He  had  thrown  the  gantlet  at  her  feet! 
He  had  challenged  her  to  say  precisely  what 
circumstances  would  prevent  her  from  help- 
ing a  gentleman  in  extreme  distress.  With 
a  very  stern,  albeit  very  flushed  countenance, 
Miss  Elizabeth  penciled  her  reply: 

Sir, — No  gentleman  of  my  acquaintance  would 
presume  to  ask  a  favor  of  me  without  first  stating 
the  favor. 

P.S. — I  am  not  a  hard-hearted  person.  Are 
you  in  pain? 

Back  came  the  response  by  way  of  the 
fluttering  messenger: 

I  have  sat  on  a  nail. 

"Goodness!"  exclaimed  Miss  Elizabeth,  in 
horror.  .  .  .  Resolutely  she  choked  down  any 
vulgar  tendencies  toward  mirth,  and  with 
a  purely  humanitarian  object  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing admirable  instructions  beneath  the 
mysterious  boarder's  last  statement: 

Call  a  doctor  at  once. 

The  white  paper  once  more  performed  its 
birdlike  flight  up  the  dumb-waiter  shaft,  and 


EDITOR'S 

in  another  moment  was  again  dangling  be- 
fore Miss  Elizabeth's  eyes: 

I  don't  need  a  doctor.    I  need  a  seamstress. 

Vulgar  tendencies  toward  mirth  renewed 
their  base  attempts  to  win  a  smile  from  Miss 
Elizabeth's  firmly  set  lips.  Hurriedly  she 
wrote : 

I  do  not  understand. 

The  mysterious  boarder's  reply  was  di- 
rectly to  the  point: 

Nails  have  no  sense  of  proportion.  It  was  my 
only  suit.  If  I  went  out  in  it  now  I  would  be 
arrested.  I  cannot  afford  to  be  arrested,  because 
I  have  only  five  dollars,  and  it  costs  more  than 
that  to  be  arrested.  Ever  since  I  came  here  a 
month  ago  I  have  been  trying  to  get  a  job.  To- 
night a  man  said  that  if  I  would  come  to  see  him 
at  eight  o'clock  he  would  give  me  a  job.  That  is 
why  I  said  gentleman  in  extreme  distress. 

P.S. — It  is  an  embarrassing  tear. 

Now  it  so  chanced  that  Miss  Elizabeth's 
ancestors  had  been  among  those  who  first 
singled  out  the  Plymouth  Rock  as  an  ac- 
ceptable stepping-stone  to  fame.  Far  back 
in  the  Puritan  past  Miss  Elizabeth's  grand- 
mothers had  been  called  upon  to  mend  the 
sartorial  disasters  of  a  very  young  and  ex- 
tremely masculine  nation.  Miss  Elizabeth's 
next  message  to  the  mysterious  boarder  fell 
nothing  short  of  the  ancestral  heroism: 

Send  down  your  trousers. 

Let  us  draw  a  veil,  gentle  reader,  over  the 
ensuing  journey  of  the  mysterious  boarder's 
damaged  apparel  down  the  dumb-waiter 
shaft. 

The  next  scene  discloses  a  crimson- 
cheeked  Miss  Elizabeth  standing  in  the  mid- 
dle of  her  room,  the  awful  black  garments 
held  at  arm's-length  before  her.  Miss  Eliza- 
beth wanted  to  laugh,  but  an  almost  similar 
desire  for  tears  kept  her  lips  in  a  straight 
Puritanical  line.  Hurrying  to  her  chair  by  the 
window,  she  drew  the  impossible  trousers 
across  her  knees,  and  with  hands  that  shook 
began  to  repair  the  mischief  done  by  an 
unfeeling  nail,  a  careless  man,  and  an  in- 
scrutable Providence. 

With  a  few  last  rapid  stabs  of  her  needle 
she  put  the  concluding  stitches  to  her  task 
and,  rising,  walked  to  the  dumb-waiter,  ex- 
pecting to  find  the  brown  string  dangling  as 
she  had  left  it. 

But  the  brown  string  had  entirely  van- 
ished. Instinctively  Miss  Elizabeth  put  her 
head  into  the  dumb-wraiter  shaft — and 
promptly  withdrew  it.  Below  her  she  had 
discerned  another  head,  that  of  Mrs.  Trim- 
ble herself,  with  face  turned  roofward,  and 
such  an  expression  of  joyous  suspicion  on  her 
face  as  to  drive  Miss  Elizabeth's  heart  into 
her  frayed  boots. 

What  had  Mrs.  Trimble  seen? 


DRAWER  481 

The  need  of  immediate  action  fell  upon  her. 
Gathering  up  her  scattered  wits,  she  began 
to  study  the  problem  in  the  cold  light  of 
reason.  How  could  she  reunite.  Third  Floor 
Front  and  his  strategically  necessary  trou- 
sers ? 

Then,  out  of  the  troubled  spinning  of  her 
mind  there  came,  as  such  matters  always 
come,  the  clear  thread  of  Miss  Elizabeth's 
inspiration.  .  .  . 

A  few  moments  later  Mrs.  Trimble,  on 
guard  at  the  dumb-waiter  below,  heard  her 
name  called  in  a  clear,  sweet  soprano: 
"Mrs.  Trim-ble!" 

Immediately  there  occurred  in  the  lower 
hall  the  usual  bustle  of  the  landlady  getting 
under  way,  and  then  the  broad  figure  of  Mrs. 
Trimble  appeared  puffing  up  the  stairs. 

In  the  doorway  of  second  floor  front  stood 
Miss  Elizabeth  Worthington  Revell,  gentle- 
woman, holding  in  her  hands  a  package 
wrapped  firmly  in  a  newspaper. 

"Dear  Mrs.  Trimble,"  said  Miss  Eliza- 
beth, with  a  little  smile,  "I'm  so  sorry  to 
bother  you,  but  would  you  mind  taking  this 
package  up  to  my  friend  Mr.  Straight?" 

"Your  what?"  gasped  the  panting  land- 
lady. One  should  never  spring  surprises 
upon  stout  persons  at  the  top  of  a  flight  of 
stairs. 

"Why,  my  friend,"  repeated  Miss  Eliza- 
beth, gently. 

"Do — do  you  know  him?" 

"I  met  him  recently  at — a  tea."  (It  was 
common  property  throughout  the  boarding- 
house  that  Miss  Elizabeth  occasionally  at- 
tended teas. 

"You  don't  say!"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Trimble, 
faintly.   "I  thought  he  was  a  woman-hater." 

"He  was"  said  Miss  Elizabeth,  casting 
down  her  eyes.  Then,  in  a  low  voice,  as  one 
confiding  tremendous  data  to  the  sister  at 
one's  bosom,  she  added:  "He's  very  inter- 
esting— and  unique.  I  believe  he  considers 
it  bad  form  to  own  more  than  one  suit  of 
clothes.  This  afternoon  he  ripped  his  coat- 
sleeve — and  I've  mended  it  for  him.  Would 
you  mind  taking  it  up?" 

As  one  who  acts  under  a  hypnotic  spell 
Mrs.  Trimble  extended  her  arms  for  the 
package.  But  she  would  not  be  cheated  of 
her  precious  suspicions.  "I  saw  a  string  in 
the  dumb-waiter  shaft!"  she  cried,  breathing 
hard. 

Miss  Elizabeth  smiled  even  more  sweetly 
than  before.  "I  told  you  he  was  unique. 
Do  you  know,  Mrs.  Trimble,  the  dear  man 
actually  lowered  his  coat  down  the  dumb- 
waiter shaft.  He  did  it  for  a — a  sort  of  joke, 
you  know." 

"Do  you  know  him  that  well?"  demanded 
Mrs.  Trimble,  slowly.  It  would  be  very 
difficult  getting  past  Mrs.  Trimble  with  any 


482 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


I  HAVE  NEVER  TAKEN  MUCH  STOCK 
IN  WOMEN,"  SAID  THIRD  FLOOR  FRONT 


behavior  that  smacked  of  unrefinement. 
Refined  Mrs.  Trimble  would  be,  though  the 
heavens  fell! 

Miss  Elizabeth  smiled  for  the  third  time. 
"I  know  him  so  well,"  she  said,  "that  I  am 
going  to  dinner  with  him  to-night." 

Some  time  after  six  o'clock  of  that  same 
evening  Mrs.  Trimble's  boarding  -  house 
thrust  its  several  and  respective  heads  out 
of  half-opened  doors  and  observed  a  miracle. 
Down  the  stairs  marched  a  very  tall,  slightly 
gray  man  in  a  rusty  black  suit  that  seemed, 
somehow,  to  have  been  brushed  clean  of  its 
fundamental  shabbiness.  To  his  arm  clung 
a  dainty  lady  in  a  neat  silk  frock  (which  the 
boarding-house  promptly  recognized  as  her 
best  and  only),  a  lady  whose  cheeks  bloomed 
as  the  rose. 

They  reached  the  lower  hall,  the  boarding- 
house  by  this  time  being  quite  frankly  draped 
across  the  upper-hall  banisters.  The  som- 
ber man  strode  forward  ceremoniously  and 
laid  his  hand  on  the  knob  of  the  door.  With 
a  little  inclination  of  her  head  my  lady 
passed  out  into  the  summer  dusk.  The 
knight  of  the  black  suit  stepped  after  her. 

"Of  course  I  shall  pay  for  my  own,"  said 
Miss  Elizabeth,  primly.  Her  cheeks,  that 
had  been  so  warm  with  color,  were  now  quite 
pale.  She  was  not  the  lady  for  any  great 
adventure  such  as  this.  Her  heart  seemed 
smothered.  There  was  a* lump  in  her  throat. 
Never  in  her  life  before  had  she  eaten  dinner 
in  a  public  restaurant  alone  with  a  man.  It 
was  only  a  Brooklyn  table  d'hote,  to  be  sure, 


but  it  had  gilt  on  the  ceil- 
ing and  an  accent  on  the 
waiters. 

William  Straight  leaned 
across  the  small  table  and 
said,  very  calmly,  "You 
will  do  nothing  of  the 
kind." 

"Oh!"  said  Miss  Eliza- 
beth. Never  before  had  a 
man  told  her  what  she 
would  or  would  not  do. 

"There  is  something  I 
want  to  tell  you,"  said 
Third  Floor  Front. 

H  i  s  voice,  she  deter- 
mined further,  was  unmis- 
takably a  decided  voice, 
a  strong  man's  voice — 
firm,  a  trifle  harsh,  and 
yet  not  unkind;  a  voice,  in 
fact,  that  one  could  depend 
upon,  that  one  could — 

"There  is  something  I 
want  to  tell  you." 

"Oh!"  said  Miss  Eliza- 
beth again. 
Third  Floor  Front  caught  her  wavering 
glance  and  held  it  with  his.  "I  have  never 
taken  much  stock  in  women,"  said  Third 
Floor  Front,  "To  tell  the  truth,  I  have  al- 
ways considered  them  rather — unimportant. 

"To-day,"  continued  William  Straight,  "I 
sat  down  on  a  nail  and  knew  myself  for  a  fool. 

"  I  was  forced  to  ask  a  woman  to  help 
me.  I  perceived  that  she  was  the  other  half 
of  the  circle.  And  after  she  had  helped  me — 
helped  me  bravely — I  was  forced  further  to  re- 
ly upon  her  cleverness,  her  wit,  to  save  us  both 
from  the  ravages  of  boarding-house  gossip." 

He  drew  a  folded  piece  of  paper  from  his 
pocket.  Then,  after  a  little  whimsical  glance 
at  Miss  Elizabeth,  he  read  as  follows: 

"I  will  tell  Mrs.  Trimble  that  we  are  friends, 
and  to  prove  it  I  will  tell  her  that  you  are  taking 
me  out  to  dinner  to-night.  It  is  the  only  way. 
I  will  be  ready  at  six." 

Miss  Elizabeth's  cheeks  had  quite  recov- 
ered from  their  paleness. 

"Oh,"  she  cried,  "suppose  you  hadn't  put 
your  hand  in  your  pocket!" 

William  Straight  leaned  toward  her,  the 
light  of  a  great  discovery  in  his  eyes.  "A 
woman  as  clever  as  that,"  said  William 
Straight,  slowly,  "is  the  woman  for  me." 

Miss  Elizabeth  put  one  hand  to  her  breast. 
"Your  job,"  she  cried,  uncertainly.  "It's 
almost  eight!" 

William  Straight  did  not  take  his  eyes 
from  her  face.  "I  will  stop  at  your  door 
to-night,"  he  said,  "and  tell  you  more  about 
my  job — and  myself." 


EDITOR'S  DRAWER 


483 


Too  Alarming 

WINNIFREDhad 
*  been  disobedient, 
and  her  mother  led 
her  into  the  chicken- 
house  near  by.  Amid 
apprehensive  cries 
from  the  child  and 
alarmed  cackles  from 
the  hens  the  punish- 
ment began.  But  soon 
Winnifred  looked  up 
appealingly  from  over 
her  mother's  knee,and 
whimpered: 

"  Mother,  don't  you 
think  this  frightens 
the  chickens  too 
much  ?" 

Impressionistic 

PENJIE  was  show- 
his  moth 


ing  nis  mother 
how  well  he  could 
draw  a  cow. 

"This  is  her  nose 
I've  just  finished,"  he  said,  drawing  a  curved 
line.  "And  her  body  you  just  make  this  way 
— and  here's  her  tail."  He  held  up  the  draw- 
ing, but  as  he  looked  at  it  an  embarrassed 
smile  came  over  his  face.  "  Perhaps  we'd 
better  call  it  a  pump,"  he  finally  suggested. 


The  Pup:  "Well,  well!  If  they  ain't  going 
to  dig  right  where  I  buried  my  bone  last  night  /" 


Casual 


"THE  family  gardener  had  been  a  great 
friend  of  the  Wayne  children.  When  he 
died  his  widow  invited  them  to  come  to 
view  his  remains.  The  youngsters  accepted 
with  glee,  taking  with  them  little  three-and- 
a-half-year-old  Catherine.  On  their  return 
home  Mrs.  Wayne  was  much  disturbed  to 
learn  that  little  Catherine  had  been  in  the 
presence  of  death.  Thinking  that  if  the  child 
had  been  frightened  she  would  try  to  make 
death  seem  less  horrible,  she  began  to  ques- 
tion her. 

"What  was  he  in,  dear?"  she  asked. 
"Oh,  in  a  long  box." 
"Well,  how  did  he  look,  Catherine?" 
"Oh,  he  looked  rather  cute,"  was  the 
nonchalant  reply. 


A  Century  of  Little  Girls 

ONE  went  basked  in  stiff  brocade 

And  worked  queer  sums  in  "tare  and 
trett, 

And  Webster's  Spelling  Book  was  made, 
Page  after  page,  by  heart  to  get; 

And  with  her  schoolmates  on  parade 
Threw  a  rose  at  Lafayette. 


One  in  pantalettes  and  shawl 
Sedately  walked,  a  proper  lass! 

She  in  the  old  Lyceum  Hall 

Heard  Jenny  Lind!  and,  class  by  class, 

Her  school  went  forth  to  view  the  pall, 
The  catafalque  of  Lincoln,  pass. 


One  wore  huge  sleeves,  and  thought  great 
cheer 

To  dance  the  two-step  o'er  and  o'er. 
She  worked  the  Cuban  flag  and  spear 

Upon  a  sofa-pillow  for 
A  youthful  cousin  volunteer 

That  summer  of  the  Spanish  War. 


Her  Father's  Own  Daughter 

J-JAZEL  was  spending  her  fourth  birthday 
in  town,  and  as  one  attraction  her 
auntie  took  her  for  a  ride  in  her  electric. 
After  a  long  silence,  the  practical  little  coun- 
try maid  pointed  to  an  especially  well-kept 
but  tiny  lawn,  and  said,  very  earnestly: 
"Th  at's  dood  pasture." 


The  last  can  ride  and  swim  and  wend 
On  camp-fire  hikes;    and  yet  would  she 

Tales  of  her  forebears  hear  no  end! 

And  oft  she  cries,  "What  fun  'twould  be 

If  they  could  come  alive,  and  spend 
The  afternoon,  and  stay  to  tea!" 

Sarah  N.  Clechorn 


484 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


The  Sarcastic  Caddie 

'"THERE  is  a  certain  golfer  in  Boston  who, 
like  many  others,  loves  the  game  better 
than  he  plays  it.  In  his  difficulties  with 
course  and  ball  and  club  he  has  often  encoun- 
tered the  caddie's  stinging  scorn. 

One  afternoon,  while  struggling  over  the 
course,  he  made  a  particularly  bad  play  and 
tore  up  a  large  piece  of  turf  with  his  mashie. 
Lifting  the  sod  in  his  hand,  the  player  said  to 
his  caddie: 

"What  on  earth  am  I  to  do  with 
this?" 

"If  I  was  you,"  said  the  boy,  "I'd  take  it 
home  to  practise  on,  sir." 


Outdone 

pLIZABETH  and  Sarah  were  two  little 
girls  who  made  acquaintance  at  school. 
One  day  they  were  playing  together  and 
began  boasting  of  their  possessions. 

"We  keep  four  servants,"  said  Elizabeth, 
proudly,  "  and  have  got  two  automobiles,  and 
a  great  big  house.   Now  what  have  you  got?" 

Sarah  hesitated  for  a  moment,  then,  with 
equal  pride,  replied,  "We've  got  a  skunk 
under  our  barn." 


Why  He  Is  Remembered 

"\A7HAT  did  George  Washington  do  for 
*  y    his  country?"  asked  the  teacher. 
"He  gave  it  an  extra  holiday,"  promptly 

answered  a  boy  at  the  foot  of  the  class. 


Infra  Dig 

D  ILL  had  worked  on  the  farm  for  ten  years, 
and  until  his  boss  took  to  poultry-rais- 
ing he  was  quite  contented  with  his  lot. 
But  this  poultry  business  finally  got  Bill 
peeved.    He  had  to  take  the  eggs  as  they 
were  laid  and  write  the  date  on  them  with  an 
indelible  pencil.    And,  worse  than  that,  he 
had  also  to  write  on  the  eggs  the  breed  of  the 
hen  that  laid  them.    For  Bill's  boss  was  a 
scientific    person.     One   day   the  routine 
proved  a  bit  too  much  for  Bill, 
so  he  marched  up  to  the  farmer 
and  said,  "I'm  'bout  fed  up, 
an'  I'm  goin'  to  leave." 

The  farmer  gasped  for 
breath;  he  could  not  associate 
Bill  working  for  anybody  else, 
he  had  been  with  him  so  long. 

"Surely,  Bill,  you're  not 
goin'  to  leave  me  after  all  these 
years,"  he  blurted  out. 

"Yes,  but  I  am,"  put  in 
Bill.  "I've  done  every  kind 
of  rotten  job  on  this  here 
farm,  but  I'd  rather  starve 
than  go  on  being  secretary 
to  your  old  hens  any  longer." 


"  You  were  worried  yesterday  about  your  husband' s 
health.    Have  you  had  any  further  news  ?" 

"  Yes,  thanks.  I  received  a  most  reassuring  check 
this  morning." 


What  He  Would  Do 

'TWO  tramps  were  sitting  in 
the  shade  of  a  tree  in 
Evanston,  Illinois,  and  one 
was  reading  to  the  other  from 
a  tattered  newspaper  the  char- 
itable work  planned  by  a  cer- 
tain Chicago  Crcesus. 

The  listener  sighed  and  re- 
marked, with  a  break  in  his 
voice, "  I  wish  that  I  had  money 
enough  to  make  every  poor 
child  in  Chicago  happy." 

"What  would  you  do?" 
asked  the  other  knight  of  the 
road. 

"Why,"  explained  the  first 
hobo,  "I'd  invest  in  real  estate 
and  live  on  mv  income." 


EDITOR'S  DRAWER 


485 


Appearances  are  Deceitful 

I  ITTLE  Mary  was  only 
allowed  to  wear  her 
low-neck  and  sleeveless 
dresses  on  very  warm 
days.  One  morning  she 
stood  gazing  at  a  photo- 
graph o  f  a  woman  in  a 
decidedly  decollete  cos- 
tume. ''My!"  she  ex- 
claimed, "It  must  'a' 
been  a  awful  hot  day 
when  that  was  took!" 


Didn't  Apply 

A  MAN  was  on  trial  be- 
fore  a  Wisconsin  j  udge 
for  horse-stealing.  When 
it  came  time  for  the  law- 
yers on  both  sides  to  tell 
the  judge  what  instruc- 
tions they  wanted  him  to 
give  the  jury  in  addition  to 
the  points  covered  in  his 
own  charge,  the  attorney 
for  the  defense  said: 

"I  respectfully  ask 
Your  Honor  to  charge 
the  jury  that  it  is  a  funda- 
mental principle  of  law  in 
this  country  that  it  is  bet- 
ter for  ninety-nine  guilty  men  to  escape  than 
for  one  innocent  man  to  be  found  guilty." 

"Yes,  that  is  true,"  said  the  judge,  reflec- 
tively, "  and  I  so  instruct  the  jury;  but  I  will 
add  that  it  is  the  opinion  of  the  court  that 
the  ninety-nine  guilty  men  have  already 
escaped." 


His  Qualifications 

A  MUSICAL  director  in  Pittsburg  was 
organizing  a  philharmonic  orchestra. 
An  Italian  acquaintance  strongly  recom- 
mended to  him  an  old  man  who  played 
upon  a  very  antiquated  and  wheezy  clari- 
net. 

At  the  first  rehearsal,  however,  it  was  evi- 
dent to  the  director  that  the  new  candidate 
would  not  do.  "He  can't  play  the  clarinet 
at  all,"  he  explained  to  the  Italian  who  had 
recommended  him. 

"What!"  gasped  the  sponsor.  "That  man 
no  can  playa  da  clarinet?" 

"Certainly  not." 

The  Italian  rolled  his  eyes,  and  seemed 
beside  himself.  "That  man  no  can  playa 
da  clarinet?"  he  repeated,  beating  his  breast 
in  indignation.  "Why,  that  man  he  fighta 
with  Garibaldi!" 


"  Madam,  if  yell  buy  one  fer  the  baby,  ye*  11  find  it'll  be 
greatly  appreciated  by  Him  or  Her,  as  the  case  may  be" 


Domestic  Amenities 
IN  Chicago  they  tell  this  story  of  a  warring 
couple,    the    husband    being  suspected, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  of  having  married  for 
money. 

One  afternoon  the  husband  drove  home  in 
a  new  motor-car  of  most  expensive  make. 
He  drove  gaily  around  to  the  side,  and 
brought  his  wife  out  to  view  his  new  pur- 
chase*. Now,  wife  had  that  morning  had  a 
fearful  row  with  husband,  and  she  had  not 
yet  recovered  her  temper.  She  gave  one 
sneering  look  at  the  new  car  and  then  said: 

"It's  very  nice,  indeed;  but  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  my  money  it  wouldn't  be  here." 

"Well,  Clara,"  said  husband,  "if  it  hadn't 
been  for  your  money  you  wouldn't  be  here 
yourself." 


Sounded  Like  It 
"  QERTRUDE,"  asked  the  teacher,  "what 
were  the  causes  of  the  Revolutionary 
War?" 

"  It  had  something  to  do  with  automobiles, 
but  I  did  not  understand  just  what,"  replied 
Gertrude. 

"Oh  no!"  said  the  teacher;  "that  was 
before  the  day  of  automobiles." 

"Well,  it  said  it  was  on  account  of  unjust 
taxis,"  said  Gertrude,  firmly. 


Seeing  New  York 


The  Imitator  Imitated 

BY  HENRY  DODD 

'"THERE'S  a  fellow  with  a  Skirt  whom  he  designates  as  Myrt, 

And  for  her  he  earns  a  living  with  his  jolly,  genial  verse; 
Then  you  mustn't  think  me  silly  if  I,  too,  attempt  it,  Milly, 
For  there's  virtue  in  my  jingles,  if  I  only  make  them  terse. 

To  begin,  my  charming  Girlie,  though  your  tresses  aren't  curly, 

Though  your  eyes  are  not  cerulean  (as  a  fact,  they're  greenish-gray), 

Though  your  hands  are  none  too  small,  though  you're  rather  plump  than  tall, 
None  the  less  you  are  my  Darling  (as  you  may  have  heard  me  say)! 

You're  as  rosy  as  the  roses,  and  your  nose  is  as  the  noses 
Of  the  Muses,  or  a  Goddess's,  whose  name  I  have  forgot; 

Though  there  may  be  other  women,  they  are  quite  out  of  the  swimmin'; 
You  could  give  the  field  a  handicap,  and  win  from  all  the  lot! 

You  could  be  a  good  deal  bigger,  Dear,  and  still  retain  a  Figure,  Dear, 
To  make  the  Milo  Venus  wring,  in  jealousy,  her  hands; 

When  in  anger,  you're  more  fright'ning  than  the  thunder  or  the  lightning; 
When  you're  calm,  your  voice  is  sweeter  than  a  dozen  Sousa's  Bands! 

When  I  have  you  near  me,  Honey,  all  the  world  is  bright  and  sunny, 
And  I  never  heed  the  aspect  of  the  threat'ning  clouds  above; 

Let  me  always  be  the  fella  to  protect,  with  his  umbrella, 

You,  from  dew  and  rain  and  other  forms  of  moisture,  Milly  Love, 

You,  my  Dear,  are  the  causation  of  my  quickened  respiration, 
You're  my  little  Peachy-Weachy,  and  my  Tootsie-Wootsie,  too; 

And  I  view  with  adoration,  reverence,  and  veneration, 
No  one  else  upon  this  planet  but,  except,  and  saving  you. 

This,  then,  is  my  first  pot-boiler  in  laudation  of  my  Broiler, 
And  I  only  hope  the  Public  find  the  meter  to  their  taste; 

If  they  show  appreciation  of  my  efforts  at  laudation, 

They  shall  have  a  dozen  others  furnished  with  unseemly  haste. 


Painting  by  W.J.  Aylward  Illustration  for  "  Steamboating  Through  Dixie" 

TO  THE   LOCAL   POPULATION   THE  ARRIVAL  OF  A  STEAMBOAT   IS  ALWAYS   AN  EVENT 


Harper's  Magazine 


Vol.  CXXXI 


SEPTEMBER,  1915 


No.  DCCLXXXIV 


The  Lane  that  Has  No  Turnin: 


BY  SIMEON  ST  RUN  SKY 


N  the  world  as  known 
to  Baedeker  there  are 
only  two  streets  that 
can  compare  with  Fifth 
Avenue,  and  these  are 
both  on  Manhattan  Is- 
land. From  its  source 
in  the  asphalt  bottoms  of  Washington 
Square  to  where  it  loses  itself  in  the  coal- 
middens  of  the  Harlem  River  at  143d 
Street,  the  Avenue  runs  a  course  of  al- 
most exactly  seven  miles.  It  runs  true 
to  the  North  Star,  without  a  turn,  with 
only  a  single  pause,  grimly  bent  on  its 
business,  in  a  way  calculated  to  make 
the  dowager  metropolises  of  Europe  lift 
their  eyebrows  and  say,  "How  Amer- 
ican!" Its  rivals  are  Eighth  Avenue,  a 
half-mile  to  the  west,  which  may  be 
some  nine  hundred  feet  longer;  and,  still 
farther  west,  Tenth,  or  Amsterdam,  Ave- 
nue, the  titan  of  all  urban  highways, 
nine  miles  up  hill  and  down  as  deter- 
mined in  the  primeval  blue-print  shaped 
by  the  city  fathers  some  time  about 
the  year  1800.  All  three  streets  have 
character  as  well  as  length,  but  Fifth 
Avenue  alone  has  significance. 

I  know  that  this  will  seem  very  crude 
to  the  esthetic  snobs  who  are  always 
deploring  the  checker-board  pattern  of 
Manhattan  Island,  with  avenues  that 
run  up  and  down,  and  streets  that  sprint 
from  river  to  river.  They  call  the  pat- 
tern monotonous  because  they  see  it 
only  on  the  map.  I  have  never  found  it 
depressing  to  stand  at  the  corner  of 
Fifth  Avenue  and  Twenty-third  Street 

Copyright,  1015,  by  Harper  & 


and  look  south  a  mile,  and  north  to  the 
horizon,  and  east  and  west  toward  the 
two  rivers,  myself  the  center  of  a  circle 
with  a  million  people  in  it.  Criticism  of 
our  gridiron  city  is  only  a  way  people 
have  of  echoing  the  English,  who  like 
to  have  their  streets  like  their  education 
bills  and  franchise  laws  —  never  going 
straight  at  anything,  but  full,  of  kinks 
and  knots  and  cul  de  sacs.  I  recall  the 
hero  of  one  recent  English  novel  who 
walks  out  of  a  house  in  low  spirits,  and 
looks  up  and  down  "the  dreary  length 
of  Gower  Street,''  an  interminable  street 
perhaps  ten  blocks  long  by  our  measure- 
ments. I  was  struck  by  Gower  Street 
because  it  was  there  I  used  to  go  some 
years  ago  in  London  just  for  the  purpose 
of  looking  up  and  down,  when  my  eyes 
were  aching  for  as  much  as  a  fifth  of  a 
mile  of  clear  roadway  without  running 
into  a  warehouse  of  the  period  of  George 
II.,  or  a  pile  of  "  mansions,"  or  anything 
but  a  bit  of  the  sky  at  the  end  of  a  street. 
When  the  English  find  themselves  some- 
how or  other  tricked  into  tolerating  a 
road  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long 
they  refuse  to  acknowledge  it,  but  give 
different  names  to  every  other  block, 
calling  it  Oxford  Street  and  High  Hol- 
born,  or  EdgewTare  Road  and  Maida 
Vale;  and  if  they  can  put  a  church  in 
the  middle  of  the  road,  so  much  the 
better.  When  the  English  have  a  street 
twenty  feet  wide  and  five  hundred  feet 
long  they  call  it  Great  Queen  Street, 
and  when  they  have  a  street  that  sug- 
gests Fifth  Avenue  they  make  the  best 

Brothers.    All  Rights  Reserved 


490 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  it  by  calling  it  Park  Lane.  When  the 
English —  But  why  stir  up  ancient 
wrongs  ? 

What  I  meant  to  say  was  that  the 
city  fathers  when  they  endowed  us  with 
our  geometrical  streets  and  avenues 
were  wiser  than  their  modern  critics, 
because  they  built  according  to  their 
material  and  their  needs.  They  had  on 
their  hands  an  island  constructed  by  the 
original  architect  something  on  the 
model  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  They  ac- 
cordingly fitted  the  island  with  a  suit  of 
democratic  clothes,  built  for  use  and 
comfort,  instead  of  cluttering  it  up 
with  periwig  circles  and  diagonal  avenue 
sashes  and  frilled  terraces.  They  recog- 
nized that  the  shortest  way  from  the  tip 
to  the  root  of  this  tongue  of  land  we  call 
Manhattan  was  by  straight  lines.  So 
they  acted  not  only  in  conformity  with 
the  material  at  hand,  but  with  the 
national  spirit,  which  cuts  straight 
across  things.  And  because  they  were 
faithful  to  their  material  and  their  native 
spirit  they  were  better  artists  than  the 
men  who  would  have  us  tack  from  Park 
Row  to  Harlem  because  that's  the  way 
it's  done  in  London  and  Florence. 

Destiny  and  democracy  have  thus 
combined  to  make  Fifth  Avenue  the 
longest  and  straightest  of  the  world's 
great  boulevards.  The  same  forces  have 
made  it  the  most  representative  of  ave- 
nues. That  is  not  the  way  we  usually 
think  of  Fifth  Avenue.  Tradition  still 
describes  it  as  a  show  avenue,  an  avenue 
for  driving  distinguished  visitors  upon, 
an  avenue  to  muck-rake  in  the  sociologi- 
cal novels  and  to  photograph  on  Easter 
Sunday,  an  avenue  to  which  lead  all  the 
roads  from  Pittsburg  and  Cripple 
Creek  and  Butte,  Montana.  Fifth 
Avenue  may  be  that,  but  as  a  simple 
geometrical  fact  it  is  a  great  deal  more. 
That  is  why  I  have  insisted  upon  its  full 
seven  miles.  In  its  entire  length  Fifth 
Avenue  is  not  one  thing,  but  everything 
— a  symbol,  a  compendium,  a  cross- 
section  of  the  national  life.  It  has 
wealth  well  seasoned,  and  wealth  new 
and  flamboyant.  It  has  patrician  houses, 
parvenu  houses,  boarding-houses,  and 
tenements.  It  has  all  the  races:  early 
Knickerbocker  and  late  Italian  close  to- 
gether at  its  source;  Jewish  garment- 
workers  along  its  lower  course;  cos- 


mopolite in  the  hotels  and  shops  farther 
north;  the  old  stock  again  from  Forty- 
second  Street  to  Carnegie  Hill;  a  newer 
Ghetto  from  Ninety-Sixth  to  125  th 
Street;  a  sprinkling  of  the  old  immigra- 
tion for  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  mile; 
once  more  a  mixture  of  the  newer 
crowds;  ending  all  in  the  negro  tene- 
ments near  the  Harlem. 

So  Fifth  Avenue  is  a  study  in  progres- 
sive sociology  with  mansions,  factories, 
shops,  hotels,  shops  again,  mansions 
again,  churches,  libraries,  museums,  va- 
cant lots,  hospitals,  parks,  and  slums. 
Its  range  of  natural  scenery  is  unrivaled. 
It  has  flatlands,  lakes,  and  a  very  re- 
spectable tree-clad  mountain.  It  has 
wild  and  domesticated  animals;  in  cages, 
to  be  sure,  but  still  they  are  there. 
Obviously  a  street  like  that  cannot  be 
called  aristocratic.  It  is  quite  the  other 
thing.  If  it  falls  short  of  the  representa- 
tive democratic  ideal,  it  is  only  in  the 
matter  of  moving-picture  theaters.  I 
expect  not  to  be  believed  when  I  say 
that  for  the  first  five  and  a  quarter  miles 
of  its  course  Fifth  Avenue  is  without  a 
photo-play  theater.  There  is  none  be- 
tween Washington  Square  and  106th 
Street.  In  the  last  mile  and  a  half  the 
deficiency  is  nearly  made  up,  but  not 
quite.  Still,  the  forces  of  progress  are  at 
work  and  presumably  will  not  be  denied. 

Washington  Square  is  in  itself  the  city 
reduced  to  the  microscopic  scale  of  an 
acre  and  a  half.  The  old  New  York  and 
the  new  face  each  other  across  less  than 
a  furlong  of  concrete  and  foliage.  Years 
ago  the  south  front  of  the  square  lost 
caste  and  went  into  the  hands  of  the 
table  d'hote  and  the  Italian  dealer  in 
old  metal.  Except  for  the  obscured 
beauties  of  Victorian  lintel  and  fanlight 
it  was  a  slum.  Of  late  there  has  been 
a  counter  immigration.  Studios  have 
evicted  the  unclean  shops  and  eating- 
houses,  and  the  accumulated  grime  of 
the  years  has  made  way  for  large  north 
lights.  To-day  art  on  Washington 
Square  South  is  prosperous.  At  one  end 
the  long  row  of  studio  dwellings  is 
flanked  by  a  gay  church  in  yellow  brick 
with  a  campanile,  the  juxtaposition  of 
religion  and  art  being  quite  accidental. 
At  the  other  end  Macdougal  Street  sets 
out  to  run  south  through  the  heart  of  the 
down-town  negro  quarter.  The  east  side 


A  PATRICIAN  ATMOSPHERE  STILL  LINGERS  ABOUT  WASHINGTON  SQUARE 


of  the  square  is  dominated  by  the  dull 
gray  mass  of  the  New  York  University 
professional  schools,  and  just  around  the 
corner  there  is  a  celluloid  -  factory;  so 
much  for  learning  and  industry.  Across 
the  square,  on  the  west,  sheltered  behind 
fronts  of  brownstone  lodging-houses,  is 
a  little  of  everything — a  little  of  litera- 
ture and  journalism,  a  bit  of  music  and 
the  theater,  magazine  illustration,  social 
service,  and  something  of  the  I.  W.  W. 
f  or  Washington  Square  West  is  the  fron- 
tier of  the  physical  and  spiritual  region 
that  goes  by  the  name  of  Greenwich 
Village. 

The  people  in  the  studios  on  the  south 
side  of  the  square  have  for  business  pur- 
poses the  large  north  lights.  For  inspi- 
ration they  have  the  mellow  warmth  of 
the  red-brick  homes  of  the  patricians 
filtered  through  the  tender  green  of  the 
trees  in  April.   These  fronts  of  red  brick 


facing  south  have  been  drinking  in  the 
sun  for  generations,  taking  it  into  the 
pores  of  the  clay,  gulping  it  in  through 
the  spacious  windows  which  we  have 
apparently  forgotten  how  to  build.  How 
to  be  placid  and  radiant  at  the  same 
time  is  a  problem  which  the  specialists 
of  the  beauty  columns  in  the  newspapers 
are  continually  pondering.  Washington 
Square  North  has  the  secret.  It  has 
poise  and  it  has  the  joy  of  life.  Presum- 
ably the  secret  lies  in  the  consciousness 
of  an  assured  position.  Onyx  and  mar- 
ble carvings  are  for  the  upstart  apart- 
ment-house of  twelve  stories.  The  low 
facades  on  Washington  Square  North 
have  grace  with  simplicity,  warmth  with 
reserve.  For  sheer  loveliness  there  is 
nothing  in  the  city  to  compare  with  that 
row  of  red-brick  burgher  houses  in 
spring  unless  it  be  the  glimpse  of  Morn- 
ingside   Park   and  Cathedral  Heights 


492 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


from  the  south,  which  one  gets  on  a 
morning  of  sunshine  from  the  curve  of 
the  "L"  at  uoth  Street. 

The  artists  and  radical  folk  of  Wash- 
ington Square  and  its  environs  are  an 
ungrateful  and  an  illogical  tribe;  either 
that  or  they  are  insincere.  When  they  are 
not  painting  or  writing  or  agitating,  they 
know  nothing  better  than  to  belittle  the 
past  whose  beauty  they  are  eager  enough 
to  inherit.  They  inhabit  the  spacious, 
high-ceilinged  rooms  which  earlier  gen- 
erations have  built,  and  say  all  manner 
of  evil  concerning  the  builders.  Was  it 
indeed  a  crabbed  life  that  people  lived 
in  New  York  when  these  houses  of  red 
brick  with  fanlights,  lintels,  noble  win- 
dows and  balconies  were  being  created? 
It  is  a  puzzle.  These  houses  bespeak  in 
everything  a  robust  simplicity,  a  love 
for  plain  outlines,  and  the  primitive 
shades— red,  white,  black.  Suburban 
civilization  to-day  builds  outside  for 
gables  and  dormer  windows,  and  inside 
for  ingle  corners,  heavy  panelings  in  the 
dim  religious  light  of  stained  glass,  low 
ceilings  from  which  depend  massive  raft- 
ers; the  rafters  hang  and  do  not  sup- 
port, and  threaten  to  give  way  and 
precipitate  their  medieval  weight  on  the 
heads  of  people  reading  Walt  W7hitman. 
How,  in  fair  consistency,  can  Walt 
Whitman  be  read  by  the  fitful  murk  of 
an  Oriental  lantern?  What  sense  is 
there  in  demanding  light  and  air  in  our 
social  relations  while  we  banish  them 
from  our  homes?  And  on  the  other 
hand,  how  is  it  conceivable  that  men 
once  upon  a  time  could  have  staggered 
about  in  dim  moralities,  crabbed  beliefs, 
and  atrophied  sympathies,  and  yet  build 
cheery  houses  of  red  brick  with  great 
windows?    It  is  a  puzzle. 

The  impress  of  Washington  Square  is 
upon  Fifth  Avenue  for  nearly,  but  not 
quite,  the  first  half-mile;  say  as  far  as 
Thirteenth  Street,  where  the  Georgian 
red  brick  gives  way  suddenly  to  granite 
and  grime.  Scarcely  two  minutes'  walk 
north  of  the  square  is  the  loveliest  house 
on  the  Avenue- — red  brick,  of  course,  but 
the  glow  of  the  sun-warmed  clay  radiant 
through  a  veiling  of  naked  vine  as  I 
recall  it  in  early  spring.  The  note  of  the 
Avenue  is  struck  at  the  very  beginning, 
a  note  of  gaiety  four  miles  long,  main- 
tained through  miles  of  shops  and  hotels 


and  tremendously  expensive  homes,  ex- 
cept for  a  hideous  interval  of  smudgy 
commerce  that  runs  from  Fourteenth 
Street  to  Madison  Square.  It  is  a  state- 
ly gaiety  sounding  the  decorous  measure 
of  the  minuet.  The  patricians  are  nearly 
all  gone  from  the  red-brick  dwellings  on 
lower  Fifth  Avenue,  but  they  have  left 
their  impress  on  the  furnished-room 
houses.  Down  the  side-streets,  east  and 
west,  the  note  of  placid  ease  is  continued 
in  red  brick  and  wrought-iron  balconies, 
boarding-houses  nearly  all,  but  it  will  be 
some  years  before  their  present  occupa- 
tion molds  the  outer  face  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. Before  that  note  is  quite  gone 
we  shall  be  compelled  to  tear  down  the 
miniature  cathedral  at  Eleventh  Street 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  First  Presby- 
terian Church,  and  erect  in  its  place  a 
twelve-story  "loft"  in  shiny  stucco  which 
will  be  a  murky  horror. 

At  Thirteenth  Street  old  Fifth  Avenue 
disappears  so  abruptly  as  to  hurt.  The 
sky-line  on  either  side  heaves  up  from 
three  stories  to  ten  or  more.  The  pre- 
vailing colors  are  grime  and  gold,  the 
dirty  gray  of  limestone,  granite,  and 
stucco,  and  the  gold  of  ready-made- 
clothing  signs  flaunted  across  fifty  feet 
of  front.  This  is  the  Fifth  Avenue  of  the 
"loft"  factories,  brought  here  in  spite  of 
enormous  rents,  by  the  magic  of  the 
name  upon  department-store  proprietors 
in  Houston,  Texas.  The  city  has  risen 
in  protest  against  the  menace  to  Fifth 
Avenue.  In  the  name  of  desecrated 
beauty,  do  you  imagine?  In  the  name 
of  imperiled  ground  rents.  For  it  would 
seem  that  there  is  a  law  of  nature  which 
so  operates  that  when  a  commercial 
building  reaches  a  certain  height  the  loss 
of  rent  income  from  the  stores  on  the 
ground-floor  exceeds  the  gain  from  all 
the  "lofts'-'  above  the  line  where  the 
law  begins  to  apply,  some  eighty  feet 
above  the  curb.  The  result  is  a  strong 
stirring  of  civic  conscience  among  the 
real-estate  organizations,  which  proceed 
to  organize  banquets  in  behalf  of  the 
City  Beautiful.  Fifth  Avenue  is  now  by 
way  of  being  saved  for  the  shoppers  from 
the  noon-hour  crowd  of  alien  factory 
operatives.  And  yet  the  mere  fact  that 
such  a  crusade  should  be  needed  shows 
how  absurd  it  is  to  think  of  Fifth  Avenue 
as  a  preserve  of  the  wealthy.    Noon  of 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAS  NO  TURNING 


493 


a  warm  day  finds  Fifth  Avenue  between 
Fourteenth  Street  and  Twenty-third 
filled  with  larger,  more  vehement,  more 
eloquent,  gesticulating  crowds  than  the 
Agora  at  Athens  or  the  Forum  ever  saw 
except  on  special  occasions. 

At  Madison  Square  the  Avenue 
plunges  into  a  final  orgy  of  sky-scraping. 
The  place  reeks  with  white-marble  pal- 
aces, battlements,  pinnacles,  and  bar- 
racks. Diana  of  the  Garden  on  her  gold- 
en globe  defends  her  ancient  primacy 
against  the  enormous  hulk  of  the  Flat- 
iron  sweeping  north  like  the  prow  of  a 
superhyperdreadnought  to  which  a  con- 
siderate tobacco  company  has  added  the 
semblance  of  a  battering-ram  in  the 
shape  of  an  extension  show-window; 
against  the  glistening  shaft  of  the  Metro- 
politan;    against    sixteen-story  Baby- 


lonian temples  devoted  to  cloaks  and 
suits.  Diana  on  her  tower  has  vanished 
from  the  novels  of  New  York  life.  Young 
men  from  the  country,  who  come  up  for 
the  conquest  of  New  York  and  formu- 
late their  siege  plan  on  the  benches  in 
Madison  Square,  sno  longer  look  up  at 
Diana  and  say  A  nous  as  they  used  to 
do  a  few  years  ago.  That  is,  they  no  long- 
er do  so  in  the  novels,  because  the  novel- 
ists assume  that  no  modern  hero  would 
look  at  Diana  when  there  is  a  tower  near 
by  higher  by  several  hundred  feet.  In 
real  life  I  imagine  the  watchers  on  the 
benches,  especially  if  they  watch  through 
the  night,  still  find  in  Diana  a  peace 
which  neither  the  Flatiron  nor  the  Met- 
ropolitan can  give  them. 

From  this  monstrous  spree  of  stone 
and  brick  the  Avenue  emerges  like  a 


FIFTH  AVENUE    BELOW  FOURTEENTH  STREET 


494 


HARPER'S    MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


seasoned  rounder  from  his  morning's  ladies,  one  of  whom  holds  an  open  para- 
cold  shower,  brisk  and  gay  enough,  but  sol.  Ladies  who  drive  up  Fifth  Avenue 
with  a  temporary  gratification  in  the  in  open  carriages  to-day  always  wear 
simpler  life.  From  Madison  Square  to  black,  as  if  in  mourning  for  an  extinct 
the  Waldorf  is  the  region  of  the  older  state  of  civilization, 
shops,  not  department  stores,  presided  Two  or  three  minutes  north  of  Madi- 
over  not  by  captains  of  industry,  but  by  son  Square  the  pavement  of  the  Avenue 
"tradesmen."  The  roof-line  comes  down    grows  thick  with  traffic.    From  the  top 

of  a  motor-'bus  at  this  point 
the  traveler  looking  north 
has  before  him  a  sight  of 
which  I  do  not  know  the  like. 
An  inky  torrent  one  hun- 
dred feet  wide  pours  down 
the  slope  of  Murray  Hill, 
to  break  at  the  foot  of  the 
Waldorf-Astoria.  A  flood 
of  blackened  lava  fills  the 
street  from  curb  to  curb  so 
that  the  very  surface  of 
the  Avenue  seems  to  heave 
and  swell.  It  is  the  sixfold 
stream  of  motor-cars  and 
cabs,  creeping  in  two 
directions,  but  from  a  dis- 
tance melting  into  one  vast 
undulatory  movement.  At 
the  behest  of  an  invisible 
policeman  the  flood  slack- 
ens, stops,  and  surges  for- 
ward again,  carrying  every- 
thing before  it,  one 
imagines.  Tossing  on  the 
surface  of  the  stream, 
swaying  from  side  to  side, 
the  green  motor -'buses 
breast  the  current,  mount 
the  hill,  and  drop  over  the 
crest  of  Fortieth  Street 
out  of  sight. 

From  the  top  of  the  green 
omnibuses  I  have  looked 
down,  I  suppose,  on  some 
of  the  very  best  people  in  town  without 
their  knowing  it  or  my  knowing  it.  The 
'bus  is  no  longer  a  novelty  in  New  York, 
but  it  is  still  an  experience.  People,  for 
example,  do  not  read  newspapers  on  the 
top  of  an  omnibus,  and  men  passengers 
have  a  habit  of  taking  off  their  hats  for 
the  air  which  suggests  self-improvement 
rather  than  rapid  transit.  The  'bus 
must  be  good  for  one's  health,  but  it 
works  for  self-consciousness.  People 
visibly  begin  to  brace  themselves  for 
the  descent  of  the  spiral  staircase  several 
blocks  before  their  destination,  and  that 


AT  THIRTY-FOURTH  STREET  THE  TRAFFIC  THICKENS 


to  an  easy  height,  and  the  sky  follows. 
The  windows  are  smart.  There  are 
apoplectic  limousines  in  front  of  the 
book-shops,  the  neckwear-shops,  the 
milliners',  the  boot-makers',  and  the  sil- 
ver-candlestick makers'.  The  limousines 
do  not  have  it  quite  their  own  way.  The 
past  drives  by  in  a  victoria  with  plum- 
colored  upholstery.  Away  from  Fifth 
Avenue  this  form  of  vehicle  is  encoun- 
tered only  in  the  quaint  advertising  cuts 
of  great  factory  buildings  facing  on 
streets  traversed  by  bob-tailed  cars  with 
prancing  horses,  and  victorias  with  two 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAS  NO  TURNING 


495 


can  hardly  be  good  for  the  nerves.  But 
my  chief  objection  to  the  motor-'bus  is 
on  moral  grounds.  I  don't  know  how  it 
is  with  others,  but  in  my  own  case  I 
find  that  the  secure  possession  of  a  rail- 
ing seat  on  top  of  the  'bus  is  conducive 
to  a  cold  superciliousness.  I  look  down 
on  the  crowds  of  waiting  shoppers  at 
the  curb  and  I  feel  that 
the  best  they  can  hope 
for  is  an  inside  seat  on  a 
plane  quite  below  my  own. 
They  wait  patiently  at  the 
curb  as  the  heavy  cars  lum- 
ber past.  They  signal  hope- 
fully, and  make  their  way 
out  into  the  torrent  of  traffic, 
only  to  be  waved  back  by 
the  conductor.  The  sense 
of  security,  the  warm  glow 
that  arises  from  a  vested 
interest,  possesses  me.  Some- 
times I  am  sorry  for  the  dis- 
appointed shoppers  that  line 
the  sidewalks  in  my  wake, 
but  there  is  always  a  touch 
of  malice.  At  such  moments 
I  can  understand  Nero  look- 
ing down  from  his  imperial 
tribune  in  the  amphitheater. 

The  black  tide  of  the  Av- 
enue runs  on  between  banks 
of  white.    The  cheerful  note 
struck  at  the  outlet  of  Madi- 
son Square  by  shops  in  white 
paint  and  cream,  interrupted 
for  a  moment  by  the  red  mass 
of  the  Waldorf,  is  resumed 
in  the  white  and  cream  of  the 
great  stores,  in  the  gleaming 
walls  and  terraces  of  the  Pub- 
lic  Library,  and  continues 
white,  with  occasional  out- 
croppings    of    the  Early 
Brownstone  and  the  Later  Red  Brick,  to 
the  end.    The  color  key  anticipated  by 
the  whitewashed   Brevoort   at  Eighth 
Street    and    definitely   struck    by  the 
Metropolitan  tower  is  thereupon  main- 
tained for  a  distance  of  four  miles.  But 
if  the  color-scheme  is  uniform,  the  forms 
are  infinite.    As  a  rule  our  public  and 
commercial   architecture   runs   to  two 
types,  the  architecture  that  soars  and 
the  architecture  that  squats.  Gothic 
and  Greek,  tower  and  temple,  all  or 


machines  and  insurance,  and  three  stories 
for  banks  and  fine  arts.  Fifth  Avenue 
has  the  two  extremes  in  the  Metro- 
politan tower  and  the  spires  of  St. 
Patrick,  and  in  the  recumbent  acres  of 
the  Public  Library  and  the  Metropolitan 
Museum.  But  it  has  also  the  interme- 
diate types  dictated  by  utility — the  solid 


APPROACHING  THE  PUBLIC  LIB- 
RARY AND  FORTY-SECOND  STREET 


masses  of  great  palatial  stores  of  wide 
renown,  the  Genoese  palace  that  goes 
by  the  name  of  University  Club,  and  the 
complete  merging  of  the  two  ideals — 
or  rather,  of  all  ideals — in  the  vast  bulk 
of  the  Plaza,  which  is  Gothic  in  height, 
Babylonian  in  depth,  Greek  in  color,  and 
therefore  typically  American. 

The  outcome  of  the  struggle  between 
trade  and  residence  for  the  possession  of 
Fifth  Avenue  below  Central  Park  has 
not  been  in  doubt  for  some  years.  Trade 


nothing,  forty-five  stories  for  sewing-     has  won,  but  the  last  shots  have  not 


496 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


been  fired.  The  art  dealers,  the  real- 
estate  men,  and  the  milliners  have 
reached  the  Park.  A  few  families  that 
are  old  enough  and  rich  enough  to  touch 
commerce  without  being  defiled  are  bar- 
ricaded for  a  last  stand.  But  what 
chance  have  such  snipers,  even  if  it  is 
for  the  defense  of  hearth  and  home?  The 
artillery  of  heavy  rents  will  be  trained 
against  their  walls  and  the  shopping 
crowds  in  solid  formation  will  advance 
to  the  assault.  The  old  residences  will 
go,  and  after  rhem  the  clubs.  The  hotels 
will  probably  hold  out  for  years  to  come. 
Longest  of  all  will  stand  the  churches — 
for  several  generations,  perhaps. 

In  the  evolution  of  New  York's  thor- 
oughfares it  is  the  churches  that  remain 
as  monuments  of  the  continuous  strug- 
gle for  survival,  whether  it  is  a  struggle 
between  residential  district  and  business 
district,  or  between  the  private  mansion 
and  the  apartment-house,  or  between 
different  populations.  The  physiog- 
nomy of  neighborhoods  changes,  but  the 
churches  remain  in  good  number,  im- 
bedded in  different  strata — in  shops, 
clubs,  apartment-houses,  tenements — 
for  the  social  geologist  to  use  as  material 
in  reconstruction  of  the  past.    The  his- 


tory of  Fifth  Avenue  as  far  north  as 
Central  Park  must  be  largely  written 
on  the  basis  of  such  documents  in  brick 
and  stone  as  the  First  Presbyterian  at 
Eleventh  Street,  the  Marble  Collegiate 
at  Twenty-ninth  Street,  the  Brick  Pres- 
byterian with  its  absurd  sugar-loaf  stee- 
ple of  pinkish  stone  all  covered  with 
carbuncles  at  Thirty-seventh  Street. 
Old  families  go  and  leave  their  churches 
behind  them  as  filaments  with  the  past, 
as  memorials,  or  as  missions  for  the 
encroaching  heathen.  More  than  that, 
they  build  churches  in  neighborhoods 
that  are  manifestly  doomed  to  trade  or 
cheap  residence.  The  faith  of  the  medi- 
eval cathedral  builders  who  wrought  for 
eternity  is  reflected  in  the  faith  that  has 
just  erected  Dr.  Parkhurst's  church  in 
the  heart  of  the  garment  trade,  or  St. 
Thomas's,  that  striking  example  of  a 
church  that  set  out  to  be  a  cathedral 
and  lost  heart  before  its  spires  were  done, 
in  a  region  of  shops. 

The  churches  on  Fifth  Avenue  confirm 
its  representative  character  as  the  show- 
window  of  the  city,  a  window  that  ex- 
hibits the  entire  life  of  the  city — factories, 
shops,  offices,  hotels,  clubs,  its  luxuries 
and  simplicities — yes,  even  the  longing 


CENTRAL  PARK — WHERE  THE  FIFTH  AVENUE  OF  TRADITION  BEGINS 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAS  NO  TURNING 


497 


for  the  primitive  finds  expression  on 
Fifth  Avenue  in  the  white-front  tea- 
rooms with  chintz  curtains  and  home- 
made pastry,  quite  like  the  simple  joys 
of  rural  life  the  court  of  Versailles  used 
to  delight  in.  In  this  national  show- 
window,  religion  is  strongly  on  exhibi- 
tion, though  the  furnaces  and  ware- 
houses of  the  faith,  speaking 
in  all  reverence,  may  be  situ- 
ated far  from  Fifth  Avenue. 
The  great  population  mass 
of  whose  creed  St.  Patrick's 
is  the  most  notable  symbol 
in  stone,  for  example,  lies 
fairly  remote,  east  of  Third 
Avenue  and  west  of  Eighth 
Avenue.  The  great  bulk  of 
the  Jewish  population  lies 
five  miles  to  the  south  and 
two  miles  to  the  north  from 
the  green-and-gold  dome  of 
the  Beth-el  Temple.  But  St. 
Patrick's  and  Beth-el  are 
testimony  to  the  important 
place  that  the  faiths  which 
they  symbolize  have  won  in 
the  sun.  Even  religion  does 
not  disdain  the  cachet  of  Fifth 
Avenue. 

For  a   mile   and    a  half 
north  of  Fifty-ninth  Street 
stretches  the  Fifth  Avenue 
of  tradition.     It  is  Million- 
aire's Row,  looking  out  on 
the  green  of  Central  Park 
and  its  great  simplicities — 
the  lake  where  children  ride 
in  swan-boats,  the  menag- 
erie, the  asphalt  paths  cov- 
ered with  a  heavy  traffic  of 
baby-carts  and  children  on 
donkey-back,  the  pond  where 
other  children  sail  their  miniature  craft. 
The  Park,  I  imagine,  has  sensibly  affected 
the  architecture  of  the  homes  across  the 
way.    Their  prevalent  white  and  cream 
blends  with  the  green  of  the  foliage. 
The  street  is  gay,  for  the  most  part  in 
a  lordly  way,  with  fine  windows  framed 
in  rich  lace  carving,  but  now  and  then 
positively  coquettish  in  pink  and  white 
and  gold.   Of  the  pain  and  pleasure  that 
architects  experience  when  they  walk 
up  Fifth  Avenue  I  can  say  little.  Except 
for  a  survival  here  and  there  of  the 
Early  Brownstone  period,  and  one  or 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.— G2 


two  examples  of  the  Late  Grotesque, 
the  street  pleases  me.  Connoisseurs,  I 
suppose,  deplore  its  lack  of  uniformity. 
The  roof-line  is  jagged  compared  with 
the  Avenue  de  Bois  de  Boulogne,  and  the 
facades  do  not  melt  into  one  another. 
But  here  is  the  difficulty  in  all  our  striv- 
ing for  higher  things  in  art  in  this  coun- 


THE  SPIRES  OF  ST.  PATRICK  S  LIFT 
ABOVE  A  VAST  AND    MOVING  THRONG 


try.  If  the  Pittsburg  rich  give  their 
architects  a  free  hand,  we  accuse  them 
of  buying  their  esthetic  ideals  wholesale. 
When  they  build  according  to  their  own 
ideas  we  call  them  barbarians.  On  the 
one  hand  we  expect  them  to  express 
their  own  personality,  and  on  the  other 
we  expect  them  to  express  themselves 
beautifully.  If  here  or  there  on  Fifth 
Avenue  one  discerns  under  a  single  roof 
specimens  of  the  Assyrian,  the  French 
Renaissance,  and  the  California  Mission, 
the  thing  has  its  significance.  Why  not 
give  the  architect  of  this  amazing  mess 


498 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  credit  for  doing  what  Sargent  does — - 
reveal  the  soul  of  the  inhabitant  through 
its  tenement  of  granite,  marble,  and 
green  slate? 

At  any  rate,  the  way  to  perfect  beauty 
on  the  Avenue  is  not  through  flat,  long, 
low  Roman  structures  in  marble.  I 
don't  know  how  Mr.  Prick's  new  Roman 


basilica  on  the  site  of  the  old  Lenox 
Library  measures  up  as  an  example  of 
absolute  architecture.  I  do  not  find  it 
beautiful  in  itself,  and  it  is  absurd  as  a 
human  habitation.  After  all,  Alcibiades 
did  not  have  lodgings  in  the  Parthenon, 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  any  one 
man,  no  matter  how  wealthy,  should 
make  his  home  in  a  structure  obviously 
intended  for  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court.  I  understand,  of  course,  that  the 
dwellings  of  the  very  rich  are  virtually 
restricted  nowadays  to  a  picture-gallery, 
a  museum,  and  a  swimming-tank,  but 
it  must  be  somebody's  fault  if  with  that 
there  cannot  be  incorporated  some  sug- 


gestion at  least  of  a  home.  Otherwise 
I  submit  that  there  is  danger  of  the 
megaphone  men  on  the  sight-seeing 
wagons  pointing  out  the  Frick  mansion 
as  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  and 
the  Art  Museum  as  the  Frick  mansion. 
Not  that  it  would  make  any  appreciable 
difference  to  the  sight-seers,  but  a  dan- 
gerous architectural  tradi- 
tion might  be  perpetuated 
in  Kansas.  After  all,  the 
problem  of  combining  the 
museum  and  the  hearth  has 
been  solved  in  Europe  by 
the  simple  method  of  build- 
ing a  residence  and  then 
transforming  it  through  the 
accumulation  of  years  into 
a  museum,  and  not  the 
other  way  around. 

Just  a  mile  separates  Mr. 
Frick's  Roman  basilica  at 
Seventieth  Street  from  the 
fine  ducal  palace  erected 
some  years  ago  by  his  for- 
mer partner,  Mr.  Carnegie, 
at  Ninetieth  Street.  Not 
content  with  the  splendid 
front  yard  of  eight  hundred 
acres  supplied  free  of  cost 
by  the  city,  both  men  have 
built  themselves  gardens  of 
their  own.  Mr.  Frick's  lawn 
with  its  low  marble  balus- 
trade is  intended  as  a  fore- 
ground. Mr.  Carnegie's 
finished  garden  with  its  high 
iron  fence  aims  at  privacy. 
Lawn  seed  and  flower-beds 
must  come  high  on  the 
Avenue,  but  I  presume  it 
was  the  desire  to  fix  permanently  the 
residential  character  of  the  vicinage  that 
prompted  what  would  be  elsewhere  on 
the  Avenue  regarded  as  waste  of  space. 
Gardens  on  Fifth  Avenue  create  a  real- 
estate  proposition  before  which  the  most 
ambitious  milliner  or  jewelry-shop  will 
hesitate  for  many  years  to  come. 

Business  may  be  some  time  in  forcing 
an  entrance  into  Millionaires'  Row,  but 
one  form  of  change  is  already  at  work  to 
show  that  time  will  have  its  way  with 
the  proudest  of  residential  neighbor- 
hoods. Exactly  half-way  between  Mr. 
Frick  and  Mr.  Carnegie  stands  the  only 
apartment-house  on  Fifth  Avenue,  at 


THE  LANE  THAT  HAS  NO  TURNING 


499 


Eighty-first  Street.  It  faces  the  cen- 
tral pavilion  of  the  Metropolitan 
Museum,  thus  presenting  our  favorite 
architectural  combination  of  several 
hundred  feet  of  masonry  shooting 
up  in  the  air  right  next  door  to  sev- 
eral hundred  feet  of  granite  trailing 
close  to  the  soil.  If  you  laid  this 
apartment-house  on  its  side  and  stood 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  on  one 
end,  the  harmony  would  be  precisely 
the  same.  Blank  and  ugly  from  the 
outside,  I  understand  that  within 
this  structure,  which  the  building 
laws  of  New  York  City  describe  as  a 
tenement-house,  there  are  ceilings 
from  Venice,  and  oak  paneling  from 
the  English  counties,  and  suites  of 
enormous  numbers  of  rooms  exactly 
described  in  the  Sunday  supplements. 
It  is  the  entering  wedge,  the  first 
point  of  infection.  Other  apart- 
ment-houses are  in  planning  for  Eifth 
Avenue.  Five  years  from  now  will 
see  cream  and  marble  residences 
scrapped  for  twelve  stories  in  blank 
terra-cotta,  and  Fifth  Avenue's  history 
will  have  to  be  written  anew. 

At  Carnegie  Hill  is  the  climax.  Three 
or  four  blocks  beyond  the  hill  the  scat- 
tered pioneers  of  the  northward  migra- 
tion of  the  rich  rear  their  lonely  roofs 
over  vacant  lots.  Then  comes  an  area 
of  dreary  board  fences.  On  its  own  side 
of  the  Avenue  the  Park  keeps  bravely 
on.  It  can  wait.  But  glancing  east 
down  the  side-streets  of  the  Avenue 
itself  there  is  nothing.  The  view  is  of  a 
hinterland  of  tenements,  and  instead  of 
clean  stretches  of  asphalt  to  Park  Ave- 
nue, the  pavement  is  alive  with  children. 
At  iooth  Street  the  Mount  Sinai  Hos- 
pital would  seem  to  mark  the  ultimate 
limit  of  millionaire  expansion.  Beyond 
are  more  advertising  fences.  We  must 
be  content  with  the  greenhouses  in 
Central  Park,  the  lovely  rise  of  land  to 
the  Reservoir,  and  the  waters  of  Harlem 
Mere,  until  we  reach,  once  more  on  the 
east  side  of  the  Avenue,  the  first  definite 
sign  of  a  new  civilization,  the  moving- 


IN  THE  HEART  OF  THE  HARLEM  GHETTO 


picture  theater  of  which  I  spoke  at  the 
beginning. 

Four  blocks  more  and  Central  Park 
says  farewell  to  Fifth  Avenue  and  turns 
west.  So  do  the  green  motor-'buses. 
But  the  Avenue  itself,  five  and  a  quarter 
miles  from  its  source,  has  still  some  life 
in  it.  Without  turning  a  hair,  it  runs  on, 
looking  to  neither  right  nor  left,  through 
the  heart  of  the  great  Harlem  Ghetto, 
until  at  Mount  Morris  Park  it  runs  its 
head  slap  into  a  castellated  hillock  that 
would  be  a  very  respectable  height  on 
the  Rhine,  the  loftiest  point  in  central 
Manhattan.  At  124th  Street  the  little 
park  stops  and  the  Avenue  has  recovered 
itself.  For  a  quarter-mile  or  so  it  passes 
through  the  brownstone  of  the  half-way- 
up  middle  classes,  now  giving  way  before 
the  boarding-houses.  Then  comes  half 
a  mile  of  dingy  tenements,  with  little  of 
the  lights  and  crowd  and  babel  of  the 
Ghetto  below  Mount  Morris  Park.  And 
then,  as  Mr.  Kipling  might  say,  the 
Harlem  River  takes  it. 


Lost  and  Found 


BY  ELIZABETH  ROBINS 


HE  Hon.  Mrs.  David 
McAlpin  watched  her 
on  that  raw  spring 
morning — a  trim,  com- 
petent figure  in  the 
blue  cotton  gown  and 
all  -  enveloping  white 
apron,  moving  about  the  bed  of  a  bron- 
chial-pneumonia patient  brought  in  a 
few  days  before.  Mrs.  McAlpin  glanced 
with  less  satisfaction  at  the  small  helmet- 
like linen  cap  above  the  glimpse  of 
banded  brown  hair.  Yet  the  costume 
had  been  of  Mrs.  McAlpin's  own  choos- 
ing. "No  reason  that  I  can  see,"  she 
had  said,  with  the  liberality  of  the 
woman  who  has  herself  some  claim  to 
good  looks — "no  reason  why  foundlings 
should  be  turned  into  frights. "  But  that 
was  thirty  years  ago.  There  were  wild 
forces  abroad  in  the  world  to-day  that 
made  any  hint  of  even  an  archaic, 
Minervan  militancy  in  one  of  the  "Mary 
Eleanor"  girls  repugnant  to  their  pa- 
tron. Under  the  little  white  helmet  this 
particular  face — though  the  first  thing 
you  noticed  about  it  was  the  babyish 
"dent"  in  the  chin — could  wear  a  look 
undeniably  disquieting.  Not  to-day. 
The  laughing  eyes,  very  grave.  The 
mouth,  distractingly  "nicked  out"  at 
the  corners  (a  mouth  that  fell  too  easily 
from  firmness  to  mutiny)  was  gentle 
enough  this  morning,  though  slightly 
wrested  from  its  purity  of  outline  by  an 
outward  thrust  of  the  under  lip — a  mark 
with  Ruth  of  absorption  in  some  busi- 
ness to  her  mind. 

Ruth  was  always  a  better  girl  at  times 
like  this.  According  to  the  matron, 
when  nobody  was  seriously  ill,  when 
there  was  only  routine  work  to  do,  Ruth 
was  now  and  then  a  problem.  Absent- 
minded,  restive  under  reproof,  of  late 
downiight  disobedient.  She  was — yes, 
no  use  blinking  the  fact — Ruth  was 
growing  up  a  rather  moody  young 
woman,  except,  as  Matron  Gillies  said, 
when  there  was  a  case  in  the  infirmary 


serious  enough  to  bring  into  the  girl's 
face  that  look  it  wore  to-day,  not  gravely 
happy,  merely,  but  lit  with  a  kind  of  pro- 
tecting valiancy.  Never  at  such  times 
would  the  thought  occur  to  any  one  that 
Ruth  herself  was  a  friendless,  nameless 
foundling,  dependent  on  chance  kind- 
ness. Rather,  you  saw  in  her  one  called 
to  succor  others,  a  soldier  spirit  looking 
out  of  steady  eyes;  if  you  please,  a  sort 
of  Jeanne  d'Are  of  the  sick-room — in 
shining  armor  of  all-enveloping  white 
apron  and  helmet  cap. 

Oh  yes,  undeniably  a  fine  specimen — 
worth  taking  some  trouble  about.  And 
to  take  trouble  about  Ruth  was  precisely 
what  had  brought  Mrs.  McAlpin  to  the 
Home  that  day.  Fully  a  fortnight  ago 
she  had  been  asked  by  the  matron  to 
speak  to  Ruth.  Now,  personal  remon- 
strance from  Mrs.  McAlpin  was  ac- 
counted a  drastic  measure,  and  seldom 
called  for.  What  form  should  it  take, 
that  lady  asked  herself  as  she  moved 
about,  saying  a  word  to  another  patient 
while  keeping  a  speculative  eye  on  Ruth. 
A  moment  like  this  was  often  the  turn- 
ing-point in  a  girl's  life.  Yet  Mrs. 
McAlpin  found  her  concern  about  the 
girl  merging  in  the  wish  that  the  lumping 
nieces  who  had  to  be  asked  to  her  hus- 
band's shooting-parties,  and  the  kins- 
women she  from  time  to  time  felt  called 
on  to  present  at  court  —  would  that 
those  well-born  damsels  bore  themselves 
like  Ruth  Aberdeen! 

Another  nurse,  followed  hurriedly  by 
the  matron,  came  in  to  relieve  Ruth. 
Matron  Gillies,  a  comfortable,  sonsy 
spinster  with  a  square  figure  and  winter- 
apple  cheeks,  was  a  little  breathless  this 
morning.  She  cut  short  her  greeting  to 
inquire  deferentially  whether  Mrs.  Mc- 
Alpin had  said  anything  to  Ruth. 

"Only  about  the  pneumonia  case." 

"Oh,  the  pneumonia  case  is  going  on 
all  right!" 

"I  guessed  that  much — from  Ruth's 
face." 


LOST  AND  FOUND 


501 


"  Ruth's  face.  Yes,  there's  another 
reason  for  that!"  With  an  air  of  cheerful 
mystery  Miss  Gillies  led  the  way  into 
her  private  room.  A  place  of  bald  util- 
ity, with  horsehair  chairs  ranged  against 
the  wall,  a  baize-covered  table  in  the 
middle  with  an  ink-pot,  pens,  and  blot- 
ter, a  telephone  near  the  window,  and 
on  the  hearth  a  gas  fire. 

Miss  Gillies  drew  up  a  chair  to  the 
table,  and  Mrs.  McAlpin  sat  down  in  it. 
Invariably  in  these  interviews  Miss 
Gillies  stood.  She  began  by  saying  it 
was  curious  that  after  bearing  with 
Ruth's  moods  for  over  a  year,  and  at  last 
bringing  herself  to  recommend  that  the 
girl  should  be  spoken  to,  she  had  come 
to  feel  it  wasn't  necessary  just  now. 

" Excellent!"  Mrs.  McAlpin  made  a 
motion  to  rise. 

But  Miss  Gillies  put  out  an  arresting 
hand.  "At  least  not  about  that"  she 
said.  "Just  after  you  were  here  last 
she  was  rather  worse,  if  anything.  Went 
about  in  one  of  her  hard,  dumb  moods. 
Eyes  that  didn't  see  you,  but  always 
looking  for  something.  And  when  she 
was  forced  to  speak,  bitter-tongued. 
The  servants  complained.  I  sent  for  her 
one  night  and  spoke  to  her  alone.  Oh! 
she  was  hard  enough.  Defiant.  I  told 
her  I  had  been  obliged  to  tell  you. 
Quite  suddenly  she  put  her  two  hands 
up  over  her  face  like  this.  And  when 
she  took  them  away  her  face  was  wet." 

"Ruth?  I  haven't  seen  Ruth  cry 
since  she  was  six." 

"Not  the  weepy  sort,  anyway.  It 
astonished  me  to  see  her  cry.  But  it 
astonished  me  more  when  she  came  out 
with:  'Oh,  if  I  had  anybody  to  help 
me!'  I  told  her  I  was  ashamed  of  her 
saying  that.  Weren't  we  all — hadn't  we 
been  helping  her  for  years?  Not  about 
what  she  cares  most  for,  she  said." 

"Well,  what  is  it  she  cares  most  for?" 
demanded  Mrs.  McAlpin,  with  scant 
show  of  sympathy.  "To  marry  one  of 
the  young  tradesmen — or — ?" 

"No,  no;  it  isn't  anything  like  that — " 

In  the  pause  memories  rose  up  of 
Mary  Eleanor  orphans  who  would  make 
good  kitchen  maids  yearning  to  learn 
millinery,  to  go  on  the  stage,  to  go  to 
America.  .  .  . 

" She  wants  us,"  said  Miss  Gillies,  ki'to 
help  her  to  find  her  people.'  " 


"Her  people?  Surely  she's  intelligent 
enough  to  know  that's  the  last  thing — " 

"First  or  last,  she  thinks  of  nothing 
else. 

Mrs.  McAlpin's  hands  went  up  under 
her  sables.  She  drew  the  long  gray  coat 
together  at  the  throat — the  action  of  one 
who  has  finished  her  business  for  that 
day.  But  the  matron  still  stood  there 
with  an  expression  her  employer  had 
never  seen  in  the  ruddy  face  before. 

"I've  wondered,"  she  began,  "if, 
after  all,  you  wouldn't  see  Ruth." 

"But  you  say  there's  no  need  now — 
she's  behaving  well." 

"I  think  that's  because  I  told  her  I — 
I'd  ask  you — if  you  could  suggest  any- 
thing." 

"Certainly  I  can't  suggest  anything." 
And  still  Miss  Gillies  stood  there.  "Oh, 
very  well — if  she  needs  to  be  convinced 
— send  her  here." 

Mrs.  McAlpin  sat  down  and  unbut- 
toned her  coat.  She  turned  her  watch 
on  her  wrist — the  half-instinctive  action 
of  the  sort  of  optimist  who  feels  that 
somewhere  in  the  world  there  is  enough 
of  everything  except  time,  and  grudges 
ten  minutes  wasted  in  pursuit  of  any- 
body's chimera.  The  door  opened  and 
shut  softly.   Ruth  Aberdeen  stood  there. 

Deliberately  Mrs.  McAlpin  stretched 
the  girl  on  the  rack  of  several  moments' 
silence.  Then:  "You  have  been  asking 
the  matron,  I  hear,  to  help  you  in  a  quite 
useless  quest."  The  cleft  chin  dropped 
on  the  shining  collar.  The  girl  looked 
down  at  her  locked  fingers.  The  knuc- 
kles showed  white.  "You  know  the 
story  of  the  woman  who  brought  you 
here.  That  you  were  left  with  her,  a 
baby  of  six  months — " 

"That  isn't  true." 

"Since  you  can't  be  sure  what  hap- 
pened afterward,  how  can  you  know 
what  happened  when  you  were  six 
months  old?" 

There  seemed  to  be  no  answer  to  that. 

"Your  mother  had  walked  with  you 
in  her  arms  from  Aberdeen.  She  was 
taken  in  penniless,  apparently  dying, 
nursed  till  she  was  better,  and  then  dis- 
appeared." 

"I  don't  believe  that  story!"  said  the 
girl,  defiantlv. 

"Oh,  I  dare  say—"  but  Mrs.  McAlpin 
had  never  heard  just  that  accent  before, 


502 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


accustomed  as  she  was  to  the  imaginary 
stories  with  which  the  nameless  will 
sometimes  fill  out  the  unendurable  blank 
of  the  past.  She  knew  the  enervating 
effect  of  these  baseless  hopes  that  clog 
the  feet  of  action.  "My  child,  you  are 
young.  You  probably  have  some  ro- 
mantic notion  about  your  mother — and 
your  father."  She  shook  her  head.  "If 
you  knew — when  they  can  be  unraveled 
— how  ugly  and  sordid  these  mysteries 
are! 

The  cleft  chin  lifted  and  the  foundling 
looked  in  the  great  lady's  eyes:  "I  dare 
say  when  I  know  the  truth  I  sha'n't  like 
it.  All  the  same,  whatever  it  is" — the 
firm  Scots  accent  fell  to  trembling — 
"I  want  to  know." 

"You  might  as  well  say  you  want — " 
Through  the  ceiling  and  the  mask  of 
daylight  Mrs.  McAlpin's  eyes  seemed  to 
seek  the  unattainable  moon. 

"I  shall  never  rest  till  I  know  who  my 
people — " 

"You  must  know  already  that  if  'your 
people'  ..."  Under  Mrs.  McAlpin's 
accent  the  girl  winced.  It  was  like  a 
reference  to  stolen  goods.  Ruth  of  Aber- 
deen had  laid  claim  to  "people."  And 
she  hadn't  any.  She  stood  there  in  the 
slight  pause,  flushed,  silent,  shamed.  "I 
am  sorry  to  hear  you  mind  so  much. 
That  will  pass,  you'll  find.  But  the 
essence  of  your  situation  is  that  if  they — 
'your  people,'  as  you  say — wanted  you, 
you  wouldn't  be  here." 

Ruth's  eyes  shone  steady  through 
tears  of  humiliation:  "You  don't  sup- 
pose I  want  to  trouble  them.  I  don't 
want  any  mortal  thing  from  them — 
except  to  know!" 

Much  of  Mrs.  McAlpin's  success  in 
life  lay  not  only  in  her  disinclination  to 
run  her  head  against  a  stone  wall,  but 
in  her  power  to  recognize  a  stone  wall 
when  she  came  to  one. 

Ruth's  demand  was  hopeless,  but  was 
it  unreasonable?  Didn't  Mrs.  McAlpin 
herself  feel  the  prick  of  wonder  as  to 
what  manner  of  man  and  woman  were 
responsible  for  this  young  life — this 
young  misery?  The  look  in  the  face  be- 
fore her  stirred  the  woman's  old  unre- 
generate  rage  against  those  who  were 
responsible— the  shirkers.  Those  cow- 
ards who  clapped  their  burdens  on  the 
backs  of  little  children  and  then  fled. 


It  was  foolish,  pitiable,  anything  you 
like,  but  this  otherwise  reasonable  young 
creature  was  actually  saying  to  herself 
that  before  she  could  feel  sure  to  what 
end  her  life  should  be  shaped  she  must, 
must  know  where  it  took  its  beginnings, 
" — or  else,  don't  you  see,"  she  found  at 
last  a  way  to  put  it,  "I  sha'n't  ever  know 
I'm  steering  straight — going  the  way  I 
was  born  to  go." 

"There  are  other  ways  of  finding  that 
out,  as  you  will  discover.  But  mean- 
while Miss  Gillies  tells  me  you  have  one 
or  two  vague  recollections — nothing  of 
any  use,  she  says,  but  all  the  same — " 
Mrs.  McAlpin  made  that  out-and-over 
movement  of  the  wrist  that  brought  up 
the  face  of  her  watch.  "I  think  I'll 
wait  and  go  through  the  kitchens  this 
time."  She  clicked  open  her  bag,  took 
out  a  letter,  and  tore  off  the  blank  half- 
sheet.  "There" — she  threw  it  on  the 
table — "write  out  those  two  or  three 
faint  impressions  Write  everything  you 
can  remember — "  She  stopped  short  at 
the  astonishing  change  in  the  girl's  face. 
"No,  no.  Understand,  child,  that  all  I 
expect  to  be  able  to  do  is  to  convince 
you  as  a  reasonable  being  that  what  you 
want  to  know  isn't  to  be  found  out." 
She  knew  she  spoke  to  deaf  ears,  and 
turned  with  a  pang  from  the  sight  of  the 
face  bent  over  the  half-sheet  that  was 
all  too  large  for  those  foundling's  "mem- 
ories," faint  and  few. 

The  look  pursued  Mrs.  McAlpin  flight 
after  flight  to  the  basement  floor.  If  she 
had  such  a  daughter!  To  think  that 
somewhere  was  perhaps  a  woman  who 
had  the  right  to  call  that  shining  spirit 

mine. 

Twenty  minutes  later  once  again  Ruth 
stood  before  her,  this  time  in  the  recep- 
tion-room down-stairs,  holding  out  the 
half-sheet.  Mrs.  McAlpin  lifted  the  eye- 
glass on  the  chain  and  read  in  Ruth's 
small,  neat  hand: 

The  woman  did  not  speak  the  truth  when 
she  said  she  had  had  me  since  I  was  a  baby. 
I  am  sure  I  lived  in  a  little  house  with  a  man 
and  his  wife.  I  played  in  the  street  with 
their  children — a  boy  and  a  girl.  The  place 
was  called  Birdsigh,  or  some  such  name. 
What  I  am  sure  is  the  people's  name  was 
Minnyfah,  though  that  doesn't  sound  like 
anybody's  name.  A  tall  man  came  and  took 
me  away  to  a  great  house  with  many  win- 


LOST  AND  FOUND 


503 


dows  and  where  bells  kept  ringing.  It  was 
opposite  a  railway  station.  I  cried.  The 
tall  man  didn't  like  it.  The  next  morning  we 
met  a  woman  at  the  station.  She  took  me 
away  in  a  train.  It  wasn't  the  woman  I  had 
been  living  with  who  brought  me  here. 

Ruth  Aberdeen. 

"Yes,  I'm  afraid" — the  girl  replied  to 
the  look  on  her  patron's  face  as  though 
it  had  been  an  observation — "I'm  afraid 
it's  not  a  great  deal." 

"It  is  practically  nothing." 

She  did  not  contest  this,  but  her  con- 
fident eyes  troubled  Mrs.  McAlpin. 

"I  have  told  you  it's  all  too  vague. 
Yet  to  look  at  you,  one  might  suppose 
I'd  already  been  able  to  do  something." 

"Oh,  you  have.  The  difference!  To 
know  that  some  one — you,  of  all  people! 
—are  trying  to  find  my — "  she  colored 
suddenly  and  looked  down — "them. 
You'll  see,  I  sha'n't  ever  foiget."  She 
raised  her  eyes.  "Miss  Gillies  won't  be 
coming  with  complaints  about  me  any 
more." 

Mrs.  McAlpin  left  the  girl  at  the  door 
with  that  lifted  look. 

The  scant  information  was  placed  in 
expert  hands,  and  the  weeks  went  by. 
A  final  report  came  from  the  agency 
within  a  few  days  of  the  McAlpins' 
annual  visit  to  Marienbad,  "Clues  in- 
sufficient." 

The  lady  found  herself  regretting  the 
necessity  that  took  her,  on  the  day  before 
she  left  Scotland,  to  that  one  of  the 
Mary  Eleanor  Homes  which  was  Ruth's. 
Only  the  girl's  eyes  asked,  "News?" 
And  when  she  was  told,  "Nothing,"  the 
eyes  that  had  questioned  turned  gently, 
faithfully  back  to  her  task.  Plain  to  see 
the  poor  child  still  hoped  all  things. 

She  was  doing  well,  the  matron  re- 
ported. An  outbreak  of  low  fever  among 
the  children  in  the  head  nurse's  absence 
left  Ruth  practically  in  charge  of  the 
mfirmary.    "Oh,  indefatigable!" 

While  the  McAlpins  were  at  Bagnolles 
came  the  staggering  calamity  of  the 
German  declaration  of  war  and  invasion 
of  Belgium.  Like  millions  of  others,  the 
McAlpins  went  to  sleep  one  night  at 
peace  with  all  mankind  and  woke  next 
day  to  a  world  in  arms.  They  returned 
to  England  to  find  London  swarming 


with  nephews  and  cousins — their  own 
and  other  people's — about  to  leave  Eng- 
land, so  their  relations  whispered.  An 
astonishing  majority  of  the  civil  popula- 
tion fell  simultaneously  under  the  spell 
of  a  passion  for  service  to  the  nation — 
the  other  side,  perhaps,  of  that  shield, 
voluntary  military  service.  Such  an  un- 
solicited outpouring  of  money  and  of 
active  private  aid  the  world  had  not  yet 
seen.  To  give  became  the  one  common 
need,  the  unifying  passion. 

Level-headed  people  like  Mrs.  David 
McAlpin,  while  performing  prodigies  of 
organization  in  Red  Cross  and  relief 
work,  kept  well  before  them  the  danger  of 
forgetting  sufferers  at  home,  in  all  this 
enthusiasm  for  soldiers  in  the  field  and 
for  those  piteous  refugees  out  of  the 
desolation  that  was  Belgium. 

Hospitals  were  closing  their  wards  to 
the  civilian  sick,  and  many  an  ante- 
bellum charity  fell  on  evil  days. 

The  Hon.  David  McAlpin,  accom- 
panied by  his  wife,  was  on  his  way  back 
to  parliamentary  duties  in  London  just 
after  the  fall  of  Antwerp.  The  huge 
preoccupation  of  those  days  did  not 
minimize  Mrs.  McAlpin's  concern  over 
the  plight  of  a  little  hospital  for  destitute 
women  and  children  at  Castleborough. 
Those  unfortunates  must  not  be  forgot- 
ten because  others  needed  help  of  the 
sort  that  touches  the  imagination  and 
fires  the  heart.  Mrs.  McAlpin  arranged 
to  stop  over  for  a  night  at  Castleborough 
Junction  and  see  what  could  be  done. 

Between  the  porter  and  her  maid  the 
lady  picked  her  way  across  the  tram- 
lines toward  the  great  Station  Hotel  that 
took  the  broadside  of  the  afternoon  sun 
on  its  flaming  panes  of  glass. 

"Many  windows." 

She  smiled  at  the  inconsequence  in  the 
trick  of  memory  which  brought  the 
phrase  to  mind.  But  the  thought  which 
had  slipped  so  lightly  into  her  head  was 
not  so  easily  evicted. 

"  Do  you  know,"  she  asked  the  porter, 
"of  any  suburb  of  this  place,  or  any 
village  hereabouts,  called  Birdsigh?" 

"No,  m'  lady,"  said  the  porter. 

It  was  a  silly  question,  she  decided, 
and  by  way  of  redressing  the  balance  and 
planning  something  practical  in  the  di- 
rection of  keeping  faith  with  Ruth 
Aberdeen,  Mrs.  McAlpin  promised  her- 


504 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


self  that,  however  preoccupied  in  Lon- 
don with  other  things,  she  would  go  to 
Scotland  Yard  and  make  some  inquiries 
in  person. 

Birdsigh!  Birdsigh!  The  word  dinned 
at  her  ears.  It  seemed  more  this  newly 
conceived  errand  to  the  elusive  village 
of  Birdsigh  than  the  opening  of  Parlia- 
ment that  was  taking  her  to  town  to- 
morrow. 

"Yes,  a  taxi  ";and  as  she  waited  for 
it  she  put  again  the  question,  "Do  you 
know  anything  of  a  suburb  or  a  village 
called  Birdsigh?" 

No,  the  commissionaire  had  never 
heard  of  such  a  place. 

The  hospital  was  a  long  way  out. 
Her  business  ended,  she  drove  back  a 
different  way  and  yet  the  same,  through 
those  miles  of  mean  streets  that  made 
up  the  manufacturing  quarter.  She  was 
tired,  as  her  attitude  betrayed,  leaning 
forward  over  folded  arms,  staring  out  at 
the  bleak  spectacle  of  the  poor  tene- 
ments in  a  Northern  city.  She  looked 
into  gray,  hopeless  faces  till  she  felt  her 
own  courage  lowered.  At  last,  to  shut 
out  the  unendurable  plight  of  the  chil- 
dren, she  closed  her  eyes,  trying  to  com- 
fort herself  with  the  thought  of  Mary 
Eleanor  girls,  of  Ruth — the  child  who 
had  played  in  the  streets  of  Birdsigh. 

The  taxi  put  on  speed.  He  was  driv- 
ing recklessly,  this  man.  Mrs.  McAlpin 
opened  her  eyes,  put  her  head  out  of  the 
window,  and  hung  there  for  several 
seconds,  looking  back.  Then,  instead  of 
admonishing  the  man  to  drive  more  care- 
fully, "  Stop !"  she  cried,<sharply.  "  Stop ! 
I  want  to  go  back  to  Birdseye  Street." 
The  driver  slowed.  He  didn't  know  any 
Birdseye  Street — there  was  a  Birdseye 
Lane  back  there.  He  said  it  in  a  tone 
that  implied  "and  no  place  for  a  fare 
like  mine." 

"That's  where  I'm  going,"  said  the 
lady.  "Birdseye  Lane!" — a  plan  at 
which  the  very  taxi  revolted.  An  explo- 
sion of  anger  sounded  from  a  punctured 
tire  and  the  drive  came  to  an  end.  No 
other  taxi  in  sight.  The  man  promised 
to  send  one  after  the  lady  to  the  lane 
of  doubtful  renown. 

A  very  long  lane  and  no  turning.  The 
woman  of  sixty  who  had  already  put  in 
a  strenuous  day  was  wearily  conscious 


of  the  fact  before  she  reached  the  cul 
de  sac  at  the  end  of  a  double  row  of  little 
smoke-stained  houses. 

More  and  more  wearily  she  went  on, 
looking  back  now  and  then  for  the 
rescuing  taxi.  No  policeman.  No  shop 
where  inquiry  might  be  made.  Mrs. 
McAlpin  was  not,  she  told  herself  with 
the  impatience  born  of  weariness,  so  be- 
sotted about  Ruth  Aberdeen  (nor  even 
about  justice  in  general  to  babies  and 
deserted  women — those  clients  of  hers 
more  than  ever  disregarded  in  war  times) 
as  to  go  from  house  to  house  making  the 
futile  inquiry,  "Are  you  by  chance  the 
foster-mother  of  a  little  girl  of  five  or  six 
taken  twelve  years  ago  to  the  Mary 
Eleanor  Home  at  .  .  .  ?" 

She  paused  out  of  sheer  exhaustion. 
The  children  playing  here  struck  her  as 
better  cared  for,  the  houses  cleaner. 
Actually  a  white  curtain  at  the  window 
of  one.  She  opened  her  purse  and  called 
to  a  boy  of  ten  or  twelve.  Did  he  know 
where  to  go  and  telephone  for  a  cab? 
While  she  talked  the  door  in  the  white- 
curtained  house  opened,  and  a  short, 
stout  woman  with  a  good-humored  face 
looked  out.  "Jim!"  she  called.  Jim 
explained  the  lady's  demand.  His 
mother  nodded,  "All  right.  Look  sharp 
— tea's  ready."    And  she  stood  there. 

Tea!  It  was  what  Mrs.  McAlpin 
wanted  at  that  moment  more  even  than 
a  taxi.  Was  there  a  cook-shop  anywhere 
near  by,  she  asked. 

Not  near,  the  woman  said.  But  if  the 
lady  liked  she  could  come  in  here  and 
wait.  There  was  tea,  too,  just  that 
minute  made. 

A  little  room,  clean  and  tidy,  and 
many  a  worse  cup  of  tea  had  the  sea- 
soned traveler  tasted. 

They  talked  about  Jim.  It  was  "a 
good  step"  to  the  post-office,  and  the 
taxi  would  come  off  the  rank  in  the 
market-place. 

"You  would  be  amused,"  said  the 
lady,  looking  into  the  capable,  pleasant 
face,  "if  you  knew  what  brought  me  to 
Birdseye  Lane." 

"I  was  just  wondering,"  said  the 
woman,  with  candor. 

"Well,  I  am  looking  for  traces  of  a 
family  of  some  name  like  Minnyfah  who 
used  to  live  in  a  place  called  Birdseye — " 

"Minifer?     There's    Minifers  lives 


LOST  AND  FOUND 


505 


here,  too,"  said  the  woman,  as  though 
jealous  for  the  renown  of  Birdseye  Lane. 
"The  Minifers  and  my  husband's  moth- 
er has  been  here  longer  than  anybody 
in  the  Lane.  Yes'm.  The  Minifers  has 
two  children.  The  girl  works  in  the 
factory,  and  the  boy  he's  gone  for  a 
soldier."  She  got  up,  saying  that  grand- 
mother might  know  if  Minifers  had  ever 
had  a  little  girl  that  wasn't  theirs. 
"Granny!" — she  opened  a  door.  From 
where  she  sat  Mrs.  McAlpin  could  see 
the  kitchen  beyond,  and  the  kerchiefed 
head  of  an  old  woman  knitting  by  the 
window.  "  Did  the  Minifers  ever  have  a 
little  girl  to  live  with  'em,  granny?" 

No  answer  for  several  moments.  The 
old  woman  slowly  turned  her  head,  and 
the  light  glanced  across  horn  spectacles. 
"Yes,  there  used  to  be  a  little  girl — and 
well  paid  for  keeping  her,  too!"  said  the 
old  voice,  very  deep  and  hoarse.  "Oh, 
they  made  a  good  bit  out  of  it."  No, 
she  couldn't  remember  the  child's  name. 
"They  made  a  pretty  penny."  She 
didn't  grudge  it.  "They  did  well  by  the 
bairn." 

As  Mrs.  McAlpin  crossed  the  street 
she  was  conscious  of  an  air  of  animation 
in  Birdseye  Lane.  By  that  wireless 
telegraphy  which  serves  the  close-knit 
poor  word  had  gone  forth  of  an  unusual 
Presence.  What  was  the  tall  lady  in 
gray  silk  "after"?  The  Lane-ites  stood 
speculating  in  their  doorways,  leaning 
out  of  windows.  Only  at  Minifers'  no 
sign  of  life.  Mrs.  McAlpin  knocked.  A 
sound  of  sobbing  came  out  as  a  middle- 
aged  man  opened  the  door — a  sturdy 
workman  in  corduroys,  his  red  face 
framed  in  an  aggressive  fringe  of  gray 
whisker — the  veritable  Newcastle  frill. 

"Minifer?  Yes.  That  '11  be  my  name. 
No,  my  missus  ain't  able  to  see  no- 
body." Mrs.  McAlpin  explained  the 
urgent  nature  of  her  errand,  through  the 
deep,  choking  sobs  from  a  woman  in  the 
front  room. 

"Only  two  words  with  Mrs.  Minifer," 
she  begged. 

The  man  broke  in.  "The  missus 
couldn't  tell  ye  nobbut  what  I  could 
mysel'.  He  was  a  doctor  up  at  the  hos- 
pital. One  o'  the  nurses  told  him  about 
us.  He  brought  the  little  gal  here  hisself 
and  he  came  hisself  and  took  her  away. 
A  rare  foos  she  made,  too,  and  not  a  sign 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.-63 


since  of  either  of  'em.  I  never  thought 
well  o'  the  mon  for  that." 

"What  was  his  name?" 

"Oh,  it  was  young  Dr.  Orkney  from 
ooer  hospital.  But  he  'ain't  been  there 
this  long  while." 

"There's  a  well-known  doctor  in  Lon- 
don of  that  name." 

"Oh,  belike." 

"If  only  you  would  tell  Mrs.  Minifer, 
maybe  she — " 

"Na,  na,  I'll  tell  her  nowt.  She's  had 
enough  for  one  while."  He  looked  round 
uneasily  as  the  crying  rose  again.  "We 
joost  seen  our  lad  go  for  a  soldier.  I 
says  to  her,  'We  mun  all  do  summat.' 
'Yes,'  says  she,  'so  I'll  be  cryin'  a  spell.'  " 

The  long-awaited  taxi,  with  Jim  tri- 
umphant on  the  footboard,  came  tearing 
down  the  street  while  Minifer  gave  ap- 
proximate dates  and  a  not  very  adequate 
description.  "Oh,  aye,  a  long  body  he 
was,  an'  awfu'  solemn.  Never  liked 
him  mooch  mysel'.  But  the  little  gal " — 
his  eyes  grew  kind — "nothin'  wrong  wi' 
the  little  gal.  Yes,  blue  eyes,  and  a  line 
down  her  chin.  An'  after  all  my  missus 
done — never  a  worrd  from  that  day  to 
this." 

From  her  London  house  the  next  day 
Mrs.  McAlpin  telephoned  the  great  Dr. 
Orkney  for  an  appointment.  No  easy 
matter  to  arrange  in  the  short  time  be- 
fore her  return  to  Scotland.  But  Mrs. 
McAlpin  was  quietly  emphatic  with  the 
secretary  at  the  doctor's  end  of  the  line: 
"A  case  of  unusual  urgency,  though  it 
need  not  keep  Dr.  Orkney  long." 

Mrs.  McAlpin  was  a  personage  in 
London  as  well  as  in  Scotland.  Some 
readjustments  were  made,  and  a  little 
after  four  on  the  following  day  the  wife 
of  the  well-known  Scots  magnate  was 
admitted  to  the  waiting-room  of  the 
famous  Harley  Street  consultant.  He 
seldom  saw  patients  as  late  as  this,  but 
two  young  women  and  a  man  in  khaki 
uniform  with  a  row  of  reduced  medals 
across  his  breast  sat  near  the  round 
table  covered  with  the  usual  literature. 
Mrs.  McAlpin  took  up  one  of  the  extra 
war  editions  of  an  afternoon  paper  and 
glanced  at  news  already  no  news  to  one 
who  had  scanned  the  bulletins  as  she 
drove  through  the  khaki-dappled  streets. 
Unconsciously  her  mind  wandered  to  the 


506 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


women  next  her — one  a  girl,  the  other 
thirty-odd,  talking  in  half-whispers  the 
commonplace  of  the  day,  about  some- 
body "leaving  to-morrow  for  the  front." 

"I  should  say  a  man  like  your  cousin 
can  do  the  country  more  good  at  home." 
The  older  woman  did  not  oppose  that 
view.  She  glowed  as  she  spoke  of  "him." 

"You  said  he  was  married?"  the 
young  girl  pursued. 

"Oh,  very  much!"  A  laugh,  and  then: 
"After  all,  she's  a  kind  of  heroine,  too, 
to  let  him  go.  Some  say  she'll  never  live 
to  see  him  come  back.  ..."  Their 
voices  sank. 

A  white-capped  maid  opened  the  door. 
The  talkative  lady  rose  briskly.  With 
an  air  of  being  a  good  deal  at  home  there, 
she  pounced  on  the  maid,  "I'm  so  anx- 
ious my  friend  shouldn't  miss  seeing  the 
doctor." 

The  maid  shook  her  head.  "As  I 
said,  Miss  Edith — without  an  appoint- 
ment— " 

"Yes,  yes — but  when  this  is  our  only 
chance.  And  we've  waited  two  hours — " 

"I'm  sorry,  miss."  The  maid  was 
showing  out  a  soldier. 

The  conference  at  the  round  table 
went  on  in  whispers.  "My  cousin — " 
Mrs.  McAlpin  looked  at  the  clock  and 
turned  her  newspaper  with  an  impatient 
rustle.  Fragments  of  the  talk  still 
reached  her  from  time  to  time  as  the 
minutes  dragged. 

" — none  of  us  dreamed  she'd  let  him 
go."  "Yes,  like  signing  her  own  death- 
warrant — "  "Why,  she's  alive  to-day 
only  because  he  wouldn't  let  her  die. 
But  when  she  got  it  into  her  head  that 
he  must  give  to  the  country  what  he'd 
been  giving  to  her,  a  kind  of  queer 
rivalry  sprang  up  between  them.  He 
determined  in  that  iron  way  of  his  to 
stay  and  take  care  of  her — oh  yes,  and 
of  all  the  rest,  too!" — she  laughed — 
"and  the  whole  time  hating  to  be  stuck 
here  at  home.  Haven't  I  seen  his  face 
when  other  men  were  talking  about  go- 
ing to  the  front — " 

"Mrs.  McAlpin!" — trie  white-capped 
maid  was  holding  open  the  door. 

He  stood  there  in  the  room  across  the 
hall,  back  to  the  light,  holding  out  his 
hand — a  man  of  forty-odd,  tall,  not 
thin,  but  with  a  look  of  physical  fitness 


about  his  compact  frame  and  long, 
clean-cut  face;  a  brown  mustache 
clipped  close  to  lips  that  seemed  them- 
selves to  have  been  razored  into  their 
firm  outlines;  hair  of  a  darker  brown, 
graying  at  the  temples;  eyes  that  quietly 
took  you  in  and  dropped  you  out  as 
though  your  case  interested  him  less 
than  the  one  preceding  and  that  to 
follow. 

Mrs.  McAlpin  made  no  motion  to  take 
the  outstretched  hand.  He  glanced  at 
her  a  second  time  with  a  quick  wink  of 
the  small  blue-gray  eyes,  and  turned  his 
proffered  handshake  into  an  indication 
of  "the  patient's  chair."  Mrs.  McAlpin 
seated  herself  and  opened  her  bag.  He 
waited. 

"How  much  time  do  you  usually  de- 
vote to  a  new  patient?" 

He  stared,  settled  his  fine  shoulders 
back,  and  with  a  trace  of  hauteur,  "As 
long  as  the  diagnosis  requires,"  he  said. 

"Seldom  less,  I  imagine,  than  fifteen 
minutes  for  a  first  consultation." 

His  fixed  look  seemed  to  speculate: 
"Is  this  a  case  for  my  neighbor  the 
alienist?" 

"I  think,"  she  said,  "ten  minutes  will 
do  for  what  may  be  called  'my  case.' 
It  is  really  yours." 

She  had  all  his  attention  now,  as  she 
recognized  in  the  wary  look  bent  upon 
her  the  crystallizing  of  that  doubt  as  to 
her  mental  condition. 

"What  is  your  trouble?"  he  said, 
quietly. 

"I  will  tell  you  what  the  trouble  is, 
but  while  I  shall  not  exceed  the  time" — 
a  downward  glance  of  eye  and  a  turn  of 
the  watch  on  her  wrist — "I  will  tell  you 
in  my  own  way."  She  spoke  briefly  of 
her  work  for  women  and  girls. 

"It  is  well  known."  He  would  have 
dismissed  it.  She  held  him,  as  she  never 
had  held  any  one  before  to  that  particu- 
lar theme,  while  she  touched  with  the 
caustic  of  her  tongue  upon  the  wrong 
done  these  foundlings;  upon  that  debt 
never  to  be  paid  in  full,  heaped  up  by 
the  merely  ignorant,  added  to  by  the 
craven  women  and  criminal  men  respon- 
sible for — she  hesitated  a  second — "for 
the  nameless  children  we  help  to  bear 
the  irreparable  loss  of  even  the  poorest 
home." 

Dr.  Orkney  leaned  his  elbows  on  the 


LOST  AND  FOUND 


507 


arms  of  his  chair,  fitted  finger-tip  to 
finger-tip,  and  over  the  acute  angle 
watched  the  eccentric  great  lady. 

"An  instance — a  girl  we  call  Ruth 
Aberdeen. "  A  few  swift  sentences  placed 
the  girl  before  him.  An  echo  of  that  cry 
of  hers  vibrated  on  the  quiet  profes- 
sional air,  "Help  me  to  find  my  people !" 
And  then  silence. 

"Yes?"  m 

"I  promised  I  would  try.  I  have  suc- 
ceeded. At  least" — she  fixed  him — 
"my  impression  is  I  have  found  the 
father." 

Dr.  Orkney  bent  his  head.  Was  it 
faint  encouragement  or  perfunctory 
congratulation  ? 

Out  of  the  gaping  bag  on  her  lap  Mrs. 
McAlpin  took  Ruth's  half-sheet  of  paper 
and  laid  it  on  the  writing-table. 

His  finger-tips  still  in  delicate  contact 
maintained  their  angle.  Only  the  body 
leaned  closer  to  the  table,  bringing  un- 
der the  unemotional  eyes  Ruth's  clear, 
small  writing. 

Not  a  sound.  Not  a  tremor.  He 
might  have  been  reading  a  prescription. 
When  he  came  to  the  end  he  sat  back 
and  laid  those  fine  surgeon's  hands  of  his 
along  the  arms  of  the  chair.  Were  his 
withers  as  all  unwrung  as  he  gave  out? 
Or  was  he  merely  the  most  astute  of 
men  ?  A  feeling  to  which  she  was  little  ac- 
customed seized  Mrs.  McAlpin.  A  sense 
of  helpless  depression,  of  defeat.  She 
had  leaned  on  the  belief  that  Orkney  was 
an  uncommon  name.  Now  she  was  sure 
there  were  as  many  families  of  Orkney 
as  islands:  typical  Scots  families  of  ten 
or  a  dozen  children — half  of  them  doc- 
tors in  the  middle-class  Scots  fashion — 
one-third,  maybe,  dead.  If  responsibil- 
ity for  Ruth  lay  morally  at  the  door  of 
the  Orkney  before  her,  so  much  the 
worse  for  Ruth.  This  was  a  man  to  fight 
to  the  last  ditch  against  a  repudiated 
claim. 

A  mad  errand,  this.  She  held  out  her 
hand  for  the  half-sheet.  "I  found  Mini- 
fer,"  she  said  by  way  of  self-justifica- 
tion.   "He  gave  me  your  name." 

"My  name?"  The  voice  was  level 
and  unjarred. 

"Not  in  full,  I  admit.  They  didn't 
know  your  Christian  name.  But  they 
knew — " 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?" 


The  interruption  was  neither  angry 
nor  alarmed.  But  it  was  delivered  with 
a  curious  flatness  of  tone  that  made  the 
woman's  pulses  beat.  No,  that  wasn't 
it.  The  reason  her  pulses  hammered 
was  that  the  light,  falling  on  the  long 
visage  tilted  at  a  difFerent  angle,  now 
showed  faintly  a  cleft,  the  same  that 
was  carved  more  wilfully  in  the  chin  of 
the  little  foundling  far  away. 

"What  am  I  going  to  do?  See  justice 
done" 

"Are  you  sure?" 

"To  the  best  of  my  power." 

"Whatever  is  just — that  you  will  do?" 

Instead  of  answering  she  looked  at 
him,  and  then  instinctively  turned  away 
from  what  she  saw.  Few  people  are  easy 
under  the  responsibility  of  bringing  a 
look  like  that  into  human  eyes. 

"I  have  a  wife  up-stairs." 

It  struck  her  queerly  that  he  pre- 
sented the  fact  to  her  as  a  part  of  her, 
Teresa  McAlpin's,  problem.  Justice, 
mind  you.  He  rose  and  went  to  the 
window,  presenting  his  profile.  He 
nodded  to  some  one  out  there.  Mrs. 
McAlpin,  looking  through  the  com- 
panion window  on  her  side  of  the  writ- 
ing-table, saw  a  chauffeur  touch  his  cap. 
Orkney  drew  out  his  watch  and  wheeled 
about.  He  crossed  the  room  at  double- 
quick  and  opened  a  door.  "One  mo- 
ment." 

A  young  woman  entered,  wearing 
glasses — a  trim,  refined  creature.  She 
held  a  note-book  in  one  hand  and  pencil 
ready  for  note-taking.  He  made  a  ges- 
ture. "  Not  that.  Go  up,  will  you,  and 
just  say  I  shall  be  too  late.  No  use  to 
wait  any  longer." 

The  young  woman  hesitated.  In  a 
half-whisper  she  began,  apologetically, 
"You  don't  think  that  Mrs.  Orkney — 
your  very  last  day!" 

"It  can't  be  helped.  She  will  under- 
stand  " 

"Oh,  I'll  tell  her!  But"— the  low 
voice  sank  under  a  weight  of  reproachful 
wonder — "you  won't  blame  me  when  I 
fail.  She'll  never  go  without  you.  Not 
to-day." 

He  followed  her  to  the  door.  "Tell 
her — "  He  broke  off.  "Do  what  you 
can."  He  cleared  his  throat  as  the 
young  woman  went  out,  and  called  after 
her,  "If  my  cousin  is  still  in  there — " 


508 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Miss  Edith ?" 

He  nodded.  "Tell  her  not  to  wait. 
No  use."  He  shut  the  door.  As  he 
passed  Mrs.  McAlpin,  "I  am  going  over 
to  France  to-morrow,"  he  said. 

"Then  I'm  only  just  in  time." 

"Oh,  you're  in  time,"  he  agreed,  bit- 
terly. 

She  looked  away  from  him  with  a 
sense  of  uneasiness — a  dread  lest  she 
might  be  caught  sympathizing  with  this 
callous  shirker. 

He  sat  down  and  leaned  forward;  the 
watch  still  in  his  hands  dropped  between 
his  knees.  "My  wife,"  he  began,  and 
stopped.  "Is  she  my  wife?"  The 
eyes,  appalled — no  doubt  about  that 
now — looked  up  at  his  visitor.  But  he 
went  on  speaking  like  one  in  a  passion 
of  haste  to  have  done :  "  Seventeen  years 
ago  I  was  a  student  in  Edinburgh. 
I  lodged  over  a  tobacco-shop.  I  ate  oat- 
meal, chiefly,  and  when  I  was  tired  of 
that  and  still  hungry,  I  smoked.  I 
worked  as  only  a  Scots  student  will  work 
— can  work  and  live.  Under  my  attic 
was  the  tobacconist,  his  two  boys,  and 
his  stepdaughter."  Orkney  hesitated. 
The  next  words  dropped  out  with  a  cold 
bitterness  that  told  the  listener  more 
than  a  storm  of  obloquy.  "The  woman 
was  nine  years  older  than  I.  She  used  to 
come.  .  .  .  But  it  was,  of  course,  my  own 
doing.  The  year  before  I  graduated  I 
married  her.  The  year  I  got  my  first 
hospital  appointment  at  Castleborough 
she  went  off  with  a  traveling-salesman. 
I  have  never  seen  her  since.  I  don't 
know — "  He  made  an  upward  motion  of 
returning  energy  like  the  spent  swimmer 
suddenly  discovering  strength  to  catch 
at  a  spar.  "Perhaps  you  know  whether 
she  is  dead?" 

Mrs.  McAlpin  tightened  her  Hps. 

"  It  doesn't  matter."  He  settled  down 
again,  and  his  shoulder  -  line  sagged. 
"She  left  me  with  a  baby.  The  old  man 
failed  in  business,  failed  in  health.  The 
sons  took  him  away  to  Perth.  I  don't 
know  what  became  of  them,  either.  I 
found  a  woman  near  Castleborough 
Junction  to  take  care  of  the  child."  His 
eyes  went  back  to  the  paper.  "Yes, 
Birdseye  Lane.  I  didn't  use  to  see  the 
child.  I  didn't  use  to  see  anybody  out- 
side the  treadmill.  Two  years  later — 
offer  of  a  hospital  in  London.  Freedom. 


The  great  opportunity!  What  to  do 
about  the  child.  I  had  been  too  poor  to 
buy  books,  instruments.  The  little  I 
made — it  all  went  in  supporting  myself 
and  paying  for  the  child.  A  friend  lent 
me  two  hundred  pounds.  I  heard  of  a 
woman,  a  decent  woman,  who  was  will- 
ing to  take  the  child  away  and  bring  it 
up  as  her  own.  I  took  her  from  the 
Minifers  to  the  Railway  Hotel.  Yes" — 
his  look  fell  on  the  paper — "of  'many 
windows' — and  stayed  the  night.  I 
shall  never  forget — "  The  gesture  of  im- 
potence of  a  man  alone,  helpless,  with  a 
crying  child.  "The  next  morning  I 
took  her  to  meet  the  train  from  the 
north.  It  brought  the  woman  as  ar- 
ranged. I  gave  her  the  child  and  I  gave 
her  one  hundred  and  ninety  pounds." 
He  stopped  for  breath. 

"And  that,  you  thought,  would  be  the 
end." 

"The  end — of  all  that?    God! — yes." 

"Well,  it  wasn't  the  end.  It  was  the 
beginning,  for  your  daughter.  What  are 
you  willing  to  do  for  her?" 

He  leaned  back  and  looked  straight 
before  him — at  nothing.  "Anything  I 
may  do  will  be  on  one  condition.  You 
can  guess  what  that  is." 

"She — your  wife — is  not  to  know." 

Instead  of  replying  to  that  he  said, 
in  a  perfectly  commonplace  tone,  that  he 
was  expecting  his  lawyer  that  evening. 
He  was  ready  to  deposit  a  sum — he 
named  it. 

His  visitor  opened  her  eyes — a  sum 
far  in  excess  of  what  was  needed  or  de- 
sirable for  a  girl  brought  up  to  work. 

" — in  trust  to  you,"  he  went  on, 
"  for  your  orphanages.  Apply  it  as  you 
like — on  a  condition  not  to  be  stated 
in  the  instrument,  but  fully  understood 
here  and  now."  The  condition  was  that 
neither  he  nor  any  one  belonging  to  him 
was  ever  to  be  approached  on  the  sub- 
ject again. 

"If  only  you  could  see  her!" 

The  man  was  on  his  feet.  He  stood 
gripping  the  corner  of  the  table.  He 
would  never  see  her!  Never! 

"But  Ruth — your  daughter  will  want 
to  know  whom  her  money  comes  from." 

"Give  her  as  little  or  as  much  as  you 
like.  It  comes  from  you."  Mrs.  McAl- 
pin shook  her  head.  "Or  it  comes  how- 
ever you  like,  so  she  never  hears  my 


LOST  AND  FOUND 


509 


name.  Either  what  I  offer  on  the  terms 
I  state — or  nothing." 

When  Mrs.  McAlpin  came  in  to 
luncheon  the  next  day  she  brought  the 
letters  off  a  table  in  the  hall.  Over  her 
solitary  meal  she  opened  the  envelope 
of  legal  length  and  read  that  Ruth  Aber- 
deen was  independent  for  life.  Through 
invitations  and  appeals  Mrs.  MeAlpin 
made  her  way  absent-mindedly  till  she 
glanced  at  the  signature  of  a  note  in  a 
hand  vaguely  familiar.  How  that  girl 
haunted  one. 

The  Hon.  Mrs.  David  McAlpin: 

Dear  Madam, — Matron  says  I  may  write 
to  you  about  the  wonderful  thing  that  has 
happened.  I  specially  wanted  to  tell  you  on 
account  of  what  you  promised  me.  There  is 
no  need  to  trouble  about  that  any  more.  I 
haven't  a  bit  of  doubt  now  what  I  must  be 
doing,  and  I  am  very,  very  happy.  One  of 
the  old  Mary  Eleanor  girls,  Julia  Cautley — 
she  says  you  will  remember — well,  she  is  here, 
ill.  She  was  nursing  at  a  military  hospital 
and  a  piece  of  shrapnel  blinded  her.  She  has 
helped  matron  to  arrange  for  me  to  go  to 
France.  Isn't  that  very  wonderful,  dear 
madam?  On  Thursday  afternoon  I  shall  go 
over  to  Paris  with  one  of  the  lady  doctors. 
Thanking  you  for  everything, 

I  am  your  obedient  and  grateful 
Ruth  Aberdeen. 

Mrs.  McAlpin  was  the  last  to  leave 
the  train  at  Folkestone.  While  others 
gathered  coats  and  bags  and  bustled  out, 
she  moved  quietly  to  the  window,  keep- 
ing shrewd  watch  on  the  faces  that  went 
by,  and  on  those  few  coming  up  from 
the  carriages  in  front.  Travel  in  this 
direction  was  light.  No  rush,  no  crowd- 
ing. Ruth  went  by  radiant,  between 
two  women;  never  a  glance  to  right  or 
left;  forward-looking  to  that  service 
which  had  put  doubts  and  questioning  to 
sleep. 

"All  out!"  called  out  a  porter. 
"  Luggage,  lady?" 

Every  one  else  had  moved  on  toward 
the  landing-stage.  Mrs.  McAlpin  stepped 
from  her  compartment  with  a  feeling  of 
intense  relief.  Either  Dr.  Orkney  had 
changed  his  plans  or  missed  his  train. 
As  she  went  toward  the  booking-office 
to  get  her  return  ticket  a  fleeting  glimpse 
of  a  man  behind  an  immense  truck-load 
held  the  woman  fast.   The  truck  moved 


toward  the  dock  and  unmasked  two 
figures — Orkney  and  another,  who  might 
be  a  young  doctor,  but  was  certainly  a 
friend.  They  followed  the  luggage,  Ork- 
ney talking  earnestly,  his  hand  on  his 
companion's  arm. 

Mrs.  McAlpin  came  up  with  them  on 
the  fringe  of  the  group  about  the  gang- 
way.   "Just  a  word — " 

Orkney  turned  with  an  aggressive 
sharpness.    The  younger  man  stared. 

"I  tried  to  telephone,"  she  began,  "to 
catch  you  before — "  James  Orkney's 
look  would  have  intimidated  many 
women.  "It  is  because  I  haven  t  broken 
my  word,"  said  Mrs.  McAlpin,  drawing 
herself  up,  "that  I  am  here." 

He  hesitated  the  fraction  of  a  minute, 
then  thrust  a  hand  in  his  breast  pocket. 
"Just  get  this  off,  will  you?"  He  held 
out  a  folded  telegraph  form.  The  young 
man  vanished.  Orkney  stood  planted, 
his  inimical  eyes  on  Mrs.  McAlpin. 

"You  have  only  to  wait  over  for  the 
next  boat.  Then  you  won't  run  a  risk" 
— she  nodded  toward  the  ship — "even 
of  brushing  shoulders  in  the  crowd  with 
— with — 3^ou  know  whom  I  mean." 

The  tight  lips  parted  to  demand, 
"Am  I  to  understand — "  Again  the 
look  of  loathing  he  had  worn  the  day 
before  when  he  said:  "The  end  of  all 
that?    God!— Yes." 

Mrs.  McAlpin  met  him  squarely: 
"She  is  going  over  to  nurse.  I  heard  of 
the  plan  half  an  hour  before  your  train 
(and  hers)  left  Charing  Cross." 

His  eyes  abandoned  their  angry  scru- 
tiny of  Mrs.  McAlpin.  They  swept  the 
gangway.  They  ran  along  the  scantily 
peopled  deck.  With  a  faint  jerk  of  the 
head,  the  eyes,  the  whole  figure  of  the 
man,  settled  to  a  rigid  stillness.  Mrs. 
McAlpin  knew  before  she  glanced  up 
what  vision  had  fixed  such  a  look  on 
James  Orkney's  face.  No  miracle  of 
recognition,  either.  In  days  like  these 
many  thousands  of  young  women  from 
the  Continent  sought  refuge  in  England. 
Few  were  traveling  to  France.  Ruth 
Aberdeen  was  the  only  girl  in  sight. 
Between  her  two  companions  she  leaned 
over  the  rail  of  the  upper  deck  with  more 
color  in  her  face  than  any  one  had  ever 
seen  there,  frankly  excited,  very  guile- 
less-looking, smiling  down  upon  the 
world,   and   making   little   signs  that 


510 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


seemed  to  say,  "Oh,  do  look  up  and  see 
how  happy  I  am!" 

What  James  Orkney  saw  was  a  face 
looking  down  at  him  with  eyes  he  knew 
— the  eyes  of  his  young  sister  who  was 
dead. 

Ruth's  face  smiled  and  sobered,  and 
still  to  the  pitch  of  poignancy  it  wore  for 
him  "the  family  look."  No  eloquence 
of  tongue,  nothing  that  stands  written  in 
any  book,  may  sway  the  heart  as  does 
that  elusive  quality — the  Race  Mark  in 
a  face.  And  this  is  true  less  of  the  obvi- 
ous physical  aspect  than  of  its  thousand 
secret  connotations.  All  the  world 
knows  the  Hapsburg  lip,  the  jaw-line  of 
the  Bonapartes;  the  subtler  marks  of 
clanship  keep  their  eloquence  for  their 
own.  Consciously  or  not,  each  family 
group  stands  before  these  symbols  as  the 
small  company  of  the  learned  might 
before  some  inscription  on  a  desert  ruin. 
Mere  strokes  and  scratches  to  you  and 
me.  To  the  few  who  understand  here 
is  the  key  that  unlocks  the  past. 

So,  the  family  look.  In  the  arch  of 
an  eye-orbit,  the  curve  of  chin,  we  read 
the  signature  of  race.  Chance  imprint, 
maybe;  maybe  seal  of  some  struggle  so 
profound  as  to  have  set  our  lips  at  this 
particular  angle,  or  through  dimming 
attenuations  to  perpetuate  a  gesture 
born  a  thousand  years  ago  in  joy  or 
in  some  stark  agony  of  body  or  of 
soul. 

The  family  look.  The  first  we  remem- 
ber, the  last  we  shall  forget. 

She  was  all  Orkney. 

All?  Quickly  as  recognition  had  come, 
came  remembrance.  This  girl  looking 
down  with  his  dead  sister's  eyes  was  the 
tobacconist's  grandchild  and  daughter 
of  the  woman  who  had  poisoned  James 
Orkney's  youth. 

She  was  asking  something.  She 
turned  from  one  woman  to  the  other, 
pleading.  The  elder  put  a  question  to  a 
passing  official,  in  blue  and  brass.  He 
looked  at  Ruth  and  smiled.  She  took 
his  permission,  flying  down  the  gangway. 
Orkney's  tall  figure  half  turned  to  beat 
retreat  before  her  advance,  halted  as 
though  he  had  forgotten  what  he  meant 
to  do. 

"Oh,  please."  Ruth  was  holding  out 
her  hands  in  front  of  Mrs.  McAlpin. 
"Are  you  coming,  too?" 


"No,  I  am  not  coming.  I  am  seeing 
some  one  ofF." 

"I  did  so  hope  you  might —  No,  I 
don't,"  she  interrupted  herself.  "I'm 
glad  you'll  be  safe  over  here."  She 
dropped  her  voice.  "I  never  told  you 
in  my  letter  how  happy  I  was." 

"Yes,  you  did." 

"Not  really.  I  didn't  know  then — " 
the  words  tumbled  over  one  another,  her 
excitement  burning  through  the  old 
barrier  of  shyness  between  her  and  her 
benefactress.  "They  are  so  kind  " — she 
made  a  motion  toward  the  women  on  the 
deck.  "Dr.  Janet  McBride  knew  our 
4 Mary  Eleanor'  nurse  in  Paris."  She 
gave  the  commonplace-sounding  infor- 
mation with  bated  breath.  Again  that 
action  of  reference  to  the  women  on 
deck.  "  They've  been  telling  me,  too, 
about  things  over  there."  She  stopped 
short,  abashed,  as  she  caught  the  sharp 
intensity  of  the  examination  bent  on  her 
by  the  gentleman  Mrs.  McAlpin  had 
been  seeing  off. 

"Don't  they  tell  you,"  Orkney  de- 
manded, sternly,  "there  are  more  nurses 
now  in  Paris  than  there's  work  for?" 

Ruth  stared  from  the  strange  man  to 
her  friend.  But  the  girl  was  forced  to 
come  to  her  own  rescue  with,  "Some 
think  there  will  soon  be  more  work  than 
nurses." 

"It's  a  craze,"  he  burst  out.  "Ev- 
ery young  woman  in  the  United  King- 
dom wanting  to  nurse  a  wounded  hero! 
Kitchener's  had  to  put  down  his  foot. 
He  says  it's  far  more  trouble  to  keep 
the  women  back  than  to  bring  on 
the  men." 

"Can  you  wonder?"  the  girl  asked, 
gravely,  "when  we  hear  how  our  sol- 
diers— "  Her  voice  wavered  a  little. 
"Perhaps  you  haven't  heard — "  She 
stopped  again,  and  a  wave  of  pitiful  color 
swept  her  face.  "  We  know.  One  of  our 
women  is  over  there.  The  things  she's 
seen — "  Ruth  bit  her  lip.  But  the 
upward-welling  compassion  reached  her 
eyes  and  swam  there. 

Orkney  turned  on  his  heel.  That's  the 
last  of  him,  thought  Mrs.  McAlpin,  with 
relief.  But  he  let  the  few  remaining 
passengers  go  by  him,  and  stood  looking 
blindly  at  the  ship. 

"There  isn't  time  to  tell  you,"  Ruth 
whispered  to  her  protectress.  "But 


LOST  AND  FOUND 


511 


don't  believe  him.  You  see,  he  doesn't 
know!" 

"She  says  you  don't  know." 

Orkney  turned  a  set  face  over  his 
shoulder  and  a  look  passed  between  him 
and  Mrs.  McAlpin.  Something  in  it 
roused  Ruth  like  a  challenge.  "There 
are  more  cities  than  Paris,"  she  said. 
"And  even  if  they  all  have  more  nurses 
than  they  need,  one  thing  is  sure — there 
aren't  too  many  of  us  near  the  fighting." 

"Only  people  of  experience  are  al- 
lowed at  the  base  hospitals,"  he  said. 

A  quick  fear  fluttered  into  the  eyes 
that  were  the  eyes  of  the  girl  who  was 
dead.  "/  am  experienced."  A  little 
motion  of  her  hand  prayed  Mrs.  McAl- 
pin to  support  the  assertion. 

"You  don't  look  it,"  said  the  stranger, 
brutally.    "They'll  send  you  back." 

"Send  me  back!"  she  gasped.  Why 
was  this  man  her  enemy?  "If  they 
won't  let  me  nurse  just  at  first,  I  can 
prepare  bandages.    I  can — " 

"Anybody  can  prepare  bandages. 
Plenty  of  French  girls — " 

"Then  I  shall  be  a  stretcher-bearer!" 

"Stretcher-bearers  must  be  strong. 
Men  for  that." 

Was  this  ruthless  stranger  trying  to 
get  her  recalled  at  the  eleventh  hour? 

He  addressed  himself  again  to  Mrs. 
McAlpin.  "You  shouldn't  allow  your 
protegee — "  Ruth  turned  in  agitation 
to  the  gangway.  Her  enemy  stood  there, 
barring  the  entrance.  She  turned  to 
her  friend,  fighting  a  terror  of  apprehen- 
sion. "I  shouldn't  like  going  against 
your  will,"  she  said,  pointedly,  to  the 
great  lady. 

"But,"  Mrs.  McAlpin  finished  the 
sentence  for  her,  "you'd  go!" 

The  girl's  eyes  prayed  forgiveness. 
"If  you'd  heard  how  they  need  us." 
She  stopped  with  a  catch  in  her  throat. 
The  man  still  stood  there  between  Ruth 
Aberdeen  and  her  goal,  as  if  he — a  person 
she  had  never  seen  in  her  life  before — 
had  power  to  shape  her  destiny. 

"The  doctors  over  there  know  what 
the  need  is,"  she  said  to  him,  trying  to 
keep  her  voice  steady.  "Ask  any 
R.A.M.C.  man.  They'll  tell  you,"  she 
insisted,  proudly,  "there  was  never  a 
war  before  where  soldiers  were  taken 
such  care  of;  where  nurses — doctors,  too 
— ran  such  risks." 


"Doctors,  too,  eh?" 

Oh,  terribly  hard  to  move,  this  man  at 
the  gangway.  She  bit  her  lip  to  still  its 
trembling.  "Maybe  you  didn't  read  in 
the  paper  about  wanting  to  prevent  our 
doctors  and  nurses  from  running  such 
risks?"  Because— she  was  good  enough 
to  explain — at  this  rate  there  soon  won't 
be  enough.  "I  don't  expect  the  doctors 
will  pay  any  attention  to  that — any 
more,"  she  added,  with  her  chin  in  the 
air,  "than  the  nurses  will.  When  they're 
— done  for,  you  can  see  .  .  .  oh,  can't 
you  see  others  must  be  ready!" 

There  was  an  odd  expression  on  his 
face  as  he  took  his  hands  off  the  gang- 
way rail.  Why  was  he  looking  at  her 
like  that — so — yes,  quite  gently,  as  if 
he  were  glad  to  let  her  pass? 

"The  steward's  been  hunting  for  you, 
doctor,"  the  young  man  said  over  Ork- 
ney's shoulder.  "Any  answer?"  He 
held  out  a  telegram.  As  Orkney  tore 
open  the  envelope  a  voice  shouted,  "All 
aboard!"   A  bell  clanged. 

Mrs.  McAlpin  did  what  she  had  never 
done  before.  She  kissed  Ruth.  "Good- 
by,  child.    Let  me  hear  . 

The  girl  clung  to  her  an  instant.  "A 
doctor!"  she  said.  "Maybe  he'd  say  a 
word  for  me  if  you — " 

Mrs.  McAlpin  shook  her  head. 

Ruth  dropped  her  hand.  "Very  well. 
As  soon  as  we  have  started  I  shall  ask 
him  myself." 

Mrs.  McAlpin  seemed  strangely 
shocked  at  the  suggestion,  "You  could 
do  that?" 

"When  I  think  about  our  soldiers. 
.  .  .  Yes!" 

Through    the   clangor   of  the  bell: 

"Come,"  said  the  great  surgeon.  "We 
mustn't  be  left  behind — you  and  I." 
For  a  single  instant  Ruth  hung  there, 
choking  down  her  tears.  Why  didn't 
they  go  on  and  get  out  of  her  way? — 
this  surgeon  and  the  lucky  young  man, 
so  safe  and  proud  with  "you  and  I." 
She  lifted  her  eyes  and  met  the  sur- 
geon's. He  was  waiting  for  her.  You 
and  I !  It  echoed  still  above  the  clanging 
bell.    He  never  could  have  meant — 

"Come,  child!" 

As  she  passed  between  the  two  men, 
James  Orkney's  grave  gesture  intro- 
duced the  girl  while  he  motioned  her  on. 
"One  of  our  nurses,"  he  said. 


Steamboating  Through  Dixie 


BY  WILLIAM  J.  AYLWARD 


HE  was  due  to  leave  on 
Wednesday,  but  it  was 
noon  on  Thursday  be- 
fore the  packet  Reese 
Lee  got  under  way  for 
Dixie  from  below  the 
bridge  at  St.  Louis. 
A  considerable  portion  of  the  colored 
population  had  gathered  to  watch  her 
departure,  hoping  for  a  possible  chance 
to  ship  as  "musters,"  to  be  taken  "down 
ribber"  by  a  planter  to  pick  cotton,  to 
bid  some  one  good-by,  or  "jess  to  pass 
the  time  away."  They  formed  a  dark 
cloud  on  the  wharf-boat  through  which 
the  last  few  pieces  of  freight  and  hurry- 
ing passengers  made  their  way,  and  the 
group  of  gipsies  on  the  bank,  then  break- 
ing camp,  came  in  a  straggling  pictur- 
esque procession  of  wagons,  women  and 
children  and  horses  and  dogs  and  men. 
Like  their  brethren  of  the  air,  these  mi- 
gratory ones  were  going  south.  The 
whistle  sounded  a  last  warning  when  the 
swart  chief  sought  the  mate.  His  people 
were  not  all  there! 

The  mate  was  busy,  and  said  he  did 
not  give  a  something  whether  they  were 
or  not.  Go  see  the  captain.  The  captain 
was  also  unmoved.  They  knew  when 
the  steamer  left,  didn't  they?  Very 
well,  then;  they  must  be  on  hand  or  ex- 
pect to  be  left  behind.  He  would  wait 
five  minutes  only! 

The  precious  five  minutes  went  soar- 
ing. The  chief  wrung  his  hands  in 
agony,  and  mopped  his  greasy  brow  with 
a  soiled  bandana. 

The  big  bell  tolled,  a  little  bell  jingled 
somewhere  below,  and  the  rumbling 
steam-winch  under  the  deck  was  bring- 
ing the  landing-stage  home  when  the 
despairing  man  saw  a  bit  of  red  calico 
in  one  of  the  narrow  streets  leading  to 
the  levee.  In  a  flash  he  was  out  on  the 
swinging  stage,  bowled  over  a  few  dar- 
kies in  a  wild  leap  for  the  barge,  and 
went  up  the  paved  incline,  followed  by 
two  of  his  band  who  seized  each  a 


heavily  laden  female  and  dragged  her, 
screaming,  down  the  hill  through  the  up- 
roariously amused  darkies,  and  aboard. 

In  the  mean  time  the  steamer  was 
beginning  to  back  out  into  the  river, 
and  by  the  time  she  had  turned  and 
was  headed  down-stream  beyond  reach 
of  the  parting  yells  of  the  blacks  ashore, 
the  tumult  on  the  crowded  forecastle 
had  subsided.  The  men  lit  their  long 
pipes  contentedly,  the  women  soothed 
the  crying  children  with  tomatoes,  and 
the  dogs  crawled  in  amid  the  heaped- 
up  harness  under  the  wagons  for  a 
nap,  soon  to  be  disturbed  by  the  mate, 
who  was  already  making  preparations 
to  hoist  the  outfit  to  the  hurricane- 
deck,  there  to  pitch  their  messy  camp 
anew. 

A  heavy,  stuffy  atmosphere  en- 
shrouded the  smoky  city,  in  which  the 
beautiful  span  of  Eads  Bridge  soon  dis- 
appeared, and,  as  a  coming  storm  was 
ready  to  break,  the  glad  summons  of  the 
dinner-bell  was  doubly  welcome,  for  it 
gave  me  an  opportunity  to  meet  my 
fellow-passengers. 

There  were  a  surprising  number  of 
them,  almost  filling  the  two  extension- 
tables  which  occupied  the  long  saloon. 
The  old  river  tradition  of  reserving  the 
after  part  of  the  cabin  for  the  women 
still  obtained,  and  in  that  portion  you 
still  find  the  better  furniture — "tidies," 
even,  and  a  table  with  an  album  of 
views,  and  in  this  instance  above  the 
piano  the  somewhat  disquieting  motto: 
"In  God  We  Trust,"  writ  large  in  gold 
across  the  white  bulkhead. 

It  was  a  motley  gathering,  and  in  a 
slightly  embarrassed  atmosphere  the 
meal,  badly  served  but  of  fair  quality, 
was  disposed  of.  We  ventured  forth, 
in  a  toothpick  brigade,  to  watch  the 
breaking  storm.  We  soon  saw  quite  as 
much  as  we  cared  for,  for  what  we  went 
through  during  the  next  two  hours  we 
afterward  learned  was  the  tail  of  a 
Kansas  cyclone. 


THE  GIPSY  CAMP  ON  DECK 


Thrice  the  lightning  struck  the  vessel, 
but  without  damage  save  to  a  bit  of 
gingerbread  ornamentation  and  the 
gilded  acorn  at  the  end  of  the  derrick- 
boom,  but  glass  suffered  considera- 
bly. 

Then  it  settled  down  to  breeze  up  hard 
and  cold  from  the  north,  which  stopped 
the  rain  and  drove  the  heavy  clouds 
wildly  against  the  crags,  to  tumble  over 
them  in  ragged  shreds.  It  was  our  last 
view  of  the  cliffs,  dark  and  glistening 
against  the  wind-torn  sky,  for  by  the 
morrow,  when  once  below  the  walled 
city  of  Cairo,  we  would  enter  quite  an- 
other Mississippi — the  vast  length  called 
the  Lower  River,  much  of  which  the 
packet  still  claims  as  her  own,  for  no 
railroad  would  be  so  foolhardy  as  to  lay 
a  parallel  track  within  miles  of  its 
treacherous,  ever-changing  banks. 

It  is  here  the  packet  proves  her  re- 
markable adaptability  to  conditions 
primitive  in  the  extreme;  and  at  land- 
ings often  no  better  equipped  for  the 
handling  of  freight  than  they  were  in  the 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.-64 


time  of  Marquette  and  La  Salle,  the  boat 
will  put  her  stem  in  the  mud,  run  a  single 
line  ashore,  and  have  the  cargo  going 
out  or  coming  aboard  almost  before  she 
takes  up  the  slack  on  her  mooring.  We 
were  soon  at  it. 

In  foul  weather  the  procedure  was 
more  laborious.  Planks  had  to  be  laid 
in  the  slimy  ooze,  cinders  shoveled  out 
by  the  ton,  and  sometimes  a  rude  flight 
of  steps  cut  in  the  bank  with  mattock 
and  spade  before  a  piece  of  freight  could 
be  moved.  And  even  after  these  prepa- 
rations eleven  men  were  sometimes 
needed  to  get  a  barrel  of  salt  up  to  the 
rude  shanty  called  the  "wayhouse." 

And  so  the  freight  came  and  went  till 
it  seemed  that  in  the  four-hundred-mile 
trip  to  Memphis  the  steamer  must  have 
been  loaded  and  discharged  several 
times,  stowing  away  meanwhile  huge 
cotton  bales  by  the  thousand  consigned 
to  the  great  center  of  the  South's  snowy 
product.  And  such  cargoes!  With  the 
cotton  came  seed  in  sacks,  canned  goods 
in  boxes,  and  cabbages  in  crates — kegs, 


THE  ROUSTABOUTS  HAVE  THEIR  HOURS  OF  IDLENESS 


barrels,  and  hogsheads  of  everything 
from  nails  to  molasses. 

There  was  live  stock,  too;  and  in  the 
corral  called  the  "bull-pen"  the  gipsy 
ponies  were  in  time  joined  by  a  "con- 
traptious  mewel,"  who,  stubbornly  re- 
fusing to  come  aboard,  was  carried  aloft 
in  chain-bars  on  the  shoulders  of  four 
men. 

It  was,  however,  mainly  a  cotton  trip, 
for  the  season  was  on  in  Memphis. 
Every  hamlet  had  its  hundreds  of  bales 
waiting  on  top  of  the  bank;  every  back- 
woods plantation  its  dozens  to  send  to 
the  South's  great  mart;  and  "rollin' 
cotton"  came  to  have  a  new  meaning. 
Now  and  then  a  huge  rain-soaked  bale 
weighing  almost  half  a  ton  broke  free 
and  with  the  speed  of  a  projectile  in  its 
mad  race  down-hill  bowled  over  a  cou- 
ple of  roustabouts,  who  barely  escaped 
being  crushed  against  other  bales  by 
prompt  and  energetic  footwork.  Such 
performances  were  hailed  with  glee  by  the 


local  population  on  the  bank,  and  if  the 
awkward  burden  finally  plunged  with  a 
prodigious  splash  into  the  river  there 
was  a  hilarious  burst  of  applause  indeed. 

At  his  day's  work — which  may  last 
twenty-four  hours — we  had  a  chance  to 
study  that  interesting  specimen,  the 
negro  "roustabout."  Singularly  adapted 
to  the  traffic,  he  is  apparently  as  insep- 
arable from  the  Mississippi  River  packet 
as  her  filigree  chimneys,  and  no  foreign 
competitor  has  ever  been  able  to  oust 
him  from  his  monopoly.  For  the  work, 
though  hard,  is  intermittent,  and  for 
every  spell  of  work  there  is  also  a  spelL 
of  complete  idleness,  since  the  roustabout 
does  nothing  but  handle  cargo.  It  is 
perhaps  for  this  reason  that  no  foreign 
competition  has  been  able  to  supplant 
him.  It  has  been  tried,  but  the  most 
powerful  European  laborer  breaks  down 
under  the  strain  of  irregular  hoursr 
heavy  toil,  exposure,  and  heat. 

Among  the  fifty  roustabouts  there 


STEAMBOATING  THROUGH  DIXIE 


515 


were  some  odd  types.  Some  were  of 
simple  nature,  others  sullen  and  always 
brooding  seemingly  on  fancied  wrongs; 
there  were  jolly  ones  who  danced  a 
shuffle  coming  down  the  springy  stage, 
and  quarrelsome  others  continually  ut- 
tering dark  threats.  There  were  big 
darkies  with  little  heads,  little  darkies 
with  big  heads;  giants  to  whom  the 
heavy  work  seemed  child's  play,  and 
puny  specimens  surprisingly  strong. 
Two  had  only  one  arm  each,  while  the 
gang-boss  had  a  wooden  leg. 

''Come  on  hyah  you  boll-weavll!',  he 
sings  out.  "Git  along  wi'  that  go- 
lightly  stufF!" 

"All   right,   boss;    I'm   a  skippin 

hurry!" 

"You  bettah  skin  hurry!"  he  roars 
back.  "  Whar  you  think  you  is — on  the 
dancin'  flo'?" 

When  one  grumbles  about  his  fa- 
voritin'"   somebody,  the  boss  bawls: 

"What  you  mean,  niggah?  I  don' 
favorite  ma  own  bruddah!  Go  'long 
outen  heah  wi'  that  bundle  o'  rakes  what 
a  pickaninny  would  laugh  at." 

But  most  of  the  vocabulary  of  the 
rousters  is  largely  unintelligible  to  an 
outsider.    They  say  every  captain  and 


mate  on  the  river  has  his  lower-deck 
title,  and  among  themselves  there  were 
such  choice  nicknames  as  "Red-Eye," 
"Long-Bone,"  "Rum-Dick,"  "Sugar- 
Lips,"  "Tar-Heels,"  "Go-Lightly,"  and 
"Preacher." 

I  was  puzzled  for  a  time  about 
"Preacher,"  who  did  not  remotely  sug- 
gest his  title,  for  he  was  a  small,  wiry 
man  clad  only  in  ragged  overalls. 
Around  his  neck  was  a  soiled  bandana, 
and  on  his  great  feet  prodigious  shoes. 
A  shapeless  cap  completed  his  outfit. 
But  "Preacher"  was  a  jewel,  and,  once 
discovered,  I  kept  my  eye  on  him  and 
my  ears  open,  for  he  was  an  old-time 
shanty-man  of  the  rare  breed  who  im- 
provise as  they  go  along,  and  from  whom 
it  is  said  the  deep-water  sailor,  while 
loading  cotton  at  New  Orleans,  has  bor- 
rowed much  of  the  material  which  he 
has  since  worked  up  into  ditties  of  the 


sea. 


Much  of  "Preacher's"  theme  was  lost 
in  the  hold,  or  in  a  wavering  chant  van- 
ished over  the  top  of  the  bank  into  the 
"wayhouse,"  but  it  usually  went  some- 
thing like  this: 

O  Lawd  hab  mercy  on  sinful  Sam 
Who  hab  transgressed  dy  law, 


GETTING  THE  FREIGHT  ABOARD 


516 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


followed  with  a  more  or  less  detailed 
account  of  the  backslider's  slips,  while 
the  unregenerate  in  question  would  bel- 
low in  return,  in  the  same  formless  camp- 
meeting  air,  and  with  apparent  indif- 
ference. To  this  musical  tirade  they 
would  all  keep  time  with  shuffling  feet 
while  the  cargo  came  and  went  with  oc- 
casional vigorous  encouragement  from 
the  mate. 

Nor  did  "Preacher"  confine  his  shafts 
to  his  companions  in  toil  but  in  a  generous 
way  lampooned  the  people  on  the  bank, 
the  passengers  hanging  over  the  railing, 
and,  more  guardedly,  the  steamer,  the 
captain,  and  even  the  mate.  This  was 
done  in  such  a  way  that  nothing  offensive 
was  overheard,  but  the  roars  of  African 
laughter  in  the  hold  sometimes  told  us 
that  a  particularly  sharp  barb  of 
"Preacher's"  had  gone  home. 

The  next  most  interesting  personage 
on  board  the  packet  was  the  mate.  In 
prose  and  poetry  the  Mississippi  mate 
has  been  a  twin  brother  to  the  Bucko 
of  the  sea,  and  I  rather  hoped  to  see  one 
in  the  flesh  somewhere  on  the  river,  but 
was  disappointed.  Our  chief  mate,  a 
burly  Swiss  named  Smith,  handled  the 
"work-dodging  varmints"  under  him 
with  great  skill,  without  brutality  and 
with  only  an  occasional  resort  to  river 
vernacular — the  strong  kind  which  the 
roustabouts  understand.  But  then  Mr. 
Smith  saw  the  humor  in  the  darky  and 
was  not  above  lending  a  hand  himself  in 
a  pinch,  and  he  did  not  carry  a  club 
while  on  watch,  as  the  second  mate 
did. 

A  typical  instance  of  his  methods  oc- 
curred at  one  of  the  many  night  landings 
when  he  took  occasion  to  count  his  gang 
and  found  it  one  short.  A  quiet  search 
failed  to  reveal  the  malingerer,  and  the 
next  day  we  overheard  this  harangue: 

"You  niggahs  think  yo'  smart  when 
you  put  one  over  on  me,  but  my  turn 
comes,  too,  en'  if  I  didn't  say  anything 
last  night  at  Hickman,  I  put  a  certain 
niggah's  name  down  in  mah  little  book. 
En'  one  o'  these  days  when  I'm  shippin' 
a  crew  he'll  be  standin'  theah  on  the 
wharf-boat,  wet  en'  cold  en'  hungry, 
a-reachin'  out  for  a  ticket,  but  I  won't 
see  him." 

Of  course  we  knew  that  this  was 
"bunk,"  and  that  if  the  mate  found  that 


rapscallion,  or  knew  who  he  was,  he 
would  have  dragged  him  by  the  neck 
from  his  warm,  cozy  retreat  on  top  of 
the  cargo  near  the  chimneys,  and  would 
have  chased  him  up  the  hill  for  the 
heaviest  piece  of  freight  he  could  find. 
But  his  scheme  seemed  to  work  well,  for 
there  was  no  more  trouble  of  that  kind 
during  the  rest  of  the  trip. 

At  last  we  came  to  ancient  New 
Madrid.  It  was  the  afternoon  of  market- 
day,  and  in  the  breezy  sunshine,  fol- 
lowing a  night  and  morning  of  heavy 
rain,  the  flying  clouds  soared  high  over- 
head above  the  saddled  horses,  which 
still  stood  in  a  long,  patient  row  tethered 
to  the  awning-poles  along  the  edge  of 
the  sidewalk  in  Main  Street. 

At  the  end  of  the  wide-  street  the  cot- 
ton bolls  bob  excitedly  in  the  wind,  for 
all  the  world  like  a  myriad  of  rabbits 
scurrying  in  mad  fright  across  a  green 
field;  and  close  at  hand,  under  a  tree  in 
the  yard  adjoining  his  shop,  a  blacksmith 
is  hammering  away  at  the  heavily  boxed 
wheels  of  a  huge  lumber-cart.  Farther 
on,  rocking  comfortably  on  rickety 
porches,  colored  mammies  in  bandana 
headgear  remove  their  corn-cob  pipes 
to  say,  "Mawnin',  Mistah  Johnsing," 
to  that  elderly  gentleman  who  hobbles 
along  leaning  on  an  umbrella-handle,  and 
politely  doffs  his  tall  and  battered  tile, 
mops  his  shiny  ebon  head  with  a  red 
handkerchief  taken  from  the  little  fruit- 
basket  on  his  arm,  as  he  pauses  to  barter 
the  gossip  of  the  day.  All  is  peace  and 
seeming  content,  although  a  distant  war 
has  laid  a  heavy  hand  on  the  fortunes 
of  the  people  and  their  crop  is  a  drug 
in  the  market. 

Farther  on,  a  rather  pretty  young 
woman  who  has  overlooked  a  bit  of 
darning  is  being  handed  into  the  body 
of  a  springless  farm  wagon,  where  she 
sits  in  a  splint-bottom  kitchen  chair  to 
receive  two  babies  handed  up  to  her  by 
her  youthful  husband  in  store  clothes. 
She  is  joined  by  an  older  woman  who 
"sets"  in  another  "cheer,"  also  to  re- 
ceive a  child  in  her  lap.  The  young 
father  clambers  up  beside  father-in-law, 
who,  in  a  hickory  shirt,  sits  on  the 
board  serving  as  a  driver's  seat.  The 
mules  are  awakened  with  a  whack,  and 
the  caravan  moves  on  toward  the  open 
country  to  trek  afar  over  the  soft  roads 


A  FLOATING-THEATER  PERFORMANCE 


and  to  arrive  by  nightfall,  perhaps,  at 
some  tiny  plantation  in  the  distant  hills. 

Through  beautiful  leafy  back  lanes, 
where  cows  stray  and  old  mansions  sag 
in  grassy  yards,  past  others  in  yet  more 
evil  days  which  harbor  paying  guests 
who  apparently  do  not  pay,  I  made  my 
way  to  the  steamer,  and  I  shall  always 
carry  a  pleasant  picture  of  New  Madrid, 
of  lineage  so  ancient  and  of  sites  so 
many  that  she  scarce  remembers  on 
which  bank  of  the  river  she  originally 
stood. 

By  this  time  we  were  well  into  the 
South,  and  our  ship's  company  fairly 
well  acquainted.  The  jolly  brewer  from 
Chicago  traveling  with  his  son  was  in- 
tensely interested  in  icing-plants;  the 
mining-engineer  from  Montana  never 
overlooked  anything  in  hoisting-gears  or 
conveyers;  the  man  from  Jersey  kept  up 
his  search  for  a  cotton-gin  in  action; 
while  the  most  pleasantly  interesting 
chap  aboard  showed  an  uncanny  interest 
in  graveyards. 

One  day  our  graveyard  enthusiast  was 
inspired  to  ask  the  mining-engineer  op- 


posite if  they  were  bothered  much  with  the 
Mormons  out  in  Montana.  His  charm- 
ing wife  blushed  a  bit  and  laughed  as  she 
announced  that  they  themselves  were 
Mormons.  Ifeltit  an  opportune  moment 
to  facetiously  remarktomyneighborthat 
he  should  have  attended  the  convention 
of  cemetery  superintendents  held  in  St. 
Louis  during  my  stay  there.  He  said  he 
had.  Just  then  the  Reese  Lee  gave  the 
two  long  blasts  and  three  sharp  toots 
which  announced  to  adjacent  counties 
that  a  Lee  Line  steamer  bound  down- 
river was  about  to  make  a  landing;  and 
when  the  tumult  subsided  the  lady  from 
Memphis  remarked  sadly  that  it  was  a 
shame  "the  steam  they  wasted  on  them 
little  landin's."  It  was  not  wasted  that 
time. 

The  planters  were  a  disappointing  lot. 
Not  one  wore  a  goatee  and  frock-coat, 
slouch-hat  and  Congressional  tie,  al- 
though most  of  them  displayed  some 
portion  of  this  costume.  Some  wore  no 
tie  at  all  and  no  collar  to  speak  of,  and 
they  were  for  ever  talking  about  their 
"niggahs"    and    of   how    many  had 


THE  FLOATING  LAUNDRY 


escaped  during  the  night.  This  topic 
was  varied  with  discussions  of  the  ad- 
vantage of  overflow  versus  hillside  land 
for  cotton. 

Each  morning  their  prospective  dusky 
cotton-pickers  sprawled  over  the  cargo 
in  gradually  diminishing  numbers.  Wild 
and  foolish  were  the  excuses  given  for 
getting  ashore  past  the  watchman,  and 
indicative  of  their  simple  natures.  One 
would  have  the  "misery  powerful  bad, 
and  had  to  see  a  doctah";  another  "had 
a  friend  heah  who  would  be  hurted" 
did  he  fail  to  make  a  call  while  passing; 
another  would  have  a  message  to  de- 
liver; but  the  clever  ones,  watching 
their  chance  when  a  back  was  turned, 
would  grab  a  small  piece  of  freight  and, 
joining  the  procession  of  roustabouts, 
clamber  up  the  hill  and  disappear,  as 
novelists  say,  into  the  night. 

The  poor  beggars  had  small  comfort, 
packed  in  with  the  freight  or  in  that 
horrible  den  called  the  monkey-deck,  a 
sort  of  raised  open  platform  of  boiler- 
iron  just  abaft  the  engine-room  with  its 
hissing  steam,  noisy  machinery,  and 
jangling  bells  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the 
other  the  thundering  cascade  of  tons  of 
water  being  violently  hurled  against  the 
resounding  iron  by  the  paddle-wheel 
a  few  feet  away.  Altogether  it  was  a 
place  about  as  reposeful  as  a  boiler- 
shop  in  action,  but  sleeping  men,  women, 


and  children  sprawled  about  the  unclean 
iron  deck  amid  the  remains  of  fruit  and 
vegetables  and  empty  gin-bottles,  and 
the  single  lamp — a  mere  globule  of  light 
in  the  steamy  vapor — revealed  the  utter 
cheerlessness  of  it. 

As  a  distinction  due  their  lighter  com- 
plexions, the  poor  whites  traveling  on 
the  deck  were  allowed  the  scant  privi- 
lege of  the  engine-room,  and  here, 
stowed  in  odd  out-of-the-way  corners, 
they  looked  unhappy  enough. 

Making  my  way  forward  through  the 
narrow,  noiseless  alley  formed  by  the 
cotton-bales  just  flush  with  the  ponies' 
ears,  I  paused  and  watched  through  the 
open  side  the  river,  somber  in  the  still- 
ness of  the  night;  and  the  dark-wooded 
little  islets  that  now  and  then  cut  across 
the  slender  trail  of  moonlight  that  wa- 
vered tenderly  over  the  water. 

As  I  was  enjoying  the  peace  and  quiet 
of  the  river  wrapped  in  the  mystery  of  a 
setting  moon,  a  negro  appeared  at  the 
other  end  of  the  alleyway  from  the 
general  direction  of  the  colored  man's 
bar.  Taking  one  look  out  at  the  moon- 
light, he  came  down  the  smooth,  soft 
path  of  cotton  in  a  noiseless  shuffle,  and, 
with  swaying  body  and  swinging  arms 
all  timed  perfectly  in  rhythm  with  the 
engine's  throbbing  beat  and  the  swish 
of  the  water,  sang,  in  a  wavering  fal- 
setto, his  suddenly  inspired  impromptu: 


STEAMBOATING  THROUGH  DIXIE 


519 


"Oh — awa' — ay  yondah  is  an  i-i-land! 
Oh,  yah — de  moon  is  on  de  ribber, 
An  we  gwine — a-glidin'  by! 
Ole  cotton's  gwine  a — glidin'  by!" 

It  was  "  Preacher,"  and  his  primitive 
brain,  touched  by  a  dash  of  gin,  had 
pictured  it  all  better  than  I,  who  futilely 
sought  the  significance  of  it  all. 

I  wish  I  could  remember  the  rest  of 
his  song  about  the  cotton  "  an'  de  coon, 
de  ribber  an'  de  moon,  an'  islands  a-glid- 
in' by!"  But  it  was  genuinely  felt,  and 
a  bit  of  the  real  Mississippi  by  one  of 
the  old  river's  own  untaught  bards. 

We  awoke  one  gray  dawn  to  find  the 
steamer  secured  beside  acres  and  acres 
of  cotton-bales  stuck  here  and  there 
with  colored  burgees  limp  in  the  dewy 
air;  and  behind  them,  in  silhouetted 
mass,  the  gray  towers  and  sky-scrapers 
of  a  city.    We  were  in  Memphis. 

With  its  well-kept  streets  and  splendid 
buildings,  Memphis  has  not  only  a  mod- 
ern, but  a  metropolitan  air.  Also  it  is 
the  only  place  on  the  river  that  has  a 
public  building  on  the  bank,  and  while 
the  post-office  and  library  are  not  pre- 
tentious pieces  of  architecture,  still  the 
sight  of  them  there  was  a  relief  after  the 


usual  heterogeneous  row  of  gin-mills  and 
boat-stores  always  to  be  found  near  the 
water's  edge. 

But  like  every  town  and  city  in  the 
valley,  all  water-front  improvements 
end  at  the  top  of  the  roughly  paved  stone 
area  called  the  levee  on  which  the  steam- 
ers dump  their  freight.  Here  the  usual 
disorder  and  confusion  of  cargoes  ob- 
tains, with  the  same  row  of  shabby 
wharf-boats  for  a  background,  and  ap- 
parently the  same  swearing  mates  and 
toiling  stevedores,  the  same  darky  and 
balky  mule  having  the  same  unending 
argument  about  "gittin'  up  dat  dar 
hill." 

What  such  conditions  have  cost  in 
extra  cartage  and  knee-sprung  stock  it 
is  impossible  to  guess.  Millions,  easily, 
during  the  course  of  years.  Perhaps  the 
end  is  in  sight,  and  gasolene  will  eventu- 
ally solve  the  problem  of  reaching  an 
ever-changing  level.  Certainly  the  mili- 
tary-looking truck  that  followed  the 
mule  " toting"  a  dozen  or  so  bales 
seemed  efficient  enough. 

This  was  bound,  I  was  told,  for  the 
Memphis  Terminal,  where  I  found  a 
vast  acreage  covered  with  a  myriad  of 
low,  concrete  sheds,  inclosed  in  a  walled 


THE  LEVEE  WORKERS  CAMP 


520 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


space  and  containing  perhaps  more  cot- 
ton than  any  other  single  spot  in  the 
world.  In  every  direction,  through  ev- 
ery door  of  every  shed,  every  vista  was 
of  cotton-bales!  There  were  negroes 
opening  bales  and  storing  bales;  white 
men  examining  bales,  and  huge  machines 
compressing  them,  while  on  a  singular 
overhead  trolley-like  contrivance  a  long 
procession  of  them  came  dangling  along, 
merrily  hauled  by  a  single  mule,  who 
will  draw,  they  say,  one  hundred  in  a 
single  tow  to  any  part  of  the  vast  depot. 
Here  was  efficiency  indeed — efficiency 
typified  by  the  ease  with  which  the  huge 
compress  and  its  crew  of  singing  negroes 
reduced  a  big  bale  for  foreign  shipment 
into  a  compact  bundle  not  much  larger 
than  a  barrel,  and  so  quickly  that  it  was 
back  in  its  place  of  storage,  rebound  and 
relabeled,  within  a  scant  two  minutes. 

I  wandered  in  amid  the  cotton  where 
it  was  being  loaded  into  cars,  or  where 
a  keen  young  Southerner  singled  out  a 
bale  containing  a  guilty  "wet-pack," 
and  sat  chewing  tobacco  while  it  was 
opened  and  its  shame  disclosed — "rank 
as  a  rotting  potato  in  a  damp  cellah, 
suh !" 

"  Easy  enough  to  find  'em  with  a  little 
practice,"  he  said — "by  sticking  this 
hook  in  and  giving  it  a  twist.  But  the 
best  rule  is  'follow  yo'  nose,'  suh! 
Penitentiary  offense  it  is,  too;  but  yo' 
can't  prove  it  intentional,  as  a  drop  o' 
water  from  a  gin  may  start  one,  though 
it's  generally  due  to  carelessness  an' 
ginnin'  in  wet  weathah.  It's  a  cinch  we 
get  'em,  though,  and  theyahs  a  charge 
for  opening  and  rebailing  besides  re- 
grading." 

I  wandered  back  through  the  mile  or 
so  of  bales  standing  solemnly  in  neat 
groups  and  clustered  about  the  cement 
columns  whose  numbers  registered  their 
positions  in  the  ledger — a  great  solitude 
of  quiet,  and  only  here  and  there  a  soft- 
spoken  Southerner  or  an  ancient  negro 
or  two  sorting  over  cotton,  and  maybe  a 
bespectacled  mammy  mending  jute. 

Below  Memphis  the  river  meanders 
through  a  flat  land  with  but  three  ele- 
vations, and  a  city  on  each — Natchez, 
Vicksburg,  and  Baton  Rouge;  and  here 
the  river  performs  the  deeds  for  which 
it  is  famous. 


From  the  pilot-house  of  the  Percy 
Swain  I  watched  it  as  in  making  our  way 
south  we  steered  north  and  stemmed 
the  current  (in  a  great  eddy)  going 
down-stream.  The  states  of.  Louisiana 
and  Mississippi  changed  places,  and 
were  respectively  to  port  and  starboard 
rather  than  to  right  and  left  as  they 
should  be.  But  nothing  was  strange  in  a 
land  where  the  sun  was  to  all  appear- 
ances in  the  northeast  at  four  in  the 
afternoon. 

It  was  a  region  big  in  scale  and  feeling, 
and  seemingly  devoid  of  human  habita- 
tion or  buildings  of  any  sort.  At  a  land- 
ing there  would  often  be  nothing  in 
sight  save  a  colored  boy,  with  a  mule 
attached  by  a  frayed  harness  of  rope 
to  a  grass  sled,  who  would  receive  a 
thin  bag  of  mail  and  perhaps  a  keg  of 
nails.  Then  more  wilderness  of  dark 
timber  in  patches,  and  sand-bars  grown 
into  islands  that  measured  their  golden 
lengths  by  miles  under  a  limitless  sky 
th  at  covered  a  hopeless  solitude — a  soli- 
tude seemingly  emphasized  at  long  in- 
tervals by  the  sight  of  a  stray  skifF,  tiny 
in  the  great  waters,  a  power-boat  "tim- 
ber cruising,"  or,  silhouetted  against 
the  sky,  a  long  string  of  oxen  dragging 
a  log. 

And  through  it  all  the  Percy  Swain 
goes  plowing  along  the  banks  where 
sometimes  a  road  ends  abruptly  in  the 
air;  and  then,  skidding  across  a  glassy 
reach,  with  a  friendly  crane  showing  the 
way.  Pilot  Billy  Read  yarned  about 
logging  and  rafting  timber,  piloting  and 
ante-bellum  days. 

Then  came  evening  and  the  night  to 
awaken  in  charming  old  Natchez  with 
its  traditions  of  an  ancient  regime  of 
wealth  in  the  dimmed  splendor  of  stately 
mansions  and  vast  estates;  of  pleasant 
brick-paved  streets,  colonial  spires,  and 
round-topped  belfries  tucked  in  amid 
great  masses  of  dark,  sheltering  foliage; 
of  shady  walks  and  balconies  overclung 
with  flowering  vines  where  gentle-voiced 
women  attend  the  caroling  birds  in  the 
bright  morning  sunshine. 

And  then  Vicksburg,  with  its  eighteen 
thousand  graves  of  Northern  men,  elo- 
quent of  strife  as  the  black  cannon  that 
still  peer  here  and  there  darkly  from  the 
wooded  heights.  It  is  well-nigh  impos- 
sible to  realize  the  former  importance  of 


STEAMBOATING  THROUGH  DIXIE 


521 


the  place  now  so  far  back  from  the  river 
it  once  guarded  so  stubbornly. 

Here  the  "New  Era  Floating  Theater 
Company"  was  rehearsing  and  fitting 
out  for  a  winter  season  among  the  river- 
side towns  and  big  plantations  that  bor- 
der on  the  bayous  of  Louisiana.  It 
seemed  a  prosperous  enough  establish- 
ment, with  a  tiny  show-house  superim- 
posed upon  a  scow  having  as  consort  a 
trim  little  packet  of  a  towboat  which, 
besides  moving  it  from  place  to  place, 
furnished  quarters  for  the  troupe,  who 
lived  aboard  it  as  a  large  family. 

This  arrangement  has  many  advan- 
tages over  the  shore  way  of  doing  things, 
I  was  told,  for  an  actor  can  make-up  and 
dress  for  the  part  in  his  state-room,  and 
just  in  time  for  his  first  cue  step  aboard 
the  theater  and  on  the  stage  as  a  hero 
or  villain  fully  arrayed. 

From  all  accounts  it  is  a  picturesque 
life  not  without  incident,  and  ofFering 
opportunity  galore  for  him  who  would 
hunt  and  fish  as  well  as  strut  the  boards. 
And  it  is  said  that  among  those  who  have 
in  this  way  begun  a  career  that  carried 
them  into  the  higher  levels  of  their  art — 
"on  the  circuit" — there  always  remains 
a  love  of  the  old  life  and  a  longing  for 
its  careless  freedom  in  roving  over  quiet 
backwaters  where  audiences  are  easily 
amused  and  existence  is  a  simple  thing. 

It  is  an  interesting  phase  of  Missis- 
sippi life — the  really  vast  scattered 
population  that  makes  its  home  upon 
either  the  river  or  its  tributaries,  re- 
ferred to  contemptuously  in  many  terms 
more  or  less  profane  by  shore  folk  and 
steamboat  men,  but  among  themselves 
always  as  "River  People."  By  this  is 
not  meant  the  men  who  follow  the  river 
as  a  sailor  follows  the  sea,  or  the  people 
along  its  banks  who  fish,  run  a  ferry,  dig 
clams,  or  rent  boats,  although  one  may 
do  all  these  things  and  still  lay  claim  to 
the  title.  One  must  make  his  home  per- 
manently, winter  and  summer,  in  season 
and  out,  afloat  on  the  waters. 

Such  a  home  may  be  a  well-built  tidy 
cabin  on  a  water-tight  scow  with  chil- 
dren playing  about,  and  flowering  plants 
trailing  from  neat  railings.  It  may  be 
moored  off  its  own  garden-patch  and 
pile  of  driftwood  as  big  as  the  main 
outfit,  or  it  may  be  no  more  than  a 
leaky  skiff  drifting  slowly  on  a  sluggish 

Vou  CXXXI.— No.  784.-65 


current  with  nothing  between  its  lonely 
occupant  and  starvation  but  some  rot- 
ting old  gear  with  which  to  fish  the 
muddy  waters. 

It  depends  on  whether  he  be  mer- 
chant, medicine-man,  dentist,  or  actor, 
carpenter,  tinker,  or  gunsmith,  listlessly 
pursuing  his  chosen  vocation  afloat. 
He  may  spend  his  summers  on  the  Upper 
River,  and  drift  a  thousand  miles  or  so  to 
a  milder  clime  while  the  leaves  are 
changing  color;  he  may  work  ashore 
occasionally  to  provide  his  medicine- 
chest  with  quinine  and  his  locker  with 
tobacco  and  coffee;  he  may  be  of  any 
color,  of  any  nationality,  of  any  creed  or 
none;  honest  man  or  thief,  mill-hand 
with  children  in  school,  a  hopeless  tramp 
seeking  quiet  pastoral  nooks,  or  an  ar- 
rant rogue  pilfering  as  he  goes,  and  pre- 
ferring the  more  fruitful  neighborhood  of 
large  towns.  It  is  the  last-named  class 
that  has  given  the  whole  a  perhaps  unde- 
served reputation,  that  has  caused  states 
to  attempt  to  legislate  them  out  of 
existence  and  towns  to  bar  them  from 
their  water-fronts. 

But  in  spite  of  this  open  hostility,  at 
times  almost  approaching  persecution, 
they  persist;  and  instead  of  diminishing 
in  number,  they  are  increasing  till  their 
total  number,  it  is  claimed,  runs  well 
into  the  tens  of  thousands.  For  the  call 
of  the  river  always  has  its  answering 
recruits,  and  once  under  its  subtle  spell 
they  never  leave  it. 

One  cannot  but  admit  the  undeniable 
charm  of  a  life  of  perfect  freedom,  drift- 
ing as  fancy  dictates  from  place  to  place; 
but  the  price  is  high  and  each  must  pay. 
The  sallow  complexions,  an  air  of  lassi- 
tude, the  misshapen  figures  of  men  pre- 
maturely old  racked  with  rheumatism, 
malaria,  and  all  the  chills  and  fevers 
that  in  the  river  vernacular  come  under 
the  general  head  of  "the  shakes" — these 
are  a  part  of  the  price  of  their  lethal 
existence.  And  as  one  sees  few  really 
aged  folks  among  them,  an  early  grave 
is  probably  part  of  the  reckoning. 

Living,  as  they  do,  a  sort  of  outlaw' 
life  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  border- 
ing states,  they  have  for  their  protec- 
tion a  code  of  their  own,  and  this,  if 
somewhat  crude  in  its  method,  is  well- 
nigh  perfect  in  its  effect.  So  much  so 
that  among  themselves  there  is  a  no- 


522 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


ticeable  reticence,  while  the  casual 
stranger  is  apt  to  be  viewed  with  open 
suspicion.  One  of  them,  after  listening 
to  a  few  comments  by  me  on  the  weather 
and  some  commonplaces  concerning  the 
efficacy  of  anti-fouling  paint,  shot  forth, 
"Say,  mister,  be  you  one  of  them  up- 
lifters?"  Careful  assurances  that  such 
was  not  the  case  failed  to  allay  his  fears 
of  the  uplift,  and  further  conversation 
languished. 

Finally  we  enter  another  Mississippi — 
a  river  broad  and  deep,  with  docked 
banks  and  steam-ferries,  where  great, 
smoking  steamers  swing  suddenly  aloft 
from  steel  derrick-booms  cotton-bales 
chained  in  bundles  to  lower  them  swiftly 
into  capacious  holds;  or,  rusty  and  sea- 
stained,  huge  ocean  tramps  loom  high 
above  the  shining  waters  at  anchor  in 
midstream.  And  foreign  house-flags 
flapping  from  tall  masts,  and  the  noisy 
lads  chipping  iron-rust  from  resounding 
sides,  all  announce  that  we  have  left  the 
gentler  river  ports  behind  and  have 
come  under  the  dominion  of  the  still 
distant  sea,  and  this  is  New  Orleans. 

Looking  back  over  the  winding  course 
of  a  stream  which  cross-cuts  the  country 
from  north  to  south  and  flows  past  ten 
states  I  was  reminded  strangely  of  a 
shoe  seen  on  exhibition  somewhere  years 
ago,  and  which,  being  glued  to  a  last, 
had  been  sawed  cleanly  in  half,  disclosing 
in  frank  intimacy  the  inner  secrets  of  its 
making.  Heel  and  sole,  vamp,  upper, 
lining,  nails,  even  stitches  and  eyelets, 
were  there  plainly  open  to  view  in  half- 
section,  proving  beyond  doubt  that,  if 
it  were  not  made  for  the  purpose,  "the 
goods  were  exactly  as  represented,"  and 
the  maker  an  honest  Jew  indeed. 

It  is  something  of  this  view  one  gets 
of  the  interior  in  a  month's  trip  on  the 
Mississippi.  Though  you  are  told  here 
and  there  impressively  that  this  spot  is 
called  the  "Venice  of  America"  and 
another  "  Heidelberg,"  whilestill  another 
is  the  very  prototype  of  Paris,  you  are 
never  for  a  moment  deluded  into  think- 
ing you  are  anywhere  but  in  your  own 
land. 

You  may  doubt  it  for  a  moment  or 
two  on  a  balmy  evening  in  the  plaza  at 
New  Orleans  with  the  intoxicating  fra- 


grance of  tropic  flowers  about  you,  and 
on  the  soft  breeze  an  alluring  hint  of 
distant  lagoon  and  bayou,  when  the 
moonlight  falls  just  right  on  the  cathe- 
dral towers  and,  wrapped  in  shadow,  the 
old  balconied  buildings  dream  of  bygone 
days  when  centuries  ago  picturesque 
figures — Spanish,  English,  and  French — 
strutted  and  fought  and  died  on  this 
spot.  Then  when  the  tinkly  bells  tell 
the  whispering  palms  below  that  it  is 
nine  o'clock,  and  a  soft-spoken  steamer 
somewhere  out  in  the  river  remarks  to 
another  that,  "By  your  leave  I'll  pass  to 
port" — and  the  polite  craft  answers  with 
its  drawling  "All-ri-ght" — at  such  a  time 
I  say  you  are  ready  to  believe  yourself 
anywhere.  But  just  then  an  open  trol- 
ley dashes  across  a  side-street,  flaring 
into  glaring  relief  on  the  purple  night  a 
crowd  of  sight-seers  as  blatantly  native 
as  its  own  raucous  bell,  and  you  know 
exactly  where  you  are. 

There  are  many  places  in  the  valley 
with  a  strong  foreign  flavor.  But  it  is 
only  a  flavor,  with  real  America  apparent 
enough  beneath;  and  from  the  snow- 
headed  heir  of  a  lumberman  Swede 
practising  on  a  pair  of  home-made  skis 
in  Minnesota,  to  the  tar-baby  of  a  plan- 
tation hand  in  St.  Catherine's  Parish, 
Louisiana,  playing  steamboat  in  a  pud- 
dle back  of  the  levee,  it  is  all  patently 
the  same  land,  the  same  people.  And 
should  the  St.  Boniface  Verein  of  La 
Crosse,  Wisconsin,  fall  in  to  the  tap 
of  the  drum  to  march  in  grand  regalia 
to  the  railroad  station,  it  is  but  to 
entrain  there  with  their  admiring  women 
folk  and  babies  for  a  pleasant  day  in  the 
country.  And  though  Jean  Francois 
fights  each  day  (in  a  New  Orleans 
cafe)  the  glorious  victory  of  the  Marne, 
he  is  on  the  best  of  terms  with  his 
neighbor,  Scharmberg,  and  may  drop  in 
with  him  on  his  way  home  at  Mike's 
place,  where,  draped  around  a  huge 
golden  harp  back  of  the  bar,  are  the 
modest  emblems  of  the  Allies.  And  of 
such  is  the  ancient  empire  of  New 
France  claimed  for  his  king  by  the  great 
La  Salle  so  many  years  ago  with  many 
salvos  of  musketry  and  "by  virtue  of  a 
feeble  human  voice  inaudible  at  half  a 
mile. 


Somebody's  Mother 


BY  TV.  D.  HOW  ELLS 


HE  figure  of  a  woman 
sat  crouched  forward  on 
one  of  the  lowermost 
steps  of  the  brown- 
stone  dwelling  which 
was  keeping  a  domestic 
tradition  in  a  street 
mostly  gone  to  shops  and  small  restau- 
rants and  local  express-offices.  The 
house  was  black  behind  its  closed  shut- 
ters, and  the  woman  remained  sitting 
there  because  no  one  could  have  come 
out  of  its  door  for  a  year  past  to  hunt 
her  away.  The  neighborhood  policeman 
faltered  in  going  by,  and  then  he  kept 
on.  The  three  people  who  came  out  of 
the  large,  old-fashioned  hotel,  half  a 
block  off,  on  their  way  for  dinner  to  a 
French  table  d'hote  which  they  had  heard 
of,  stopped  and  looked  at  the  woman. 
They  were  a  father  and  his  son  and 
daughter,  and  it  was  something  like  a 
family  instinct  that  controlled  them,  in 
their  pause  before  the  woman  crouching 
on  the  steps. 

It  was  the  early  dusk  of  a  December 
day,  and  the  day  was  very  cold.  "She 
seems  to  be  sick  or  something,"  the 
father  vaguely  surmised.    "Or  asleep." 

The  three  looked  at  the  woman,  but 
they  did  nothing  for  a  moment.  They 
would  rather  have  gone  on,  but  they 
waited  to  see  if  anything  would  happen 
to  release  them  from  the  spell  that  they 
seemed  to  have  laid  upon  themselves. 
They  were  conditional  New-Yorkers  of 
long  sojourn,  and  it  was  from  no  apparent 
motive  that  the  son  wore  evening  dress, 
which  his  unbuttoned  overcoat  discov- 
ered, and  an  opera-hat.  He  would  not 
have  dressed  so  for  that  problematical 
French  table  d'hote;  probably  he  was 
going  on  later  to  some  society  affair.  He 
now  put  in  effect  the  father's  impulse  to 
go  closer  and  look  at  the  woman. 

"She  seems  to  be  asleep,"  he  reported. 
"Shouldn't  you  think  she  would  take 
cold?     She  will  get  her  death  there. 
Oughtn't  we  to  do  something?"  the 


daughter  asked,  but  she  left  it  to  the 
father,  and  he  said: 

"Probably  somebody  will  come  by." 

"That  we  could  leave  her  to?"  the 
daughter  pursued. 

"We  could  do  that  without  waiting," 
the  son  commented. 

"Well,  yes,"  the  father  assented;  but 
they  did  not  go  on.  They  waited,  help- 
lessly, and  then  somebody  came  by. 
It  was  a  young  girl,  not  very  definite  in 
the  dusk,  except  that  she  was  unmis- 
takably of  the  working  class;  she  was 
simply  dressed,  though  with  the  New 
York  instinct  for  clothes.  Their  having 
stopped  there  seemed  to  stay  her  invol- 
untarily, and  after  a  glance  in  the  direc- 
tion of  their  gaze,  she  asked  the  daugh- 


ter. 


Is  she  sick,  do  you  think?" 
"We  don't  know  what's  the  matter. 
But  she  oughtn't  to  stay  there." 

Something  velvety  in  the  girl's  voice 
had  made  its  racial  quality  sensible  to  the 
ear;  as  she  went  up  to  the  crouching 
woman  and  bent  forward  over  her  and 
then  turned  to  them,  a  street  lamp  threw 
its  light  on  her  face,  and  they  saw  that 
she  was  a  light  shade  of  colored  girl. 
"She  seems  to  be  sleeping." 
"Perhaps,"  the  son  began,  "she's  not 
quite — "    But  he  did  not  go  on. 

The  girl  looked  round  at  the  others 
and  said,  "She  must  be  somebody's 
mother!" 

The  others  all  felt  abashed  in  their 
several  sorts  and  degrees,  but  in  their 
several  sorts  and  degrees  they  all  de- 
cided that  there  was  something  ro- 
mantic, sentimental,  theatrical  in  the 
girl's  words,  like  something  out  of  some 
cheap  story-paper  story. 

The  father  wondered  if  that  kind  of 
thing  was  current  among  that  kind  of 
people.  He  had  a  sort  of  aesthetic  pleas- 
ure in  the  character  and  condition  ex- 
pressed by  the  words. 

"Well,  yes,"  he  said,  "if  she  has  chil- 
dren, or  has  had."    The  girl  looked  at 


524 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


him  uncertainly,  and  then  he  added, 
"But,  of  course — " 

The  son  went  up  to  the  woman  again, 
and  asked:  "Aren't  you  well?  Can  we 
do  anything  for  you?  It  won't  do  to 
stay  here,  you  know."  The  woman 
made  only  a  low  murmur,  and  he  said  to 
his  sister,  "Suppose  we  get  her  up." 

His  sister  did  not  come  forward 
promptly,  and  the  colored  girl  said, 
"Til  help  you." 

She  took  one  arm  of  the  woman  and 
the  son  took  the  other,  and  they  lifted 
her,  without  her  connivance,  to  her  feet 
and  kept  her  on  them.  Then  they 
walked  her  down  the  steps.  On  the  level 
below  she  showed  taller  than  either  of 
them;  she  was  bundled  up  in  different 
incoherent  wraps;  her  head  was  muffled, 
and  she  wore  a  battered  bonnet  at  an 
involuntary  slant. 

"I  don't  know  exactly  what  we  shall 
do  with  her,"  the  son  said. 

"We  ought  to  get  her  home  some- 
how," the  daughter  said. 

The  father  proposed  nothing,  but  the 
colored  girl  said,  "If  we  keep  walking 
her  along,  we'll  come  to  a  policeman 
and  we  can — " 

A  hoarse  rumble  of  protest  came  from 
the  muffled  head  of  the  woman,  and  the 
girl  put  her  ear  closer.  "Want  to  go 
home?  Well,  the  policeman  will  take 
you.  We  don't  know  where  you  live, 
and  we  haven't  the  time." 

The  woman  seemed  to  have  nothing  to 
say  further,  and  they  began  walking  her 
westward;  the  colored  girl  supported 
her  on  one  hand  and  the  son,  in  his 
evening  dress  and  opera-hat,  on  the 
other. 

The  daughter  followed  in  a  vague 
anxiety,  but  the  father  went  along,  en- 
joying the  anomaly,  and  happy  in  his 
relish  of  that  phrase,  "She  must  be 
somebody's  mother."  It  now  sounded 
to  him  like  a  catch  from  one  of  those 
New  York  songs,  popular  in  the  order  of 
life  where  the  mother  represents  what 
is  best  and  holiest.  He  recalled  a  vaude- 
ville ballad  with  the  refrain  of  "A  Boy's 
best  Friend  is  his  Mother,"  which,  when 
he  heard  it  in  a  vaudeville  theater, 
threatened  the  gallery  floor  under  the 
applauding  feet  of  the  frenzied  audi- 
ence. Probably  this  colored  girl  be- 
longed to  that  order  of  life;  he  wished 


he  could  know  her  social  circumstance 
and  what  her  outlook  on  the  greater 
world  might  be.  She  seemed  a  kind 
creature,  poor  thing,  and  he  respected 
her.  "Somebody's  mother" — he  liked 
that. 

They  all  walked  westward,  aimlessly, 
except  that  the  table  d'hote  where  they 
had  meant  to  dine  was  in  that  direction; 
they  had  heard  of  it  as  an  amusingly 
harmless  French  place,  and  they  were 
fond  of  such  mild  adventures. 

The  old  woman  contributed  nothing 
to  the  definition  of  their  progress.  She 
stumbled  and  mumbled  along,  but  be- 
tween Seventh  Avenue  and  Eighth  she 
stubbornly  arrested  her  guardians.  "She 
says" — the  colored  girl  translated  some 
obscure  avowal  across  jier  back — "she 
says  she  wants  to  go  home,  and  she  lives 
up  in  Harlem." 

"Oh  well,  that's  good,"  the  father 
said,  with  an  optimistic  amiability. 
"We'd  better  help  walk  her  across  to 
Ninth  Avenue  and  put  her  on  a  car,  and 
tell  the  conductor  where  to  let  her 
orT." 

He  was  not  helping  walk  her  himself, 
but  he  enjoyed  his  son's  doing  it  in 
evening  dress  and  opera-hat,  with  that 
kind  colored  girl  on  the  other  side  of 
the  mother;  the  composition  was  agree- 
ably droll.  The  daughter  did  not  like 
it,  and  she  cherished  the  ideal  of  a  pass- 
ing policeman  to  take  the  old  woman  in 
charge. 

No  policeman  passed,  though  great 
numbers  of  other  people  met  them  with- 
out apparently  finding  anything  notice- 
able in  the  spectacle  which  their  group 
presented.  Among  the  crowds  going 
and  coming  on  the  avenues  which  they 
crossed  scarcely  any  turned  to  look  at 
them,  or  was  moved  by  the  sense  of 
anything  odd  in  them. 

The  old  woman  herself  did  nothing 
to  attract  public  notice  till  they  were 
midway  between  Seventh  and  Eighth 
avenues.  She  mumbled  something  from 
time  to  time  which  the  colored  girl  in- 
terpreted to  the  rest  as  her  continued 
wish  to  go  home.  She  was  now  clearer 
about  her  street  and  number.  The  girl, 
as  if  after  question  of  her  own  generous 
spirit,  said  she  did  not  see  how  she  could 
go  with  her;  she  was  expected  at  home 
herself. 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 


525 


"Oh,  you  won't  have  to  go  with  her; 
we'll  just  put  her  aboard  the  Ninth 
Avenue  car,"  the  father  encouraged  her. 
He  would  have  encouraged  any  one;  he 
was  enjoying  the  whole  affair. 

At  a  certain  moment,  for  no  apparent 
reason,  the  mother  decided  to  sit  down 
on  a  door-step.  It  proved  to  be  the  door- 
step of  a  house  where  from  time  to  time 
colored  people — sometimes  of  one  sex, 
sometimes  of  another — went  in  or  came 
out.  The  door  seemed  to  open  directly 
into  a  large  room  where  dancing  and 
dining  were  going  on  concurrently.  At 
a  long  table  colored  people  sat  eating, 
and  behind  their  chairs  on  both  sides 
of  the  room  and  at  the  ends  of  the  table 
colored  couples  were  waltzing. 

The  effect  was  the  more  curious  be- 
cause, except  for  some  almost  inaudible 
music,  the  scene  passed  in  silence. 
Those  who  were  eating  were  not  visibly 
incommoded  by  those  revolving  at  their 
backs;  the  waltzers  turned  softly  round 
and  round,  untempted  by  the  table  now 
before  them,  now  behind  them.  When 
some  of  the  diners  or  dancers  came  out, 
they  stumbled  over  the  old  woman  on 
the  door-step  without  minding  or  stop- 
ping to  inquire.  Those  outside,  when 
they  went  in,  fell  over  her  with  like 
equanimity  and  joined  the  strange  com- 
pany within. 

The  father  murmured  to  himself  the 
lines: 

"Vast  forms  that  move  fantastically 
To  a  discordant  melody — " 

with  a  remote  trouble  of  mind  because 
the  words  were  at  once  so  fitting  and 
yet  so  imperfectly  applicable.  The  son 
and  daughter  exchanged  a  silent  wonder 
as  long  as  they  could  bear  it;  then  the 
daughter  asked  the  colored  girl: 
"What  is  it?" 

"It's  a  boarding-house,"  the  girl  an- 
swered, simply. 

"Oh,"  the  daughter  said. 

Sounds  of  more  decided  character 
than  before  now  came  from  the  figure  on 
the  door-step. 

"She  seems  to  be  saying  something," 
the  daughter  suggested  in  general  terms. 
"What  is  she  saying?"  she  asked  the 
colored  girl. 

The  girl  stooped  over  and  listened. 
Then  she  answered,  "She's  swearing." 


"Swearing?  What  about?  Whom  is 
she  swearing  at?" 

"At  me,  I  reckon.  She  says,  why 
don't  I  take  her  home." 

"Well,  why  doesn't  she  get  up,  then?" 

"She  says  she  won't." 

"We  can't  carry  her  to  the  car,"  the 
daughter  noted. 

"Oh,  why  not?"  the  father  merrily 
demanded. 

The  daughter  turned  to  her  brother. 
They  were  both  very  respectful  to  their 
father,  but  the  son  agreed  with  his  sister 
when  she  said:  "Papa  would  joke  about 
anything.  But  this  has  passed  a  joke. 
We  must  get  this  old  thing  up  and  start 
her  off." 

Upon  experiment  they  could  not  get 
the  old  thing  up,  even  with  the  help  of 
the  kind  colored  girl.  They  had  to  let 
her  be,  and  the  colored  girl  reported, 
after  stooping  over  her  again,  "She  says 
she  can't  walk." 

"She  walked  here  well  enough,"  the 
daughter  said. 

"Not  very  well,"  the  father  amended. 

His  daughter  did  not  notice  him.  She 
said  to  her  brother:  "Well,  now  you 
must  go  and  find  a  policeman.  It's 
strange  none  has  gone  by." 

It  was  also  strange  that  still  their 
group  remained  without  attracting  the 
notice  of  the  passers.  Nobody  stopped 
to  speak  or  even  stare;  perhaps  the 
phenomena  of  that  boarding-house  had 
ceased  to  have  surprises  for  the  public  of 
the  neighborhood,  and  they  in  their  mo- 
mentary relation  to  it  would  naturally 
be  without  interest. 

The  brother  went  away,  leaving  his 
sister  with  their  father  and  that  kind 
colored  creature  in  charge  of  the  old 
woman,  now  more  and  more  quiescent 
on  the  door-step;  she  had  ceased  to 
swear,  or  even  to  speak.  The  brother 
came  back  after  a  time  that  seemed  long, 
and  said  that  he  could  not  find  a  police- 
man anywhere,  and  at  the  same  mo- 
ment, as  if  the  officer  had  been  following 
at  his  heels,  a  policeman  crossed  the 
street  from  just  behind  him. 

The  .  daughter  ran  after  him,  and 
asked  if  he  would  not  come  and  look  at 
the  old  woman  who  had  so  steadfastly 
remained  in  their  charge,  and  she  rapidly 
explained. 

"Sure,  lady,"  the  policeman  said,  and 


526 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


he  turned  from  crossing  the  street  and 
went  up  to  the  old  woman.  He  laid  his 
hand  on  her  shoulder,  and  his  touch 
seemed  magical.  "What's  the  matter? 
Can't  you  stand  up?"  She  stood  up  as 
if  at  something  familiar  in  the  voice  of 
authority.  "Where  do  you  live?"  She 
gave  an  address  altogether  different  from 
that  she  had  given  before — a  place  on 
the  next  avenue,  within  a  block  or  two. 
"You'd  better  go  home.  You  can  walk, 
can  t  you  r 

"I  can  walk  well  enough,"  she  an- 
swered in  a  tone  of  vexation,  and  she 
made  her  word  good  by  walking  quite 
actively  away  in  the  direction  she  had 
given. 

The  kind  colored  girl  became  a  part 
of  the  prevalent  dark  after  refusing  the 
thanks  of  the  others.  The  daughter 
then  fervently  offered  them  to  the  police- 
man. 

"That's  all  right,  lady,"  he  said,  and 
the  incident  had  closed  except  for  her 
emotion  at  seeing  him  enter  a  police- 
station  precisely  across  the  street,  where 
they  could  have  got  a  dozen  policemen 
in  a  moment. 

"Well,"  the  father  said,  "we  might  as 
well  go  to  our  French  table  d'hote  now." 

"Oh,"  the  son  said,  as  if  that  re- 
minded him,  "the  place  seems  to  be 
shut." 

"Well,  then,  we  might  as  well  go  back 
to  the  hotel,"  the  father  decided.  "I 
dare  say  we  shall  do  quite  as  well  there." 

On  the  way  the  young  people  laughed 
over  the  affair  and  their  escape  from  it, 
especially  at  the  strange  appearance  and 
disappearance  of  the  kind  colored  girl, 


with  her  tag  of  sentiment,  and  at  the 
instant  compliance  of  the  old  woman 
with  the  suggestion  of  the  policeman. 

The  father  followed,  turning  the  mat- 
ter over  in  his  mind.  Did  mere 
motherhood  hallow  that  old  thing  to  the 
colored  girl  and  her  sort  and  condition? 
Was  there  a  superstition  of  motherhood 
among  such  people  which  would  endear 
this  disreputable  old  thing  to  their  affec- 
tion and  reverence?  Did  such  people 
hold  mothers  in  tenderer  regard  than 
people  of  larger  means  ?  Would  a  mother 
in  distress  or  merely  embarrassment  in- 
stantly appeal  to  their  better  nature  as 
a  case  of  want  or  sickness  in  the  neigh- 
borhood always  appealed  to  their  com- 
passion? Would  her  family  now  wel- 
come the  old  thing  home  from  her 
aberration  more  fondly  than  the  friends 
of  one  who  had  arrived  in  a  carriage 
among  them  in  a  good  street  ?  But,  after 
all,  how  little  one  knew  of  other  peo- 
ple! How  little  one  knew  of  one's 
self,  for  that  matter!  How  next  to 
nothing  one  knew  of  Somebody's 
Mother!  It  did  not  necessarily  follow 
from  anything  they  knew  of  her  that  she 
was  a  mother  at  all.  Her  motherhood 
might  be  the  mere  figment  of  that  kind 
colored  girl's  emotional  fancy.  She 
might  be  Nobody's  Mother. 

When  it  came  to  this  the  father 
laughed,  too.  Why,  anyhow,  were 
mothers  more  sacred  than  fathers?  If 
they  had  found  an  old  man  in  that  old 
woman's  condition  on  those  steps,  would 
that  kind  colored  girl  have  appealed  to 
them  in  his  behalf  as  Somebody's 
Father? 


The  Red  Men  of  the  Guianan  Forests 


BY  CHARLES  WELLINGTON  FURLONG,  F.R.G.S. 


AKE  zees  for  zee  fever, 
and  zees  for  zee  serpent 
bite.  You  will  need  zee 
first;  you  may  need  zee 
second."  And  Armand, 
merchant,  but  erstwhile 
gold-hunter  and  Indian 
trader,  put  two  small  bottles  in  my  hand 
■ — remedies  learned  from  the  Indians  far 
back  in  the  land  of  the  Roucouyennes. 
"All  who  go  in  zee  bush  have  zee  fever, 
but  perhaps  you  have  eet  lightlee.  Au 
revoir,  monsieur!"  But  his  handshake 
bespoke  adieu.  So  I  left  this  kindly, 
passing  acquaintance  at  the  doorway  of 
his  small  store  in  the  little  out-of-the- 
world  convict  settlement  of  St.  Laurent 
on  the  edge  of  French  Guiana. 

The  opaque  Marowyne  River  lushed 
and  gurgled  by  its  waterfront,  which 
soon  lay  behind  me.  As  I  crossed  its 
silt-laden  current  toward  Albina,  a  little 
military  and  trading  outpost  of  the 
Dutch  Guiana  frontier,  the  palms  of  the 
forest-fringed  shores  were  stenciled  in 
purple  against  the  last  flaming  flush  of  a 
tropic  day;  then  flushed  again  in  re- 
flected incandescence  from  the  wind- 
ruffled  water,  as  though  heliographing 
billions  of  orange-golden  messages  into 
the  fast-coming  tropical  night. 

How  different  the  Marowyne  ap- 
peared at  midday  as  my  canoe  crawled 
around  bend  after  bend  of  forest  head- 
lands, with  the  torrid  glare  on  its  dull, 
soup-like  surface.  From  a  Carib  village 
near  Albina  I  secured  a  dugout  canoe 
and  four  Indian  canoemen  for  a  side- 
expedition  up  the  Marowyne  before 
working  westward  through  Dutch 
Guiana.  Wizened  old  Yaynee  paddled 
astern  and  steered.  He  enjoyed  the  dis- 
tinction of  being  a  pii-yai,  or  Carib 
medicine-man,  To  this  crafty,  lynx- 
eyed  old  magician  the  rest  paid  the 
homage  due  to  sorcerers. 

In  the  Guianas  land  and  water  meet 
on  the  most  intimate  terms — water 
spreading   from   rivers   and   sea  over 


marsh  and  swamp,  land  being  spread  by 
the  rivers  over  the  flooded  regions  and 
spewed  far  out  into  the  ocean,  constantly 
forming  new  bars  and  shoals,  and  chang- 
ing depths. 

The  Marowyne,  swollen  by  the  first 
May  rains,  and  its  boiling  surface-cur- 
rent evidencing  the  nether-roil  of  its 
muddy  deeps,  released  this  pent-up 
energy  in  a  final  mad  rush  out  to  sea. 

The  prevailing  northeast  winds  swept 
along  shower  after  shower.  So  fierce 
were  some  of  these  downpours  that  even 
my  cooking  outfit  was  requisitioned  for 
bailing.  When  it  cleared,  things  steamed 
in  the  torrid  heat.  The  strain  of  the 
mirrored  sun-glare  on  the  eyes  and  the 
relentless,  throbbing  heat-waves  of  these 
latitudes,  less  than  six  degrees  north  of 
the  equator,  made  welcome  the  vapid 
shade  of  the  forest-lined  banks  where 
the  canoemen  sought  advantage  of  the 
eddies. 

The  dugout  with  its  long  overhang 
took  rough  water  well,  flipping  glittering 
spray  over  me  as  I  lay  in  the  bottom. 
The  strenuous  forward  lurch  and  quick 
following  stroke  brought  every  muscle 
of  these  Amerindian  paddlers  into  play. 

In  the  heavy  haze  of  heat  I  could  pic- 
ture their  primitive  prototypes  as  centu- 
ries ago  in  great  war-canoes  they  swept 
in  their  migrations  over  the  great  flowing 
roads  of  South  America,  which,  like  the 
mountain  systems,  favor  migrations  of 
longitude.  In  the  Caraios,  the  early  in- 
habitants of  the  Parana  delta,  some  eth- 
nologists see  the  progenitors  of  the 
Caribs,  certain  of  whose  leaders — 
Cara-ibes — were  reverenced  as  priest- 
doctors.  Fighting,  enslaving,  and,  it  is 
said,  eating  their  captives,  they  swept 
north  up  the  Rio  Negro  through  the 
Cassiquiare  into  the  Orinoco;  from  the 
source  of  the  Rio  Branco  they  portaged 
to  the  tributaries  of  the  Essiquibo,  until 
their  war-canoes  shot  from  the  opaque, 
silt-laden  rivers  into  the  clear  azure  of 
the  Atlantic. 


528 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


All  these  conquerors  then  became 
known  as  Cara-ibes,  or  Great  Carat — to 
the  Spaniards,  Caribs — fierce  or  canni- 
bal savages.  So  the  Caribs  and  Arawaks 
of  Guanahani  (San  Salvador)  were  the 
first  Amerindians  to  be  seen  by  Euro- 
peans when  the  loom  of  the  land  of  the 
New  World  first  fell  across  the  horizon 
of  Europe.  Little  wonder  they  chris- 
tened these  emerald,  coral-wreathed  isles 
"the  Caribees,"  and  the  sapphire  sea 
they  studded  "the  Caribbean."  From 
these  isles  the  Caribs  have  now  prac- 
tically disappeared,  and  even  on  the 
mainland  there  is  but  a  small  residue  of 
this  once  powerful  race;  beside  them 
dwell  the  remnant  of  their  strongest  Am- 
erindian adversary — the  Arawaks. 

They  have  been  swept  away  by  the 
incursions  of  the  unscrupulous,  "civil- 
ized" white  race,  the  worst  foe  primi- 
tives have  to  contend  against.  From 
the  time  when  the  ruthless  iron  heel  of 
the  conquistador  crunched  these  shores, 
through  the  plantation  days  of  the  sugar 
era,  the  white  invader  has  strewed  jungle 
and  savannah  land  with  slavery,  blood, 
and  shame.  Colonists  of  Surinam 
(Dutch  Guiana)  told  me  that  formerly 
all  male  Indians  were  spoken  of  as 
bok  (buck  deer),  and  returning  white 
hunters,  in  reply  to  what  game  they  had 
bagged,  would  answer,  nonchalantly,  "I 
shot  a  bok." 

Instead  of  relieving  the  ills  of  this  sim- 
ple and  friendly  folk,  the  white  man  has 
brought  more  fatal  ones.  So  these  peo- 
ple have  diminished,  and  the  Amerin- 
dian can  only  look  with  regret  on  the 
coming  of  the  white.  I  looked  out  from 
under  the  brim  of  my  sun-helmet  on  men 
of  this  Carib  race — strong-chested  men 
who  bent  to  their  paddles  in  front  of  me 
— the  Kalinas,  purest  stock  of  all,  a  tribe 
inhabiting  the  Marowyne  and  Cottica 
rivers,  whose  villages  rarely  comprise 
more  than  fifty  inhabitants. 

Even  now  the  rivers  were  seeping  over 
the  lower  land  into  the  forests.  At  a  gap 
in  a  high  bank  we  scrambled  up  through 
a  screen  of  low  growth  and  entered  a 
Carib  village  of  brown,  leaf-thatched 
aoutos  (houses)  in  a  small  clearing  where 
banana-trees  gave  decorative  accents. 
The  gabled,  open  Carib  dwelling  is  par- 
ticularly adapted  to  this  climate.  In  a 
conspicuous   place  was  a  large  cone- 


shaped  public  house — the  town-hall  of 
the  Carib  community.  Near  by  was  a 
wattle-walled  house  called  tokai — the 
mysterious  sanctum  of  the  pu-yai. 
Three  men,  holding  at  rest  long  bows 
and  arrows,  awaited  us.  But  I  knew 
many  keen,  dark  eyes  scrutinized  our 
every  movement  from  the  shade  of  the 
dwellings. 

"  Upa  rurubo?"  ("How  do  you  do?") 

"AUhl  Auk!"  ("I  am  well")  replied 
the  chief.  It  was  explained  that  I  had 
come  from  across  the  Great  Sea  to  visit 
my  brothers  and  to  learn  of  the  many 
things  they  did  so  well. 

Tong-tong-tong-tong !  A  deep-toned 
sound  reverberated  from  the  forest  as 
my  arrival  was  announced  by  beating 
the  great,  fluted  projections  of  the  gri- 
gnon-tree  with  a  heavy  canoe-paddle. 
Rules  of  hospitality  are  strictly  ob- 
served; it  might  fare  ill  with  a  stranger 
who  presumed  to  enter  a  Carib  dwelling 
uninvited.  Three  months  before  my  ar- 
rival two  deportes  (escaped  convicts  from 
French  Guiana)  stole  upon  a  sleeping 
Carib  family,  killed  them  in  their  ham- 
mocks, and  looted  their  dwelling.  Only 
a  Carib  boy  escaped  with  the  news. 
Usually  the  Caribs  brought  in  captured 
deportes  to  the  Dutch  post  at  Albina, 
but  since  that  bloody  episode  deportes 
had  been  hunted  like  wild  beasts.  So  it 
behooved  the  stranger  on  approaching 
to  call  out,  "Older  (or,  Younger)  Broth- 
er, I  am  come!" 

The  chiePs  women  at  once  prepared 
food  for  us.  Meantime  an  interested 
group  formed  about  Yaynee;  others  lay 
conversing  in  that  principal  article  of 
Guianan  household  furniture — the  ham- 
mock— the  Carib's  cradle,  bed,  arm- 
chair, and  coffin;  in  fact,  they  spend 
two-thirds  of  their  lives  in  their  ham- 
mocks. Little  wonder  that  through 
Raleigh  and  other  explorers  the  Guianan 
hamaca  found  its  way  to  Europe  along 
with  tobacco  and  potatoes. 

The  Kalina  Caribs,  though  well 
formed,  strong,  and  muscular,  were 
short-statured.  Delicately  featured, 
with  small  and  shapely  hands  and  feet, 
black  eyes  and  hair,  they  have  that 
slightly  Mongolese  cast  of  features  char- 
acteristic of  practically  all  Amerinds. 
With  the  exception  of  a  loin-cloth,  their 
cinnamon-flushed,  velvety-skinned  bod- 


A  TYPICAL  CARIB  VILLAGE  ON  THE  MAROWYNE 


ies  were  bare  to  the  Guianan  air  and 
sunshine.  That  primitive  love  of  adorn- 
ment was  expressed  in  part  by  body- 
painting,  principally  with  the  red  juice 
of  the  roucou  plant  (Bixa  orelland). 
Necklaces  of  shell  and  teeth,  and  gor- 
geous feathered  head-dresses  also  gratify 
their  love  for  the  ornate.  But  this 
adornment  is  not  without  its  symbolism 
— as  vertical  lines  on  a  woman's  chin 
indicate  that  she  is  married. 

Polygamy  is  practised  in  the  Guianan 
tribes.  The  ethics  of  marriage  are  strict, 
and  virtue  among  the  red  people  of  this 
hemisphere  is  on  a  par  with  that  of  the 
white.  The  laws  of  consanguinity  are 
rigidly  enforced;  marrying  of  cousins  is 
not  only  frowned  upon,  but  prohibited. 

Through  a  hole  just  under  the  Carib 
woman's  lower  lip  may  be  found  a  small 
plant  barb,  for  beauty,  perhaps  for  util- 
ity. But,  lo,  the  trader! — so  now  the 
women  of  the  Kalina  tribe  substitute 
a  good-sized  common  pin  which  they 
can  quickly  withdraw  with  a  twist  of  the 
tongue  and  tuck  away  in  the  mouth, 
or  as  deftly  use  it  as  a  spiculum  to  re- 
move edible  snails  from  their  shells.  But 
they  can  as  readily  reinstate  it,  which 
led  me  to  suggest  to  a  Carib  belle  that 
girls  used  the  pin  to  defend  themselves 
against  amorous  admirers,  to  which  a 

Vol.  CXXXI  —  No.  784.— GG 


most  non-committal  grin  was  her  only 
reply. 

It  is  the  women's  work  to  cultivate 
little  plots  containing  potatoes,  yams, 
melons,  cassava,  and  sometimes  a  little 
maize  and  cotton;  to  bring  from  the 
woods  honey,  eggs,  and  wild  fruits,  and 
to  delve  for  ground  nuts. 

I  have  often  watched  women  prepare 
the  long  roots  of  the  cassava,  the  staple 
food  of  tropical  South  America.  These 
they  first  grate,  then  ram  this  mush 
into  the  open  end  of  a  closely  woven, 
basket-work  matapi,  or  cassava-press, 
which  resembles  a  golf-bag.  This  is  hung 
on  a  beam  end  by  its  upper  loop,  and  a 
log  or  other  weight  attached  to  a  loop 
at  its  lower  end.  The  diagonally  woven 
matapi  now  attenuates,  squeezing 
through  its  mesh  the  yellowish,  bitter 
juice,  called  cassareep.  This  drops  into  a 
large  calabash  beneath,  being  carefully 
guarded  from  children  and  dogs,  as  it 
contains  a  large  percentage  of  prussic 
acid,  but,  being  volatile,  boiling  elimi- 
nates the  deadly  poison.  The  meal  is 
dried,  baked  into  cassava  cakes,  and  be- 
comes a  healthful  and  nutritious  food. 

There  was  a  weird  fascination  in  the 
glint  of  eyes  and  the  gleam  of  white 
teeth  as  our  circle  ate  from  food-filled 
calabash   bowls,   set  steaming  in  our 


530 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


midst.  The  meal  finished,  the  chief  now 
gave  a  congratulatory  address.  These 
addresses  may  include  a  genealogy,  or 
some  recent  incident,  or  the  narration  of 
a  dream. 

" Piwaree!  (drink !)"nSo  I  drained  the 
calabash  of  this  sour-tasting  Carib  beer. 

Happening  later  upon  a  camp,  I  no- 
ticed some  women 
pouring  gallons 
of  cassareep  and 
throwing  burnt 
cassava  cakes  into 
a  fragment  of  an 
old  canoe  boarded 
at  each  end  and 
supported  on  four 
rough  -  hewn  legs. 
More  women 
gathered  about  it, 
jerking  their 
necks  ludicrously 
like  a  lot  of  geese, 
and  hissing  sounds 
were  wafted  down 
on  the  hot  wind. 
They  were  chew- 
ing cassava  bread, 
which,  when  well 
masticated,  they 
spat  into  the  im- 
provised trough. 
Later  this  was 

covered  with  plantain  -  leaves  and  al- 
lowed to  ferment;  then  strained,  it 
becomes  their  famous  -piwaree,  a  slight- 
ly intoxicating  stimulant  used  in  their 
festivities.  The  Coast  Indians  elimi- 
nate the  eructing  phases  of  brewing 
despite  its  pytaline  advantages,  and  de- 
pend upon  sour  cassava  cakes  to  produce 
fermentation.  During  these  feasts  more 
than  one  Carib  woman,  aspiring  to  an- 
other's husband,  has  pounded  up  and 
roasted  wasp  eggs,  which  love-potion, 
surreptitiously  mixed  in  his  drink,  un- 
doubtedly often  gains  her  desired  ends. 

The  rivers  of  tropical  South  America 
are  the  highways;  the  byways,  the  for- 
est trails.  During  the  rainy  season,  win- 
ter, the  floods  leave  only  the  highest 
land  knolls  available  as  village  sites. 
Thus  Carib  folk-lore  abounds  with  refer- 
ence to  water  and  its  phases,  and  the 
canoe  (canaouia)  is  inherently  associated 
with  Carib  life.  So  these  flowing  routes 
became  my  most  important  ethnic  labo- 


CARIB  GIRL 
Showing  pin  worn  in  lower  lip. 


ratory.  As  we  poled  along,  late  one  af- 
ternoon, a  shrill,  plaintive  cry  rever- 
berated from  the  forest. 

" Ouajana!"  ("Rain  bird")  muttered 
a  Carib,  meaning  that  its  unseasonable 
cry  predicted  rain,  which  soon  fell  in  a 
deluge,  nearly  swamping  us  as  we  strug- 
gled from  an  island  to  the  Dutch  shore. 

If   swamped,  as 

  one  sweeps  down, 

one  must  endeav- 
or to  pick  a  land- 
ing, but  not  where 
the  thick -stem- 
med moco  -  moco 
(Montri  char did) 
grows.  This  bars 
the  swimmer  from 
shore,  and  he  can 
only  cling  to  the 
outer  stems  until 
exhausted  or  a 
prey  to  the  blood- 
thirsty alligators 
or  the  dreaded 
p  e  r  ai  (pygocen- 
trus  sp.). 

Once  Yaynee 
yanked  a  black- 
ish -  lead  -  colored 
perai  into  the 
canoe.  There  it 
flapped  for  a  half- 
hour,  grunting  like  a  hog,  its  semi- 
lunar mouth  gaspingly  showing  its 
vicious,  triangular  teeth.  This  little 
piscine  devil  is  of  the  same  family  as 
the  ferocious  piranha  of  the  Rio  Par- 
aguay. Rapacious  for  beast,  fish,  or 
fowl,  they  attack  singly  or  in  my- 
riads. A  fish  ten  times  their  size  they 
first  disable  by  eating  off  its  caudal  fin; 
and  they  cannibalistically  prey  upon 
their  own  kind.  Their  blood-scent  is 
uncanny,  the  slightest  abrasion  of  the 
skin  being  their  red  signal  of  attack;  a 
water-bird  wounded  by  one  of  my  Caribs 
was  devoured  by  perai  before  we  could 
reach  it.  Frequently  ducks  and  geese 
have  their  feet  eaten  off  before  they  can 
escape,  and  they  present  a  queer  sight 
walking  about  on  the  stumps.  A  half- 
caste,  slipping  from  the  low-lying  deck  of 
the  steamer  which  conveyed  me  up  the 
Orinoco,  was  suddenly  floundering  in  a 
turmoil  of  bloody  foam.  Innumerable 
perai  had  dived  through  his  open  shirt 


THE  RED  MEN  OF  THE  GUIANAN  FORESTS 


531 


and  were  stripping  the  flesh  from  his 
body.  A  bleeding  mass  when  pulled 
aboard,  he  succumbed  to  these  wounds 
inflicted  within  the  space  of  two  minutes. 
Any  wounds  in  these  tropics  become 
easily  infected,  but  wounds  by  the  perai 
are  particularly  irritating.  On  leaving 
a  forest  stream  after  a  swim,  a  single 
bite  relieved  me  of  a  clear,  round  piece 
of  flesh  from  the  ball  of  my  left  foot  from 
which  I  did  not  recover  for  two  months. 

There  is  an  ever-present  fascination  in 
skirting  the  edges  of  the  forest  depths, 
where  the  arrow-leaved  moco-moco  min- 
gles with  the  great  roots  of  the  mangle 
and  ceiba  (bombax)  trees;  above  these 
monarchs  the  radiating  palm  fronds  list 
ever  softly  in  the  steady  -  blowing 
"  trades."  Somewhere  among  the  yel- 
low, thread-suspended  fruit  of  the  pan- 
iah  the  locust-like  zibiay  sissed  its  note; 
about  the  parasitical  festoons  and  forest 
garlands  of  hanging  mosses,  orchids  and 
exotic  fungi,  red  dragon-flies  and  green 
lizards  went  their  ways.  The  howl  of 
the  monkey,  the  sonorous  note  of  the 
laughing  baboon,  or  the  jaguar's  cry  oc- 
casionally echoed  through  the  forest  si- 
lences. 

As  I  stopped  the  canoe  to  watch  two 


gorgeous  macaw  parrots,  one  of  my 
Caribs,  as  though  proudly  conscious  of 
his  splendid  shock  of  black  hair,  said, 
naively,  "Do  not  gaze  too  long  on  the 
red  macaw  unless  you  wish  to  become 
bald."  Old  Yaynee  wore  his  hair 
cropped,  and  I  asked  him  why.  His  re- 
ply was  as  succinct  as  his  hair:  "Because 
I  do  not  like  it  long."  Then  he  rested 
his  paddle  and  listened  intently  to  a  bird- 
note  which,  becoming  fainter,  softly  died 
away. 

"  Karau-Karau!"  he  murmured.  It 
was  the  ill-omened  cry  of  the  liver- 
colored  kareo  bird.  Its  crescendo  call 
means  some  sick  individual  is  becoming 
stronger,  but  its  diminuendo  precurses 
ill.  We  soon  entered  the  camp  over 
which  the  kareo  had  brooded. 

Fever  and  death  had  cut  a  wide 
swath  in  this  village.  Many  were  lying 
ill  in  their  hammocks.  From  an  aouto 
drifted  a  weird  chant,  the  funeral  song 
of  the  dead.  Entering,  I  saw  in  a  ham- 
mock the  body  wrapped  in  red  cambric, 
with  his  feathered  helmet  and  belt. 
Near  by  an  old  woman  held  the  dead 
man's  bow  and  arrows  in  her  right 
hand;  two  young  women,  his  wives, 
joined  her  in  the  wailing  and  chanting. 


532 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


The  old  woman  trod  a  funeral  dance 
before  a  reverent  company  while  one  of 
the  widows,  her  head  covered  with  a 
large  scarf  held  out  beyond  her  face, 
sobbing  and  looking  out  from  under  it, 
delicately  uncovered  the  face  of  the 
dead.  From  the  opposite  side  the  other 
widow  assisted;  then  softly  smoothed 
his  eyebrows,  meantime  dusting  a  little 
branch  of  leaves  to  and  fro  to  shoo  away 
the  flies.  The  women  then  tenderly 
covered  the  face  again.  For  four  days 
the  body  had  lain,  natural-looking  and 
odorless,  which  would  indicate  that 
these  Caribs  understood  embalming. 

And  so  death  comes;  the  body  stays — 
something  goes.  To  that  something 
they  give  a  name  equivalent  to  spirit, 
and  recognize  in  man  a  dual  nature — 
body  and  spirit.  To  the  Carib  almost 
everything  around  him  is  endowed  with 
spirit  existence,  through  which  he  en- 
deavors to  explain  the  various  phenom- 


CARIB  UTENSILS 

Toting  baskets  and  sieves  for  sifting  cassava  shown 
below;   above,  two   matapis,  or  cassava  presses. 


ena  of  animal  and  plant  life.  The  Carib 
conceives  and  identifies  all  things  of  the 
physical  world  with  the  one  thing  best 
known  to  himself — man.  So  in  every 
aouto,  a  pii-yai  will  tell  you,  there  is  an 
"I,"  an  " Individuality " aute"  means 
"I"  or  "Me" — the  body  or  dwelling- 
place  of  "I." 

To  the  Carib  mind  there  is  no  limit 
to  the  extent,  variability,  or  difference 
of  bodily  forms — consequently,  no  classi- 
fication. His  differentiation  lies  only  in 
the  degree  of  cunning — worthy  and  diffi- 
cult to  obtain— latent  in  our  fixed  order 
of  life.  To  him  it  is  an  important,  pro- 
tective quality  in  his  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, as  diplomacy  and  competition  are 
to  his  civilized  brother,  in  whose  modern 
wars  we  find  the  same  cunning  put  to 
more  ruthless  ends. 

The  Carib  imagination  endows  even 
diseases  with  bodily  forms.  These  be- 
ings he  dreads  most,  as  of  superior  cun- 
ning and  having  the  ability  to  enter  into 
him  unobserved,  perhaps  as  a  fly  or 
worm,  or  even  as  a  spirit  arrow,  the 
Arawak's  poetical  figure  for  pain  in 
general.  Thus  they  become  his  mur- 
derers. To  outwit  them  he  turns  to  the 
pii-yais,  educated  in  cunning,  to  exert 
their  sorceries.  With  loud  singing  and 
mad  gavotting  around  a  patient,  the 
pii-yai  shakes  a  rattle,  disliked  by  the 
bad  spirit,  Yurokon.  As  the  helpful 
spirit  likes  tobacco,  it  is  burned  as  in- 
cense. Sometimes  the  pii-yai  emits 
smoke  over  an  assembly,  saying,  "That 
you  may  overcome  your  enemies,  re- 
ceive you  all  the  Spirit  of  Force."  Often 
smoking  an  immense  cigar  of  miraculous 
potency — rank  enough  to  asphyxiate  the 
worst  spirit — he  blows  smoke  over  the 
sufferer.  From  a  desperate  massaging 
he  changes  to  a  steady  stroking  from 
middle  to  extremities,  thus  concentrat- 
ing the  disease  in  the  patient's  fingers 
and  toes.  Wrench!  and  out  he  pulls  the 
malady  before  it  can  escape,  shoves  it 
into  his  own  mouth,  swallows  it  with 
fearful  grimaces,  and  declares  the  sick 
man  cured. 

Art  as  the  Caribs  express  it  is  ex- 
hibited in  their  paint-decorated  bodies, 
clay  pottery,  and  the  thread-woven  or- 
namentation of  bows  and  arrows,  ham- 
mocks, and  breech-clouts.  The  Carib 
woman  traces  with  her  finger  their  scroll 


HUNTERS  READY  TO  SET  OUT  ON  THE  FOREST  TRAILS  FOR  GAME 


designs  on  her  cassava  cakes;  the  Carib 
man  has  here  and  there  rudely  chiseled 
the  rocks  of  river  and  forest,  indelibly 
recording  on  these  crude  mile-posts  of  his 
history  that  he  had  passed  that  way. 
So,  with  no  little  anticipation,  one  dawn 
I  set  out  by  canoe  with  Yaynee  to  prove 
the  rumored  existence  of  some  of  these 
rock  carvings.  The  early  morning  mists 
hung  tropically  over  the  Marowyne  as 
we  paddled  against  the  swift  current 
which  had  slushed  its  long  way  from 
back  in  the  Tumac-Humac  divide  from 
Brazil.  There,  Yaynee  said,  were  many 
tribes  who  speak  a  different  language, 
and  who  shoot  things  like  a  bee  that 
stings  and  poisons  (blow-gun  darts). 

"But  are  there  people  there,"  1 
queried,  recalling  the  fabled  reports  of 
early  explorers,  "who  have  no  necks, 
whose  heads  are  on  their  breasts,  and 
whose  hair  hangs  from  their  shoulders?" 

"No,"  he  replied,  "but  there  are  peo- 
ple with  ears  so  big  they  hang  down 
nearly  to  their  waists,  and  there  is  one 
man — Pataca  Yuana,  who  sleeps  in  the 
water  at  night,"  and  his  dark  eyes 
gleamed  as  they  swept  the  gurgling  cur- 
rent. "Perhaps  if  we  could  find  him  we 
could  shoot  him  and  see  if  he  is  good 


to  eat."  So  Carib  mythology  and  be- 
liefs, replete  with  references  to  man- 
eating  monsters  and  deities,  indicate 
that  cannibalism  once  was  practised — 
possibly  a  war  custom — and  that  through 
ingestion  the  consumer  believed  that  he 
would  acquire  the  enemy's  desirable 
qualities.  It  was  these  reports,  fabled 
and  otherwise,  which  led  that  great 
Elizabethan  dramatist  to  write  of 

The  cannibals  that  each  other  eat, 

The  Anthropophagi  and  men  whose  heads 

Do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders. 

Only  by  desperate  efforts  could  we 
make  headway  where  the  river  narrowed 
between  Corantyn  Island  and  the 
Guianan  shore.  A  massive  boulder, 
sloping  gradually,  then  abruptly,  into 
the  water,  was  our  goal. 

" Timehri!"  ("Stone  with  marks  on 
it")  grunted  Yaynee,  and  I  knew  we 
were  approaching  the  sculptured  rock 
which  the  explorer  Creveau  and  later 
Coudreau  had  recorded.  The  river  had 
risen  rapidly,  and  the  swollen  torrent 
sluiced  and  guggled  by  in  a  gurgling 
seethe.  Time  and  again  my  men  tried 
to  shoot  the  canoe  across  a  stretch  of 
treacherous  maelstrom  and  effect  a  land- 


534 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


ing;  time  and  again  it  was  swept  broad- 
side back.  A  final  spurt,  a  daring  spring 
by  the  bowman,  and  our  frail  dugout 
was  snugly  to  leeward  of  the  ledge. 
There  were  the  carvings  in  the  hard 
granite,  unmistakable,  though  faint  and 
flood-worn. 


THE  STAPLE  FOOD  OF  TROPICAL  SOUTH  AMERICA 

The  woman  in  the  center  is  holding  an  immense  cassava  cake, 
upon  which  before  baking  have  been  inscribed  Carib  designs. 


"When  were  these  made,  and  who 
made  them?" 

"They  were  here  before  my  grand- 
mother's grandfather  was,"  Yaynee  re- 
plied, squatting  by  the  largest  figure, 
highest  above  water,  and  he  finger- 
traced  the  indistinct  markings. 

"That  is  a  man — that  is  his  eye.  This 
is  a  man  with  two  heads  and  four  eyes." 
A  long  time  ago,  he  had  heard,  this  per- 
son, whose  name  was  Ononi,  ate  with 
two  mouths,  and  ate  people.  Pointing 
to  some  slight  holes  in  the  rock,  he  said, 
"These  are  where  Ononi  sat  down.  This 
person  lived  in  the  Orinoco,  but  he 
traveled,  and  each  place  he  stopped  he 
made  these  marks — and  the  holes  are 


where  he  sat  down."  Yaynee  traced  as 
far  as  he  could  toward  the  racing  current 
and  whispered,  "There  is  another  figure 
like  this  below." 

No  time  was  lost  in  getting  to  work. 
The  Kalinas  held  down  the  large  sheets 
of  brown  wrapping-paper,  secured  before 
leaving  St.  Laurent, 
then  with  a  precious 
piece  of  black  heelball 
which  a  paroled  convict 
cobbler  there  had  gen- 
erously spared  me  I  was 
soon  securing  rock- 
rubbed  impressions. 
Little  by  little  I  worked 
farther  down  the  slip- 
pery, steeper  rock- 
slope.  Only  the  quick 
grasp  of  Yaynee,  who, 
held  in  turn  by  another 
Indian,  jerked  me  back, 
drenched,  from  the 
mad-scudding  current. 
With  the  Indians  now 
seizing  my  ankles  and 
holding  m  e  down  a  s 
well  as  the  paper,  I 
completed  the  tracings. 
While  thus  wearing  the 
heelball  away  to  a  fin- 
ish and  my  finger-nails 
down  to  the  quick,  the 
rain  fell.  Yaynee,  not  al- 
together approving  my 
scrubbingover  these  an- 
cient spirit  beings,  re- 
marked, "Perhaps 
Ononi  is  vexed  and 
makes  the  rain  fall." 
"Well,"  I  remarked,  "he  must  be  a 
very  disagreeable  spirit,  for  it  rains 
here  nearly  all  the  time." 

For  months  I  sought  the  meaning  of 
the  rock  carvings  of  Timehri  until  I  ran 
across  a  Kalina  legend.1  " Penalo  ame 
weipiompo  [once  upon  a  time  it  hap- 
pened] —  before  my  grandmother's 
grandfather  was  born" — thus  the  pii-yai 
spoke — "the  Indians  were  many  and 
happier,  and  the  pii-yais  stronger  than 
the  Evil  Spirit.  Piwaree  was  never 
wanting;  children  obeyed  their  parents; 

1  Obtained  through  the  kind  assistance  of  Mr. 
Thomas  E.  Penard,  from  De  Menschetende  Aan- 
bidders  der  Zonneslang,  by  F.  A.  and  A.  P. 
Penard.    Paramaribo,  1907. 


THE  RED  MEN  OF  THE  GUIANAN  FORESTS 


535 


the  food  fires  never  went  out  for  want  of 
game  or  fish. 

"Then  ships  of  white  warriors  ap- 
peared and  all  this  changed.  Their  chief 
was  Paira-Oende  [Pahee-rah-oon-day],  or 
Ononi,  known  everywhere  by  his  mouth 
being  on  his  chest.  He  murdered  and 
robbed  along  our  coasts,  burned  alive 
and  ate  those  who  fell  into  his  hands. 
Then  we  held  councils;  the  pii-yais  an- 
nounced the  Spirit  of  Two  Bodies  had 
commanded  all  to  gather  on  a  certain 
island.  When  Paira-Oende  angrily  ap- 
proached, the  pu-yais'  charms  caused 
the  island  to  disappear  for  eight  days. 
Then  Paira-Oende  made  a  terrible  cai- 
man [alligator]  for  a  vessel,  to  overcome 
them  with  a  single  blow. 

"The  Indians  camped  near  a  rock 
named  Kaiwiri-Oendepo  [Timehri],  where 
the  pii-yais  charmed  the  Double  Spirit 
until  the  Snake  Spirit  promised  all  his 
red  children  wished.  Proudly  Paira- 
Oende  approached.  Suddenly  the  Spirit 
of  Charms  arose  from  the  Marowyne  and 
swallowed  Paira-Oende.  With  joyous 
cries,  thousands  of  feather-decorated 
Caribs  danced  the  victory  dance  and 
perpetuated  the  event  on  the  Timehri  Rock 
which  still  stands  in  the  Marowyne." 

The  legend  probably  refers  to  the 


cruel  Poncet  de  Bretigny,  1643.  Prac- 
tically the  same  legend  is  found  on  the 
Coppename,  Para,  and  Surinam  rivers. 
Though  making  no  distinction  in  the 
name,  each  undoubtedly  referred  to  dif- 
ferent leaders  of  white  expeditions  whose 
cruel  methods  were  much  the  same  as 
Paira-Oende,  or  Ononi. 

Not  far  from  the  rock  we  entered 
Timehri  village.  The  gaunt  specter, 
Fever,  had  stalked  through  it.  Those 
who  had  not  succumbed  had  fled;  a  few 
emaciated  victims  lay  in  their  ham- 
mocks. The  pii-yais  charms  had  failed; 
even  his  tokai  was  abandoned,  and  we 
now  passed  through  a  deserted  village, 
and  fever  everywhere  ramped  up  and 
down  the  land. 

The  Caribs  believe  in  the  talismanic 
powers  of  certain  objects.  Much  of  this 
fetish-worship  applies  to  hunting,  where 
man — the  hunter — must  bring  to  bear 
all  his  cunning.  Hanging  from  a  house 
beam  I  have  often  noticed  a  plaited 
cord,  the  size  of  a  cod-line,  but  increasing 
in  diameter  toward  one  end,  at  which 
the  fiber  is  left  projecting.  The  Carib 
hunter,  to  insure  himself  good  luck, 
pokes  the  small  end  up  his  nostril,  seizes 
it  by  reaching  into  his  throat,  and 
gradually  draws  the  widening,  bristling 


TWO-TH1KDS  OF  THE  CARJIi's  LIFE  IS  SPENT  IN  HAMMOCKS 


536 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


end  through  his  nose  and  out  of  his 
mouth.  Hunting  luck  is  also  sought  by 
rubbing  the  irritating  juice  of  caladium- 
bulbs  into  body  cuts,  or  by  rubbing 
their  chests  and  thighs  with  hairy  cater- 
pillars, whose  hairs,  like  those  of  the 
brown-tail  moth,  break  off*  and  produce 
an  aggravating  rash. 

These  extraordinary  procedures  have 
some  physiological  basis  of  value.  The 
successful  hunter  must  be  keen5  respon- 
sive to  the  slightest  external  stimulant. 
The  introduction  of  physical  pain,  within 
certain  limits,  will  thus  irritate  the 
nervous  system  to  these  ends.  The 
passing  of  the  nose  cord,  too,  by  cleans- 
ing the  nasal  membrane,  renders  that 
olfactory  member  keener. 

But  it  is  at  night  about  the  camp-fire, 
when  the  sputtering  flames  lick  up  the 
dripping  fat  of  the  agouti  meat,  when 
the  red  glare  paints  redder  the  red  bodies 
of  these  forest  children,  when  the  blood- 
sucking vampires  wing  their  velvety 
flight  in  and  out  of  the  shaded  depths, 
from  which  come  the  night-life  sounds  of 
the  tropics — it  is  then  that  one  feels  the 
full  power  and  mystery  of  this  equatorial 
world  of  rain  and  sunshine,  beauty,  de- 
cay, and  death. 

Often  I  have  sat  thus  in  the  reek- 
ing moisture,  watched  scorpions,  black 
and  snapping,  scurry  among  the  dead 
leaves  at  our  feet,  yet  never  a  sign  of  a 
mosquito.  But  there  are  times  and  places 
where  the  stegomyia  and  anopheles, 
laden  with  germs  of  "yellow-jack'*  and 
malaria,  will  hunt  you  out.  The  un- 
initiated may  journey  for  hours  with 
never  a  sign  of  animal  life;  though  food 
abounds,  the  unschooled  may  starve,  as 
the  rotting,  moss-covered  bones  of  many 
an  escaped  deporte  from  French  Guiana 
bear  witness. 

It  was  difficult,  slushing  waist-deep 
through  poisonous  swamp-water,  to 
avoid  bruising  and  infecting  one's  shins; 
one  must  circumvent,  too,  hidden  arrow 
and  gun  traps  set  for  jaguar  and  peccari, 
those  agile  and  ferocious  forest  animals. 
One  can  scarcely  appreciate  the  instinct, 
knowledge,  and  intelligence  requisite  for 
man  to  sustain  life  in  this  wild  tropical 
jungle. 

In  the  saturation  of  its  dank  humus, 
in  the  vapid  breath  of  its  exotic  creation, 
all  life  takes  on  a  superabundant  luxuri- 


ance unequaled  perhaps  in  any  other 
part  of  the  world.  But  here,  too,  per- 
haps, there  exists  an  unequaled  contest 
with  Nature — Nature  warring  against 
herself,  reeking  in  wetness  and  damp, 
pungent  odors  —  beauty  even  in  the 
decay,  where  insidious  disease  and  death 
broods  and  breeds;  parasites  seen  and 
unseen  gnawing  out  the  heart  of  things 
— parasitical  vines  and  fungi  sapping 
and  throttling  the  life  of  trees — trees 
fighting  other  trees  —  insidious  insects 
and  reptiles,  the  blood-sucking  vampire, 
the  fierce  jaguar,  infolding  boa,  and 
vicious  peccari,  preying  upon  and  being 
preyed  upon — and  here  the  Carib  dwells, 
and  not  only  holds  his  own,  but  thrives 
— thrives  in  spite  of  everything  except 
contact  with  civilization. 

So  I  drifted  along  -  these  Guianan 
rivers  in  the  hushing  heat  of  noon- 
days, or  in  the  blue  coolness  of  diamond- 
studded  nights  until  my  canoe  crept 
into  the  broader  reaches  of  the  Cottica. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  an  hospitable  wel- 
come was  extended  to  me  at  the  Carib 
camps.  At  one  of  the  last  at  which  we 
drew  up  our  canoes,  the  best  aouto  in 
the  village  was  given  over  to  me  and  my 
men.  Under  its  protecting  roof  our 
hammocks  were  soon  hanging,  fire  pro- 
vided, and  fresh  cassava  bread  and  a 
large  bowl  of  stewed,  purple  fruit  were 
set  before  me. 

No  children  are  prettier  or  more  at- 
tractive than  the  Caribs.  Two  of  the 
boys  affectionately  tucked  their  velvety 
little  arms  about  mine.  Soon  the  boys 
and  girls  were  munching  my  chocolate 
and  crackers.  Then  I  thought  of  my  un- 
used case  of  soda-water  bottles.  Phiz! 
Pop!  Eyes  and  mouths  open  in  surprise; 
and  soon  bottles  were  popping  all  about 
the  camp.  By  poking  a  finger  in  my 
mouth,  I  surreptitiously  indulged  in  imi- 
tation "pops,"  so  puzzling  them  that 
they  searched  me  from  sun-helmet  to 
hunting-boots  for  hidden  bottles.  Their 
merriment  effervesced  more  than  the 
soda-water  on  discovering  the  trick, 
whereupon  the  whole  camp,  trying  to 
imitate  the  sound,  echoed  with  shouts 
and  laughter. 

We  soon  turned  into  our  hammocks 
and  the  camp  slept.  Then  the  wail  of 
a  sick  baby,  mingling  with  the  soft 
night  sounds  of  river  and  forest,  aroused 


THE  RED  MEN  OF  THE  GUIANAN  FORESTS 


537 


ML 


fat    •<».  JeLiME  MJ> 


5% 

f/. --f-v  I 


me.  I  soon  found  the 
rto^/o  where  a  little 
Carib  mother  sobbed, 
the  child  crying  at  her 
breast.  No  one  need 
doubt  that  these  sim- 
ple people  have  great 
affection  and  love 
added  to  their  many 
other  admirable  qual- 
ities. Never  was  I 
more  gratified  with 
results  from  my  mea- 
ger medicine-kit. 

Back  in  my  ham- 
mock, deep  in  sleep, 
I  seemed  to  dream  a 
moaning  chant,  swell- 
ing ever  louder  until 
it  broke  into  weird 
cries,  and  I  awoke  to 
the  realization  that  it 
was  the  pu  -  yais 
chantings  to  cure  a 
fever-stricken  man.  Again  I  turned  out, 
this  time  to  see  the  ceremony. 

The  magicians  were  secreted  in  their 
inclosed  tokai.  With  deep-toned  voice 
one  of  them  followed  the  chant  with  a 
long  monologue  to  the  evil  influences, 
appealing  to  the  helpful  spirits.  Mean- 
time, accompanied  by  seed  or  pebble 
filled  rattles,  producing  a  rustling  form 
of  music  which  would  gradually  dimin- 
ish, they  drove  or  inveigled  the  evil 
away;  then  they  stopped — all  but  one 
of  them,  who  kept  going  to  prevent  it 
from  coming  back.  As  the  fever-stricken 
man  wished  my  help,  I  requisitioned  my 
ever-useful  Epsom  salts,  and,  when  the 
fever  had  subsided,  was  able,  with 
the  aid  of  quinine,  to  materially  help 
him,  but  the  magicians  kept  on  grind- 
ing. 

In  tne  morning  twilight  we  were  again 
drifting  down  the  soft-flowing  current  of 


.«/  «f-."  >V  _v 


1  ^^:mw  i 


8* 


RUBBINGS  MADE  BY  THE  AUTHOR  FROM 
THE  FAMOUS  TIMEHRI  ROCK  SCULPTURES 


the  dawn-flushed  Cottica  toward  the  sea. 
As  I  lay  in  my  accustomed  place  in  the 
bottom  of  the  dugout,  I  looked  through 
the  crystal  of  time  into  the  great  ethnic 
kaleidoscope  of  Amerindia — that  great 
world  segment  of  North  and  South 
America.  In  the  distribution  of  the  par- 
ticles of  its  ever-changing  design  I  saw 
the  Red  units  giving  way  to  an  ever- 
increasing  field  of  White.  How  many 
more  turns  in  the  rolling  march  of  civili- 
zation, I  wondered,  before  this  field  will 
be  completely  blanched,  with  only  a 
tinge  of  Pink,  perhaps,  to  remind  us  that 
" penalo  ame  weipiompo  [once  upon  a 
time] — before  my  grandmother's  grand- 
father was" — the  Red  ran  riot  in  the 
design.  More  often  will  be  heard  the 
weird  diminuendo  of  the  kareo  bird,  as 
the  little  remnant,  like  my  canoe  on  the 
Cottica,  drifts  rapidly  out  toward  the 
Great  Water  for  ever. 


Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.-67 


The  Sardonic  Adventure  of  Simeon 

Small  | 

BY  CLARENCE  BUDINGTON  KELLAND 


GAVE  the  matter  my 
closest  consideration, 
and  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  it  would  be 
eminently  fitting  for  me 
to  marry  Katherine 
Wight.  Having  reached 
a  decision,  I  did  not  shilly-shally  about 
the  affair,  but  resolved  at  once  to  enter 
upon  the  courtship.  The  sooner  I  began 
courting,  the  sooner  it  would  be  over,  I 
thought,  and  immediately  put  on  my  hat 
to  go  to  call  on  Katherine.  I  may  have 
my  faults,  but,  thank  Heaven,  irresolu- 
tion is  not  one  of  them. 

I  walked  briskly,  breathing  deeply  and 
expelling  the  breath  every  fourth  step, 
thus  refreshing  the  lower  lung,  and  came 
in  a  few  minutes  to  the  entrance  to  the 
Wight  grounds.  As  I  passed  through 
the  gate  I  observed  Katherine's  brother 
Stephen — or  Steve,  as  he  seems,  pe- 
culiarly enough,  to  prefer  to  be  desig- 
nated— playing  at  the  game  of  lawn- 
tennis  with  another  young  man  whom  I 
did  not  recognize.  I  paused  briefly  to 
observe  the  game — not  that  I  under- 
stand its  complexities  or  am  interested  in 
it  to  the  smallest  degree.  It  was  a  mere 
surrender  to  common  curiosity. 

I  watched  the  young  men  striking 
eagerly  at  a  tiny  ball,  and  was  not  a 
little  surprised  to  note  that  they  were 
equally  discourteous.  Instead  of  trying 
to  hit  the  little  ball  near  his  opponent, 
thus  saving  him  useless  exertion  in  run- 
ning about,  each  endeavored  to  put  it 
wholly  out  of  reach  of  the  other's  hitter 
— racket,  do  they  call  it?  The  strange 
young  man  showed  more  ability  at  the 
game  than  Stephen;  in  fact,  he  played 
so  well  that  he  reminded  me  of  the 
rebuke  bestowed  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spen- 
cer on  the  young  man  who  was  extremely 
proficient  at  the  game  of  billiards;  it 
was  something  to  the  effect  that  reason- 


able skill  at  the  game  was  a  credit  to  a 
gentleman,  but  that  such  expertness  be- 
tokened a  misspent  life.  Mr.  Spencer 
was  a  close  observer.  I  am  certain  the 
strange  young  man  must  have  spent  a 
great  many  hours  at  the  game  of  tennis 
which  would  have  been  more  profitably 
devoted  to  something  of  a  serious  nature. 

I  proceeded  up  the  walk,  and,  fortu- 
nately, discovered  Katherine  sitting  un- 
der a  sort  of  pergola— a  modified  form 
— reading  a  little  book.  This  book,  I 
subsequently  discovered,  was  Maeter- 
linck's essay  on  Death.  What  more 
charming  picture  could  one  ask  to  see? 
I  admit  that  my  pulse  beat  above  the 
normal.  I  could  not  discover  the  num- 
ber of  beats  to  the  minute,  though 
I  did  place  my  fingers  on  my  left  wrist 
in  an  endeavor  to  count.  It  would  have 
been  interesting  data. 

Though  I  am  twenty-nine  years  old, 
this  was  my  first  courtship,  and  I  was 
rather  in  doubt  how  to  proceed.  I  re- 
solved to  maintain  a  perfect  calm  and 
study  the  matter  out  as  I  proceeded.  I 
therefore  advanced  resolutely. 

"Good  afternoon,  Katherine,"  I  said, 
steadily. 

She  glanced  up  from  her  book  and 
smiled.   "Why,  Simeon!"  she  exclaimed. 
1  his  is  a  surprise. 

"I  trust,"  said  I,  advancing  boldly 
with  my  project,  "that  it  is  a  -pleasant 
surprise."  I  accentuated  the  word  pleas- 
ant significantly,  and  watched  to  see  if 
she  would  blush.  That,  I  am  told,  is  a 
signal  that  a  courtship  is  proceeding 
satisfactorily.  She  did  not  blush,  how- 
ever, and  I  was  a  trifle  nonplussed. 

"  What  are  you  reading,  if  I  may  ask  ?" 

"Maeterlinck's  essay  on  Death.  .  .  . 
Don't  you  think  it  is  perfectly  lovely?" 

"I  must  confess  I  had  not  applied  that 
precise  adjective  to  it,  Katherine.  In- 
deed, while  it  is  interesting  in  a  lighter 


THE  SARDONIC  ADVENTURE  OF  SIMEON  SMALL 


539 


way,  abstract  speculation  does  not  ap- 
peal to  me  deeply.  The  writings  of  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer,  dealing  as  they  do 
mainly  with  facts,  impress  me  as  much 
more  valuable.  Still,  I  am  prepared  to 
admit,  you  ladies  are  fairly  entitled  to 
the  relaxation  of  lighter  reading." 

I  was  surprised  to  note  how  free  from 
embarrassment  I  was.  I  wonder  if 
Katherine  noticed  it.  However,  at  that 
time,  she  could  not  have  been  aware  of 
my  purpose  in  calling,  though  the  fact 
that  I  came  early  in  the  afternoon  should 
have  apprised  her  that  something  un- 
usual had  caused  me  to  turn  aside  from 
my  regular  habit,  which  is  to  remain  in 
my  library  until  fifteen  minutes  past 
four. 

"I  am  delighted,"  I  told  her,  "to  ob- 
serve that  you  do  not  read  those  ridicu- 
lous novels  which  are  so  vulgarly  popu- 

i  " 
lar. 

She  appeared  to  appreciate  this  com- 
pliment. "One's  life,"  said  she,  "is  such 
a  serious  matter  that  one  should  not 
waste  one's  time  frivolously.  I  used  to 
read  novels,"  she  confessed,  "but — but 


Maeterlinck  is  so  much  lovelier,  and  I  just 
revel  in  Ibsen.    Do  you  read  Ibsen?" 

I  nodded  appreciatively. 

"And  I  have  just  finished  Suder- 
mann's  Joy  of  Living.  Isn't  that  the 
sweetest  thing!" 

"The  German  playwrights  have 
seemed  to  me  somewhat  morbid,  though 
one  must  admit  their  powers  of  analy- 

SIS. 

The  longer  I  conversed  with  Kathe- 
rine the  more  firmly  convinced  I  became 
that  she  was  fitted  to  be  my  wife.  Her 
calm,  serious  outlook  on  life,  her  mani- 
fest interest  in  the  better  literature  and 
in  philosophy,  seemed  to  promise  a  de- 
lightful companionship.  I  pictured  to 
myself  how  I  should  enjoy  introducing 
her  to  such  writers  as  Spinoza,  and  the 
uplifting  discussion  that  would  follow.  I 
am  afraid  I  speculated  on  these  things 
overlong,  for  suddenly  I  became  aware 
that  neither  of  us  had  spoken  for  some 
time.  I  begged  her  pardon,  but  did  not 
disclose  the  subject  -  matter  of  my 
thoughts. 

While  I  was  mentally  formulating  a 


KATHERINE  WAS  SITTING  UNDER  A  SORT  OF  PERGOLA,  READING  A  LITTLE  BOOK 


540 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


remark  that  would  expedite,  so  to  speak, 
my  courtship,  Stephen  and  his  friend 
came  hurrying  up  from  the  tennis-court. 
They  were  scarcely  presentable,  and 
seemed  overheated  and  uncomfortable. 

"  Howdy,  Simeon  ?"  said  Stephen.  He 
stopped  and  presented  his  skilful  tennis 
companion.    "Small,"  said  he,  poking 
his  finger  brusquely  at  me,  "  Quain- 
tance,"  poking  his  finger  at  his  friend. 
Stephen  was  notably  careless  of  social 
forms.   "Scoot  for  the  showers !"  he  then 
cried,  without  giving  me  an  opportunity 
to  acknowledge  the  in- 
troduction or  to  ask 
Mr.   Quaintance  two 
questions  that  occurred 
to  me.    The  first  had  to 
do  with  the  trajectory 
of  the  tennis-ball  in  its 
relation  to  the  elasticity 
of  the  strings  of  the  *MM$M< 
racket;  the  other  was, 
if  his  nose  was  a  family 
characteristic  or  indi- 
vidual to  himself.  How- 
ever, they  hurried  away, 
and  I  was  obliged  to 
forego  my  inquiries. 

"Don't  you  think," 
asked  Katherine,  look- 
ing after  the  young  men, 
"that  he  has  a — distin- 
guished appearance?" 

I  found  her  question 
vaguely  displeasing  to 
me,  but  almost  instant- 
ly I  believed  I  could 
recognize  my  sensation 
as  jealousy.  This  gave 
me  a  certain  satisfac- 
tion, as  I  understood 
jealousy  to  be  an  im- 
portant incident  to 
courtship.  Though  I 
am  not  deeply  versed 
in  the  character  and 
probabilities  of  women, 
nevertheless  I  was  not  without  acumen 
to  perceive  in  Quaintance  a  possible 
rival. 

"He  is  a  house  guest?"  I  asked,  dis- 
sembling my  true  feeling. 

"Yes.  He  came  home  with  Stephen 
after  graduation,  and  we  hope  to  keep 
him  a  month  or  more." 

"Indeed,"  said  I.    I  determined  to 


I  COULD  NOT  DISCOVER  THE  NUM- 
BER   OF    BEATS    TO    THE  MINUTE 


watch  Katherine  and  this  young  man 
carefully,  and  if  I  should  detect  evi- 
dences of  his  becoming  a  rival — some- 
thing I  had  carelessly  omitted  from  my 
calculations — to  formulate  a  plan  that 
would  demonstrate  my  superior  fitness 
to  become  Katherine's  husband. 

I  remained  but  a  short  while  longer, 
because  it  seemed  wise  to  make  brief 
such  a  significant  call  as  mine,  and  to 
give  Katherine  an  opportunity  to  con- 
sider it  and  to  ponder  over  the  reason  for 
my  coming.  I  desired,  however,  to  go 
leaving  a  pleasant  im- 
pression, and,  as  I  could 
a       jfc  not  think  of  an  expres- 

:  "/     V  sion  that  would  produce 

Mr  -  )  _  that  effect  on  her  mind, 

I  was  obliged  to  stay 
several  minutes  longer 
than  I  desired.  How- 
ever, inspiration  was 
kind. 

"I  must  go,"  said  I, 
rising.  "Good-by.  It 
has  been  delightful  to 
me  to  find  you  stirred 
by  the  psychic  rather 
than  by  the  physical." 
That,  of  course,  was  ap- 
proaching the  warmly 
sentimental,  but  she 
did  not  seem  to  be  of- 
fended at  my  ardor. 

Next  after  noon, 
breaking  my  fixed  habit, 
I  used  the  telephone  to 
inquire  if  I  might  take 
her  driving.  I  used  the 
telephone  because  I 
learn  that  that  instru- 
ment is  much  affected 
by  the  participants  in  a 
courtship.  Katherine 
expressed  regret  that 
she  had  previously  en- 
gaged herself  to  golf 
with  Mr.  Quaintance.  I 
was  agitated  by  this  information,  but 
determined  that  the  young  man  should 
not  again  forestall  me.  I  would  be  more 
vigorous  and  vigilant  in  my  attentions. 

Next  morning  I  had  my  chauffeur 
drive  me  to  Katherine's  as  early  as  pro- 
priety would  allow,  but  imagine  my  dis- 
comfiture to  learn  from  Stephen — who 
seemed  disgruntled  himself — that  his  sis- 


THE  LONGER  I  CONVERSED,  THE  MORE  FIRMLY  CONVINCED 
I     BECAME    THAT     SHE     WAS    FITTED    TO    BE     MY  WIFE 


ter  and  Mr.  Quaintance  had  already 
gone  for  a  tramp  along  the  river. 

"What  good's  he  to  me,"  demanded 
Stephen,  inelegantly,  "if  he's  goin'  ram- 
pagin'  ofF  after  a  skirt  all  the  time?" 

When  I  returned  home,  however,  I 
was  rejoiced,  for  my  mail  brought  me 
notice  of  an  event  which  would  be  a  rare 
treat  for  Katherine.  I  immediately 
seated  myself  and  wrote  her  a  note  beg- 
ging her  to  reserve  the  following  Monday 
evening  for  me.  She  replied  by  my  mes- 
senger that  she  would  be  delighted.  I 
apprehended  she  would  be,  for,  playing 
on  the  long-recognized  feminine  quality 
of  curiosity,  I  had  omitted  to  tell  her 
the  character  of  the  event  to  which  I  was 
to  escort  her. 

When  I  arrived  at  her  home  on  the 
stated  evening  I  found  her  clothed  in  a 
dress  rather  more  suitable  for  a  social 
engagement  or  dance  than  for  the  occa- 
sion I  had  in  mind.  Her  neck  and  shoul- 
ders were  not  concealed,  at  which,  I 
must  confess,  I  was  not  chagrined,  for 
she  was  exceedingly  beautiful,  or  so  it 
seemed  to  me. 


I  helped  her  into  my  car  with  a  deli- 
cate and  solicitous  gallantry  which  I 
hoped  she  would  perceive  and  not  mis- 
take. Then  we  were  on  our  way.  Our 
destination  was  the  rooms  of  the  Ortho- 
graphic Society.  As  we  stepped  out,  I 
noted  a  look  of  astonishment  on  Kath- 
erine's  face,  and  was  gratified. 

"What — "  she  began,  but  I  inter- 
rupted. 

"Not  a  word — not  a  word,"  said  I, 
playfully.    "It  is  to  be  a  surprise." 

We  entered  the  lecture-room  and 
found  excellent  seats.  Katherine  was 
quiet,  and  it  seemed  to  me  her  lip  was 
trembling — probably  she  was  striving — 
and  with  difficulty — to  conceal  the  pleas- 
ure she  felt  at  being  admitted  to  that 
room  where  so  few  women  have  ever 
been.   I  whispered  in  her  ear,  exultingly : 

"The  address  this  evening  is  to  be  by 
Herr  Schellenbarger,  of  the  University 
of  Leipzig,  on  'The  Wide  Differentia- 
tion Between  Early  Cufic  Inscriptions 
and  the  Undeciphered  Sculpture  Writ- 
ings of  the  Mayan  Ruins  in  Central 
America." 


542 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


She  gasped.  I  looked  at  her  closely 
and  could  scarcely  credit  my  vision  when 
I  perceived  that  her  eyes  were  actually 
wet.  I  had  not  even  hoped  to  give  her 
pleasure  in  such  a  degree.  During  the 
reading  of  Professor  Schellenbarger's  pa- 
per, so  engrossed  was  I  that  I  quite  for- 
got Katherine's  presence,  but  at  its  com- 
pletion I  glanced  at  her  triumphantly. 
She  did  not  meet  my  eyes. 

"Is  it  not  remarkable,"  I  asked,  "that 
one  man  should  have  collected  so  much 
valuable  data  from  the  ruined  remnants 
of  vanished  civilizations?" 

"I  believe  he  eats  them,"  she  said,  in  a 
peculiar  tone.  I  understood  this  to  be  a 
colloquial  phrase  expressing  admiration. 

She  was  thoughtful  during  our  drive 
home,  and  though  I  encouraged  her  to 
discuss  the  paper  with  me,  she  seemed 
disinclined.  Doubtless  she  wished  to  di- 
gest the  matter  before  voicing  her  opin- 
ion. I  bade  her  good  night  gently  and 
with  what  I  endeavored  to  make  osten- 
tatious reluctance.  Her  good  night  was 
brief;  indeed,  I  may  say  it  was  a  trifle 
brusque. 

Tuesday  afternoon  I  hastened  to  call 
in  order  to  review  the  pleasure  of  the 
evening  before.  On  the  piazza  were 
Stephen  and  Mr.  Quaintance.  As  I 
came  upon  them  they  were  laughing 
uproariously  and  pummeling  each  other 
in  the  ribs — conduct  that  was  inex- 
plicable to  me. 

"Good  afternoon,"  I  said,  interrupt- 
ing their  pastime. 

"Whoop!"  shouted  Stephen.  "It's 
him!"  Again  they  abandoned  them- 
selves to  paroxysms  of  mirth. 

"I  should  be  glad,"  said  I,  severely, 
"to  know  what  you  find  so  humorous." 

Stephen  became  sober  in  an  instant, 
no  doubt  remembering  his  manners. 

"We  were  laughing  at  sis,"  he  said. 

"At  Katherine?"  I  demanded. 

"At  Katherine,"  said  Stephen,  in  a 
tone  that  I  may  be  mistaken  in  believing 
resembled  my  own. 

"May  I  inquire  why?" 

The  young  men  looked  at  each  other 
again  and  found  difficulty  in  remaining 
calm. 

"Mistake  she  made,"  said  Stephen. 

"It  is  not  proper  to  laugh  at  others' 
mistakes,"  I  told  them.  "The  effect  of 
ridicule  on  the  erring  has  been  discussed 


in  a  paper  by  Professor  Rintoul,  who 
occupies  the  chair  of  applied  psychology 
at  Oxford  University — " 

"But  this  wasn't  that  sort  of  a  mis- 
take," defended  Stephen. 

"What  kind  of  mistake  is  it  that  can 
be—" 

"Why"- — he  pressed  his  hands  to  his 
sides  as  though  they  were  the  seat  of 
pain — -"why,  she  thought  you  were  tak- 
ing her  to  the  theatricals  at  the  Colonial 
Club  last  night — and — and — "  Again 
both  young  men  shouted  with  laughter. 
"  What  was  it  you  took  her  to,  Simeon — 
eh?   Do  repeat  the  title  of  the  lecture." 

I  saw  nothing  humorous  in  Kath- 
erine's error — indeed,  though  I  have 
thought  of  the  incident  frequently,  I 
have  never  been  able  to  understand  why 
it  should  have  provoked  the  young  men 
to  laughter. 

"Is  Katherine  at  home?"  I  asked, 
stiffly. 

"She's  holed  up  in  her  room  and  re- 
fuses to  be  coaxed  out.  Claims  it's  head- 
ache— but  it  isn't.    It's  mad!" 

"Because  you  laughed  at  her?" 

Stephen  nodded  and  chuckled. 

"It  was  very  inconsiderate  of  you,"  I 
told  him,  and  then  asked  him  to  convey 
to  Katherine  my  regrets  that  she  was  ill. 

Mr.  Quaintance  rose  and  strolled  tow- 
ard the  tennis-court,  leaving  Stephen 
and  myself  together.  This  seemed  to 
me  an  excellent  opportunity  to  talk  to 
my  prospective  brother-in-law  about  the 
relationship  which  was  soon  to  exist 
between  us. 

"Have  you  noticed,"  I  asked,  "that 
I  have  been  here  frequently  of  late?" 

"Now  that  you  mention  it,  I  do  re- 
member something  of  the  sort." 

"Has  it  occurred  to  you  to  wonder 
why  ?" 

He  looked  at  me  and  grinned — yes, 
grinned  is  the  word.  "It's  such  hot 
weather  for  wondering,"  he  said. 

"I  have  had  a  purpose." 

"That's  your  specialty,  isn't  it,  Sime- 
on— having  purposes?" 

"I  am  courting  your  sister,"  I  said, 
firmly. 

"No!"  he  exclaimed.  "Is  that  what 
you're  doing?  I  imagined  you  were  here 
studving  the  conformation  of  our  skulls." 

"How,"  I  asked  him,  "do  you  regard 
me  as  a  possible  brother-in-law?" 


THE  SARDONIC  ADVENTURE  OF  SIMEON  SMALL  543 


"Simeon,"  said  he,  and  I  was  sur- 
prised to  note  that  his  voice  trembled 
with  emotion,  "nothing  in  the  world 
could  give  me  more  pleasure  than  to  see 
you  courting  Katherine." 

I  shook  his  hand  and  went  home — 
with  a  new  estimate  of  Stephen.    I  had 
judged    him  shallow 
and  flippant,  but  my 
error  was  clear. 

The  next  two  weeks 
were  vexatious.  Day 
after  day  Katherine 
was  occupied  or  ab- 
sent from  home.  No 
less  than  nine  times 
did  I  see  her  in  com- 
pany with  Mr.  Quain- 
tance.  Each  time  they 
were  enjoying  them- 
selves, which  caused 
me  a  twinge  of  what 
I  have  come  to  recog- 
nize as  jealousy.  In 
those  two  weeks  I  was 
not  alone  with  Kath- 
erine once.  However, 
I  was  not  idle.  Re- 
peatedly I  sent  her 
books,  even  poems. 
I  sent  her  Mount- 
fort's  delightful 
brochure  on  Syno- 
nyms and  Antonyms 
of  the  Polynesians, 
also  Gerald's  two- 
volume  History  of  the 
Rise  and  General  Adoption  of  the  Letter 
"J"  in  Civilized  Alphabets.  These  were 
not  all,  but  they  were  the  choice  of  the 
collection.  She  thanked  me  in  brief  but 
appreciative  notes. 

When  I  heard  Katherine's  name  cou- 
pled with  Mr.  Quaintance's  by  the  gos- 
sips on  the  Country  Club  veranda  it 
became  apparent  to  me  that  I  must  re- 
sort to  more  strenuous  methods.  I 
therefore  strolled  into  the  woods  to  seek 
silence  and  solitude,  the  better  to  formu- 
late a  plan  that  could  not  fail  of  success. 
I  found  an  ideal  spot  for  ratiocination  in 
a  glacial  ravine,  whose  floor  was  densely 
covered  by  a  luxurious  podyphyllin  pel- 
tatum,  and  there  I  seated  myself,  and 
was  soon  oblivious  to  my  surroundings 
as  I  worked  on  my  problem. 

The  problem,  as  I  stated  it  to  myself, 


was  as  follows:  How  can  I,  by  single  ac- 
tion or  by  series  of  acts,  demonstrate 
to  Katherine  the  singular  qualities  which 
make  me  an  ideal  husband  for  her,  and 
at  the  same  time  make  clear  to  her  my 
superiority,  of  which  I  am  conscious, 
over  Mr.  Quaintance? 


I  WAS 
INGS 


SOON  OBLIVIOUS  TO  MY  SURROUND- 
AS    I    WORKED    ON    MY  PROBLEM 


The  two,  I  judged,  must  be  coinci- 
dental. It  was  necessary,  too,  that 
there  should  be  present  something  of 
that  element  referred  to  as  romance  by 
writers  of  a  certain  class  of  books.  Add 
to  this  that  I  must  appear  in  a  light  at 
once  learned,  competent,  and  heroic,  and 
you  will  admit  the  problem  of  trisecting 
the  angle  to  be  scarcely  more  abstruse. 

I  concentrated.  The  result  proved  to 
me  that  my  mind  is  not  of  the  imagina- 
tive type.  An  hour's  study  yielded  no 
result.  I  sat  at  ease,  relaxed,  allowed 
my  mind  to  seek  its  own  channels  of 
thought  for  a  time,  determined  presently 
to  renew  the  attack.  I  considered  chal- 
lenging Mr.  Quaintance  to  a  game  of 
chess,  that  pastime  bordering  somewhat 
on  his  favorite  athletics,  but  on  second 
thought  it  seemed  lacking  in  the  neces- 


544 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


sary  element  of  romance.  You  will  agree 
with  me  that  the  ordinary  game  of  chess 
does  not  abound  in  romance.  I  wished 
in  a  moment  of  weakness  that  I  had 
taken  time  to  read  some  so-called  novels, 
they  dealing,  as  I  understand  it,  mainly 
with  cryptogrammatical  love- affairs,  and 
offering  plausible,  if  not  scientific,  solu- 
tions. But  that  phase  passed  rapidly, 
and  I  became  my  true  self  again.  Pres- 
ently I  found  myself  gazing  intently  at 
an  outcropping  of  limestone.  I  eyed  it 
curiously,  rather  fancying  I  could  iden- 
tify it  as  belonging  to  the  Subcarbonifer- 
ous  period.  This  naturally  carried  me  to 
a  consideration  of  caverns,  inasmuch  as 
an  area  of  limestone  is  almost  invari- 
ably honeycombed  with  caves  large  or 
small.  I  then  recalled  hearing  of  an  ex- 
tensive cavern  some  fifteen  miles  away, 
which  I  had  made  a  mental  note  of,  with 
the  idea  of  visiting  to  make  an  exhaus- 
tive investigation  and  perhaps  write  a 
monograph  on  the  subject.  I  do  not 
know  why  or  how,  but  suddenly  there 
appeared  to  my  mental  vision  an  illus- 
tration from  a  story  I  read  when  a  boy. 
It  pictured  a  boy  bearing  a  girl  in  his 
arms  and  struggling  along  through  a 
cave  rich  in  stalactites  and  stalagmites. 
I  gasped.  There  was  my  plan.  I  would 
invite  Katherine  and  her  brother  and 
Mr.  Quaintance  and  some  unimportant 
young  woman  to  motor  to  the  cave  with 
me.  I  would  allow  them  to  wander 
within  until  they  became  bewildered, 
lost.  Then,  calmly  and  coolly,  I  would 
sit  down,  with  paper  and  pencil  and 
compass,  and  figure  out  for  them  what 
direction  to  take  and  how  to  effect  our 
exit.  I  was  certain  that  no  instruments 
would  be  necessary  other  than  a  compass 
and  a  pedometer.  Of  course  I  would  not 
bring  about  the  rescue  until  some  degree 
of  hardship  was  imminent,  and  until  the 
other  male  members  of  the  party  had 
demonstrated  their  futility. 

I  made  up  my  little  party,  consisting 
of  Katherine,  Stephen,  Mr.  Quaintance, 
a  young  woman  named  Brown,  who  pos- 
sessed a  temperament  that  might  be 
described  as  highly  vivacious — and,  of 
course,  myself.  Saturday  morning,  not 
unprovided  with  luncheon,  we  drove  to 
the  cavern,  which,  by  the  way,  was 
known  as  Hoofer's  Hole — a  title  possess- 
ing nothing  of  poetic  descriptiveness. 


We  lighted  candles,  and  I  allowed  Mr. 
Quaintance  and  Katherine,  as  well  as 
Stephen  and  the  lively  Miss  Brown,  to 
precede  me.  This  was  a  truly  Machi- 
avellian manceuver,  placing,  as  it  did, 
the  responsibility  of  guidance  on  those 
who  took  the  lead — on  Mr.  Quaintance, 
in  short.  As  for  me,  I  kept  well  to  the 
rear,  compass  in  hand,  counting  places 
and  jotting  down  notes  on  a  small  pad 
which  I  could  readily  conceal  in  the  palm 
of  my  hand. 

The  cavern  was  as  large  and  as  inter- 
esting as  I  had  been  led  to  expect.  There 
were  numerous  passages  and  chambers 
which  followed  no  regular  scheme,  but 
on  the  contrary  proceeded  in  a  hap- 
hazard manner  in  all  directions,  with 
curves  and  angles  innumerable.  I 
judged  it  to  be  an  ideal  cavern  for  my 
purpose,  and  was  accordingly  elated. 

At  the  end  of  half  an  hour  we  rested 
in  an  oval  room — a  room  particularly 
interesting  because  of  the  curious  forma- 
tions of  its  stalactites.  We  seated  our- 
selves to  converse  briefly. 

"Aren't  we  getting  quite  a  ways  from 
the  opening?"  Katherine  asked.  "It 
would  be  perfectly  terrible  to  get  lost." 

I  was  about  to  rejoin,  but  Mr.  Quain- 
tance replied  before  I  had  formulated 
my  own  response — and  gave  himself 
over  into  my  hands. 

"Not  the  least  danger,  Katherine. 
Just  follow  your  uncle  Dudley — your 
old,  dependable  uncle  Dudley.  He'll 
lead  you  to  the  sunlight  and  the  little 
birdies  and  the  nodding  blossoms." 

I  had  not  conceived  the  young  man  to 
be  possessed  of  a  power  of  poetic  expres- 
sion such  as  this,  and  it  rendered  him 
more  formidable  in  my  eyes.  It  is 
strange  how  oddly  nature  sometimes  be- 
stows her  gifts. 

Presently  we  arose  and  went  on  until 
we  came  to  the  brink  of  a  subterranean 
brook  which  barred  our  farther  progress. 

"I've  gone  far  enough,  anyhow," 
Katherine  said. 

"Yes,"  declared  Miss  Brown,  "I 
think  I've  absorbed  about  all  the  cave 
my  soul  requires."  She  had  an  odd  man- 
ner of  expression. 

"Let's  start  back,  then,"  said  Kathe- 
rine; "I'm  hungry.  Come  on,  Mr. 
Quaintance;  lead  the  way." 

I  smiled  to  myself.   Well  I  knew  that 


WE  LIGHTED  CANDLES,  AND  I  ALLOWED  THEM  TO  PRECEDE  ME 


we  were  lost.  Well  I  knew  that  the 
devious  passages,  the  abrupt  turnings, 
the  numerous,  highly  similar  openings, 
were  such  as  to  make  our  return  impos- 
sible without  the  aid  of  a  guide  who 
knew  well  the  windings  of  the  cave,  or  of 
a  person  such  as  myself  who  had  pre- 
pared for  this  emergency.  So  I  spoke 
calmly. 

"He  cannot  lead  the  way,  Katherine. 
We  are  lost.  Each  and  every  one  of  us 
is  lost." 

"Oh,  Mr.  Quaintance!"  said  Kathe- 
rine, suddenly  frightened.  "We're  not 
lost!   You  know  the  way.   Don't  you?" 

"Hopeful  Simeon  says  I  don't.  It 
must  be  so.  I'll  bet  he  never  made  a 
mistake  in  his  life." 

I  ignored  this  flippancy.  "We  are 
lost — utterly  lost,"  I  said. 

Katherine  began  to  cry  a  little,  and 
her  brother  put  his  arm  around  her.  He 
also  tried  to  put  his  other  arm  around 
Miss  Brown,  but  she  eluded  him  and 
said  she  hadn't  got  to  that  point  yet — 
he'd  have  to  wait  till  she  was  more 
frightened.   Quaintance  chuckled,  but  I 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.-68 


could  see  no  ground  for  merriment,  espe- 
cially to  him  who  had,  as  the  others 
must  think,  gotten  us  into  our  predica- 
ment. 

"What  shall  we  do?"  Katherine  said, 
in  a  small,  trembling  voice.  Her  ques- 
tion was  directed  to  Mr.  Quaintance,  but 
I  replied: 

"I  shall  take  charge,  Katherine.  We 
have  been  led  astray  carelessly,  but  you 
may  depend  on  me.  Have  patience 
while  I  con  over  a  few  figures  and  deter- 
mine, from  data  in  my  hands,  certain 
angles  and  distances.  Then  I  shall  lead 
you  to  safety." 

"And  to  dinner,"  said  Miss  Brown. 
"You'll  lead  us  to  that  too,  won't  you?" 

"And  to  dinner,"  I  assured  her. 

While  the  young  men  and  women  sat 
watching  me,  with  what  eagerness  I 
could  well  imagine — as  their  safety  hung 
on  my  calculations — I  took  my  figures 
and  data  and  soon  had  them  in  excellent 
order.  Soon,  I  say,  but  that  word  is 
used  in  a  comparative  sense.  To  work 
out  the  intricate  problem  before  me  re- 
quired time,  but  not  so  much  time  as 


546 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


another — say  Mr.  Quaintance— would 
have  required.  It  was,  perhaps,  an  hour. 
Meantime  the  others  carried  on  conver- 
sation in  a  futile  effort  to  keep  up  their 
courage. 

"Now,"  said  I,  "I  am  ready.  Follow 
me. 

I  may  say  that  they  had  not  waited 
altogether  patiently.  Miss  Brown  had 
been  particularly  insistent  upon  making 
some  sort  of  a  start  toward  food,  but  I 
settled  that  matter  at  once  and  peremp- 
torily. I  informed  that  young  lady  that 
the  expedition  had  been  sufficiently  mis- 
handled, and  that  hereafter  the  direction 
of  affairs  would  remain  in  the  hands  of 
one  able  to  deal  with  the  emergency. 

I  thought  I  overheard  Mr.  Quaintance 
ask  a  ridiculous  question,  one  quite  with- 
out coherence,  of  Katherine:  "What 
relative  will  Simeon  be  to  his  grand- 
children —  a  grandfather  or  grand- 
mother?" She  giggled  in  a  manner  that 
showed  she  thought  lightly  of  his  in- 
tellect. 

"Come,"  I  said,  getting  to  my  feet. 
"I  shall  now  lead  you  to  the  opening  of 
this  cave."  You  will  observe  that  I 
made  no  qualification  of  my  statement. 
Perhaps  this  was  error. 

Consulting  my  figures  and  diagrams 
from  time  to  time,  I  conducted  the  party 
slowly  but  steadily  toward  the  outer 
world.  I  was  not  frightened,  I  was  not 
even  ruffled,  but  not  so  the  others,  par- 
ticularly Katherine.  As  she  became 
fatigued  her  courage  deserted  her,  and 
for  a  time  it  seemed  she  would  give  way 
to  a  regrettable  attack  of  nerves.  How- 
ever, she  mastered  herself  admirably, 
and  once  again  we  proceeded. 

"Katherine,"  said  I,  "you  are  weary. 
No  doubt  you  suffer  from  lack  of  nour- 
ishment. I  feel  it  my  duty  to  carry  you; 
indeed,  it  will  be  a  pleasure  to  me." 

"What  about  me?"  demanded  Miss 
Brown  before  Katherine  could  answer. 
"You  got  me  into  this,  too.  Are  you 
going  to  carry  both  of  us?" 

I  considered  her  forward,  yet  courtesy 
demanded  of  me  that  I  forbear.  "Per- 
haps," I  said,  tolerantly,  "one  of  the 
other  gentlemen  will  carry  you." 

"  Both.   Both,  by  all  means,"  she  said. 

I  turned  to  Katherine,  but,  to  my 
astonishment,  she  declined  to  be  carried, 
preferring  to  trudge  onward  on  tired 


feet.  I  admired  her  persistence — dog- 
gedness,  one  might  say — but  fancied  she 
would  welcome  my  offer  later. 

After  one  hour  and  ten  minutes  I 
turned  to  the  young  ladies  and  gentle- 
men and  said — also  without  qualifica- 
tion: "It  is  precisely  seventy-three 
paces  to  the  orifice.  Thirty-one  paces 
south  by  east,  then  forty-two  paces  in  a 
westerly  direction.  I  am  delighted  that 
this  mischance  has  come  to  so  harmless 
a  conclusion."  I  looked  at  Mr.  Quain- 
tance with  significance,  desiring  to  im- 
press the  others  with  the  thought  that 
the  fault  rested  on  his  shoulders. 

"Good!"  said  Miss  Brown;  "and  how 
many  paces  to  the  lunch-basket?" 

I  did  not  reply.  Carefully  I  paced 
thirty-one  steps,  then  turned,  expecting 
to  see  the  light  streaming  into  the  open- 
ing, but  no  light  was  visible.  I  fancied 
it  hidden  by  some  intervening  obstruc- 
tion. The  absence  of  light  gave  me  no 
pause  whatever.  Forty-two  more  paces 
I  proceeded  —  and  with  unexpected 
abruptness  brought  up  against  an  im- 
passable wall  of  stone.  Neither  to  right, 
left,  nor  elsewhere  was  an  avenue  for 
farther  progress.  For  an  instant  I  did 
not  realize  the  depth  of  our  misfortune; 
then  the  utter  horror  of  it  fell  upon  me 
and  I  reeled.  I  repeat,  I  reeled.  We 
were  lost;  our  predicament  was  beyond 
repair.  Somewhere  I  had  erred.  All 
was  lost.  I  did  my  utmost  to  maintain  a 
bold  front. 

"My  friends,"  I  said,  "I  am  deeply 
sorry  to  report  to  you  that — in  short,  that 
my  calculations  have  gone  awTry.  Some- 
where error  has  crept  in  unaccountably, 
for  I  am  unaccustomed  to  make  mathe- 
matical errors.  Nevertheless,  it  is  true, 
and  we  are  lost  utterly — I  may  almost 
say,  hopelessly  lost."  I  considered  that 
I  had  broken  the  tidings  to  them  with 
consummate  tact  and  gentleness. 

This  time  even  Miss  Brown  was  fright- 
ened; Katherine  was  terrified;  Stephen 
was  perturbed,  seriously  perturbed.  As 
for  Mr.  Quaintance,  I  made  no  effort  to 
fathom  his  sensations.  They  must  have 
been  of  a  disagreeable  nature. 

"But,  Simeon,  you  old  goat — "  began 
Stephen. 

"At  such  a  moment,"  I  said,  "goat 
is  no  term  to  apply  to  a  fellow — victim, 
shall  I  say? — even  in  friendliness." 


THE  SARDONIC  ADVENTURE  OF  SIMEON  SMALL 


547 


"I'm  hanged  if  it's  friendliness,"  he 
replied.  "What  business  had  you  to 
carry  off  the  way  out  and  lose  it  some- 
where?" 

I  fancied  his  mind  had  been  set 
slightly  askew  by  our  hardships,  so  I 
only  said,  soothingly:  "I  assure  you, 
Stephen,  I  did  not  remove  the  way  out. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  do  so.  It  is, 
I  may  safely  say,  immovable  and  per- 
manent." 

"That's  something  gained,"  he  said, 
and  Mr.  Quaintance  nodded.  "If  he 
hasn't  pulled  up  the  way  back  it  must  be 
there  still.  The  thing  to  do  is  to  find  it — 
eh,  Quaintance?" 

"Don't  joke,  Stephen,"  Katherine 
cried.  "See,  our  candles  are  almost 
burned  out.  I — I  shall  die  if  we're  left 
in  the  dark." 

At  this  moment  Mr.  Quaintance  as- 
serted himself  again,  though  I  had 
thought  him  disposed  of  permanently. 

"Katherine,"  said  he,  in  tones  I  con- 
sidered theatrical,  "do  you  still  trust 
me?    Have  you  confidence  in  me?" 

"Why — "  she  hesitated,  not  caring  to 
wound  him,  I  suppose.     "Why — I'm 


sure  I  don't  know.  I — we'll  never,  never, 
never  find  our  way  out.  Never,  never, 
never!"  She  went  on  repeating  never 
over  and  over  and  over,  and  then  she 
burst  into  unrestrained  weeping. 

"There,  there,"  said  I;  "come  to  me. 
Let  me  carry  you  now.  All  may  yet  be 
well." 

"Where — would  you — carry  me?"  she 
whimpered. 

"In  search,"  said  I,  "of  the  opening." 

"Stay,"  said  Mr.  Quaintance,  again 
theatrically.  "I  have  an  extraordinary 
sense  of  direction.  I  seldom  speak  of  it. 
One  quite  remarkable,  I  believe.  It  was 
gained  on  the  football-field.  There  one 
must  learn  to  emerge  from  any  side  of  a 
scrimmage  and  know  without  looking 
in  which  direction  to  run." 

"What's  he  talking  about?"  Miss 
Brown  asked,  snappishly. 

"I  believe,"  he  said,  "if  you  would  re- 
produce the  sensations  of  the  football 
game,  I  should  awaken  that  faculty,  and 
would  know  at  once  how  to  proceed." 

"As  how?"  asked  Stephen. 

"Everybody  take  hold  of  me  and 
bump  me  and  jostle  me.    It  would  help 


"we  are  lost,  each  and  every  one  of  us  is  lost" 


548 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  illusion  if  one  of  you,  Miss  Brown 
perhaps,  would  put  her  arms  around  my 
neck  tightly — for  an  interval.  I  will 
struggle  to  break  away  from  you.  You 
must  let  me  succeed.  Then  we  shall 
see! 

It  sounded  absurd  to  me;  nevertheless 
it  was  not  without  its  scientific  interest. 
It  was  in  the  nature  of  an  experiment 
which,  if  it  succeeded,  would  make  the 
subject  of  an  interesting  paper  to  be 
read  before  one  of  the  societies  of  which 
I  was  a  member. 

"Very  good,"  said  I.  "Let -us  pro- 
ceed with  the  experiment. " 

We  did  so,  but  I  would  not  care  again 
to  participate  in  a  thing  of  that  sort.  I 
recall  the  receipt  of  a  knee  in  my 
stomach.  It  was  applied  vigorously  and 
caused  a  most  unpleasant  sensation,  as 
of  death  itself.  Then  I  was  propelled  to 
the  floor  with  violence,  where  I  sat  and 
gasped  and  groaned  in  an  effort  to  over- 
come the  effects  of  the  blow  in  the 
stomach.  Gradually  my  condition  im- 
proved. The  others  gathered  around 
Mr.  Quaintance,  who  cried,  exultantly: 
"I  knew  it  wouldn't  fail  me.  We  are 
saved.  .  .  .  Saved!" 

Katherine  gripped  his  arm  and  looked 
into  his  face.  "Do  you  mean  it?  Are 
you —  Can  you  save  us?  Can  you  get 
us  out  of  this  horrid  place?" 

"Follow  me!"  he  said,  bumptiously. 

He  walked  off  without  hesitation.  We 
followed,  Katherine  still  clinging  to  his 
arm  in  a  manner  I  regretted  to  see,  but, 
poor  girl!  her  nerves  were  in  a  deplorable 
state  and  she  was  unaccountable. 

"Ah!"  he  cried,  suddenly,  "I've  lost 
it.  Quick,  Katherine,  your  arms  around 
my  neck!  Tight!  .  .  .  There,  that  was 
just  in  time.    I  almost  lost  it." 

"Perhaps,"  said  I,  "Miss  Brown 
would  prefer  to  walk  beside  Mr.  Quain- 
tance, leaving  Miss  Katherine  to  follow 
more  slowly  with  me." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Miss  Brown,  "but 
Katherine  seems  to  be  efficient — and  he 
may  need  help  again  at  any  moment." 

It  was  a  fear  of  my  own  that  I  had 
hesitated  to  express.  Indeed,  it  was  one 
I  was  to  realize  only  too  frequently,  for 
no  less  than  six  times  was  Mr.  Quain- 
tance on  the  point  of  losing  his  peculiar 
sense  of  direction,  only  to  retain  it  by  a 
simulation  of  the  football  game. 


Incomprehensible  as  it  may  seem,  we 
became  aware  of  a  dim  light,  an  allevia- 
tion of  the  blackness  that  surrounded  us. 
After  a  few  minutes  more  we  actually 
saw  sunlight  penetrating  the  cavern, 
and  in  another  moment  we  stood  out- 
side, under  the  dome  of  heaven — saved! 

Katherine  sighed  once,  and  toppled 
into  Mr.  Quaintance's  arms.  He  did  not 
hesitate  to  kiss  her  —  shamelessly,  as 
no  less  than  three  spectators  watched 
him.  It  seemed  to  rouse  her,  though  not 
to  put  her  in  possession  of  all  her  facul- 
ties, for  she  sobbed  and  threw  her  arms 
about  his  neck  again,  and  clung  to  him 
and  cried.  He  bent  his  head  and  whis- 
pered in  her  ear.  What  he  said  I  did 
not  overhear. 

"You  saved  us!  .  .  .  You  saved  me!" 
Katherine  said,  brokenly,  "My  hero!" 

Mr.  Quaintance  drew  himself  up 
proudly,  but  over  Katherine's  shoulder 
he  did  a  most  peculiar — indeed,  repre- 
hensible— thing.  He  winked  at  Stephen 
Wight. 

Two  days  later  I  sought  Mr.  Quain- 
tance to  get  further  details  of  his  re- 
markable sense  of  direction. 

"Mr.  Quaintance,"  I  said,  "I  want  to 
speak  with  you  about  your  abnormal 
and  scientifically  interesting  sense  of 
direction." 

He  grinned.  His  grin  has  a  way  of 
irritating  me.    I  do  not  know  why. 

"I'll  explain  it  to  you,  Simeon.  It  lies 
in  this.  You  can  acquire  it  }^ourself. 
.  .  .  When  you  get  lost  in  a  cave,  see  to  it 
that  the  cave  is — one  you  played  in  when 
you  were  a  kid.  Hoofer's  Hole  is  entered 
from  my  grandfather's  farm.  I  could 
walk  through  it  blindfolded." 

I  was  nonplussed.  "But  the  sense  of 
direction  ?  The  necessity  for  the  football 
proceedings?" 

"Those,"  said  he,  "were  largely  for 
your  benefit,  Simeon.  At  first  they  were. 
Later  I  developed  the  idea,  as  you  may 
have  seen.  But,  Simeon,  you'd  got 
on  my  nerves,  old  top,  and  I  just  had  to 
take  a  punch  at  you.    You  needed  it." 

I  turned  away  in  disgust. 

"By  the  way,"  said  he,  "Mr.  Wight 
informs  me  that  he  thinks  I  will  make  a 
most  acceptable  son-in-law.  Congratu- 
late me." 

I  did  not  do  so.  Instead  I  left  him 
abruptly. 


The  Side  of  the  Angels 


A  NOVEL 


BY  BASIL  KING 


CHAPTER  VII 


ETWEEN  the  green- 
houses, of  which  the 
glass  gleamed  dimly  in 
the  moonlight,  Rosie 
followed  a  path  that 
straggled  down  the 
slope  of  her  father's 
and  to  the  new  boulevard  round  the 
pond.  The  boulevard  here  swept  inland 
about  the  base  of  Duck  Rock,  in  order 
to  leave  that  wooded  bluff  an  inviolate 
feature  of  the  landscape.  So  inviolate 
had  it  been  that  during  the  months  since 
Rosie  had  picked  wild  raspberries  in  its 
boskage  the  park  commissioners  had 
seized  on  it  as  a  spot  to  be  subdued  by 
winding  paths  and  restful  benches.  To 
make  it  the  more  civilized  and  inviting 
they  had  placed  one  of  the  arc-lamps 
that  now  garlanded  the  circuit  of  the 
pond  just  where  it  would  guide  the  feet 
of  lovers  into  the  alluring  shade.  Rosie 
was  glad  of  this  friendly  light  before 
engaging  on  the  rough  path  up  the  bluff 
under  the  skeleton-like  trees.  She  was 
not  afraid;  she  was  only  nervous,  and 
the  light  gave  her  confidence. 

But  to-night,  as  she  emerged  on  the 
broad  boulevard  from  the  weedy  out- 
skirts of  her  father's  garden,  the  clatter 
of  horse-hoofs  startled  her  into  drawing 
back.  She  would  have  got  herself  al- 
together out  of  sight  had  there  been 
anything  at  hand  in  the  nature  of  a 
shrub  high  enough  to  conceal  her.  As 
it  was  she  could  only  shrink  to  the 
extreme  edge  of  the  roadside,  hoping  that 
the  rider,  whoever  he  was,  would  pass 
without  seeing  her.  This  he  might  have 
done  had  not  the  bay  mare  Delia,  un- 
accustomed to  the  sight  of  young  ladies 
roaming  alone  at  night,  thought  it  the 
part  of  propriety  to  shy. 


"Whoa, 
matter? 


Delia!  whoa!  What's  the 
Steady,  old  girl!  steady!" 
There  was  a  flash  of  the  quick,  pene- 
trating eyes  around  the  circle  made  by 
the  arc-light.  "Why,  hello,  Rosie  'Pon 
my  soul!  Look  scared  as  a  stray  kitten. 
Where  you  going?" 

Rosie  could  only  reply  that  she  wasn't 
going  anywhere.    She  was  just — out. 

"Well,  it's  a  fine  night.  Everybody 
seems  to  be  out.   Just  met  Claude." 

The  girl  was  unable  to  repress  a  star- 
tled "Oh!"  though  she  bit  her  tongue  at 
the  self-betrayal. 

Uncle  Sim  laughed  merrily.  "Don't 
wonder  you're  frightened — pretty  girl 
like  you.  Devil  of  a  fellow,  Claude 
thinks  he  is.  Suppose  you  don't  know 
him.  Ah,  well  that  wouldn't  make  any 
difference  to  him,  if  he  was  to  run  across 
you.  I'll  tell  you  what!  You  come 
along  with  me."  Chuckling  to  himself, 
he  slipped  from  Delia's  back,  preparing 
to  lead  the  mare  and  accompany  the  girl 
on  foot.  "We'll  go  round  by  the  Old 
Village  and  up  School-house  Lane.  The 
walk  '11  do  you  good.  You'll  sleep  bet- 
ter after  it.  Come  along  now,  and  tell 
me  about  your  mother  as  we  go.  Did 
my  nephew,  Thor,  come  to  see  her? 
What  did  he  give  her?  Did  she  take 
it?     Did  it  make  her  sleep?" 

But  Rosie  shrank  away  from  him 
wTith  the  eyes  of  a  terrified  animal. 
"Oh  no,  Dr.  Masterman!  Please!  I 
don't  want  to  take  that  long  walk.  I'll 
go  back  up  the  path — the  way  I  came. 
I  just  ran  out  to — to — " 

He  looked  at  her  with  suspicious  kind- 
liness. "Will  you  promise  me  you'll  go 
back  the  way  you  came?" 
"Yes,  yes;  I  will." 
"Then  that's  all  right.  It's  an  awful 
dangerous  road,  Rosie.  Tramps — and 
everything.     But  if  you'll  go  straight 


550 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


back  up  the  path  I'll  be  easy  in  my  mind 
about  you."  He  watched  her  while  she 
retreated.    "Good  night!"  he  called. 

"Good  night/'  came  her  voice  from 
half-way  up  the  garden. 

She  was  obliged  to  wait  in  the  shadow 
of  an  outlying  hothouse  till  the  sound 
of  Delia's  hoofs,  clattering  ofT  toward 
the  Old  Village,  died  away  on  the  night. 
She  crept  back  again,  cautiously.  Cau- 
tiously, too,  she  stole  across  the  boule- 
vard and  into  the  wood.  Once  there,  she 
flew  up  the  path  with  the  frantic  eager- 
ness of  a  hare.  She  was  afraid  Claude 
might  have  come  and  gone.  She  was 
afraid  of  the  incident  with  old  Sim. 
What  did  he  mean?  Did  he  mean  any- 
thing? If  he  betrayed  Claude  at  home 
would  it  keep  the  latter  from  meeting 
her?  She  had  no  great  confidence  in 
Claude's  ability  to  withstand  authority. 
She  had  no  great  confidence  in  anything, 
not  even  in  his  love,  or  in  her  own.  The 
love  was  true  enough;  it  was  ardently, 
desperately  true;  but  would  it  bear  the 
strain  that  could  so  easily  be  put  upon 
it?  She  felt  herself  swept  by  an  im- 
mense longing  to  be  sure. 

She  had  so  many  subjects  to  think  of 
and  to  dread  that  she  forgot  to  be 
frightened  as  she  sped  up  the  bluff.  It 
was  only  on  reaching  the  summit  and 
discovering  that  Claude  wasn't  there 
that  she  was  seized  by  fear.  There  was 
a  bench  beside  her — a  round  bench 
circling  the  trunk  of  an  oak-tree — and 
she  sank  upon  it. 

The  crunching  of  footsteps  told  her 
some  one  was  coming  up  the  slope.  In 
all  probability  it  was  Claude;  but  it 
might  be  a  stranger,  or  even  an  animal. 
The  crunching  continued,  measured, 
slow.  She  would  have  fled  if  there  had 
been  any  way  of  fleeing  without  encoun- 
tering the  object  of  her  alarm.  The 
regular  beat  of  the  footsteps  growing 
heavier  and  nearer  through  the  darkness 
rendered  her  almost  hysterical.  When 
at  last  Claude's  figure  emerged  into  the 
moonlight,  his  erect  slenderness  defined 
against  the  sky,  she  threw  herself,  sob- 
bing, into  his  arms. 

It  was  not  the  least  of  Claude's  at- 
tractions that  he  was  so  tender  with 
women  swept  by  crises  of  emotion. 
Where  Thor  would  have  stood  helpless, 


or  prescribed  a  mild  sedative,  Claude 
pressed  the  agitated  creature  to  his 
breast  and  let  her  weep. 

When  her  sobs  had  subsided  to  a 
convulsive  clinging  to  him  without  tears, 
he  explained  his  delay  in  arriving  by  his 
meeting  with  Uncle  Sim.  They  were 
seated  on  the  bench  by  this  time,  his 
arms  about  her,  her  face  close  to  his. 

"Awful  nuisance,  he  is.  Regular  Paul 
Pry.  Can't  keep  anything  from  him. 
Scours  the  country  night  and  day  like 
the  Headless  Horseman  of  Sleepy  Hol- 
low. Never  know  when  you'll  meet 
him." 

"I  met  him,  too,"  Rosie  said,  getting 
some  control  of  her  voice. 

"The  deuce  you  did!  Did  he  speak 
to  you?  Did  he  say  anything  about 
me: 

"He  said  he'd  seen  you." 
"Is  that  all?" 

She  weighed  the  possible  disadvan- 
tages of  saying  too  much,  coming  to  the 
conclusion  that  she  had  better  tell  him 
more.  "  No,  it  isn't  quite  all.  He 
seemed  to — warn  me  against  you." 

"Oh,  the  devil!"  In  his  start  he 
loosened  his  embrace,  but  grasped  her  to 
him  again.   "What's  he  up  to  now?" 

"Do  you  think  he's  up  to  anything?" 

"What  else  did  he  say?  Tell  me  all 
you  can  think  of." 

She  narrated  the  brief  incident. 

"Will  it  make  any  difference  to  us?" 
she  ventured  to  ask. 

"It  '11  make  a  difference  to  us  if  he 
blabs  to  father.    Of  course!" 

"What  sort  of  difference,  Claude?" 

"The  sort  of  difference  it  makes  when 
there's  the  devil  to  pay." 

She  clasped  him  to  her  the  more 
closely.  "Does  that  mean  that  we 
shouldn't  be  able  to  see  each  other  any 
more : 

The  question  being  beyond  him, 
Claude  ^mothered  it  under  a  selection 
of  those  fond  epithets  in  which  his 
vocabulary  was  large.  In  the  very 
process  of  enjoying  them  Rosie  was 
rallying  her  strength.  She  was  still 
clasping  him  as  she  withdrew  her  head 
slightly,  looking  up  at  him  through  the 
moonlight. 

"Claude,  I  want  to  ask  you  some- 
thing." 

With  his  hand  on  the  knot  of  her  hair 


THE  SIDE  OF 

he  pressed  her  face  once  more  against 
his.  "Yes,  yes,  darling.  Ask  me  any- 
thing.   Yes,  yes,  yes,  yes." 

She  broke  in  on  his  purring  with  the 
words,  "Are  we  engaged?" 

The  purring  ceased.  Without  relaxing 
his  embrace  he  remained  passive,  like  a 
man  listening.  "What  makes  you  ask 
me  that?" 

"It's  what  people  generally  are  when 
they're — when  they're  like  us,  isn't  it?" 

Brushing  his  lips  over  the  velvet  of 
her  cheeks,  he  began  to  purr  again. 
"No  one  was  ever  like  us,  darling.  No 
one  ever  will  be.  Don't  worry  your  little 
head  with  what  doesn't  matter." 

"But  it  does  matter  to  me,  Claude. 
I  want  to  know  where  1  am." 

"Where  you  are,  dearie.  You're  here 
with  me.    Isn't  that  enough?" 

"It's  enough  for  now,  Claude,  but — " 

"And  isn't  what's  enough  for  now 
all  we've  got  to  think  of?" 

"No,  Claude  dearest.  A  girl  isn't 
like  a  man — " 

"Oh  yes,  she  is,  when  she  loves.  And 
you  love  me,  don't  you,  dearie?  You 
love  me  just  a  little.  Say  you  love  me — 
just  a  little — a  very  little — " 

"Oh,  Claude,  my  darling,  my  darling, 
you  know  1  love  you.  You're  all  I've 
got  in  the  world — " 

"And  you're  all  I've  got,  my  little 
Rosie.  Nothing  else  counts  when  I'm 
with  you — " 

"But  when  you're  not  with  me, 
Claude?  What  then?  What  am  I  to 
think  when  you're  away  from  me?  What 
am  I  to  be?" 

"  Be  just  as  you  are.  Be  just  as  you've 
always  been  since  the  day  I  first  saw 
you— 

"Yes,  yes,  Claude;  but  you  don't 
understand.  If  any  one  were  to  find 
out  that  I  came  here  to  meet  you  like 
this-" 

"No  one  must  find  out,  dear.  We 
must  keep  that  mum." 

"But  if  they  did,  Claude,  it  wouldn't 
matter  to  you  at  all — " 

"Oh,  wouldn't  it,  though?  Father'd 
make  it  matter,  I  can  tell  you." 

"Yes,  but  you  wouldn't  be  disgraced. 
I  should  be.  Don't  you  see?  No  one 
would  ever  believe — " 

"Oh,  what  does  it  matter  what  any 
one  believes.    Let  them  all  go  hang." 


THE  ANGELS  551 

"We  can't  let  them  all  go  hang.  You 
can't  let  your  father  go  hang,  and  I 
can't  let  mine.  Do  you  know  what  my 
father  would  do  to  me  if  he  knew  where 
I  am  now?    He'd  kill  me." 

"Oh,  rot,  Rosie!" 

"No,  no,  Claude;  I'm  telling  you  the 
truth.  He's  that  sort.  You  wouldn't 
think  it,  but  he  is.  He's  one  of  those 
mild,  dreamy  men  who,  when  they're 
enraged — which  isn't  often — don't  know 
where  to  stop.  If  he  thought  I'd  done 
wrong  he'd  put  a  knife  into  me,  just 
like  that."  She  struck  her  clenched 
hand  against  his  heart.  "When  Matt 
was  arrested — " 

He  tore  himself  from  her  suddenly. 
The  sensitive  part  of  him  had  been 
touched.  "Oh,  Lord,  Rosie,  don't  let's 
go  into  that.  I  hate  that  business.  I 
try  to  forget  it." 

"No  one  can  forget  it  who  remembers 
me. 

"Oh  yes,  they  can.  /  can — when 
you  don't  drag  it  up.  What's  the  use, 
Rosie?  Why  not  be  happy  for  the  few 
hours  every  now  and  then  that  we  can 
get  together?  What's  got  into  you?" 
He  changed  his  tone.  "You  hurt  me, 
Rosie,  you  hurt  me.  You  talk  as  if  you 
didn't  trust  me.  You  seem  to  have 
suspicions,  to  be  making  schemes — " 

"Oh,  Claude!  For  God's  sake!" 
Rosie,  too,  was  touched  on  the  quick, 
perhaps  by  some  truth  in  the  accusa- 
tion. 

He  kissed  her  ardently.  "I  know, 
dear;  I  know.  I  know  it's  all  right — 
that  you  don't  mean  anything.  Kiss  me. 
Tell  me  you  won't  do  it  any  more — that 
you  won't  hurt  the  man  who  adores  you. 
What  does  anything  else  matter?  You 
and  I  are  everything  there  is  in  the 
world.  Don't  let  us  talk.  When  we've 
got  each  other — " 

Rosie  gave  it  up,  for  the  present  at 
any  rate.  She  began  to  perceive  dimly 
that  they  had  different  conceptions  of 
love.  For  her,  love  was  engagement  and 
marriage,  with  the  material  concomi- 
tants the  two  states  implied.  But  for 
Claude  love  was  something  else.  It  was 
something  she  didn't  understand,  except 
that  it  was  indifferent  to  the  orderly 
procession  by  which  her  own  ambitions 
climbed.  He  loved  her;  of  that  she 
was  sure.    But  he  loved  her  for  her  face, 


552 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


her  mouth,  her  eyes,  her  hair,  the  color 
of  her  skin,  her  roughened  little  hands, 4 
her  lithe  little  body.  Of  nothing  else  in 
her  was  he  able  to  take  cognizance.  Her 
hard  life  and  her  heart-breaking  strug- 
gles were  conditions  he  hadn't  the  eyes 
to  see.  He  was  aware  of  them,  of  course, 
but  he  could  detach  her  from  them.  He 
could  detach  her  from  them  for  the 
minutes  she  spent  with  him,  but  he 
could  see  her  go  back  to  them  and  make 
no  attempt  to  follow  her  in  sympathy. 

But  he  loved  her  beauty.  There  was 
that  palliating  fact.  After  all,  Rosie 
was  a  woman,  and  here  was  the  supreme 
tribute  to  her  womanhood.  It  was  not 
everything,  and  yet  it  was  the  thing 
enchanting.  It  was  the  kind  of  tribute 
any  woman  in  the  world  would  have 
put  before  social  rescue  or  moral  eleva- 
tion, and  Rosie  was  like  the  rest.  She 
could  be  lulled  by  Claude's  endearments 
as  a  child  is  lulled  by  a  cradle-song. 
With  this  music  in  her  ears  doubts  were 
stilled  and  misgivings  quieted  and  am- 
bitions overruled.  Return  to  the  world 
of  care  and  calculation  followed  only  on 
Claude's  words  uttered  just  as  they  were 
parting. 

"  And  you'd  better  be  on  your  guard 
against  Thor.  So  long  as  he's  going  to 
your  house  you  mustn't  give  anything 
away." 

CHAPTER  VIII 

DRESSED  for  going  out,  Mrs.  Wil- 
loughby  was  buttoning  her  gloves 
as  she  stood  in  the  square  hall 
hung  with  tapestries  of  a  late  Gobelins 
period  and  adorned  with  a  cabinet  in 
the  style  of  Buhl  flanked  by  two  decora- 
tive Regency  chairs.  Her  gaze  followed 
the  action  of  her  fingers  or  wandered 
now  and  then  inquiringly  up  the  stair- 
way. 

Her  broad,  low  figure,  wide  about  the 
hips,  tapered  toward  the  feet  in  lines 
suggestive  of  a  spinning-top.  She  was 
proud  of  her  feet,  which  were  small  and 
shapely,  and  approved  of  a  fashion  in 
skirts  that  permitted  them  to  be  dis- 
played. Being  less  proud  of  her  eyes, 
she  also  approved  of  a  style  of  hat  which 
allowed  the  low,  sloping  brim,  worn 
slantwise  across  the  brows,  to  conceal 
one  of  them. 


"You're  surely  not  going  in  that  rag!" 

The  protest  was  called  forth  by  Lois's 
appearance  in  a  walking-costume  on  the 
stairs. 

"But,  mamma,  I'm  not  going  at  all. 
I  told  you  so." 

"Told  me  so!  What's  the  good  of 
telling  me  so?  There'll  be  loads  of  men 
there — simply  loads.  Goodness  me! 
Lois,  if  you're  ever  going  to  know  any 
men  at  all — " 

"I  know  all  the  men  I  want  to  know." 

"You  don't  know  all  the  men  you 
want  to  know,  and  if  you  do  I  should 
be  ashamed  to  say  it.  A  girl  who's  had 
all  your  advantages  and  doesn't  make 
more  show!  What  on  earth  are  you 
doing  that  you  don't  want  to  come?" 

Lois  hesitated,  but  she  was  too  frank 
for  concealments.  "I'm  going  to  see  a 
girl  Thor  Masterman  wants  me  to  look 
after.  He  thinks  I  may  be  able  to  help 
her." 

The  mother  subsided.  "Oh,  well — if 
it's  that!"  She  added,  so  as  not  to  seem 
to  hint  too  much:  "I  always  like  you  to 
do  what  you  can  toward  uplift.  I'll 
take  you  as  far  as  the  Old  Village,  if 
you're  going  that  way." 

There  had  been  a  time  when  such 
concessions  at  the  mention  of  Thor 
Masterman  would  have  irritated  Lois 
more  than  any  violence  of  opposition; 
but  that  time  was  passing,  She  could 
hardly  complain  if  others  saw  what  was 
daily  becoming  more  patent  to  herself. 
She  could  complain  of  it  the  less  since 
she  found  it  difficult  to  conceal  her 
happiness.  It  was  a  happiness  that 
softened  the  pangs  of  care  and  removed 
to  a  distance  the  conditions  incidental  to 
her  father's  habits  and  impending  finan- 
cial ruin. 

Nevertheless,  the  conditions  were 
there,  and  had  to  be  confronted.  She 
made,  in  fact,  a  timid  effort  to  confront 
them  as  she  sat  beside  her  mother  in  the 
admirably  fitted  limousine. 

"Mother,  what  are  we  going  to  do 
about  papa?" 

Mrs.  Willoughby's  indignant  rising  to 
the  occasion  could  be  felt  like  an  electric 
wave.  "Do  about  him?  Do  about 
what?" 

"About  the  way  he  is." 

"The  way  he  is?  What  on  earth  are 
you  talking  about?" 


THE  SIDE  OF 

"I  mean  the  way  he  comes  home." 

"He  comes  home  very  tired,  if  that's 
what  you're  trying  to  say.  Any  man 
who  works  as  they  work  him  at  that 
office — " 

"Do  you  think  it's  work?" 

"No,  I  don't  think  it's  work.  I  call 
it  slavery.  It's  enough  to  put  a  man  in 
his  grave.  I've  seen  him  come  home 
so  that  he  could  hardly  speak;  and 
if  you've  done  the  same  you  may 
know  that  he's  simply  tired  enough  to 
die." 

Lois  tried  to  come  indirectly  to  her 
point  by  saying,  "Thor  Masterman  has 
been  bringing  him  home  lately." 

"Oh,  well;  I  suppose  Thor  knows  he 
doesn't  lose  anything  by  that  move." 

Lois  ignored  the  remark  to  say,  "Thor 
seems  worried." 

The  mother's  alertness  was  that  of  a 
ruffled,  bellicose  bird  defending  its  mate. 
"If  Thor's  worried  about  your  father, 
he  can  spare  himself  the  trouble.  Lie 
can  leave  that  to  me.  I'll  take  care  of 
him.  What  he  needs  is  rest.  When 
everything  is  settled  I  mean  to  take  him 
away.  Of  course  we  can't  go  this  winter. 
If  we  could  we  should  go  to  Egypt — he 
and  I.  But  we  can't.  We  know  that. 
We  make  the  sacrifice." 

These  discreet  allusions, '  too,  Lois 
thought  it  best  to  let  pass  in  silence. 
"It  wasn't  altogether. about  papa  that 
Thor  was  worried.  He  seems  anxious 
about  money." 

Bessie  tossed  her  head.  "That  may 
easily  be.  If  your  father  takes  our 
money  out  of  the  firm,  as  he  threatens 
to  do,  the  Mastermans  will  be — well,  I 
don't  know  where." 

The  girl  felt  it  right  to  go  a  step  fur- 
ther. "He  seemed  to  hint — he  didn't 
say  it  in  so  many  words — that  perhaps 
papa  wouldn't  have  so  very  much  to 
take  out." 

This  was  dismissed  lightly.  "Then  he 
doesn't  know  what  he's  talking  about. 
Archie's  frightfully  close  in  those  things, 
I  must  say.  He's  never  let  either  of  the 
boys  know  anything  about  the  business. 
He  won't  even  let  me.  But  your  father 
knows.  If  Thor  thinks  for  a  minute  the 
money  isn't  nearly  all  ours  he  may  come 
in  for  a  rude  awakening." 

Reassured  by  this  firmness  of  tone, 
Lois  began  to  take  heart.    Getting  out 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  781.— 69 


THE  ANGELS  553 

at  the  Old  Village,  she  continued  her 
way  on  foot,  and  found  Rosie  among 
the  azaleas  and  poinsettias. 

Thor  Masterman  met  her  an  hour 
later,  as  she  returned  homeward.  He 
knew  where  she  had  been  as  soon  as  he 
saw  her  turn  the  corner  at  which  the 
road  descends  the  hill,  recognizing  with 
a  curious  pang  her  promptness  in  carry- 
ing out  his  errand.  The  pang  was  a 
surprise  to  him — the  beginning  of  a 
series  of  revelations  on  the  subject  of 
himself. 

Her  desire  to  please  him  had  never 
before  this  instant  caused  him  anything 
but  satisfaction.  It  had  been  but  the 
response  to  his  desire  to  please  her.  He 
had  not  been  blind  to  the  goal  to  which 
this  mutual  good-will  would  lead  them, 
but  he  had  quite  made  up  his  mind  that 
she  would  make  him  as  good  a  wife  as 
any  one.  As  a  preliminary  to  marriage 
he  had  weighed  the  possibility  of  falling 
ardently  in  love,  coming  at  last  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  was  not  susceptible 
to  that  passion. 

His  long-standing  intention  to  marry 
Lois  Willoughby  was  based  on  the  fact 
that  besides  being  sympathetic  to  him 
she  was  plain  and  lonely.  If  the  motive 
hadn't  taken  full  possession  of  his  heart 
it  was  because  the  state  of  being  plain 
and  lonely  had  never  seemed  to  him 
the  worst  of  calamities,  by  any  means. 
The  worst  of  calamities,  that  for  which 
no  patience  was  sufficient,  that  for  which 
there  was  no  excuse,  that  which  kings, 
presidents,  emperors,  parliaments,  con- 
gresses, embassies,  and  armies  should 
combine  their  energies  to  prevent,  was 
to  be  poor.  He  was  entirely  of  Mrs. 
Fay's  opinion,  that  with  money  ill- 
health  and  unhappiness  were  details. 
You  could  bear  them  both.  You  could 
bear  being  lonely;  you  could  bear  being 
plain.  Consequently,  the  menace  that 
now  threatened  Lois  Willoughby's  for- 
tunes strengthened  her  claim  on  him; 
but  all  at  once  he  felt,  as  he  saw  her 
descend  the  hill,  that  the  claim  might 
make  complications. 

W7as  it  because  she  was  plain?  Curious 
that  he  had  never  attached  importance 
to  that  fact  before!  But  it  blinded  him 
now  to  her  graceful  carriage  as  well  as  to 
the  way  she  had  of  holding  her  head 


554 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


with  a  noble,  independent  poise  that 
made  her  a  woman  of  distinction. 

She  was  smiling  with  an  air  at  once 
intimate  and  triumphant.  "I  think  I've 
won  in  the  first  encounter,  at  any 
rate. 

In  his  wincing  there  was  the  surprise 
of  a  man  who  in  a  moment  of  expansion 
has  made  a  sacred  confidence  only  to 
find  it  crop  up  lightly  in  subsequent 
conversation.  He  was  obliged  to  em- 
ploy some  self-control  in  order  to  say, 
with  a  manner  sufficiently  offhand, 
"What  happened?" 

She  told  of  making  her  approaches 
under  the  plea  of  buying  potted  plants. 
A  cold  reception  had  given  way  before 
her  persistent  friendliness,  while  there 
had  been  complete  capitulation  on  the 
tender  of  an  invitation  to  County  Street 
to  tea.  The  visit  had  been  difficult  to 
manage,  but  amusing,  and  a  little  pitiful. 

To  the  details  that  were  difficult  or 
pitiful  he  could  listen  with  calm,  but 
he  was  inwardly  indignant  that  Lois 
should  find  anything  in  her  meeting  with 
Rosie  that  lent  itself  to  humor.  He 
knew  that  humor.  The  superior  were 
fond  of  indulging  in  it  at  the  expense  of 
the  less  fortunate.  Even  Lois  Willough- 
by  had  not  escaped  that  taint  of  class. 
Fearing  to  wound  her  by  some  impatient 
word,  he  made  zeal  in  his  round  of  duties 
the  excuse  for  an  abrupt  good-by. 

But  zeal  in  his  round  of  duties  changed 
to  zeal  of  another  kind  as  with  set  face 
and  long,  swinging  stride  he  hurried  up 
the  hill.  The  plans  he  had  been  matur- 
ing for  the  psychological  treatment  of 
Mrs.  Fay  melted  into  eagerness  to  know 
how  the  poor  little  thing  had  taken 
Lois's  advances.  He  was  disappointed, 
therefore,  that  Rosie  should  receive  him 
coldly. 

Within  twenty-four  hours  his  imagi- 
nation had  created  between  them  some- 
thing with  the  flavor  of  a  friendship. 
He  had  been  thinking  of  her  so  inces- 
santly that  it  was  disconcerting  to  . per- 
ceive that  apparently  she  had  not  been 
thinking  of  him  at  all.  He  was  the 
doctor  to  her,  and  no  more.  She  con- 
tinued to  direct  Antonio,  the  Italian, 
who  was  opening  a  crate  of  closely 
packed  azalea  -  plants,  while  she  dis- 
cussed the  effect  of  his  sedative  on  her 
mother.     Her  manner  was   dry  and 


business-like;  her  replies  to  his  ques- 
tions brief  and  to  the  point. 

But  professional  duty  being  aone,  he 
endeavored  to  raise  the  personal  issue. 
"Wh  at  did  you  mean  yesterday  when 
you  said  that  you  couldn't  play  fair,  but 
that  you'd  play  as  fair  as  you  could?" 

She  turned  from  her  contemplation  of 
the  stooping  Antonio's  back.  "Did  I 
say  that?" 

He  hardly  heeded  the  question  in  the 
pleasure  he  got  from  this  glimpse  of  her 
green  eyes.  "You  said  that — or  some- 
thing very  much  like  it." 

His  uncertainty  gave  her  the  chance 
to  correct  that  which,  in  the  light  of 
Claude's  warning,  might  prove  to  have 
been  an  indiscretion.  "I'm  sure  I  can't 
imagine.  You  must  have — misunder- 
stood me." 

He  pursued  the  topic  not  because  he 
cared,  but  in  order  to  make  her  look  at 
him  again.  "Oh  no,  I  didn't.  Don't 
you  remember?  It  was  after  you  said 
that  there  was  one  thing  that  might 
happen — " 

She  was  sure  of  her  indiscretion  now. 
He  might  even  be  setting  a  snare  for  her. 
Dr.  Sim  Masterman  might  have  with- 
drawn from  her  mother's  case  in  order 
to  put  the  one  brother  on  the  other's 
tracks.  If  Claude  was  right  in  his  sus- 
picions, there  was  reasonable  ground  for 
alarm.  She  said,  with  assumed  indif- 
ference: "Oh,  that!  That  was  nothing. 
Just  a  fancy." 

He  still  talked  for  the  sake  of  talking, 
attaching  no  importance  to  her  replies. 
"Was  it  a  fancy  when  you  said  that  I 
would  be  one  of  the  people  opposed  to 
it — if  it  happened  ?" 

"Well,  yes.  But  you'd  only  be  one 
among  a  lot."  She  shifted  to  firmer 
ground.  "I  wasn't  thinking  of  you  in 
particular — or  of  any  one  in  particular." 

"Were  you  thinking  of  any  thing  in 
particular?" 

The  question  threw  her  back  on 
straight  denial.  "N-no;  not  exactly; 
just  a  fancy." 

"But  I  shouldn't  be  opposed  to  it, 
whatever  it  is — if  it  was  to  your  advan- 
tage. 

His  persistence  deepened  her  distrust. 
A  man  whom  she  had  seen  only  once 
before  would  hardly  display  such  an 
interest  in  her  and  her  affairs  unless  he 


)rawn  by  Elizabeth  Ship  pen  Green 

SHE    WAS    SMILING    WITH    AN    AIR    AT    ONCE    INTIMATE    AND  TRIUMPHANT 


THE  SIDE  OF 

had  a  motive,  especially  when  that  man 
was  a  Masterman.  She  took  refuge  in 
her  task  with  the  azaleas.  "No,  not 
there,  Antonio.  Put  them  there — like 
this — I'll  show  you." 

The  necessity  for  giving  Antonio  prac- 
tical demonstration  taking  her  to  the 
other  side  of  the  hothouse,  Thor  felt 
himself  obliged  to  go.  He  went  with  the 
greater  regret  since  he  had  been  unable 
to  sound  her  on  the  subject  of  Lois 
Willoughby's  advances,  though  her  skill 
in  eluding  him  heightened  his  respect. 
His  disdain  for  the  small  arts  of  coquetry 
being  as  sincere  as  his  scorn  of  snobbery, 
he  counted  it  to  her  credit  that  she 
eluded  him  at  all.  There  would  be 
plenty  of  opportunities  for  speech  with 
her.  During  them  he  hoped  to  win  her 
confidence  by  degrees. 

In  the  bedroom  up-stairs,  where  the 
mother  was  again  seated  in  her  uphol- 
stered arm-chair  with  the  quilt  across 
her  knees,  he  endeavored  to  put  into 
practice  his  idea  of  mental  therapeutics. 
He  began  by  speaking  of  Matt,  using 
the  terms  that  would  most  effectively 
challenge  her  attention.  "When  he 
comes  back,  you  know,  we  must  make 
him  forget  that  he's  ever  worn 
stripes." 

She  eyed  him  sternly.  "What  'd  be 
the  good  of  his  forgetting  it?  He'll  have 
done  it,  just  the  same." 

"Some  of  us  have  done  worse  than 
that,  and  yet — " 

"And  yet  we  didn't  get  into  Colcord 
for  them.  But  that's  what  counts.  You 
can  do  what  you  like  as  long  as  you 
ain't  put  in  jail.  Look  at  your  fa- 
ther—" 

"So  when  he  comes  home — "  he  in- 
terrupted, craftily. 

She  leaned  forward,  throwing  the 
quilt  from  her  knees.  "See  here,"  she 
asked,  confidentially,  "how  w^ould  you 
feel  if  you  saw  your  son  coming  up  out 
of  hell?" 

"How  should  I  feel?  I  should  be  glad 
he  was  coming  up  instead  of  going  down. 
You  would,  too,  wouldn't  you?  And 
now  that  he's  coming  up  we  must  keep 
him  up.  That's  the  point.  So  many 
poor  chaps  that  have  been  in  his  position 
feel  that  because  they've  once  been  down 
they've  got  to  stay  down.  We  must 
make  him  see  that  he's  come  back  among 


THE  ANGELS  555 

friends — and  you  must  tell  us  what  to 
do.  You  must  give  your  mind  to  it 
and  think  it  out.  He's  your  boy — so  it's 
your  duty  to  take  the  lead." 

Her  cold  eye  rested  on  him  as  if  she 
were  giving  his  words  consideration. 
"Why  don't  you  ask  your  father  to  take 
the  lead?    He  sent  him  to  Colcord." 

Thor  got  no  further  than  this  during 
the  hour  he  spent  with  her,  seeing  that 
Uncle  Sim  had  been  right  in  describing 
the  case  as  one  for  ingenuity — and  some- 
thing more.  Questioning  himself  as 
to  what  this  something  more  could  be, 
he  brought  up  the  subject  tentatively 
with  Jasper  Fay,  whom  he  met  on  leaving 
the  house.  Thor  himself  stood  on  the 
door-step,  while  Fay,  who  wore  garden- 
ing overalls,  confronted  him  from  the 
withered  grass-plot  that  ended  in  a  leaf- 
less hedge  of  bridal-veil. 

"She's  never  been  a  religious  woman 
at  all,  has  she?" 

Fay  answered  with  a  distant  smile. 
"She  did  go  in  for  religion  at  one  time, 
sir;  but  I  guess  she  found  it  slim  diet. 
It  got  to  seem  to  her  like  Thomas 
Carlyle's  hungry  lion  invited  to  a 
feast  of  chickenweed.  After  that  she 
quit. 

"I  had  an  idea  that  you  belonged  to 
the  First  Church  and  were  Dr.  Hilary's 
parishioners." 

Fay  explained.  "Dr.  Hilary  married 
us,  but  we  haven't  troubled  the  church 
much  since.  I  never  took  any  interest  in 
the  Christian  religion  to  begin  with;  and 
when  I  looked  into  it  I  found  it  even 
more  fallacious  than  I  supposed."  To 
account  for  this  advanced  position  on 
the  part  of  a  simple  market-gardener 
he  added,  "I've  been  a  good  deal  of  a 
reader." 

Thor  spoke  slowly  and  after  medita- 
tion. "It  isn't  so  much  a  question  of  its 
being  fallacious  as  of  its  capacity  for 
producing  results." 

Fay  turned  partially  round  toward  the 
south  where  a  haze  hung  above  the  city. 
His  tone  was  infused  with  a  mild  bitter- 
ness. "Don't  we  see  the  results  it  can 
produce — over  there?" 

"That's  right,  too."  Thor  was  so 
much  in  sympathy  with  this  point  of 
view  that  he  hardly  knew  how  to  go  on. 
"And  yet  some  of  us  doctors  are  begin- 
ning to  suspect  that  there  may  be  a 


556 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


power  in  Christianity — a  purely  psycho- 
logical power,  you  understand — that 
hasn't  been  used  for  what  it's  worth." 

Fay  nodded.  He  had  been  following 
this  current  of  contemporary  thought. 
"Yes,  Dr.  Thor.  So  I  hear.  Just  as,  I 
dare  say,  you  haven't  found  out  all  the 
uses  of  opium." 

"Well,  opium  is  good  in  its  place, 
you  know." 

"I  suppose  so."  He  lifted  his  starry 
eyes  with  their  mystic,  visionary  rapture 
fully  on  the  young  physician.  "And  yet 
I  remember  how  George  Eliot  prayed 
that  when  her  troubles  came  she  might 
get  along  without  being  drugged  by  that 
stuff — meaning  the  Christian  religion, 
sir — and  I  guess  I'd  kind  o'  like  that  me 
and  mine  should  do  the  same." 

Thor  dropped  the  subject  and  went 
his  way.  As  far  as  he  had  opinions  of 
his  own,  they  would  have  been  similar 
to  Fay's  had  he  not  within  a  year  or  two 
heard  of  sufficiently  authenticated  cases 
in  which  sick  spirits  or  disordered  nerves 
had  yielded  to  spiritual  counsels  after 
the  doctor  had  had  no  success.  He  had 
been  so  little  impressed  with  these  in- 
stances that  he  might  not  have  allowed 
his  speculations  with  regard  to  Mrs.  Fay 
to  go  beyond  the  fleeting  thought,  only 
for  the  fact  that  on  passing  through  the 
Square  he  met  Reuben  Hilary.  In  gen- 
eral he  was  content  to  touch  his  hat  to 
the  old  gentleman  and  go  on;  but  to- 
day, urged  by  an  impulse  too  vague  to 
take  accurate  account  of,  he  stopped 
with  respectful  greetings. 

"I've  just  been  to  see  an  old  parish- 
ioner of  yours,  sir,"  he  said,  when  the 
preliminaries  of  neighborly  conversation 
had  received  their  due. 

"Have  you,  now?"  was  the  non-com- 
mittal response,  delivered  with  a  North- 
of-Ireland  intonation. 

"Mrs.  Fay  —  wife  of  Fay,  the  gar- 
dener. I  can't  say  she's  ill,"  Thor  went 
on,  feeling  his  way,  "but  she's  mentally 
upset."  He  decided  to  plunge  into  the 
subject  boldly,  smiling  with  that  min- 
gling of  frankness  and  perplexity  which 
people  found  appealing  because  of  its 
conscientiousness.  "And  I've  been  won- 
dering, Dr.  Hilary,  if  you  couldn't  help 
her." 

"Have  you,  now?  And  what  would 
you  be  wanting  me  to  do?" 


Thor  reflected  as  to  the  exact  line  to 
take,  while  the  kindly  eyes  covered  him 
with  their  shrewd,  humorous  twinkle. 
"You  see,"  Thor  tried  to  explain,  "that 
if  she  could  get  the  idea  that  there's 
any  other  stand  to  take  toward  trouble 
than  that  of  kicking  against  it,  she 
might  be  in  a  fair  way  to  get  better. 
At  present  she's  like  a  prisoner  who 
dashes  his  head  against  a  stone  wall,  not 
seeing  that  there's  a  window  by  which 
he  might  make  his  escape." 

There  was  renewed  twinkling  in  the 
merry  eyes.  "But  if  there's  a  win- 
dow, why  don't  you  point  it  out  to 
her?" 

Thor  grinned.  "Because,  sir,  I  don't 
see  it  myself." 

"T't,  t't!  Don't  you,  then?  And 
how  do  you  know  it's  there?" 

Thor  continued  to  grin.  "To  be  frank 
with  you,  sir,  I  don't  believe  it  is 
there.  But  if  you  can  make  her  believe 
it  is—" 

"That  is,  you  want  me  to  deceive  the 
poor  creature." 

"Oh  no,  sir,"  Thor  protested.  "You 
wouldn't  be  deceiving  her  because  you 
do  believe  it." 

"So  that  I'd  only  be  deceiving  her 
to  the  extent  that  I'm  deceived  my- 
self." 

"You're  too  many  for  me,"  Thor 
laughed  again,  preparing  to  move  on. 
"I  didn't  know  but  that  if  you  gave  her 
what  are  called  the  consolations  of  re- 
ligion— that's  the  right  phrase,  isn't 
it—" 

"There  is  such  a  phrase.  But  you 
can't  give  people  the  consolations  of  re- 
ligion; they've  got  to  find  them  for 
themselves.  If  they  won't  do  that, 
there's  no  power  in  heaven  or  earth  that 
can  force  consolation  upon  them." 

"But  religion  undertakes  to  do  some- 
thing, doesn't  it?" 

The  old  man  shook  his  head.  "Noth- 
ing whatever — no  more  than  air  un- 
dertakes that  you  shall  breathe  it, 
or  water  that  you  shall  drink  it,  or 
fire  that  you  shall  warm  yourself  at  its 
blaze." 

Thor  mused.  When  he  spoke  it  was 
as  if  summing  up  the  preceding  re- 
marks. "So  that  you  can't  do  anything, 
sir,  for  my  friend,  Mrs.  Fay?" 

"Nothing  whatever,  me  dear  Thor — 


THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS 


557 


but  help  her  to  do  something  for  her- 
self." 

"Very  well,  sir.  Will  you  try 
that?" 

"Sure  Ell  try  it.  I'm  too  proud  of 
the  Word  of  God  to  thrust  it  where  it 
isn't  wanted — margaritas  ante  porcos,  if 
you've  Latin  enough  for  that — but  when 
any  one  asks  for  it  as  earnestly  as  you, 
me  dear  Thor — " 

Having  won  what  he  asked,  Thor 
shook  the  old  man's  hand  and  thanked 
him,  after  which  he  hurried  off  to  the 
garage  to  take  out  his  runabout  and 
bring  Lois's  father  home  from  town. 

CHAPTER  IX 

AS  November  and  December  passed 
/A  and  the  new  year  came  in,  small 
happenings  began  to  remind 
Thorley  Masterman  that  he  was  soon  to 
inherit  money.  It  was  a  fact  which  he 
himself  could  scarcely  credit.  Perhaps 
because  he  was  not  imaginative  the  con- 
dition of  being  thirty  years  of  age  con- 
tinued to  seem  remote  even  when  he  was 
within  six  weeks  of  that  goal. 

He  was  first  impressed  with  the  rapid- 
ity of  his  approach  to  it  on  a  morning 
when  he  came  late  to  breakfast,  finding 
at  his  plate  a  long  envelope,  bearing  in 
its  upper  left-hand  corner  the  request 
that  in  the  event  of  non-delivery  it 
should  be  returned  to  the  office  of  Dar- 
ling &  Darling,  at  27,  Commonwealth 
Row.  A  glance,  which  he  couldn't  help 
reading,  passed  round  the  table  as  he 
took  it  up.  It  was  not  new  to  him  that 
among  the  other  members  of  the  house- 
hold, closely  as  they  were  united,  there 
was  a  sense  of  vague  injustice  because  he 
was  coming  into  money  and  they  were 
not. 

The  communication  was  brief,  stating 
no  more  than  the  fact  that  in  view  of  the 
transfer  of  the  estate  which  would  take 
place  a  few  weeks  later,  Mr.  William 
Darling,  the  sole  trustee,  would  be  glad 
to  see  the  heir  on  a  day  in  the  near 
future,  to  submit  to  him  the  list  of  in- 
vestments and  other  properties  that 
were  to  make  up  his  inheritance.  Thor 
saw  his  grandfather's  money,  so  long  a 
fairy  prospect,  as  likely  to  become  a 
matter  of  solid  cash.  The  change  in  his 
position  would  be  considerable. 


As  yet,  however,  his  position  remained 
that  of  a  son  in  his  father's  family,  and, 
in  obedience  to  what  he  knew  was  ex- 
pected of  him,  he  read  the  note  aloud. 
Though  there  was  an  absence  of  com- 
ment, his  stepmother,  in  passing  him 
his  coffee,  murmured,  caressingly,  "  Dear 
old  Thor." 

"Dear  old  Thor,"  Claude  mimicked, 
"will  soon  be  able  to  do  everything  he 
pleases." 

Mrs.  Masterman  smiled.  It  was  her 
mission  to  conciliate.  "And  what  will 
that  be?" 

"I  know  what  it  won't  be,"  Claude 
said,  scornfully.  "It  won't  be  any- 
thing that  has  to  do  with  a  pretty 
girl. 

Thor  flushed.  It  was  one  of  the  min- 
utes at  which  Claude's  taunts  gave  him 
all  he  could  do  to  contain  himself.  As 
far  as  his  younger  brother  was  con- 
cerned, he  meant  well  by  him.  It  had 
always  been  his  intention  that  his  first 
use  of  Grandpa  Thorley's  money  should 
be  in  supplementing  Claude's  meager 
personal  resources  and  helping  him  to 
keep  on  his  feet.  He  could  be  patient 
with  him,  too — patient  under  all  sorts 
of  stinging  gibes  and  double-edged  com- 
pliments— patient  for  weeks,  for  months 
— patient  right  up  to  the  minute  when 
something  touched  him  too  keenly  on 
the  quick,  and  his  wrath  broke  out  with 
a  fury  he  knew  to  be  dangerous.  It  was 
so  dangerous  as  to  make  him  afraid — 
afraid  for  Claude,  and  more  afraid  for 
himself.  There  had  been  youthful  quar- 
rels between  them  from  which  he  had 
come  away  pale  with  terror,  not  at  what 
he  had  done,  but  at  what  he  might  have 
done  had  he  not  maintained  some  meas- 
ure of  self-control. 

The  memory  of  such  occasions  kept 
him  quiet  now,  though  the  irony  of 
Claude's  speech  cut  so  much  deeper  than 
any  one  could  suspect.  "Won't  be  any- 
thing that  has  to  do  with  a  pretty  girl!" 
Good  God!  When  he  was  beginning  to 
feel  his  soul  rent  in  the  struggle  between 
love  and  honor!  It  was  like  something 
sprung  on  him — that  had  caught  him 
unawares.  There  were  days  when  the 
suffering  was  so  keen  that  he  won- 
dered if  there  was  no  way  of  lawfully 
giving  in.  After  all,  he  had  never  asked 
Lois  Willoughby  to  marry  him.  There 


558 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


had  never  been  more  between  them  than 
an  unspoken  intention  in  his  mind  which 
had  somehow  communicated  itself  to 
hers.  But  that  was  not  a  pledge.  If 
he  were  to  marry  some  one  else,  she 
couldn't  reproach  him  by  so  much  as  a 
syllable. 

It  was  not  often  that  he  was  tempted 
to  reason  thus,  but  Claude's  sarcasm 
brought  up  the  question  more  squarely 
than  it  had  ever  raised  itself  before.  It 
was  exactly  the  sort  of  subject  on  which, 
had  it  concerned  any  one  else,  Thor 
would  have  turned  for  light  to  Lois  her- 
self. In  being  debarred  from  her  coun- 
sels he  felt  strangely  at  a  loss.  While 
he  said  to  himself  that  after  all  these 
years  there  was  but  one  thing  for  him 
to  do,  he  was  curious  as  to  the  view  other 
people  might  take  of  such  a  situation. 
It  was  because  of  this  need,  and  with 
Claude's  sneer  ringing  in  his  heart,  that 
later  in  the  day  he  sprang  the  question 
on  Dearlove.  Dearlove  was  the  derelict 
English  butler  whom  Thor  had  picked 
out  of  the  gutter  and  put  in  charge  of 
his  office  so  that  he  might  have  another 
chance.  He  had  been  summoned  into 
his  master's  presence  to  explain  the  sub- 
sidence in  the  contents  of  a  bottle  of 
cognac  Thor  kept  at  the  office  for 
emergency  cases  and  had  neglected  to 
put  under  lock  and  key. 

"That  was  a  full  bottle  a  month  ago," 
Thor  declared,  holding  the  accusing  ob- 
ject up  to  the  light. 

"Was  it,  sir?"  Dearlove  asked,  dis- 
mally. He  stood  in  his  habitual  atti- 
tude, his  arms  crossed  on  his  stomach, 
his  hands  thrust,  monklike,  into  his 
sleeves. 

"And  I've  only  taken  one  glass  out  of 
it — the  day  that  young  fellow  fell  off 
his  bicycle." 

Dearlove  eyed  the  bottle  piteous- 
ly.  "'Aven't  you,  sir?  Perhaps  you 
took  more  out  that  day  than  you 
thought." 

But  Thor  broke  in  with  what  was 
really  on  his  mind.  "Look  here,  Dear- 
love! What  would  you  say  to  a  man 
who  was  in  love  with  one  woman  if  he 
married  another?" 

Dearlove  was  so  astonished  as  to  be 
for  a  minute  at  a  loss  for  speech. 
"What  'd  I  say  to  him,  sir?  I'd  say, 
what  did  he  do  it  for?    If  it  was — " 


"Yes,  Dearlove?"  Thor  encouraged. 
"If  it  was  for — what?" 

"Well,  sir,  if  he'd  got  money  with 
her,  like — well,  that  'd  be  one  thing." 

"  But  if  he  didn't  ?  If  it  was  a  case  in 
which  money  didn't  matter?" 

Dearlove  shook  his  head.  "I  never 
'eard  of  no  such  case  as  that,  sir." 

Thor  grew  interested  in  the  sheerly 
human  aspects  of  the  subject.  Romance 
was  so  novel  to  him  that  he  wondered 
if  every  one  came  under  its  spell  at  some 
time — if  there  was  no  exception,  not 
even  Dearlove.  He  leaned  across  the 
desk,  his  hands  clasped  upon  it. 

"Now,  Dearlove,  suppose  it  was  your 
own  case,  and — " 

"Oh,  me,  sir!  I'm  no  example  to  no 
one — not  with  Brightstone  'anging  on 
to  me  the  way  she  does.  I  can't  look 
friendly  at  so  much  as  a  kitten  without 
Brightstone — " 

"Now  here's  the  situation,  Dearlove," 
Thor  interrupted,  while  the  ex-butler 
listened,  his  head  judicially  inclined  to 
one  side.  "Suppose  a  man — a  patient 
of  mine,  let  us  say — meant  to  marry  one 
young  lady,  and  let  her  see  it.  And  sup- 
pose, later,  he  fell  very  much  in  love 
with  another  young  lady — " 

"He'd  'ave  to  ease  the  first  one  off  a 
bit,  wouldn't  he,  sir?" 

"You  think  he  ought  to." 

"I  think  he'd  'ave  to,  sir,  unless  he 
wanted  to  be  sued  for  breach." 

"It's  the  question  of  duty  I'm  think- 
ing of,  Dearlove." 

"Ain't  it  his  dooty  to  marry  the  one 
he's  in  love  with,  sir?  Doesn't  the  Good 
Book  say  as  'ow  fallin'  in  love" — Dear- 
love blushed  becomingly — "as  'ow  fallin' 
in  love  is  the  way  God  A'mighty  means 
to  fertilize  the  earth  with  people? 
Doesn't  the  Good  Book  say  that, 
sir: 

"Perhaps  it  does.  I  believe  it's  the 
kind  of  primitive  subject  it's  likely  to 
take  up." 

"So  that  there's  that  to  be  thought  of, 
sir.  They  say  the  children  not  born  o' 
love  matches  ain't  always  strong."  He 
added,  as  he  shuffled  toward  the  door: 
"We  never  had  no  little  ones,  Bright- 
stone and  me — only  a  very  small  one 
that  died  a  few  hours  after  it  was  born." 

Thor  was  not  convinced  by  this  reason- 
ing, but  he  was  happier  than  before. 


THE  SIDE  OF 


THE  ANGELS 


559 


Such  expressions  of  opinion,  which  would 
probably  be  indorsed  by  nine  people 
out  of  ten,  assured  him  that  he  might 
follow  the  urging  of  his  heart  and  yet 
not  be  a  dastard. 

He  felt  on  stronger  ground,  therefore, 
when  he  talked  with  Fay  one  afternoon 
in  the  week  following.  "Suppose  my 
father  doesn't  renew  the  lease — what 
would  happen  to  you?" 

Fay  raised  himself  from  the  act  of  do- 
ing something  to  a  head  of  lettuce 
which  was  unfolding  its  petals  like  a 
great  green  rose.  His  eyes  had  the 
visionary  look  that  marked  his  inability 
to  come  down  to  the  practical.  "Well, 
sir;  I  don't  rightly  know." 

"But  you've  thought  of  it,  haven't 

"Not  exactly  thought  of  it.  He's  said 
he  wouldn't  two  or  three  times  already, 
and  then  changed  his  mind." 

"Would  it  do  you  any  good  if  he  did? 
Aren't  you  fighting  a  losing  battle,  any- 
how?" 

"That's  not  wholly  the  way  I  judge, 
Dr.  Thor.  Neither  the  losing  battle  nor 
the  winning  one  can  be  told  from  the 
balance-sheet.  The  success  or  failure 
of  a  man's  work  is  chiefly  in  himself." 

Thor  studied  this,  gazing  down  the 
level  of  soft  verdure  to  the  end  of  the 
greenhouse  in  which  they  stood.  "I 
can  see  how  that  might  be  in  one  way, 
but—" 

"It's  the  way  I  mostly  think  of,  sir. 
Every  man  has  his  own  habit  of  mind, 
hasn't  he?  I  agree  with  the  great 
prophet  Thomas  Carlyle  when  he  says" 
— he  brought  out  the  words  with  a 
mild  pomposity  —  "when  he  says  that 
a  certain  inarticulate  self-consciousness 
dwells  in  us  which  only  our  works  can 
render  articulate.  He  speaks  of  the  folly 
of  the  precept  '  Know  thyself  till  we've 
made  it  *  Know  what  thou  canst  work  at.' 
I  can  work  at  this,  Dr.  Thor;  I  couldn't 
work  at  anything  else.  I  know  that 
making  both  ends  meet  is  an  important 
part  of  it,  of  course — " 

"But  to  you  it  isn't  the  most  impor- 
tant part  of  it." 

Fay's  eyes  wandered  to  the  other 
greenhouse  in  which  lettuce  grew,  to  the 
hothouse  full  of  flowers,  and  out  over 
the  forcing-beds  of  violets.    "No,  Dr. 


Thor;  not  the  most  important  part 
of  it — to  me.  I've  created  all  this.  I 
love  it.  It's  my  life.  It's  myself.  And 
if—" 

"And  if  my  father  doesn't  renew  the 
lease — ?" 

"Then  I  shall  be  done  for.  It  won't 
be  just  going  bankrupt  in  the  money 
sense;  it  '11  be  everything  else — blasted." 
He  subjoined,  dreamily:  "I  don't  know 
what  would  happen  to  me  after  that. 
I'd  be  —  I'd  be  equal  to  committing 
crimes." 

Thor  couldn't  remember  ever  having 
seen  tears  on  an  elderly  man's  cheeks 
before.  He  took  a  turn  down  half  the 
length  of  the  greenhouse  and  back 
again.  "Look  here,  Fay,"  he  said, in  the 
tone  of  one  making  a  resolution,  "sup- 
posing my  father  would  give  me  2l  lease 
of  the  place?" 

^You,  Dr.  Thor?" 

"Yes,  me.  Would  you  work  it  for 
me  r 

Fay  reflected  long,  while  Thor 
watched  the  play  of  light  and  shadow 
over  the  mild,  mobile  face.  "It  wouldn't 
be  my  own  place  any  more,  would  it, 
sir: 

"No,  I  suppose  it  wouldn't  —  not 
strictly.  But  it  would  be  the  next  best 
thing.    It  would  be  better  than — " 

"It  would  be  better  than  being  turned 
out."  He  reflected  further.  "Was  you 
thinking  of  taking  it  over  as  an  invest- 
ment, sir?" 

Not  having  considered  this  side  of  his 
idea,  Thor  sought  for  a  natural,  spon- 
taneous answer,  and  was  not  long  in 
finding  one.  "I  want  to  be  identified 
with  the  village  industries,  because  I'm 
going  into  politics." 

"Oh,  are  you,  sir?  I  didn't  know  you 
was  that  way  inclined." 

"I'm  not,"  Thor  explained,  when  they 
had  moved  from  the  greenhouse  into  the 
yard.  "I  only  feel  that  we  people  of 
the  old  stock  hang  out  of  politics  too 
much  and  that  I  ought  to  pitch  in  and 
make  one  more.  So  you  get  my  idea, 
Fay.  It  '11  give  me  standing  to  hold  a 
bit  of  property  like  this,  even  if  it's  only 
on  lease." 

There  was  no  need  for  further  expla- 
nations. Fay  consented,  not  cheerfully, 
but  with  a  certain  saddened  and  yet 
grateful  resignation,  of  which  the  ex- 


560 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


pression  was  cut  short  by  a  cheery,  ring- 
ing voice  from  the  gateway: 

"Hello,  Mr.  Fay!  Hello,  Dr.  Thor! 
Whoa,  Maud!  whoa!  Stand,  will  you? 
What  you  thinking  of?" 

The  response  to  this  greeting  came 
from  both  men  simultaneously,  each 
making  it  according  to  his  capacity  for 
heartiness.  "Hello,  Jim!"  They  em- 
phasized the  welcome  by  unconsciously 
advancing  to  meet  the  tall,  stalwart 
young  Irishman  of  the  third  generation 
on  American  soil  who  came  toward  them 
with  the  long,  loose  limbs  and  swinging 
stride  inherited  from  an  ancestry  bred 
to  tramping  the  hills  of  Connemara.  A 
pair  of  twinkling  eyes  and  a  rnouth  that 
was  always  on  the  point  of  breaking  into 
a  smile  when  it  was  not  actually  smiling 
tempered  the  peasant  shrewdness  of  a 
face  that  got  further  softening,  and  a 
touch  of  superiority,  from  a  carefully 
tended  young  mustache, 

Thor  and  Jim  Breen  had  been  on 
friendly  terms  ever  since  they  were  boys; 
but  the  case  was  not  exceptional,  since 
the  latter  was  on  similar  terms  with  every 
one  in  the  village.  From  childhood 
upward  he  had  been  a  local  character, 
chiefly  because  of  a  breezy  self-re- 
spect that  was  as  free  from  self- 
consciousness  as  from  self-importance. 
There  was  no  one  to  whom  he  wasn't 
polite,  but  there  had  never  been  any  one 
of  whom  he  was  afraid.  "Hello,  Mr. 
Masterman!"  "Hello,  Dr.  Hilary!" 
"Hello,  Father  Ryan!"  "Hello,  Dr. 
Sim!"  had  been  his  form  of  greeting  ever 
since  he  had  begun  swaggering  around 
the  village,  with  head  up  and  face 
alert,  at  the  age  of  five.  No  one  had 
ever  been  found  to  resent  this  cheerful 
familiarity,  not  even  Archie  Master- 
man. 

As  a  man  in  whom  friendliness  was  a 
primary  instinct,  Jim  Breen  never  en- 
tered a  trolley-car  nor  turned  a  street 
corner  without  speaking  or  nodding  to 
every  one  he  knew.  Never  did  he  visit 
a  neighboring  town  without  calling  on, 
or  calling  up,  every  one  he  could  claim 
as  an  acquaintance.  He  was  always  on 
hand  for  fires,  for  fights,  for  fallen  horses, 
for  first-aid  in  accidents,  for  ball-games, 
for  the  outings  of  Boy  Scouts,  and  for 
village  theatricals  and  dances.  There 
were  rumors  that  he  was  sometimes 


"wild,"  but  the  wildness  being  confined 
to  his  incursions  into  the  city — which 
generally  took  place  after  dark — it  was 
not  sufficiently  in  evidence  to  shock  the 
home  community.  It  was  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge  that  he  used,  in  i 
village  phrase,  "to  go  with"  Rosie  Fay 
— the  breaking  of  the  friendship  being 
attributed  by  some  of  the  well-informed 
to  his  reported  wildness,  and  by  others 
to  differences  in  religion.  As  Thor  had 
been  absent  in  Europe  during  this  epi- 
sode, and  was  without  the  native  suspi- 
cion that  would  have  connected  the  two 
names,  he  took  Jim's  arrival  pleasantly. 

Having  finished  his  bit  of  business, 
which  concerned  an  order  for  azaleas  too 
large  for  his  father  to  meet,  and  in  which 
Mr.  Fay  might  find  it  to  his  advantage 
to  combine,  Jim  turned  blithely  toward 
Thor.  "Hear  about  the  town  meeting, 
Dr.  Thor? — what  old  Billy  Taylor  said 
about  the  new  bridge?  What  do  you 
think  of  that  for  nerve?  Tell  you  what, 
there's  some  things  in  this  town  needs 
clearing  up." 

The  statement  bringing  out  Thor's 
own  intention  to  run  as  a  candidate  for 
office  at  the  next  election,  Jim  expressed 
his  interest  in  the  vernacular  of  the  hour, 
"What  do  you  know  about  that?"  Fur- 
ther discussion  of  politics  ending  in  Jim's 
pledging  his  support  to  his  boyhood's 
friend,  Thor  shook  hands  with  an  en- 
couraging sense  of  being  embarked  on  a 
public  career,  and  went  forward  to  visit 
his  patient  in  the  house. 

His  steps  were  arrested,  however,  by 
hearing  Jim  say,  with  casual  light- 
heartedness,  "Rosie  anywheres  about, 
Mr.  Fay?" 

The  old  man  having  nodded  in  the 
direction  of  the  hothouse,  Jim  advanced 
almost  to  the  door,  where  Thor, 
on  looking  over  his  shoulder,  saw  him 
pause. 

It  was  a  curious  pause  for  one  so  self- 
confident  as  the  young  Irishman — a 
pause  like  that  of  a  man  grown  suddenly 
doubtful,  timid,  distrustful.  His  hand 
was  actually  on  the  latch  when,  to 
Thor's  surprise,  he  wheeled  away,  re- 
turning to  his  "team"  with  head  bent 
and  stride  slackened  thoughtfully.  By 
the  time  he  had  mounted  the  wagon, 
however,  and  begun  to  tug  at  Maud  he 
was  whistling  the  popular  air  of  the 


THE  SIDE  OF 

moment  with  no  more  than  a  subdued 
note  in  his  gaiety. 

CHAPTER  X 

BUT  Thor  was  pleased  with  the  idea 
that  his  father  could  scarcely  re- 
fuse him  the  lease.  He  would  in 
fact  make  it  worth  his  while  not  to  do 
so.  Rosie  Fay  and  those  who  belonged 
to  her  might,  therefore,  feel  solid  ground 
beneath  their  feet,  and  go  on  working 
and,  if  need  were,  suffering,  without  the 
intolerable  dread  of  eviction.  It  would 
be  a  satisfaction  to  him  to  accomplish 
this  much,  whatever  the  dictates  of 
honor  might  oblige  him  to  forego.  . 

He  felt,  too,  that  he  was  getting  his 
reward  when,  after  Jim's  departure, 
Rosie  nodded  through  the  glass  of  the 
hothouse,  giving  him  what  might  almost 
be  taken  for  a  smile.  He  forbore  to  go 
to  her  at  once,  keeping  that  pleasure  for 
the  end  of  his  visit.  After  seeing  his 
patient,  there  were  generally  small  direc- 
tions to  give  the  daughter  which  af- 
forded pretexts  for  lingering  in  her  com- 
pany. His  patient  was  getting  better, 
not  through  ministrations  of  his  own, 
but  through  some  mysterious  influence 
exerted  by  Reuben  Hilary.  As  a  man 
of  science  and  a  skeptic,  Thor  was  slight- 
ly impatient  of  this  aid,  even  though  he 
himself  had  evoked  it. 

He  was  half-way  up  the  stairs  on  his 
way  to  the  bedroom  in  the  mansard  roof 
when,  on  hearing  a  man's  voice,  he 
paused.  The  voice  was  saying,  with 
that  inflection  in  which  there  was  no 
more  than  a  hint  of  the  brogue: 

"Now  there's  what  we  were  talking 
of  the  last  time  I  was  here:  'Let  not 
your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be 
afraid.  Ye  believe  in  God;  believe  also 
in  me.'  There's  the  two  great  plagues 
of  human  existence — fear  and  trouble — 
staggered  for  you  at  a  blow.  And  you 
do  believe  in  God,  now,  don't  you?" 

Thor  had  turned  to  tiptoe  down  again 
when  he  heard  the  words,  spoken  in 
the  rebellious  tones  with  which  he  was 
familiar,  modulated  now  to  an  odd  sub- 
missiveness:  "I  don't  know  whether  I 
do  or  not.  Isn't  there  something  in  the 
Bible  about,  'Lord,  I  believe,  help  thou 
mine  unbelief  ?" 
"There  is,  and  it's  a  good  way  to  begin." 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.— 70 


THE  ANGELS  561 

Thor  was  out  in  the  yard  before  he 
could  hear  more.  Standing  for  a  min- 
ute in  the  windy  sunshine,  he  wondered 
at  the  curious  phenomenon  presented  by 
men  in  evident  possession  of  their  facul- 
ties who  relied  for  the  dispersion  of  hu- 
man care  on  means  invisible  and  mystic. 
The  fact  that  in  this  case  he  himself  had 
appealed  to  the  illusion  rendered  the 
working  of  it  none  the  less  astonishing. 
His  own  method  for  the  dispersion  of 
human  care — and  the  project  was  dear 
to  him — was  by  dollars  and  cents.  It 
was,  moreover,  a  method  as  to  which 
there  was  no  trouble  in  proving  the 
efficiency. 

He  took  up  the  subject  of  her  mother 
with  Rosie,  who,  with  the  help  of  Antonio, 
was  rearranging  the  masses  of  azaleas, 
carnations,  and  poinsettias  after  the 
depletion  of  the  Christmas  sales.  "She's 
really  better,  isn't  she?" 

Rosie  pushed  a  white  azalea  to  the 
place  on  the  stand  that  would  best  dis- 
play its  domelike  regularity.  "She 
seems  to  be." 

"What  do  you  think  has  helped  her?" 

She  gave  him  a  queer  little  sidelong 
smile.  "You're  the  doctor.  I  should 
think  you'd  know." 

He  adored  those  smiles — constrained, 
unwilling,  distrustful  smiles  that  varied 
the  occasional  earnest  looks  that  he  got 
from  her  green  eyes.  "But  I  don't 
know.    It  isn't  anything  I  do  for  her." 

She  banked  two  or  three  azaleas  to- 
gether, so  that  their  shades  of  pink  and 
pomegranate-red  might  blend.  "I  sup- 
pose it's  Dr.  Hilary." 

"I  know  it's  Dr.  Hilary.  But  he  isn't 
working  by  magic.  If  she's  getting  back 
her  nerve  it  isn't  because  he  wishes  it  on 
her,  as  the  boys  say." 

Suspecting  all  his  approaches,  she  con- 
fined herself  to  saying,  "I'm  sure  I  don't 
know,"  speaking  like  a  guilty  witness 
under  cross-examination.  The  assiduity 
of  his  visits,  the  persistency  with  which 
he  tried  to  make  her  talk,  kept  her  the 
more  carefully  on  her  guard  against  be- 
traying anything  unwarily. 

But  to  him  the  reserve  was  an  added 
charm.  He  called  it  shyness  or  coyness 
or  maidenly  timidity,  according  to  the 
circumstance  that  called  it  forth;  but 
whatever  it  was,  this  apathy  to  his 
passionate  dumb-show  piqued  him  to  a 


562 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


frenzy  infused  with  an  element  of  hom- 
age. Any  other  girl  in  her  situation 
would  have  come  half-way  at  least 
toward  a  man  in  his.  His  training  hav- 
ing rendered  him  analytical  of  the  phys- 
ical side  of  things,  he  endeavored,  more 
or  less  unsuccessfully,  to  account  for  the 
extraordinary  transformation  in  himself, 
whereby  every  nerve  in  his  body  yearned 
and  strained  toward  this  hard,  proud 
little  creature  who,  too  evidently — as 
yet,  at  any  rate — refused  to  take  him 
into  account.  She  made  him  feel  like  a 
man  signaling  in  the  dark  or  speaking 
across  a  vacuum  through  which  his 
voice  couldn't  carry,  while  he  was  con- 
scious at  the  same  time  of  searchings  of 
heart  at  making  the  attempt  to  do  either. 

He  was  beset  by  these  scruples  when, 
after  taking  his  runabout  from  the 
garage,  in  order  to  go  to  town,  he  met 
Lois  Willoughby  in  the  Square.  On  the 
instant  he  remembered  Dearlove's  coun- 
sel of  a  few  days  earlier — "He'd  'ave  to 
ease  the  first  one  off  a  bit."  Whatever 
was  to  be  his  ultimate  decision,  the  wis- 
dom of  this  course  was  incontestable. 
As  she  paused,  smiling,  expecting  him  to 
stop,  he  lifted  his  hat  and  drove  onward. 
Perhaps  it  was  only  his  imagination  that 
caught  in  her  great,  velvety  brown  eyes 
an  expression  of  surprise  and  pain;  but 
whether  his  sight  was  accurate  or  not, 
the  memory  of  the  moment  smote  him. 
The  process  of  "easing  the  first  one  off" 
would  probably  prove  difficult.  "I  shall 
have  to  explain  to  her  that  I  was  in  a 
hurry,"  he  said,  to  comfort  himself,  as 
he  flew  onward  to  the  town. 

The  explanation  would  have  been  not 
untrue,  since  he  was  already  overdue  at 
his  appointment  with  Mr.  William  Dar- 
ling, his  grandfather's  executor. 

It  was  the  second  of  the  meetings 
arranged  for  giving  him  a  general  idea  of 
the  estate  he  was  coming  into.  At  the 
first  he  had  gone  over  the  lists  of  stocks, 
mortgages,  and  bonds.  To-day,  with  a 
map  of  the  city  and  the  surrounding 
country  spread  out,  partially  on  the 
desk  and  partially  over  Mr.  Darling's 
knees  as  he  tilted  back  in  a  revolving- 
chair,  Thor  learned  the  location  of  cer- 
tain bits  of  landed  property  which  his 
grandfather,  twenty  or  thirty  years  be- 
fore, had  considered  good  investments. 


The  astuteness  of  this  ancestral  foresight 
was  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  Thor 
was  a  richer  man  than  he  had  supposed. 
While  he  would  possess  no  enormous 
wealth,  according  to  the  newer  stand- 
ards of  the  day,  he  would  have  some- 
thing between  thirty  and  forty  thousand 
dollars  of  yearly  income. 

"And  that,"  Mr.  Darling  explained 
with  pride,  "  at  a  very  conservative  rate 
of  investment.  You  could  easily  have 
more;  but  if  you  take  my  advice  you'll 
not  be  in  a  hurry  to  look  for  more  till  you 
need  it.  I  don't  want  to  hurt  any  one's 
feelings.    You  surely  understand  that." 

Thor  was  not  sure  that  he  did  under- 
stand it.  He  was  not  sure;  and  yet  he 
hesitated  to  ask  for  the  elucidation  of 
what  was  intended  perhaps  to  remain 
cryptic.  In  a  small  chair  drawn  up 
beside  Mr.  Darling's  revolving  seat  of 
authority,  his  elbow  on  his  knee,  his  chin 
supported  by  his  fist,  he  studied  the  map. 

"I  don't  want  to  hurt  any  one's  feel- 
ings," the  lawyer  declared  again,  "either 
before  or  after  the  fact." 

This  time  an  intention  of  some  sort 
was  so  evident  that  Thor  felt  obliged  to 
say,  "Do  you  mean  any  one  in  par- 
ticular, sir?" 

The  trustee  threw  the  map  from  off 
his  knees,  and,  rising,  walked  to  the 
window.  He  was  a  small,  neat,  sharp- 
eyed  man  of  fresh,  frosty  complexion,, 
his  exquisite  clothes  making  him  some- 
thing of  a  dandy,  while  his  manner  of 
turning  his  head,  with  quick  little  jerks 
and  perks,  reminded  one  of  a  bird.  At 
the  window  he  stood  with  his  hands  be- 
hind his  back,  looking  over  the  jum- 
ble of  nineteenth-century  roofs — out  of 
which  an  occasional  "sky-scraper"  shot 
like  a  tower — to  where  a  fringe  of  masts 
and  funnels  edged  the  bay.  He  spoke 
without  turning  round. 

"I  don't  mean  any  one  in  particular 
unless  there  should  be  any  one  in  par- 
ticular to  mean." 

With  this  oracular  explanation  Thor 
was  forced  to  be  content,  and,  as  the 
purpose  of  the  meeting  seemed  to  have 
been  accomplished,  he  rose  to  take  his 
leave. 

Mr.  Darling  was  quick  in  showing 
himself  not  only  faithful  as  a  trustee, 
but  cordial  as  a  man  of  the  world.  "My 
wife  would  like  you  to  come  and  see 


THE  SIDE  OF 

her,"  he  said,  in  shaking  hands.  "She 
asked  me  to  say,  too,  that  she  hopes  you 
and  your  brother  will  come  to  the  dance 
she's  going  to  give  for  Elsie  in  the  course 
of  a  month  or  two.  You'll  get  your 
cards  in  time." 

Warmly  expressing  the  pleasure  this 
entertainment  would  give  him,  while 
knowing  in  his  heart  that  he  wouldn't 
attend  it,  the  young  man  took  his  de- 
parture. 

But  no  later  than  that  evening  he 
began  to  perceive  why  the  oracle  had 
spoken.  Claude  having  excused  himself 
from  dressing  for  dinner  on  the  ground 
of  another  mysterious  engagement  with 
Billy  Cheever,  and  Mrs.  Masterman 
having  retired  up-stairs,  Thor  was  alone 
in  the  library  with  his  father. 

It  was  a  mellow  room,  in  which  the 
bindings  of  long  rows  of  books,  mostly 
purchased  by  Grandpa  Thorley  in  "sets," 
an  admirable  white -marble  chimney- 
piece  in  a  Georgian  style,  and  a  few 
English  eighteenth-century  prints  added 
by  Archie  Masterman  himself,  disguised 
the  heavy  architectural  taste  of  the 
sixties.  Grandpa  Thorley  had  built  the 
house  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  the 
end  of  that  struggle  having  found  him — 
for  reasons  he  was  never  eager  to  ex- 
plain— a  far  richer  man  than  its  begin- 
ning. He  had  built  the  house,  not  on 
his  own  old  farm,  which  was  already 
being  absorbed  into  the  suburban  por- 
tion of  the  city,  but  on  a  ten-acre  plot  in 
County  Street,  which,  with  its  rich  bor- 
dering fields,  its  overarching  elms,  and 
its  lofty  sites,  was  revealing  itself  even 
then  as  the  predestined  quarter  of  the 
wealthy.  So  long  as  there  had  been  no 
wealthy,  County  Street  had  been  only 
a  village  highway;  but  the  social  devel- 
opments following  on  the  Civil  War  had 
required  a  Faubourg  St. -Germain. 

In  this  house  Miss  Louisa  Thorley  had 
grown  up  and  been  wooed  by  Archie 
Masterman.  It  had  been  the  wooing  of 
a  very  plain  girl  by  a  good-looking  lad, 
and  had  received  a  shock  when  Grandpa 
Thorley  suspected  other  motives  than 
love  to  account  for  the  young  man's  ar- 
dor. Her  suitor  being  forbidden  the 
house,  Miss  Thorley  had  no  resource 
but  to  meet  him  in  the  city  on  the 
7th  of  March,  1880,  and  go  with  him  to 


THE  ANGELS  563 

a  convenient  parsonage.  Thor  was  born 
on  the  tenth  of  February  of  the  year 
following.  Two  days  later  the  young 
mother  died. 

Grandpa  Thorley  himself  held  out  for 
another  ten  years,  when  his  will  revealed 
the  fact  that  he  had  taken  every  precau- 
tion to  keep  Archie  Masterman  from 
profiting  by  a  penny  of  the  Thorley 
money.  So  strict  were  the  provisions  of 
this  document  that  on  the  father  was 
thrown  the  entire  cost  of  bringing  up 
and  educating  Louisa  Thorley's  son. 

But  Archie  Masterman  was  patient. 
He  took  a  lease  of  the  Thorley  house 
when  Darling  &  Darling  as  executors 
put  it  in  the  market,  and  paid  all  the 
rent  it  was  worth.  Moreover,  there  had 
never  been  a  moment  in  Thor's  life 
when  he  had  been  made  to  feel  that  his 
maintenance  was  a  burden  unjustly 
thrown  on  one  who  could  ill  afford  to 
bear  it.  For  this  consideration  the  son 
had  been  grateful  ever  since  he  knew  its 
character,  and  was  now  eager  to  make 
due  return. 

For  the  minute  he  was  moving  rest- 
lessly about  the  room,  not  knowing  what 
to  say.  From  the  way  in  which  his 
father,  who  was  comfortably  stretched 
in  an  arm-chair  before  the  fire,  dropped 
the  evening  paper  to  the  floor,  while  he 
puffed  silently  at  his  cigar,  Thor  knew 
that  he  was  expected  to  give  some 
account  of  the  interview  between  himself 
and  the  trustee  that  afternoon.  Any 
father  might  reasonably  look  for  such  a 
confidence,  while  the  conditions  of  af- 
fectionate intimacy  in  which  the  Master- 
man  family  lived  made  it  a  matter  of 
course. 

The  son  was  still  marching  up  and 
down  the  room,  smoking  cigarettes  rap- 
idly and  throwing  the  butts  into  the  fire, 
when  he  had  completed  his  summary  of 
the  information  received  in  his  two  meet- 
ings with  the  executor. 

The  father  had  neither  interrupted 
nor  asked  questions,  but  he  spoke  at 
last.  "What  did  you  say  was  the  ap- 
proximate value  of  the  whole  estate?" 

Thor  told  him. 

"And  of  the  income?" 

Thor  repeated  that  also. 
Criminal. 

Thor  stopped  dead  for  an  instant,  but 
resumed  his  march.    He  had  stopped  in 


564 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


surprise,  but  he  went  on  again  so  as  to 
give  the  impression  of  not  having  heard 
the  last  observation. 

"It's  criminal,"  the  father  explained, 
with  repressed  indignation,  "that  money 
should  bring  in  so  trifling  a  return." 

"He  said  it  was  very  conservatively 
invested." 

"It's  damned  idiotically  invested. 
Such  incompetence  deserves  an  even 
stronger  term.  If  my  own  money  didn't 
earn  more  for  me  than  that — well,  I'm 
afraid  you  wouldn't  have  seen  Vienna 
and  Berlin." 

The  remark  gave  Thor  an  opening 
he  was  glad  to  seize.  "I  know  that, 
father.  I  know  how  much  you've  spent 
for  me,  and  how  generous  you've  always 
been,  with  Claude  to  provide  for,  too; 
and  now  that  I'm  to  have  enough  of  my 
own  I  want  to  repay  you  every — " 

"Don't  hurt  me,  my  boy.  You  surely 
don't  think  I'd  take  compensation  for 
bringing  up  my  own  son.  It's  not  in 
the  least  what  I'm  driving  at.  I  simply 
mean  that  now  that  the  whole  thing  is 
coming  into  your  own  hands  you'll  prob- 
ably want  to  do  better  with  it  than  has 
been  done  heretofore." 

Thor  said  nothing.  There  was  a  long 
silence  before  his  father  went  on: 

"  Even  if  you  didn't  want  me  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  it,  I  could  put  you 
in  touch  with  people  who'd  give  you 
excellent  advice." 

Thor  paced  softly,  as  if  afraid  to  make 
his  footfalls  heard.  Something  within 
him  seemed  frozen,  paralyzed.  He  was 
incapable  of  a  response. 

"Of  course,"  the  father  continued, 
gently,  with  his  engaging  lisp,  "I  can 
quite  understand  that  you  shouldn't 
want  me  to  have  anything  to  do  with  it. 
The  new  generation  is  often  distrustful 
of  the  old." 

Thor  beat  his  brains  for  something  to 
say  that  would  meet  the  courtesies  of 
the  occasion  without  committing  him; 
but  his  whole  being  had  grown  dumb. 
He  would  have  been  less  humiliated  if 
his  father  had  pleaded  with  him  out- 
right. 

"And  yet  I  haven't  done  so  badly, 


made  my  way  by  thrift,  foresight,  and 
integrity.  I  think  I  can  say  as  much  as 
that.  Your  grandfather  Thorley  was 
unjust  to  me;  but  I've  never  resented 
it,  not  by  a  syllable." 

It  was  a  relief  to  Thor  to  be  able  to 
say  with  some  heartiness,  "I  know  that, 
father." 

"Not  that  I  didn't  have  some  difficult 
situations  to  face  on  account  of  it.  When 
the  Toogood  executors  withdrew  the 
old  man's  money  it  would  have  gone 
hard  with  me  if  I  hadn't  been  able  to — 
to" — Thor  paused  in  his  walk,  waiting 
for  what  was  coming — "if  I  hadn't  been 
able  to  command  confidence  in  other 
directions,"  the  father  finished,  quietly. 

Thor  hastened  to  divert  the  conversa- 
tion from  his  own  affairs*  "Mr.  Wil- 
loughbv  put  his  money  in  then,  didn't 
he?" 

"That  was  one  thing,"  Masterman 
admitted,  coldly. 

Thor  could  speak  the  more  daringly 
because  his  march  up  and  down  kept 
him  behind  his  father's  back.  "And 
now,  I  understand,  you  think  of  drop- 
ping him." 

"I  shouldn't  be  dropping  him.  That's 
not  the  way  to  put  it.  He  drops  himself 
— automatically."  The  clock  on  the 
mantelpiece  ticked  a  few  times  before 
he  added,  "I  can't  go  on  supporting 
him." 

"Do  you  mean  that  he's  used  up  all 
the  capital  he  put  in?" 

"That's  what  it  comes  to.  He's  spent 
enormous  sums.  At  times  it's  been  near 
to  crippling  me.  But  I  can't  keep  it  up. 
He's  got  to  go.  Besides,  the  big,  drunken 
oaf  is  a  disgrace  to  me.  I  can't  afford 
to  be  associated  with  him  any  longer." 

Thor  came  round  to  the  fireplace, 
where  he  stood  on  the  hearth-rug,  his 
arm  on  the  mantelpiece.  "But,  father, 
what  '11  he  do?" 

"Surely  that's  his  own  lookout.  Bes- 
sie's got  money  still.  I  didn't  get  all 
of  it,  by  any  means." 

"No;  but  if  you've  got  most  of  it — " 
Masterman    shot   out   of  his  seat. 
"Take  care,  Thor.   I  object  to  your  way 
of  expressing  yourself.    It's  offensive." 


Masterman  continued,  with  pathos  in  "I  only  mean,  father,  that  if  Mr. 

his  voice.    "I  had  very  little  to  begin  Willoughby  saved  the  business—" 

with.    When  I  first  went  into  old  Too-  "He  didn't  do  anything  of  the  kind," 

good's  office  I  had  nothing  at  all.    I  Masterman   said,   sharply.     "No  one 


I    '  

Drawn  by  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green 

"  AND    NOW,   I    UNDERSTAND,   YOU    THINK    OF    DROPPING  HIM" 


THE  SIDE   OF  THE  ANGELS 


565 


knows  better  than  he  that  I  never 
wanted  him  at  all." 

But  Thor  ventured  to  speak  up. 
"  Didn't  you  tell  mother  one  night  in 
Paris,  when  we  were  there  in  1892,  that 
his  money  might  as  well  come  to  you 
as  go  to  the  deuce?  Mother  said  she 
hated  business  and  didn't  want  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  it.  She  hoped  you'd 
let  the  Willoughbys  and  their  money 
alone.    Didn't  that  happen,  father?" 

If  Thor  was  expecting  his  father  to 
blanch  and  betray  a  guilty  mind  he  was 
both  disappointed  and  relieved.  "  Pos- 
sibly. I've  no  recollection.  I  was  look- 
ing for  some  one  to  enter  the  business. 
He  wasn't  my  ideal,  the  Lord  knows; 
and  yet  I  might  have  said  something 
about  it  —  carelessly.  Why  do  you 
ask  ?" 

The  son  tried  to  infuse  his  words  with 
a  special  intensity  as,  looking  straight 
into  his  father's  eyes,  he  said,  44  Because 
I — I  remember  the  way  things  happened 
at  the  time." 

" Indeed?  And  may  I  ask  what  your 
memories  lead  you  to  infer?  They've 
clearly  led  you  to  infer  something." 

During  the  seconds  in  which  father 
and  son  scrutinized  each  other  Thor  felt 
himself  backing  down  with  a  sort  of 
spiritual  cowardice.  He  didn't  want  to 
accuse  his  father.  He  shrank  from  the 
knowledge  that  would  have  justified  him 
in  doing  so.  To  express  himself  with 
as  little  stress  as  possible,  he  said,  "They 
lead  me  to  infer  that  we've  some  moral 
responsibility  toward  Mr.  Willoughby." 

"Really?  That's  very  interesting. 
Now,  I  should  have  said  that  if  I'd  ever 
had  any  I'd  richly  worked  it  off."  It 
was  perhaps  to  glide  away  from  the 
points  already  raised  that  he  asked: 
"Aren't  you  a  little  hasty  in  looking  for 
moral  responsibility?  Let  me  see!  Who 
was  it  the  last  time?  Old  Fay,  wasn't 
it?" 

Thor  flushed,  but  he  accepted  the  di- 
version. He  even  welcomed  it.  Such 
glimpses  as  he  got  of  his  father's  mind 
appalled  him.  For  the  present,  at  any 
rate,  he  would  force  no  issue  that  would 
verify  his  suspicions  and  compel  him 
to  act  upon  them.  Better  the  doubt. 
Better  to  believe  that  Willoughby  had 
been  a  spendthrift.  He  would  have  no 
difficulty  as  to  that,  had  it  not  been  for 


those  dogging  memories  of  the  little 
hotel  in  the  rue  de  Rivoli. 

Besides,  as  he  said  to  himself,  he  had 
his  own  ax  to  grind.  He  endeavored, 
therefore,  to  take  the  reference  to  Fay 
jocosely.  "That  reminds  me,"  he  smiled, 
though  the  smile  might  have  been  a 
trifle  nervous,  "that  if  you  don't  want 
to  renew  Fay's  lease  when  it  falls  in,  I 
wish  you'd  make  it  over  to  me."  Dis- 
concerted by  the  look  of  amazement  his 
words  called  up,  he  hastened  to  add: 
"I'd  take  it  on  any  terms  you  please. 
You've  only  got  to  name  them." 

Masterman  backed  away  to  the  large 
oblong  library  table  strewn  with  papers 
and  magazines.  He  seemed  to  need  it 
for  support.  His  tones  were  those  of  a 
man  amazed  to  the  point  of  awe.  "What 
in  the  name  of  Heaven  do  you  want  that 
for?" 

Thor  steadied  his  nerve  by  lighting  a 
cigarette.  "To  give  me  a  footing  in  the 
village.    I'm  going  into  politics." 

"O  Lord!" 

Thor  hurried  on.    "Yes,  I  know  how 
you  feel.    But  to  me  it  seems  a  duty." 
"Seems  a — what?" 

The  son  felt  obliged  to  be  apologetic. 
"You  see,  father,  so  few  men  of  the  old 
American  stock  are  going  into  politics 
nowadays — " 

"Well,  why  should  they?" 

"The  country  has  to  be  governed." 

"Lot  of  fools  to  do  that  who  are  no 
good  for  anything  else.  Why  should 
you  dirty  your  hands  with  it?" 

"That  isn't  the  way  I  look  at  it." 

"It's  the  way  you  will  look  at  it  when 
you  know  a  little  more  about  it  than  you 
evidently  do  now.  Of  course,  with  your 
money  you'll  have  a  right  to  fritter  away 
your  time  in  anything  you  please;  but 
as  your  father  I  feel  that  I  ought  to  give 
you  a  word  of  warning.  You  wouldn't 
be  a  Masterman  if  you  didn't  need  it — 
on  that  score?" 

"What  score?" 

"The  score  of  being  caught  by  every 
humbugging  socialistic  scheme — " 

"I'm  not  a  socialist,  father." 

"Well,  what  are  you?  I  thought  you 
were." 

"I'm   not   now.     I've   passed  that 
phase." 

"That's  something  to  the  good,  at  any 
rate." 


566 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"With  politics  in  this  country  as  they 
are — and  so  many  alien  peoples  to  be 
licked  into  shape — it's  no  use  looking 
for  the  state  to  undertake  anything 
progressive  for  another  two  hundred 
years." 

"Ah!  Want  something  more  rapid- 
firing.  " 

"Want  something  immediate." 

"And  you've  found  it?" 

"Only  in  the  conviction  that  w hat- 
eve  r's  to  be  done  must  be  done  by  the 
individual.  I've  no  theories  any  longer. 
I've  finished  with  them  all.  I'm  driven 
back  on  the  conclusion  that  if  anything 
is  to  be  accomplished  in  the  way  of 
social  betterment  it  must  be  the  man-to- 
man process  in  one's  own  small  sphere. 
If  we  could  get  that  put  into  practice 
on  a  considerable  scale  we  should  do 
more  than  the  state  will  be  able  to  carry 
out  for  centuries  to  come." 

"Put  what  into  practice?" 

"The  principle  that  no  man  shall  let 
a  friend  or  a  neighbor  suffer  without 
relief  when  he  can  relieve  him." 

"Thor,  you  should  have  been  God." 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  God, 
father.  But  if  I  were  to  create  a  God, 
I  should  make  that  his  first  command- 
ment." 

Masterman  squared  himself  in  front 
of  his  son.  "So  that's  behind  this 
scheme  of  yours  for  taking  over  Fay's 
lease.  You're  trying  to  trick  me  into 
doing  what  you  know  I  won't  do  of  my 
own  accord.  What  could  you  do  with 
the  lease  but  make  a  present  of  it  to  old 
Fay?  Politics  be  hanged!  Come,  now. 
Be  frank  with  me." 

Thor  threw  back  his  head.  "I  can't 
be  wholly  frank  with  you,  father;  but 
I'll  be  as  frank  as  I  can.  I  do  want  to 
help  the  poor  old  chap;  you'd  be  sorry 
for  him  if  you'd  been  seeing  him  as  I 

[to  be  c 


have;  but  that  was  only  one  of  my 
motives.  Leaving  politics  out  of  the 
question,  I  have  others.  But  I  don't 
want  to  speak  of  them — yet.  Probably 
I  shall  never  need  to  speak  of  them  at 
all." 

Thor  was  willing  that  his  father  should 
say,  "It's  the  girl!"  but  he  contented 
himself  with  the  curt  statement:  "I'm 
sorry,  Thor;  but  you  can't  have  the 
lease.    I'm  going  to  sell  the  place." 

"But,  father,"  the  young  man  cried, 
"what's  to  become  of  Fay?" 

"Isn't  that  what  you  asked  me  just 
now  about  Len  Willoughby?  Who  do 
you  think  I  am,  Thor?  Am  I  in  this 
world  to  carry  every  lame  dog  on  my 
back  ?" 

"It  isn't  a  question-  of  every  lame 
dog,  but  of  an  old  tenant  and  an  old 
friend." 

"Toward  whom  I  have  what  you're 
pleased  to  call  a  moral  responsibility. 
Is  that  it?" 

"That's  it,  father — put  mildly." 

"Well,  I  don't  admit  your  moral  re- 
sponsibility; and,  what's  more,  I'm  not 
going  to  bear  it.    Do  you  understand?" 

Thor  felt  himself  growing  white,  with 
the  whiteness  that  attended  one  of  his 
surging  waves  of  wrath.  He  clenched 
his  fists.  He  drew  away.  But  he 
couldn't  keep  himself  from  saying,  qui- 
etly, with  a  voice  that  shook  because  of 
his  very  effort  to  keep  it  firm:  "All 
right,  father.  If  you  don't  bear  it,  I  will." 

He  was  moving  toward  the  door  when 
Archie  called  after  him,  "Thor,  for 
God's  sake,  don't  be  a  fool!" 

He  answered  from  the  threshold,  over 
his  shoulder.  "It's  no  use  asking  me 
not  to  do  as  I've  said,  father,  because 
I  can't  help  it."  He  was  in  the  hall 
when  he  added,  "And  if  I  could,  I 
shouldn't  try." 

NTINUED.] 


The  Sad-glad  Lady 


BY  REBECCA  HOOPER  EASTMAN 


ECAUSE  he  wanted  to 
get  away  and  try  and 
be  completely  sane  once 
more,  Father  closed  the 
little  house  in  Pelham 
Road,  and  took  Brother 
and  Sister  camping  on  a 
Maine  lake.  They  were  such  excellent 
company,  Brother  and  Sister,  for  they 
hadn't  realized  how  empty  the  world  is 
when  the  big  dream  is  ended.  During  the 
long,  desolate  months  since  it  happened 
Father  had  several  times  caught  them 
crying  on  each  other's  shoulder,  but, 
happily,  they  were  too  young  to  feel  the 
full  meaning  of  their  sorrow.  They  could 
have  stayed  on  in  the  little  house 
through  the  imminent  first  anniversary 
of  their  mother's  going,  because,  having 
been  born  there,  they  took  it  all  for 
granted. 

For  Father,  however,  the  little  house 
was  far  too  crowded  with  intimacies, 
sacrifices,  and  achievements  to  have 
room  in  it  for  him  in  this  difficult  spring- 
time. Even  the  enterprising  young  cro- 
cuses just  poking  up  through  the  soil 
under  the  dining-room  windows  had 
been  too  much  for  him.  Up  here  in 
Maine  no  crocus  had  thought  of  budg- 
ing, and  the  weather  was  bracing  and 
stinging  cold.  The  bare  board  walls  of 
the  cottage-camp  were  comforting.  The 
big  lake  outside  the  window  laughed  and 
danced  in  the  sun,  and  a  comfortable 
flat  -  bottomed  boat  invited  fishing. 
Brother  and  Sister  secured  lines  and 
hooks,  and  made  their  first  catches. 
When  it  was  too  windy  to  fish,  they 
played  tag  with  Father,  and  hide-and- 
seek  among  the  stumps  of  the  clear- 
ing. At  night,  the  three  campers  slept 
snug  and  warm  under  the  roof,  drunk 
with  fresh  air  and  exercise. 

For  the  first  two  days  the  burly 
farmer's  wife,  loquacious  and  cheery, 
who  brought  them  their  three  meals  a  day 


from  her  house  behind  the  big  rock,  was 
the  only  person  they  saw.  She  was  in- 
teresting because  she  concocted  rich  cus- 
tard-pies baked  in  milk-pans,  and  dough- 
nuts, too,  which  played  a  large  healing 
part  in  one's  existence. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  third  day 
at  the  lake,  when  Father  was  staring  out 
of  the  cottage  window  at  a  horizontal 
streak  of  red-gold  sunset  which  silhou- 
etted the  hills,  he  noticed  the  slender 
figure  of  a  young  girl  seated  on  a  rock. 
She,  too,  was  staring  out  across  the  water 
at  the  sunset,  and  even  from  the  dis- 
tance, although  the  smartness  of  her 
clothes  proclaimed  the  town,  the  hope- 
less droop  of  her  shoulders  suggested 
poignant  loneliness  and  despair.  She 
was  sitting  there,  looking  exactly  the  way 
that  Father  had  so  many  times  felt.  As 
long  as  it  was  at  all  light  she  gazed  fix- 
edly into  the  flaming  beauty  of  the 
fading  sky,  and  then  at  last,  when  it  was 
too  dark  to  see  whether  she  was  still 
there  or  not,  Father  guessed  that  she  had 
stolen  away. 

On  being  questioned,  the  farmer's  wife 
knew  nothing  about  her  at  all,  but 
admitted  that  since  automobiles  had 
been  invented,  and  they  had  put  a  state 
road  along  the  shore  of  the  lake, 
you  couldn't  keep  track  of  folks.  They 
were  here  one  minute  and  gone  the 
next;  and  it  didn't  seem  quite  right  or 
natural. 

The  next  night  at  sunset  the  girl  again 
appeared,  and  sat  down  on  the  selfsame 
rock  to  watch  the  sky.  Although 
Father  had  come  here  to  be  alone  with 
Brother  and  Sister,  and  to  get  away  from 
every  one  else  in  the  world,  the  girl  on 
the  shore  nevertheless  piqued  his  curi- 
osity. Following  Father's  interested 
glance,  Brother  caught  sight  of  her  the 
second  night,  and  called  to  Sister  to  see. 
Both  children  instantaneously  noted  the 
pathetic  droop  of  her  shoulders. 


568 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Some  one  has  died,  I  guess,"  said 
Brother. 

"She's  a  sad  lady,"  remarked  Sister, 
conclusively. 

Hesitatingly,  Father  watched  the  sad 
lady — for  that  was  what  they  called  her 
thenceforth. 

"We  could  ask  her  to  supper,  maybe — ■ 
if  we  wanted  to  very  much,"  ventured 
Brother,  looking  sideways  at  Father. 

"Go  ahead  and  invite  her!"  com- 
manded Father,  surprisingly. 

Before  there  was  time  to  retract, 
Brother  took  to  his  heels,  and  soon  stood 
unabashed  before  the  sad  lady. 

"Hello!  We've  got  lots  to  eat  at  our 
house,"  he  cheerfully  remarked.  "Don't 
you  want  to  come  and  have  supper  with 
usr 

The  sad  lady  stared  at  him  with  big, 
frightened  eyes,  and  swallowed  hard, 
and  after  finding  her  voice — which  was 
very  soft — she  said  that  she  would  great- 
ly enjoy  coming  to  supper.  But  she  was 
so  bashful,  and  wistful,  and  lacking  in 
courage  that  Brother  was  obliged  to  take 
her  hand  and  lead  her  into  the  cottage, 
where  Father  and  Sister  had  already 
made  a  place  for  her  at  the  table. 

"We  thought  we'd  like  to  have  'com- 
pany' to  supper,"  said  Father,  struck  by 
the  sadness  in  the  little  face  before  him. 

Although  the  strange,  sad  little  lady 
was  indescribably  girlish,  she  was  thirty- 
eight  at  least,  and  she  was  shaken  and 
pitifully  indecisive. 

"Will  you  sit  here?"  asked  Sister,  with 
an  adorably  unconscious  imitation  of  her 
mother's  manner  when  there  had  been 
guests.  "Don't  you  just  love  ham  and 
eggs  and  baked  potatoes?" 

They  heaped  up  her  plate,  and  poured 
her  a  brimming  glass  of  milk,  and  set  the 
doughnuts  in  front  of  her.  The  sad  lady 
took  occasional  birdlike  sips  of  the  milk, 
and  when  she  remembered  it  she  pecked 
away  resolutely  at  her  food,  as  if  some 
one  had  ordered  her  to  eat  and  she  had 
sworn  to  obey.  Ever  and  always  she 
stole  interested,  covetous  glances  at 
Father  as  he  finished  his  supper,  shoved 
back  his  chair,  poked  up  the  fire,  and 
lighted  his  pipe.  She  didn't  miss  a  detail 
of  him,  from  his  crisp  brown  hair  and 
slight  tendency  to  baldness  to  the  old 
brown  shoes  which  he  toasted  luxuri- 
ously before  the  fire.    Occasionally  she 


threw  a  suspicious,  self-conscious  glance 
at  the  children,  but  for  the  most  part 
her  eyes  were  riveted  on  Father. 

Afterward  he  thought  how  strange  it 
was  that  they  hadn't  talked.  It  was 
almost  as  if  Brother  had  brought  in  a 
stray  dog  as  they  all  sat  before  the  fire 
and  watched  the  blaze  with  silent  socia- 
bility. Nobody  asked  who  anybody 
was.  They  simply  accepted  the  sad  lady 
and  she  accepted  them,  and  that  was  all 
there  was  to  it.  The  little  sad  lady's 
eyes  grew  delightfully  bright  as  she  sat 
there,  as  though  her  soul  as  well  as  her 
body  was  being  warmed.  After  a  while, 
Brother  and  Sister,  impelled  by  good- 
natured  paternal  admonishments,  kissed 
Father  good  night,  and  at  length  turned 
to  wish  the  sad  lady  a  polite  good  night. 

"Good  night,  dears,"  she  said,  with  a 
surprising  air  of  possession.  "Open  the 
window  wide  and  cover  up  warm." 

The  words  sounded  so  natural  that 
Brother  and  Sister  displayed  no  aston- 
ishment, but  scampered  up  the  stairs  in 
the  usual  interesting  helter-skelter  race 
that  led  to  bed. 

After  this  intimate  command  the  sad 
lady  reseated  herself  silently  by  the  fire, 
looking  more  contented  than  ever.  In- 
deed, she  seemed  so  engrossed  with  her 
own  thoughts  that  Father  picked  up  an 
old  paper-covered  novel  and  began  to 
read,  quite  as  if  she  weren't  there.  He 
had  unearthed  an  ancient  trunk  in  the 
cottage  which  proved  to  contain  a  wealth 
of  old-time  favorites  long  since  con- 
demned as  trash.  They  were  bound  in 
imitation  alligator-skin  paper  covers, 
with  imitation  -  leather  straps  round 
them,  and  they  bore  alluring  titles  such 
as  His  Dear  Revenge.  Each  book  was 
"by"  some  one  who  seemed  to  have 
written  hundreds  of  other  books,  twenty 
or  thirty  of  which  were  mentioned  on  the 
imitation-leather  cover,  and  they  all  had 
scary,  shivery  names  like  The  Evil  Bou- 
doir and  The  Staircase  of  Sin.  In  these 
innocuous  volumes  Father  had  found 
temporary  forgetfulness.  He  read  them 
half-interested,  half-amused,  and  wholly 
diverted.  And  to-night,  when  with  a 
gratified  sigh  he  reached  "The  End," 
and  looked  up  to  find  the  room  quiet  and 
empty,  he  forgot  all  about  the  sad  lady's 
existence  as  he  fixed  the  fire  for  the 
night  and  fastened  the  doors  and  win- 


a  farmer's  wife  brought  them  their  three  meals  a  day 


dows.  It  was  only  after  he  got  into  bed 
that  he  remembered  the  sad  lady  at  all, 
and  drowsily  and  comfortably  wondered 
what  had  become  of  her. 

The  next  night  at  sunset  and  supper- 
time  she  was  nowhere  to  be  seen,  but 
just  as  they  were  sitting  down  she  came 
hurrying  along  the  shore  and  rushed 
into  the  room  with  an  inexplicable,  re- 
pentant manner. 

"I  was  so  afraid  that  I  would  be  late!" 
she  apologized.  She  moved  up  a  chair 
and  seated  herself  opposite  Father  in  the 
place  that  Sister  had  assigned  to  her  the 
night  before.  "I  had  so  much  to  do 
to-day." 

^  All  of  them,  Brother  and  Sister  and 
Father,  looked  at  her  askance.  Had  she 
misunderstood  and  thought  that  they 
had  also  asked  her  to  supper  to-night? 
Either  she  didn't  notice  their  surprise 
or  else  she  pretended  to  ignore  it.  One 

Vol.  CXXXI—  No.  781.— 71 


thing,  however,  was  manifest,  that  the 
sad  lady  was  pathetically  glad  to  be 
there. 

After  supper  Brother  proposed  Five 
Hundred,  and  on  the  sad  lady's  miser- 
ably admitting  that  she  didn't  know 
how  to  play,  Sister  and  Brother  volun- 
teered to  show  her.  Bedtime  came 
all  too  quickly,  and  it  took  more 
moral  suasion  than  usual  before  Brother 
and  Sister  succumbed  and  gave  Father 
the  customary  rough  embraces  and  un- 
limited kisses.  And  the  little  sad  lady 
said,  quite  boldly  and  seriously: 

"Why,  children,  you've  forgotten  to 
kiss  me!" 

They  only  hesitated  and  hung  back  a 
second  before  they  came  round  and 
kissed  the  sad  lady's  thin  lips — some- 
what timidly,  however. 

"I'll  be  up  in  ten  minutes  and  put  out 
your  light,"  she  said,  as  they  raced  up- 


570 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


stairs.  And  she  actually  did  so,  tucking 
them  in  and  opening  the  windows,  be- 
sides. When  she  came  down-stairs  she 
walked  across  the  floor  in  a  business-like 
manner,  and,  sitting  down  at  the  table, 
took  from  her  pocket  some  new  linen 
and  shining  scissors  in  a  case.  After 
having  cleared  a  large  place  on  the  table, 
she  began  to  cut  out  big  squares  of  the 
cloth. 

"I've  decided  to  make  your  handker- 
chiefs myself,  after  this,"  she  announced 
to  Father.  "I  can  hemstitch  like  light- 
ning. Do  you  want  your  monogram  in 
the  corner,  or  just  your  initials?" 

"I  think  I'd  like  F  this  time — for 
Father,"  he  replied,  delicately  humoring 
her. 

She  couldn't  quite  meet  his  eyes,  so 
she  pretended  to  be  in  a  great  hurry 
with  her  cutting.  When  it  was  finished 
she  took  out  the  tiniest  gold  thimble  in 
the  world  and  began  to  baste  the  hand- 
kerchiefs at  breakneck  speed.  Father 
watched  her  closely  out  of  the  corner  of 
his  eyes,  because  he  had  no  intention  of 
letting  her  slip  out  again  unperceived. 
But,  after  all,  she  did  get  away,  because 
Brother  suddenly  shouted  from  up-stairs 
an  imperative  "Father!"  Everett  left 
the  sad  lady  and  leaped  up-stairs  two 
steps  at  a  time,  to  find  that  Brother  and 
Sister  had  been  meditating,  and  desired 


an  immediate  explanation  of  the  sad 
lady's  conduct.  Father  found  himself 
whispering  that  the  sad  lady  must  have 
had  some  great  trouble,  and  that  since 
spending  the  evening  with  them  seemed 
to  comfort  her,  it  was  best  not  to  bother 
her  with  questions.  When  he  came 
down  again  she  had,  of  course,  vanished; 
but  she  had  left  her  sewing  neatly  folded 
on  the  mantel,  with  the  baby  of  a  thim- 
ble on  top. 

She  came  the  next  night,  and  the  next, 
and  the  next;  and  the  more  she  came 
the  gladder  they  were  to  see  her.  Some- 
how or  other,  though,  she  cunningly 
managed  to  slip  out  and  evade  Father 
every  night.  She  would  go  unexpectedly 
early,  or  else  she  would  pretend  that  she 
was  just  running  out  on  the  piazza  to 
see  if  the  moon  was  up,  and  then  she 
wouldn't  come  back.  She  managed 
some  new  evasion  every  night. 

It  was  with  a  comic,  ponderous  sigh  of 
relief  that  she  finished  Father's  handker- 
chiefs one  evening,  and  after  saying, 
shortly,  "There,  thank  goodness,  those 
are  done!"  she  ran  up-stairs  softly,  so  as 
not  to  wake  the  children,  and  fumbled 
her  way  in  the  dark  into  his  bedroom, 
and  put  the  handkerchiefs  in  the  left- 
hand  corner  of  his  top  drawer. 

With  the  passage  of  every  evening  the 
sad  lady  less  and  less  deserved  her  name. 


THE  HOPELESS  DROOP  OF  HER  SHOULDERS  SUGGESTED  POIGNANT  LONELINESS  AND  DESPAIR 


THE  SAD-GLAD  LADY 


571 


Her  cheeks  took  on  a  little  becoming 
roundness,  her  hands  were  far  less  fairy- 
like, and  she  complained  that  her  thim- 
ble was  getting  too  small. 

Although  Everett  had  intended  to 
spend  only  two  weeks  at  the  lake,  he 
found  himself  curiously  reluctant  to 
leave.  Up  here  in  the  woods  the  wound 
was  healed  as  much  as  it  ever  could  be. 
He  felt  cleansed  and  purified  and  made 
bigger  and  better  by  his  sorrow.  Away 
from  all  the  associations,  the  thought  of 
Mother  became  bearable;  indeed,  it  was 
like  a  pure,  celestial  fire.  At  night  the 
very  stars  were  strangely  companionable 
and  near,  not  only  because  Her  smile 
was  just  back  of  them,  but  because  the 
smiles  of  the  others  he  had  lost — his  own 
mother  and  father — were  there,  too. 

Inevitably  came  the  night  when  the 
sad  lady  failed  to  appear.  At  first  irri- 
tated, Father  fumed  as  he  sometimes 
had  done  at  home  when  the  newsboy 
omitted  to  leave  the  evening  paper.  The 
sad  lady's  absence  made  him  feel  even 
more  defrauded.  One  could  send  out  for 
a  paper,  but  one  couldn't  send  for  the 
sad  lady  without  knowing  who  she  was 
or  where  she  lived.  Brother  and  Sister 
hardly  ate  anything  at  all  for  supper, 
because  they  were  so  busy  running  to  the 
door  to  see  if  their  sad  lady  wasn't  com- 
ing at  last.  The  evening  was  the  most 
endless,  tiresome  affair  they  had  known 
at  the  lake,  and  Brother  and  Sister  could 
only  be  cajoled  to  bed  with  the  promise 
of  an  early  hunt  for  the  missing  sad  lady. 
Father,  now  for  the  first  time  in  days 
sitting  alone  before  the  fire,  considered. 
And  the  more  he  considered  the  more 
aggrieved  he  felt.  She  hadn't  played 
quite  fair — this  sad  lady  of  theirs.  They 
had  accepted  her  unquestioningly ;  they 
had  taken  everything  about  her  for 
granted;  and  such  acceptance  has  its 
attendant  obligations. 

Exploration  the  next  day  did  no  good, 
although  they  did  make  an  interesting 
discovery  that  half  a  mile  down  the  lake, 
and  up  a  narrow  inlet  screened  by  trees, 
there  was  a  rather  pretentious  boat- 
landing  which  they  had  never  noticed 
before.  Behind  the  landing  was  a  boat- 
house  containing  two  canoes,  a  motor- 
boat,  and  a  sail-boat.  Back  of  this  boat- 
house  an  arbored  walk  with  flagstones 
turned  and  wound  until  it  opened  into 


what  in  summer  would  be  a  formal  gar- 
den covering  nearly  an  acre.  This  was 
surrounded  by  a  tall  evergreen  hedge, 
and  its  only  other  entrance  was  a  vine- 
hung  pergola  which  ended  with  two  of 
the  trees  that  Brother  always  called 
giant  exclamation  -  points  —  Lombardy 
poplars.  When  they  had  passed  between 
these  sentinels  they  found  themselves 
on  the  edge  of  an  immense  sweep  of  lawn 
with  a  broad  driveway.  The  fact  that 
they  were  on  a  legitimate  hunt  for  the 
sad  lady  led  them  boldly  up  the  drive 
until  suddenly,  from  behind  a  clump  of 
evergreen  trees,  a  mansion  confronted 
them,  castle-like  in  its  proportions,  and 
so  stately  and  awe-inspiring  withal  that 
they  felt  suddenly  small  and  unimpor- 
tant. The  sense  of  having  been  badly 
used  by  the  sad  lady  led  them  on,  though 
with  a  little  less  assurance,  to  a  side- 
entrance  where,  after  continuous  knock- 
ing with  a  wrought-iron  knocker  and 
accompanying  ringing  of  the  electric 
bell,  a  hoary  caretaker  homely  enough 
to  be  a  witch  in  a  child's  fairy-book 
peered  at  them  through  a  crack.  She 
gruffly  stated  that  the  family  were  all 
in  California,  and  she  slammed  the  door 
in  their  faces. 

Rather  relieved  that  the  sad  lady  was 
not  to  be  found  in  this  too  impressive 
establishment,  the  amateur  detectives, 
the  minute  they  were  out  of  sight  of  the 
house,  began  to  run  back  to  informality 
and  freedom.  They  raced  joyously  be- 
tween the  exclamation-points,  they  tore 
through  the  pergola,  they  skipped  in- 
decorously across  the  formal  garden, 
they  clattered  down  the  arborway  to  the 
landing,  where  they  jumped  quickly  into 
the  flat-bottomed  boat  and  rowed  away. 
As  they  steered  out  of  the  inlet  they 
laughed  at  their  fears  and  suspicions. 
The  sad  lady  would  materialize  as  usual 
that  night — of  course  she  would!  She 
must  want  them  even  more  than  they 
wanted  her.  She  would  first  give  them  a 
satisfactory  explanation,  and  then  let 
them  have  the  intense  pleasure  of  for- 
giving her. 

Although  they  waited  supper  for  over 
an  hour,  the  sad  lady  remained  mysteri- 
ously absent  for  the  second  night.  Then, 
to  ease  their  minds,  they  gave  her  up 
point-blank,  once  for  all,  and  remained 
proudly  reticent  where  she  was  con- 


572 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


cerned,  and  endeavored  to  forget  that 
she  had  ever  been. 

The  third  night,  when  they  didn't  ex- 
pect her  at  all,  and  only  glanced  casually 
out  of  the  window  just  as  they  had  done 
before  they  knew  of  her  existence,  they 
saw  her  coming.  Instead  of  carefully 
picking  her  way,  as  usual,  she  was  run- 
ning, and  taking  hazardous  jumps  from 
rock  to  rock,  and  when  she  saw  the  three 
faces  in  the  window  she  laughed  and 
waved  her  hand  and  tried  to  run  faster 
so  that  she  should  reach  them  sooner. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  had  been  so 
cross  and  hurt  with  her,  they  rushed  out 
on  the  piazza  to  greet  her.  She  ran 
up,  breathless,  and  seized  Father's  two 
hands  and  danced  up  and  down,  and 
then  hugged  the  children  with  what 
breath  she  had  left.  During  the  three 
days  since  they  had  last  seen  her  she 
had  miraculously  been  shorn  of  all  her 
sadness. 

"Why — you  aren't  sad  at  all — any 
more!"  cried  Brother. 

"To-night  you're  our  glad  lady!" 
added  Sister,  exuberantly. 

When  the  sad  lady  finally  got  her 
breath  she  put  her  great  question. 

"Did  you  miss  me  at  all?"  she  asked. 

Did  they  miss  her?  They  all  three 
talked  at  once,  tumultuously.  When 
the  excitement  had  subsided  a  little,  the 
sad  lady  was  so  tired  that  Father  made 
her  lie  down  on  the  couch  and  they  all 
three  brought  her  her  supper.  She  ate 
and  ate  and  ate — almost  as  much  as 
Brother  when  he  was  hungriest. 

"Oh,  I'm  so  happy,  so  happy!"  she 
exclaimed,  as  they  sat  in  a  row  in  front 
of  her,  waiting  for  explanations.  "I'm 
going  to  get  well!  I  went  to  New  York 
to  my  doctor's.  I  had  to  go.  And  for 
the  first  time  in  months  he  has  given  me 
hope.  The  best  part  of  it,  he  said,  the 
most  hopeful  part,  is  that  I  seem  for  the 
first  time  to  want  to  get  well." 

After  a  while  they  wheeled  the  card- 
table  up  in  front  of  the  couch,  and  they 
had  a  wild  game  of  Five  Hundred  at 
which  they  all  bid  extravagantly  and 
laughed  uproariously  when  beaten. 
Finally,  when  bedtime  came  for  Brother 
and  Sister,  the  sad  lady  slipped  off  the 
couch  and  went  up-stairs  and  tucked 
them  in.  When  she  came  down  again 
she  announced  that  hereafter  she  in- 


tended to  knit  all  Father's  ties,  and  that 
she  was  going  to  crochet  an  Irish  lace 
coat  for  Sister  and  knit  a  thick  sweater 
for  Brother. 

"I've  laid  out  enough  work  to  last  me 
a  lifetime,"  she  said,  thankfully. 

After  this  remark  Father  and  the  sad- 
glad  lady  sat  very  still,  watching  the 
fire,  but  not  watching  it  as  usual,  be- 
cause Father  kept  stealing  inquisitive 
glances  at  her.  She  somehow  looked 
very  guilty,  too,  and  she  entirely  avoided 
meeting  his  eyes.  The  more  he  looked 
the  lower  she  bent  over  her  crocheting. 
At  length  Father  rose  and,  bringing  a 
long  strap  from  the  hall,  fastened  it  tight 
round  the  sad  lady's  arm — not  so  that 
it  would  interfere  with  her  work,  but  so 
that  she  couldn't  again  slip  away  unob- 
served. This  done,  he  sat  down  in  his 
corner  of  the  fireplace,  being  careful  to 
hold  fast  to  his  end  of  the  strap. 

"I  won't  try  to  steal  away  again,"  she 
promised. 

He  took  a  still  firmer  hold  of  the  strap. 

"Oh,  I'll  tell  you  about  myself,"  she 
said,  simply.  "I'm  not  mysterious  at 
all.    I'm  living  over  at  the  Granvilles!" 

"Not  the  big  estate — not  the  castle  in 
the  woods?" 

"Certainly.    Why  not?" 

Father's  face  fell. 

"Don't  look  like  that!"  she  begged. 
"I'm  not  the  millionaire  you  think  me. 
I'm  just  a  poverty-stricken  librarian 
from  a  New  York  public  library.  By  a 
streak  of  luck  I  met  Miss  Granville  at 
a  business-woman's  club  to  which  I  be- 
long. She  gave  the  money  to  buy  the 
club-house.  And,  somehow,  she  got  in- 
terested in  me.  When  she  found  out  that 
I  was  threatened  with  a  decline  she  sent 
me  up  here  for  a  year's  rest.  I'd  only 
been  here  two  weeks  when  you  people 
came.  Although  the  doctor  prescribed 
the  Maine  woods,  I  didn't  feel  a  bit  bet- 
ter, because  I  had  nothing  to  live  for. 
The  dusty  old  library  didn't  count!  And 
yet  I  couldn't  quite  give  it  all  up  and 
die  without  ever  having  lived  at  all. 
That's  the  way  it  was — I  didn't  want  to 
live  and  I  didn't  want  to  die.  I  was 
getting  so  negative  that  I  fancy  I  would 
soon  have  obliterated  myself  without 
realizing  it  if  you  people  hadn't  asked 
me  to  supper  that  night.  Then  you 
were  all  so  kind  that  I  thought  I'd  steal 


A  MANSION  CONFRONTED  THEM,  CASTLE-LIKE  IN  ITS  PROPORTIONS 


a  little  happiness,  since  none  had  come 
my  way.  And  so  all  these  days  I  have 
been  pretending  the  most  beautiful, 
shocking  things.  I  dare  say  you  would 
think  me  quite  indecent  if  I  told  you." 

"You  have  already  told  me,"  he  said. 

"You  realized  ?" 

"A  blind  man  could  have  seen!" 

There  was  a  long  silence,  embarrass- 
ing for  the  sad  lady,  and  entertaining 
for  Father. 


"  Did  you  very  much — mind — my  pre- 
tending?" asked  a  small  voice  at  last. 

"We  needed  to  be  mothered!  And 
you  did  it  so  unobtrusively." 

"Then  perhaps  you  won't  mind  if  I 
keep  it  up  after  I  go  back  to  work.  A 
little  long-distance  mothering  couldn't 
hurt  you  very  much.  Just  let  me  send 
you  the  things  I  make!  I  won't  require 
anything  at  all  from  any  of  you,  if  you'll 
only  let  me  go  on — pretending." 


574 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Father  considered.  "I  suppose  you'd 
keep  at  it,  anyway,"  he  said.  "But  I 
don't  mind  admitting  that  we  were  mis- 
erable without  you.  Perhaps  we  can 
manage  better  when  we  get  back  home 
again  if  we  all  three  secretly  know  that 
we  have  you." 

Her  fingers  moved  aimlessly  at  her 
crocheting  because  she  couldn't  see 
through  her  scalding  tears. 

"It  is  such  a  relief  to  find  people  who 
will  let  you  care  for  them,"  she  said. 
"Until  now  there  was  really  no  one  on 
earth  who  seemed  to  need  me  at  all." 
She  rose  and  put  her  crocheting  on  the 
mantel  until  the  next  night.  "It  helps 
with  the  pretending — to  keep  my  work 
here,"  she  said,  as  she  walked  to  the 
door.  "No,  you  mustn't  come  a  step 
with  me.  It  will  make  everything  con- 
ventional and  spoil  all  the  fun.  " 

As  she  spoke  the  sad  lady  slipped  out 
the  door  and  waved  her  hand  at  Father 
as  she  ran  through  the  moonlight. 

The  next  night,  after  Brother  and 
Sister  had  been  tucked  in,  Father  filled 
his  pipe,  and  after  much  scratching  of 
matches  and  great  concentration  got  it 
to  draw  satisfactorily.  Then  he  leaned 
back  and  said,  with  a  happy  sort  of 
gloom,  "We  are  going  home  to-morrow." 

"It's  business,  I  suppose." 

"Yes.  Servants  and  provision  bills 
will  not  pay  themselves  indefinitely." 

"You — you  will  give  me  your  address, 
so  that  I  may  send  the  things  when  I 
finish  them?" 

He  wrote  it  all  out  on  a  card  which  he 
handed  her,  and  which  she  slipped  in  the 
front  of  her  waist.  After  that  he  stared 
at  her  irresolutely,  hardly  knowing  how 
to  begin. 

"I  wish  that  you  would  tell  me  about 
— Her,"  said  the  sad  lady,  at  last. 

And  then  he  unburdened  the  pent-up 
anguish  of  the  story  of  Her  beauty,  and 
that  heart  of  Hers  that  had  been  big 
enough  to  take  in  all  the  world.  He  told 
how  intimately  personal  she  had  made 
everything  with  which  she  came  in  con- 
tact— how  no  detail  had  been  too  small 
or  unimportant  to  be  interesting,  and  no 
problem  too  big  to  face  with  confidence. 
Physically,  he  said,  she  had  been  quite 
tall,  and  in  her  cheeks  was  a  pink  that 
seemed,  as  you  looked  at  it,  to  be  growing 
constantly  deeper,  although  of  course  it 


didn't.  People  often  turned  to  look  after 
her  because  she  was  so  splendidly  nor- 
mal and  wholesome  and  sweet.  "And 
she  believed" — he  rose  and  walked  to 
the  door  and  looked  out  at  the  friendly 
stars — "she  believed  so  in  the  other  side 
of  things  that  I  shall  never  be  afraid  my- 
self," he  said.    "She  made  me  sure." 

A  little  hand  stole  into  his,  pressed  it 
just  for  a  second,  and  then,  on  tiptoe,  the 
sad-glad  lady  stole  out  into  the  darkness. 
For  a  long  time  she  stood  looking  hard 
at  the  cottage,  and  then  she  darted  into 
the  woods  where  the  caretaker  was  wait- 
ing. 

The  next  morning,  before  they  took 
the  train  for  home,  the  three  of  them 
went  confidently  up  to  the  Granville 
mansion  to  bid  their  sad  lady  good-by. 
But  the  hoary  caretaker  insisted,  just  as 
before,  that  the  family  were  all  in  Cali- 
fornia, and  that  there  was  no  one  in  the 
house  but  herself.  And  she  said  that  she 
had  never  heard  of  a  librarian  from  New 
York  who  had  come  there  to  get  well. 

So,  although  they  had  to  go  home 
without  seeing  their  sad-glad  lad}/  again, 
they  all  felt  certain  of  her  in  their 
hearts.  If  for  some  reason  she  chose  to 
be  mysterious,  they  couldn't  quarrel 
with  her  when  she  seemed  to  be  living 
just  to  love  them.  When  they  reached 
home  again  Father  found  that  he  once 
more  saw  things  in  the  right  perspective, 
that  those  weeks  in  the  woods  had  heart- 
ened him.  Almost  at  once,  too,  lovely 
hand-made  things  began  to  come  for 
them  from  the  little  librarian.  As  these 
packages  from  the  first  were  postmarked 
New  York,  they  inferred  that  the  sad 
lady  was  well  enough  to  go  back  to  the 
library. 

The  first  time  that  Father  had  occa- 
sion to  go  to  New  York  on  business,  he 
made  a  thorough  search  for  the  sad-glad 
lady,  but  he  couldn't  unearth  her  any- 
where. Not  knowing  the  person's  name 
for  whom  you  are  looking  is  rather  a 
serious  handicap;  and  although  he  ran- 
sacked every  library,  he  had  to  leave 
New  York  as  much  in  the  dark  about  the 
sad  lady  as  ever.  It  seemed  unfair  to 
accept  so  many  gifts  without  being  able 
to  say  thank  you  for  them. 

On  that  hardest  day  of  all,  Christmas, 
there  were  telegrams,  special-delivery 
letters,  mysterious  telephone  calls,  flow- 


THEY  SAT  IN  A  ROW  IN  FRONT  OF  HER,  WAITING  FOR  EXPLANATIONS 


ers,  candy,  presents,  and  surprises  of 
all  kinds  which  kept  interrupting  the 
thoughts  of  other  Christmases.  Father's 
correct,  cold-blooded  sister  Margaret, 
who  had  come,  as  usual,  to  help  them  get 
through  the  day,  was  utterly  bewildered 
by  the  sad-glad  lady's  demonstrations, 
and  said  that  their  librarian  friend  must 
be  slightly  demented. 

''What's  —  slightly  demented?"  in- 
quired Brother,  slowly. 

"Crazy,"  explained  Aunt  Margaret, 
briefly. 

"She's  not  crazy,"  said  Sister.  "She's 
the  perfectest  person  we  know — except 
relatives."  The  last  two  words  were  re- 
markable for  their  politeness  and  lack  of 
enthusiasm. 

In    spite  of  their   aching  curiosity, 


they  didn't  find  out  anything  definite 
about  their  sad  lady  until  the  following 
May,  a  little  over  a  year  from  the  night 
when  they  had  last  seen  her — after  the 
second  anniversary,  in  fact.  Then  there 
came  an  exceedingly  interesting  letter 
from  Maine. 

I'm  up  here  in  the  woods  again — this  time 
just  for  a  holiday  from  the  musty  books 
[wrote  the  sad-glad  lady].  And  Miss  Gran- 
ville says  that  I  may  have  some  guests,  so  I 
want  Brother  and  Sister  and  their  Father  to 
come  up  and  spend  the  week-end  at  the  castle 
in  the  woods.  We'll  try  and  manage  some 
doughnuts,  and  pies,  and  cookies,  and  brown 
bread,  and  milk,  so  be  good  and  hungry  when, 
you  arrive.  I'll  meet  you  at  the  station  next 
Friday  at  five  o'clock. 

They  determined  to  go.    Once  on  the 


576 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


train,  Father  suffered  almost  as  many  mis- 
givings as  if  he  were  answering  an  anony- 
mous newspaper  advertisement.  Sup- 
pose, when  they  arrived,  all  anticipation, 
there  was  no  one  to  meet  them  ?  And 
suppose,  on  going  to  the  castle,  they 
found  the  caretaker  as  formidable  and 
unsatisfactory  as  before?  Well,  they 
would  have  to  try  and  hire  their  old 
cottage,  hunt  up  the  farmer's  wife,  go 
fishing,  and  make  the  best  of  it. 

At  the  station,  however,  he  was 
ashamed  of  his  doubts,  for  there  on  the 
platform  stood  the  sad  lady,  radiant  in 
smiles,  smaller  and  gladder  than  ever, 
and  trembling  all  over  with  the  joyful 
excitement  of  seeing  them.  She  tried  to 
shake  hands  with  Father  and  hug  and 
kiss  Brother  and  Sister  all  at  once,  after 
which  she  led  the  way  to  a  station  wagon 
which  she  said  belonged  to  the  Gran- 
villes. 

As  the  driver  whipped  up  his  horses, 
and  the  carriage  lurched  rapidly  over  the 
rough  road,  Father  looked  at  the  sad- 
glad  lady  with  new  and  altered  mis- 
givings. The  horrible  suspicion  had 
formed  itself  in  his  mind  that  the  sad- 
glad  lady  was  not  a  poverty-stricken  li- 
brarian at  all,  but  rather  Miss  Granville 
herself.  The  suspicion  was  confirmed  by 
the  fact  that  the  whole  house  was  thrown 
open,  and  that  a  respectful  middle-aged 
"companion"  greeted  them  cordially, 
and  yet  kept  her  distance.  The  sad- 
glad  lady  herself  looked  smaller  than 
ever  in  front  of  the  huge  fireplace  in  the 
hall  where  they  found  a  table  all  laid  for 
supper.  She  had  on  a  white  gown  under 
her  long  coat,  and  the  firelight  danced  on 
it  and  lit  up  her  eyes,  which,  instead  of 
being  anxious,  timid,  and  mournful, 
were  full  of  little  sparks  of  light.  After 
supper  they  played  Five  Hundred  until 
bedtime,  when  the  sad-glad  lady  tucked 
away  Brother  and  Sister  in  adjoining 
rooms,  each  of  which  was  as  big  as  the 
whole  ground  floor  of  their  house  at 
home. 

When  she  ran  down-stairs  again  she 
bade  Father  take  out  his  pipe,  and  she 
fetched  a  half-finished  necktie  and  sat 
down  beside  him  to  crochet.  The  "com- 
panion" said  a  discreet  good  night. 


While  the  sad  lady  had  been  busy  up- 
stairs, Everett  had  discovered  in  the 
dimly  lighted  drawing-room  the  life-size 
portrait  of  a  young  girl  who  was  none 
other  than  the  sad  lady — painted  a  few 
years  ago. 

"You  are  an  impostor!"  he  therefore 
accused  her,  when  they  were  comfort- 
ably fixed  for  the  evening.  "You're  no 
librarian!  I'm  not  impressed  with  your 
wealth  and  possessions  at  all!  And  the 
whole  affair  is  spoiled  because  you 
weren't  sincere  and  we  were.  You 
haven't  played  fair,  Sad  Lady!" 

The  sad  lady  put  down  her  crocheting. 

"You  aren't  half  as  angry  as  I  was 
afraid  you  would  be,"  she  said.  "I 
knew  you'd  hate  my  being  Miss  Gran- 
ville, which  is  precisely  the  reason  I 
wouldn't  let  you  know."'  She  stared 
hard  at  the  fire,  and  then  went  on, 
apologetically:  "You  might  think  that 
all  my  inherited  money  would  have 
made  my  happiness  and  usefulness  a 
simple  affair,"  she  said.  "But  it's  hin- 
dered me,  I  think.  You  and  Brother 
and  Sister  are  the  only  people  I've  ever 
felt  really  at  home  with.  The  money 
hasn't  entered  in  before.  Why  should 
it  now?  And  won't  you  please  forgive 
me  for  pretending  to  be  poor?" 

"But  you  pretended  to  be  sick  and 
lonesome,  too." 

"So  I  was!  I  didn't  want  to  live — 
until  over  there,  in  that  little  cottage  of 
yours,  I  found  my  real  self.  Make  the 
best  of  my  money,"  she  begged,  half- 
smiling. 

"I  shall  never  in  all  this  world  forgive 
you,"  he  stoutly  declared.  "But  some 
day — in  a  year  or  two — I  shall  marry 
you,  Sad  Lady!" 

The  room  swam  before  her  eyes.  "I 
can't  take — Her  place." 

"Of  course  you  can't.  The  only  thing 
that  would  make  our  marriage  possible 
is  the  fact  that  Her  place  is  always  Her 
place.  But  in  spite  of  your  being  so  bad 
and  deceitful,  you  have  made  a  little 
place  all  your  own.  Don't  you  want  to 
come  and  live  in  it?" 

After  the  briefest,  shyest,  sweetest 
hanging-back,  she  ran  into  his  arms  like 
a  lonely  child. 


John  Hays  Years  with  Roosevelt 


From  the  UNPUBLISHED  LETTERS  and  DIARIES  of  JOHN  HAY 


Compiled  and  Edited  by  William  Roscoe  Thayer 


OHN  HAY  had  the 
unique  fortune  of  ser- 
ving President  Lincoln 
as  private  secretary, 
and  President  Roose- 
velt as  Secretary  of 
State.  He  was  a  youth 
when  he  lived  in  the  White  House  with 
Lincoln;  he  had  passed  threescore 
when  he  accepted  Roosevelt's  urgent  in- 
vitation, after  McKinley's  death,  to  con- 
tinue* at  the  head  of  the  State  Depart- 
ment. Having  assembled  elsewhere  the 
extracts  from  his  diaries  and  letters  in 
which  he  portrays  the  intimate  life  of 
Lincoln  carrying  the  burden  of  the  Civil 
War,  I  propose  to  present  here  the 
pieces,  bit  by  bit,  which  make  up  his 
mosaic  portrait  of  Roosevelt. 

John  Hay  had  known  Theodore 
Roosevelt's  father,  his  senior  by  only 
seven  years,  at  the  time  of  the  war,  and 
afterward  when  Hay  was  on  the  editorial 
staff  of  the  Tribune  and  made  New 
York  his  home.  No  doubt  he  watched 
intently  the  early  career  of  Theodore, 
who,  within  two  years  of  his  graduation 
from  Harvard,  in  1880,  came  to  be  known 
throughout  the  country  by  his  work  as  a 
reformer  in  the  New  York  Assembly. 

Thenceforward  Mr.  Roosevelt  en- 
joyed a  national  reputation.  In  1889, 
on  being  appointed  by  President  Harri- 
son a  member  of  the  National  Civil 
Service  Commission,  he  removed  to 
Washington,  where  he  quickly  made  a 
place  apart  for  himself,  mixing  cheerily 
with  all  sorts  of  men,  equally  at  home 
with  Cabinet  officers  and  cowboys;  sur- 
prising some,  puzzling  others,  amus- 
ing nearly  all.  I  have  heard  Mr.  Rud- 
yard  Kipling  tell  how  he  used  to  drop  in 
at  the  Cosmos  Club  at  half-past  ten  or 
so  in  the  evening,  and  then  young 
Roosevelt  would  come  and  pour  out 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.-72 


projects,  discussions  of  men  and  politics, 
criticisms  of  books,  in  a  swift  and  full- 
volumed  stream,  tremendously  emphatic 
and  enlivened  by  bursts  of  humor.  "I 
sat  in  the  chair  opposite,"  said  Kipling, 
"and  listened  and  wondered,  until  the 
universe  seemed  to  be  spinning  round 
and  Theodore  was  the  spinner." 

One  of  the  groups  in  which  Mr.  Roose- 
velt found  an  immediate  welcome  was 
that  of  which  Mr.  Henry  Adams  was  the 
center.  Mr.  Adams  drew  around  him 
the  Washingtonians  of  culture  and 
many  men  distinguished  in  letters  or 
art  from  every  part  of  the  world.  Saint 
Gaudens,  John  S.  Sargent,  La  Farge, 
Clarence  King,  Henry  James,  H.  H. 
Richardson  were  among  the  frequenters 
of  his  beautiful  library;  but  none  was  so 
intimate  as  John  Hay,  Mr.  Adams's 
next-door  neighbor;  and  before  long  the 
Hays  and  the  Roosevelts  stood  on  the 
friendliest  footing. 

Of  this  period  no  letters  remain,  and 
naturally,  because  persons  who  live  in 
the  same  town  and  see  each  other  often 
have  little  need  to  write.  In  1895  Mr. 
Roosevelt  returned  to  New  York  City, 
where  he  was  Police  Commissioner  for 
two  years.  Then  President  McKinley 
made  him  Assistant  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  a  post  which  he  resigned  in  the 
spring  of  1898  to  organize  the  regiment 
of  Rough  Riders  and  take  part  in  the 
Spanish  War. 

Just  as  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  coming  to 
Washington  to  enter  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment, John  Hay  was  leaving  for  London 
to  be  American  ambassador.  From  the 
steamer  St.  Paul  Hay  writes,  on  April 
20,  1897: 

We  are  nearing  land  after  a  voyage  of  such 
extraordinary  mansuetude  that  my  wife  and 
daughter  have  joined  us  at  lunch  every  day. 
Herodotus  [Henry]  Adams  has  been  as  fit  as 


578 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


a  fiddle;  Bigelow  has  kept  us  keyed  up  to  a 
proper  degree  of  Brahminical  optimism; 
Chandler  Hale  has  had  only  one  headache  a 
day,  which  he  bears  with  a  cheerful  meekness 
which  makes  the  rest  of  us  ashamed  to  swear; 
and  Colwell  is  always  on  hand  with  quaint 
seafaring  wisdom. 

We  all  send  over  our  loves  and  best  wishes 
to  you  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  in  your  old-new 
home.  Decidedly,  Washington  cannot  do 
without  you.  We  have  given  the  thing  a  fair 
trial,  and  it  does  not  go. 

It  seems  a  long  day  since  we  left  Lafayette 
Square.  Take  good  care  of  all  our  beloveds. 
Hurry  up  Mrs.  C.'s  convalescence  and  send 
her  over  here  to  finish  her  conquest  of  the 
peerage.  And  as  to  them  there  Lodges,  June 
won't  be  June  unshared  with  them. 

From  London,  after  he  had  been  sev- 
eral months  in  the  Embassy,  Hay  wrote: 

I  have  your  letter  of  the  21st  and  agree 
with  every  word  of  it.  I  assure  you  I  shall 
bear  no  hand  in  such  business,  unless  I  am 
ordered,  which  I  do  not  think  possible — 
and  in  that  case  I  will  consider.  I  have  not 
heard  of  it  and  it  sounds  faky. 

I  try  to  hold  the  scales  as  level  as  I  can 
over  here,  not  kissing  them  nor  kicking  them. 
I  have  received  a  great  deal  of  kindness  from 
all  sorts  of  people  and  have  read  a  lot  of 
abuse  of  my  country  from  all  sorts  of  papers. 
I  used  rather  to  think  we  had  a  monopoly 
of  abusive  newspapers,  but  I  really  believe 
these  people  are  our  equals  in  vituperation. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  while  no  English- 
man, not  a  madman,  wants  to  fight  us,  and 
no  American,  not  an  idiot,  wants  to  fight 
England,  there  is  never  a  civil  word  printed 
about  England  in  America,  and  rarely  a  civil 
word  about  us  printed  in  England.  Whether 
this  ill-will  is  all  historical,  or  partly  pro- 
phetical, I  cannot  say. 

I  implore  my  friends  at  Washington  not 
to  be  too  nasty  in  their  talk  about  John  Bull; 
for  every  idle  word  of  theirs  /  get  banged 
about  the  lot,  till  I  am  all  colors  of  the  rain- 
bow. 

There  are  many  things  of  which  I  would 
fain  discourse  to  you,  but  most  of  them  are 
unfinished  and  not  decent  subjects  of  con- 
versation. Sometime  in  the  future,  for 
which  I  already  begin  to  long,  we  may  have 
our  will  of  them  over  a  pipe  and  a  bottle. 
I  neither  drink  nor  smoke  nor  talk,  but  it 
sounds  jovial. 

X,  the  outcast  wretch,  was  in  town  this 
week,  but  only  gave  me  five  minutes;  he 
was  flying  to  Paris  to  see  Mrs.  C.  Germany 
certainly  queers  a  man's  taste;  fancy  any 
one  preferring  to  see  Mrs.  C.  rather  than  me. 
But  [Senator]  Wolcott  is  coming  to-night. 
C.  F.  Adams  is  here.    He  goes  roaring  about 


that  neither  McKinley  nor  Wolcott  nor  I 
want  the  Commission  [on  Bimetallism]  to 
succeed.    [September  29,  1897.] 

Particularly  characteristic  are  the 
whimsical  passages  in  this  letter. 

Nearly  a  year  later,  when  the  Spanish 
War  was  at  an  end,  Mr.  Hay  sent  these 
greetings  to  the  colonel  of  the  Rough 
Riders: 

I  am  afraid  I  am  the  last  of  your  friends  to 
congratulate  you  on  the  brilliant  campaign 
which  now  seems  drawing  to  a  close,  and  in 
which  you  have  gained  so  much  experience 
and  glory.  When  the  war  began  I  was  like 
the  rest;  I  deplored  your  place  in  the  Navy, 
where  you  were  so  useful  and  so  acceptable. 
But  I  knew  it  was  idle  to  preach  to  a  young 
man.  You  obeyed  your  own  daemon,  and  I 
imagine  we  older  fellows  will  all  have  to  con- 
fess that  you  were  in  the  right.  As  Sir  Walter 
wrote: 

One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name. 

You  have  written  your  name  on  several 
pages  of  your  country's  history,  and  they  are 
all  honorable  to  you  and  comfortable  to  your 
friends. 

It  has  been  a  splendid  little  war;  begun 
with  the  highest  motives,  carried  on  with 
magnificent  intelligence  and  spirit,  favored 
by  that  Fortune  which  loves  the  brave.  It 
is  now  to  be  concluded,  I  hope,  with  that 
fine  good  nature  which  is,  after  all,  the  dis- 
tinguishing trait  of  the  American  character. 
[July  27,  1898.] 

A  few  months  wrought  great  changes 
in  the  position  of  both  correspondents. 
Colonel  Roosevelt  came  back  from  the 
war  and  was  elected  Governor  of  New 
York;  Ambassador  Hay  took  up  in  Oc- 
tober the  work  of  Secretary  of  State. 
The  following  letter  is  from  Governor 
Roosevelt. 

Executive  Mansion,  Albany. 

Feb.  jth,  'gg. 

My  dear  Mr.  Secretary, — Just  a  few 
lines  to  congratulate  you  on  bringing  to  so 
successful  an  end  so  great  a  work.  Ambassa- 
dor and  Secretary  of  State  during  the  most 
important  year  this  Republic  has  seen  since 
Lincoln  died — those  are  positions  worth  fill- 
ing, fraught  with  memories  your  children's 
children  will  recall  with  eager  pride.  You 
have  indeed  led  a  life  eminently  worth  living, 
O  writer  of  books  and  doer  of  deeds! — and, 
in  passing,  builder  of  beautiful  houses  and 
father  of  strong  sons  and  fair  daughters. 

Compared  with  the  great  game  of  which 
Washington  is  the  center,  my  own  work  here 


JOHN  HAY'S  YEARS  WITH  ROOSEVELT 


579 


is  parochial.  But  it  is  interesting,  too;  and 
so  far  I  seem  to  have  been  fairly  successful 
in  overcoming  the  centrifugal  forces  always 
so  strong  in  the  Republican  party.  I  am 
getting  on  well  with  Senator  Piatt,  and  I  am 
apparently  satisfying  the  wishes  of  the  best 
element  in  our  own  party;  of  course  I  have 
only  begun,  but  so  far  I  think  the  state  is  the 
better,  and  the  party  the  stronger,  for  my 
administration. 

With  love  to  Mrs.  Hay,  I  am 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 
Theodore  Roosevelt. 

The  draft  of  the  first  Hay-Pauncefote 
treaty  drew  forth  from  Governor  Roose- 
velt the  following  friendly,  but  keen  and 
emphatic,  criticism,  in  a  private  letter  to 
Secretary  Hay: 

Albany,  Feb.  18th,  igoo. 

I  hesitated  long  before  I  said  anything 
about  the  treaty  through  sheer  dread  of  two 
moments — that  in  which  I  should  receive 
your  note,  and  that  in  which  I  should  receive 
Cabot's.  [Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge.] 
But  I  made  up  my  mind  that  at  least  I 
wished  to  be  on  record;  for  to  my  mind  this 
step  is  one  backward,  and  it  may  be  fraught 
with  very  great  mischief.  You  have  been 
the  greatest  Secretary  of  State  I  have  seen 
in  my  time — Olney  comes  second — but  at 
this  moment  I  cannot,  try  as  I  may,  see  that 
you  are  right.  Understand  me.  When  the 
treaty  is  adopted,  as  I  suppose  it  will  be,  I 
shall  put  the  best  face  possible  on  it,  and 
shall  back  the  Administration  as  heartily  as 
ever;  but,  oh,  how  I  wish  you  and  the  Presi- 
dent would  drop  the  treaty  and  push  through 
a  bill  to  build  and  fortify  our  own  canal. 

My  objections  are  twofold.  First,  as  to 
naval  policy.  If  the  proposed  canal  had  been 
in  existence  in  '98,  the  Oregon  could  have 
come  more  quickly  through  to  the  Atlantic; 
but  this  fact  would  have  been  far  outweighed 
by  the  fact  that  Cervera's  fleet  would  have 
had  open  to  it  the  chance  of  itself  going 
through  the  canal,  and  thence  sailing  to 
attack  Dewey  or  to  menace  our  stripped 
Pacific  coast.  If  that  canal  is  open  to  the 
war-ships  of  an  enemy,  it  is  a  menace  to  us 
in  time  of  war;  it  is  an  added  burden,  an 
additional  strategic  point  to  be  guarded  by 
our  fleet.  If  fortified  by  us,  it  becomes  one 
of  the  most  potent  sources  of  our  possible 
sea  strength.  Unless  so  fortified  it  strength- 
ens against  us  every  nation  whose  fleet  is 
larger  than  ours.  One  prime  reason  for  for- 
tifying our  great  seaports  is  to  unfetter  our 
fleet,  to  release  it  for  offensive  purposes;  and 
the  proposed  canal  would  fetter  it  again,  for 
our  fleet  would  have  to  watch  it,  and  there- 
fore do  the  work  which  a  fort  should  do,  and 
what  it  could  do  much  better. 


Secondly,  as  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  If 
we  invite  foreign  powers  to  a  joint  ownership, 
a  joint  guarantee,  of  what  so  vitally  con- 
cerns us  but  a  little  way  from  our  borders, 
how  can  we  possibly  object  to  similar  joint 
action  say  in  Southern  Brazil  or  Argentina, 
where  our  interests  are  so  much  less  evident? 
If  Germany  has  the  same  right  that  we  have 
in  the  canal  across  Central  America,  why  not 
in  the  partition  of  any  part  of  Southern 
America?  To  my  mind,  we  should  con- 
sistently refuse  to  all  European  powers  the 
right  to  control,  in  any  shape,  any  territory 
in  the  Western  Hemisphere  which  they  do 
not  already  hold. 

As  for  existing  treaties — I  do  not  admit 
the  "dead  hand"  of  the  treaty-making  power 
in  the  past.  A  treaty  can  always  be  hon- 
orably abrogated — though  it  must  never  be 
abrogated  in  dishonest  fashion. 

Yours  ever, 
Theodore  Roosevelt. 

To  understand  the  sarcasm  of  the  next 
paragraph  we  must  remember  that  Gov- 
ernor Roosevelt  proved  too  independent 
to  be  acceptable  to  Senator  Piatt,  the 
Republican  boss  of  New  York  State. 
While  his  popularity  with  the  people  was 
undiminished,  the  machine  found  him  so 
inconvenient  that  it  plotted  to  get  him 
out  of  the  way  by  nominating  him  for 
the  Vice-Presidency.  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
however,  had  no  desire  to  be  put  into 
the  Vice-Presidential  chair,  whose  occu- 
pant, like  that  of  the  dodo's  nest,  be- 
comes painlessly  obsolete.  He  insisted 
that  he  would  be  a  candidate  for  renomi- 
nation,  and  Senator  Piatt  had  to  con- 
sent. Mr.  Hay,  on  June  15,  1900,  wrote 
as  follows  in  confidence  to  his  friend 
Mr.  Henry  White,  at  the  American 
Embassy  in  London: 

Teddy  has  been  here:  have  you  heard  of 
it?  It  was  more  fun  than  a  goat.  He  came 
down  with  a  somber  resolution  thrown  on 
his  strenuous  brow  to  let  McKinley  and 
Hanna  know  once  for  all  that  he  would  not 
be  Vice-President,  and  found  to  his  stupefac- 
tion that  nobody  in  Washington  except 
Piatt  had  ever  dreamed  of  such  a  thing.  He 
did  not  even  have  a  chance  to  launch  his 
nolo  episcopari  at  the  Major.  That  states- 
man said  he  did  not  want  him  on  the  ticket — 
that  he  would  be  far  more  valuable  in  New 
York — and  Root  said,  with  his  frank  and 
murderous  smile,  "Of  course  not — you're  not 
fit  for  it."  And  so  he  went  back  quite  eased 
in  his  mind,  but  considerably  bruised  in  his 
amour  propre. 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  however,  has  always 


580 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


had  a  way  of  surprising  his  friends,  and 
his  opponents,  too,  by  doing  what 
seemed  to  him  the  most  natural  thing; 
and  when  he  found  in  the  convention 
that  the  delegates  from  outside  of  New 
York  State  stampeded  to  him  and  would 
not  nominate  any  one  else,  he  accepted 
the  second  place  on  the  Republican 
ticket. 

Thereupon  Secretary  Hay  sent  him 
the  friendliest  greeting  on  June  21st: 

My  dear  Governor, — As  it  is  all  over  but 
the  shouting,  I  take  a  moment  of  this  cool 
morning  of  the  longest  day  in  the  year  to 
offer  you  my  cordial  congratulations.  The 
week  has  been  a  racking  one  to  you.  But  I 
have  no  doubt  the  future  will  make  amends. 
You  have  received  the  greatest  compliment 
the  country  could  pay  you,  and  although  it 
was  not  precisely  what  you  and  your  friends 
desire,  I  have  no  doubt  it  is  all  for  the  best. 
Nothing  can  keep  you  from  doing  good  work 
wherever  you  are — nor  from  getting  lots  of 
fun  out  of  it. 

We  Washingtonians,  of  course,  have  our 
own  little  point  of  view.  You  can't  lose  us; 
and  we  shall  be  uncommonly  glad  to  see 
you  here  again. 

During  the  few  months  when  Mr. 
Roosevelt  served  as  Vice-President  his 
relations  with  the  Secretary  seem  to 
have  been  purely  social,  with  no  inter- 
change of  letters.  Then,  suddenly,  the 
assassination  of  President  McKinley 
'brought  the  "young  fellow  of  infinite 
dash  and  originality" — as  Hay  de- 
scribed him  to  Lady  Jeune — into  the 
White  House.  On  September  15,  1901, 
the  Secretary  wrote  to  the  new  Presi- 
dent: 

My  dear  Roosevelt, — If  the  Presidency 
had  come  to  you  in  any  other  way,  no  one 
would  have  congratulated  you  with  better 
heart  than  I.  My  sincere  affection  and 
esteem  for  you,  my  old-time  love  for  your 
father — would  he  could  have  lived  to  see  you 
where  you  are! — would  have  been  deeply 
gratified. 

And  even  from  the  depths  of  the  sorrow 
where  I  sit,  with  my  grief  for  the  President 
mingled  and  confused  with  that  for  my  boy, 
so  that  I  scarcely  know,  from  hour  to  hour, 
the  true  source  of  my  tears — I  do  still  con- 
gratulate you,  not  only  on  the  opening  of  an 
official  career  which  I  know  will  be  glorious, 
but  upon  the  vast  opportunity  for  useful 
work  which  lies  before  you.  With  your 
youth,  your  ability,  your  health  and  strength, 
the  courage  God  has  given  you  to  do  right, 


there  are  no  bounds  to  the  good  you  can 
accomplish  for  your  country  and  the  name 
you  will  leave  in  its  annals. 

My  official  life  is  at  an  end — my  natural 
life  will  not  be  long  extended;  and  so,  in  the 
dawn  of  what  I  am  sure  will  be  a  great  and 
splendid  future,  I  venture  to  give  you  the 
heartfelt  benediction  of  the  past. 

God  bless  you. 

Yours  faithfully, 

John  Hay. 

On  reaching  Washington,  Mr.  Hay 
met  the  President  at  the  railway  station; 
and  Mr.  Roosevelt,  instead  of  listening 
to  the  Secretary's  desire  to  resign,  made 
him  promise  to  stay  on  and  carry  out  the 
work  he  was  doing. 

I  saw  it  was  best  for  him  to  start  oflf  that 
way,  and  so  I  said  I  would  stay,  for  ever  of 
course,  for  it  would  be  worse  to  say  I  would 
stay  a  while  than  it  would  be  to  go  out  at 
once. 

Until  Mr.  Hay's  death,  nearly  four 
years  later,  he  and  President  Roosevelt 
lived  on  intimate  terms,  official  and  per- 
sonal. The  President  enjoyed  Hay's 
sparkling  conversation  and  irony;  Hay 
enjoyed  the  President's  vigor  and  down- 
rightness,  his  humor  and  dash  and  tal- 
ents, and  his  enlivening  surprises;  he 
felt,  too,  the  President's  masterful  grip 
on  the  international  relations  of  the 
government.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  a  vora- 
cious reader,  found  in  Mr.  Hay  not  only 
a  lover  of  literature,  but  a  maker  of  it, 
and  a  critic  of  fine  taste.  A  day  rarely 
went  by  when  the  Secretary  and  his 
chief  did  not  meet  to  confer  on  public 
matters,  and  on  the  frequent  notes 
passed  between  them  there  were  often 
jotted  informal  comments  or  witty 
asides.  On  Sundays,  after  church,  the 
President  stopped  regularly  at  the  Sec- 
retary's for  a  chat. 

The  following  letter,  for  example, 
shows  how  Hay's  sense  of  humor  enabled 
him  to  refer  playfully  to  a  matter  which, 
in  Berlin,  seemed  monstrously  impor- 
tant. The  Kaiser  had  had  struck  off 
medals  to  commemorate  the  glories  of 
the  German  army  in  China,  and  ap- 
parently the  official  of  the  German  em- 
bassy, who  was  ordered  to  present  one  of 
these  tokens  to  President  Roosevelt, 
was  almost  overpowered  at  the  honor 
which  the  President  was  about  to  re- 
ceive. 


JOHN  HAY'S  YEARS  WITH  ROOSEVELT 


581 


Count  Quadt  has  been  hovering  around 
the  State  Department  in  ever-narrowing  cir- 
cles for  three  days,  and  at  last  swooped  upon 
me  this  afternoon,  saying  that  the  Foreign 
Office,  and  even  the  Palace,  Unter  den  Lin- 
den, was  in  a  state  of  intense  anxiety  to  know 
how  you  received  his  Majesty's  Chinese 
medal,  conferred  only  upon  the  greatest 
sovereigns.  As  I  had  not  been  authorized  by 
you  to  express  your  emotions,  I  had  to  sail 
by  dead  reckoning,  and,  considering  the  vast 
intrinsic  value  of  the  souvenir — I  should  say 
at  least  thirty-five  cents — and  its  wonderful 
artistic  merit,  representing  the  German 
Eagle  eviscerating  the  Black  Dragon,  and 
its  historical  accuracy,  which  gives  the  world 
to  understand  that  Germany  was  IT  and  the 
rest  of  the  universe  nowhere,  I  took  the  re- 
sponsibility of  saying  to  Count  Quadt  that 
the  President  could  not  have  received  the 
medal  with  anything  but  emotions  of  pleas- 
ure commensurate  with  the  high  appreciation 
he  entertains  for  the  Emperor's  majesty,  and 
that  a  formal  acknowledgment  would  be 
made  in  due  course.  He  asked  me  if  he  was 
at  liberty  to  say  something  like  this  to  his 
government,  and  I  said  he  was  at  liberty  to 
say  whatever  the  spirit  moved  him  to  utter. 

I  give  thanks  to  ''whatever  powers  there 
be"  that  I  was  able  to  allow  him  to  leave  the 
room  without  quoting  " quantula  sapiential" 
[November  12,  1901.] 

On  Christmas  Day,  1901,  the  Presi- 
dent sent  this  little  note  to  the  Secre- 
tary, to  whom  death  had  brought  in  the 
space  of  a  few  months  the  loss  of  his  son 
Adelbert,  of  President  McKinley,  of 
John  G.  Nicolay,  and  now  of  Clarence 
King: 

Dear  John, — I  am  very,  very  sorry;  I 
know  it  is  useless  for  me  to  say  so — but  I  do 
feel  deeply  for  you.  You  have  been  well 
within  range  of  the  rifle-pits  this  year — so 
near  that  I  do  not  venture  to  wish  you  a 
merry  Christmas.  But  may  all  good  hence- 
forth go  with  you  and  yours. 

Your  attached  friend, 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

In  1902  President  Roosevelt  and  Sec- 
retary Hay  attended  the  Harvard  Com- 
mencement exercises,  where  both  re- 
ceived the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws.  At 
the  dinner  President  Roosevelt  made  a 
stirring  speech  in  which,  after  declaring 
that  it  was  "injdeed  a  liberal  education 
in  high-minded  statesmanship  to  sit  at 
the  same  council-table  with  John  Hay," 
he  eulogized  the  great  work  of  Wood, 
Taft,  and  Root. 


The  next  day  Mr.  Hay  wrote  him  from 
the  Hotel  Touraine,  Boston: 

Dear  Theodore, — I  must  congratulate 
you  with  all  my  heart  on  yesterday's  tri- 
umph— it  was  nothing  less.  That  great  com- 
pany was  a  corps  d?  elite,  and  you  had  them 
with  you  from  start  to  finish.  President 
Eliot,  when  you  sat  down,  said:  "What  a 
man!  Genius,  force,  and  courage,  and  such 
evident  honesty!" 

And  another  thought  was  in  everybody's 
mind  also.  "He  is  so  young  and  he  will  be 
with  us  for  many  a  day  to  come."  We  are 
all  glad  of  that — even  the  old  fellows  who 
are  passing. 

I  can  never  tell  you  how  much  I  thank  you 
for  your  kind  reference  to  me.  But  your 
splendid  defense  of  Root,  Wood,  and  Taft 
touched  me  still  more  deeply.  It  was  the 
speech  of  a  great  man,  and  a  great  gentleman 
— and  will  not  be  forgotten. 

Yours  affectionately, 

John  Hay. 

The  little  note,  undated,  which  fol- 
lows seems  to  refer  to  a  literary  point 
which  had  come  up  in  conversation: 

Dear  Theodore, — 
"  Sweet  bird,  that  shunn'st  the  noise  of  Folly, 

Most  musical,  most  melancholy!" 

— II  Penseroso. 

"With  thee  conversing  I  forget  all" 
authorities. 

J.  H. 

In  the  spring  of  1903  the  President 
made  a  tour  to  the  Pacific,  during  which 
he  addressed  many  gatherings.  On 
April  5th  Hay  writes: 

Your  speeches  have  been  admirable — 
strong,  lucid,  and  eloquent;  they  will  make 
a  splendid  platform  for  next  year. 

They  are  having  an  extraordinary  recep- 
tion all  over  the  country.  I  send  you  a  leader 
from  to-day's  Sun.  It  carries  out  what  I 
said  the  other  day — they  are  going  to  give 
you  a  hearty  support.  Root  made  a  very 
fine  speech  in  Boston.  .  .  .  Do  not  let  them 
work  you  too  hard.  Wisconsin  has  been 
terribly  exacting.  You  owe  something  to  the 
rest  of  the  country — not  to  speak  of  Mrs. 
Roosevelt  and  the  children. 

The  next  note  refers  to  messages  ad- 
dressed to  Edward  VII.  and  William  II. 
at  the  time  of  the  cruise  of  the  American 
fleet  abroad. 

I  thank  you  a  thousand  times  for  your  kind 
and  generous  letter  of  the  nth.  It  is  a  com- 
fort to  work  for  a  President  who,  besides  be- 
ing a  lot  of  other  things,  happened  to  be  born 
a  gentleman.  .  .  . 


582 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Perhaps  you  may  think  your  telegram  to 
King  Edward  rather  deficient  in  warmth. 
But  you  did  not  want  to  make  it  warmer 
than  the  one  to  your  great  and  good  friend 
William.  I  am  always  in  favor  of  the  ne 
quid  nimium.  The  whole  cruise  has  been  a 
great  success.  Germany  and  England  have 
both  bid  high,  and  our  attitude  of  platonic 
friendship  to  both  has  been  well  maintained. 
[July  13,  1903.] 

From  January  1,  1904,  until  a  few 
days  before  his  death  on  July  1,  1905, 
John  Hay  kept  a  diary,  from  which  I 
extract  the  most  interesting  passages 
about  Mr.  Roosevelt. 

1904.  January  17. — The  President  came  in 
for  an  hour  and  talked  very  amusingly  on 
many  matters.  Among  others  he  spoke  of  a 
letter  he  had  received  from  an  old  lady  in 
Canada  denouncing  him  for  having  drunk  a 
toast  to  Helen  [Hay]  at  her  wedding  two 
years  ago.  The  good  soul  had  waited  two 
years,  hoping  that  the  pulpit  or  the  press 
would  take  up  this  enormity.  "Think,"  she 
said,  "of  the  effect  on  your  friends,  on  your 
children,  on  your  immortal  soul,  of  such  a 
thoughtless  act." 

March  14. — We  lunched  with  the  Presi- 
dent; Cardinal  Gibbons,  the  Hengelmiillers, 
Thayers,  and  others  were  there.  .  .  .  The 
Cardinal  told  the  President  he  hoped  ear- 
nestly for  his  election.  He  is  deeply  dis- 
gusted with  the  campaign  of  Gorman  against 
the  negroes.  He  told  the  President  that  he 
had  seen  a  memorial  drawn  up  by  an  eminent 
lawyer  in  favor  of  paying  a  large  sum  to 
Colombia  for  her  rights  in  Panama.  He 
would  not  tell  the  name  of  the  eminent  law- 
yer, but  a  light  of  recognition  came  into  his 
cold  blue  eye  when  the  President  told  him 
that  X  favored  paying  the  money  to  Reyes, 
as  that  would  strengthen  the  Liberals  as 
against  the  Clericals!^ 

March  18.— At  the  Cabinet  meeting  to- 
day the  President  said  some  one  had  written 
asking  if  he  wanted  to  annex  any  more 
islands.  He  answered  "about  as  much  as  a 
gorged  anaconda  wants  to  swallow  a  porcu- 
pine wrong  end  to."  .  .  .  He  was  ereintering 
some  one,  when  it  was  observed  that  the 
man  was  doubtless  conscientious.  "Well," 
he  burst  out,  "if  a  man  has  a  conscience 
which  leads  him  to  do  things  like  that,  he 
should  take  it  out  and  look  at  it — for  it  is 
unhealthy." 

March  20. — The  President  talked  of  the 
situation,  which  seems  to  him  very  rosy: 
he  thinks  that  Congress  will  adjourn  by  the 
first  of  May,  and  that  everything  will  go 
smoothly  during  the  summer;  that  Parker 
will  probably  be  nominated  by  the  Demo- 


crats, but  that  he  will  not  be  formidable. 
The  things  that  annoy  him  most  are  trifles; 
such  as  the  cost  of  the  White  House  improve- 
ments, the  upholstering  of  the  Mayflower, 
etc.  He  has  heard  that  some  people  in  New 
York  have  said  he  was  a  grotesque  figure  in 
the  White  House,  and  wonders  what  they 
mean. 

March  2J. — The  President  is  much  pre- 
occupied about  the  Chairmanship  of  the 
National  Committee.  His  mind  is  now 
turned  to  Root.  I  should  be  glad  if  he  would 
take  it;  it  would  still  further  extend  his 
reputation  and  his  national  standing  to  carry 
on  a  campaign  which  is  sure  to  be  interesting 
and  wholesome  and  crowned  by  a  great  suc- 
cess. It  would  be  an  advantage  also  to  the 
party  to  keep  its  best  men  like  Root  and 
Taft,  etc.,  as  much  to  the  front  as  possible, 
for  the  sake  of  contrast,  etc. 

April  10. — The  President  came  in  and 
talked  mostly  about  the  situation  in  New 
York,  which  annoys  him  greatly  and  some- 
what alarms  him.  He  sees  a  good  many 
lions  in  the  path — but  I  told  him  of  the  far 
greater  beasts  that  appeared  to  some  people, 
as  in  Lincoln's  way,  which  turned  out  to  be 
only  bob-cats  after  all. 

April  26. — At  the  Cabinet  this  morning 
the  President  talked  of  his  Japanese  wrestler 
who  is  giving  him  lessons  in  jiu-jitsu.  He 
says  the  muscles  of  his  throat  are  so  power- 
fully developed  by  training  that  it  is  impos- 
sible for  any  ordinary  man  to  strangle  him. 
If  the  President  succeeds,  once  in  a  while,  in 
getting  the  better  of  him,  he  says,  "Good! 
lovely!" 

May  8. — The  President  was  reading  Em- 
erson's "Days"  and  came  to  the  wonderful 
closing  line:  "I,  too  late,  Under  her  solemn 
fillet  saw  the  scorn."  I  said,  "I  fancy  you 
do  not  know  what  that  means." — "Oh,  do 
I  not?  Perhaps  the  greatest  men  do  not, 
but  I  in  my  soul  know  I  am  but  the  average 
man,  and  that  only  marvelous  good  fortune 
has  brought  me  where  I  am." 

May  12. — Bade  the  President  good-by. 
He  said  with  jeering  good  nature  he  hoped 
I  would  enjoy  my  well-earned  rest.  [Mr. 
Hay  was  going  to  make  an  address  at  the 
World's  Fair  in  St.  Louis.] 

June  5. — [The  President]  spoke  of  his  own 
speeches,  saying  he  knew  there  was  not  much 
in  them  except  a  certain  sincerity  and  kind 
of  commonplace  morality  which  put  him 
en  rapport  with  the  people  he  talked  with.  He 
told  me  with  singular  humor  and  reckless- 
ness of  the  way  X  and  the  late  lamented 
Holls  tried  to  put  him  on  his  guard  against 
me. 

June  21, — The  President  returned  from 
Valley  Forge  yesterday,  and  we  all  congratu- 
lated him  at  the  Cabinet  meeting  to-day  on 


JOHN  HAY'S  YEARS  WITH  ROOSEVELT 


583 


his  sermon  on  Sunday.  It  seems  it  was  en- 
tirely impromptu,  Knox  having  asked  him 
to  speak  only  just  before  church-time.  K. 
says  the  question  what  is  to  become  of 
Roosevelt  after  1908  is  easily  answered,  he 
should  be  made  a  bishop. 

August  II. — I  dined  with  the  President 
last  night.  .  .  .  After  dinner  we  adjourned 
to  the  library,  and  the  President  read  his  let- 
ter of  acceptance.  I  was  struck  with  the 
readiness  with  which  he  accepted  every  sug- 
gestion which  was  made. 

August  13. — I  went  to  the  White  House 
this  morning  and  found  the  President  scream- 
ing with  delight  over  a  proposition  in  the 
Nezv  York  Evening  Post  that  Wayne  Mac- 
Veagh  should  be  Secretary  of  State  in  Par- 
ker's Cabinet.  So  the  dear  Wayne  has 
wearied  of  waiting  for  my  envied  shoes  at 
the  hands  of  Roosevelt. 

October  17. — I  lunched  at  the  White  House 
— nobody  else  but  Yves  Guyot  and  Theodore 
Stanton.  The  President  talked  with  great 
energy  and  perfect  ease  the  most  curious 
French  I  ever  listened  to.  It  was  absolutely 
lawless  as  to  grammar  and  occasionally  bank- 
rupt in  substantives;  but  he  had  not  the 
least  difficulty  in  making  himself  understood, 
and  one  subject  did  not  worry  him  more  than 
another. 

October  23. — The  President  came  in  this 
morning  badly  bunged  about  the  head  and 
face.  His  horse  fell  with  him  yesterday  and 
gave  him  a  bad  fall.  It  did  not  occur  to  me 
till  after  he  had  gone  that  I  had  come  so  near 
a  fatal  elevation  to  a  short  term  of  the 
Presidency.1    Dei  avertite  omen! 

He  was  in  high  spirits,  though  he  always 
speaks  of  the  election  as  uncertain.  I  showed 
him  Lincoln's  Pledge  of  August,  1864,  writ- 
ten when  he  thought  McClellan  might  be 
elected.  He  was  much  impressed,  and  went 
on,  as  he  often  does,  to  compare  Lincoln's 
great  trials  with  what  he  calls  his  little  onesr 
He  asked  me  to  read  Stannard  Baker's  article 
about  him  in  McClure's,  which  he  likes. 

October  30. — The  President  came  in  for  an 
hour.  We  talked  awhile  about  the  campaign, 
and  at  last  he  said:  "It  seems  a  cheap  sort 
of  thing  to  say,  and  I  would  not  say  it  to 
other  people,  but  laying  aside  my  own  great 
personal  interests  and  hopes — for  of  course 
I  desire  intensely  to  succeed — I  have  the 
greatest  pride  that  in  this  fight  we  are  not 
only  making  it  on  clearly  avowed  principles, 
but  we  have  the  principles  and  the  record  to 
avow.  How  can  I  help  being  a  little  proud 
when  I  contrast  the  men  and  the  considera- 
tions by  which  I  am  attacked,  and  those 
by  which  I  am  defended?" 

1  There  being  no  Vice-President,  Mr.  Hay,  as 
Secretary  of  State,  stood  next  in  line  of  succession 
to  the  Presidency. 


November  5. — The  President's  fall  from  his 
horse  ten  days  ago  might  have  been  very 
serious.  He  landed  fairly  on  his  head,  and 
his  neck  and  shoulders  were  severely 
wrenched.  For  a  few  days  there  seemed  a 
possibility  of  meningitis.  But  he  is  strong 
and  well-knit,  and  the  spine  escaped  injury. 
I  am  thankful  to  have  escaped  a  four  months' 
troubled  term  of  the  Presidency.  Strange 
that  twice  I  have  come  so  hideously  near  it — 
once  at  Lenox  and  now  with  a  hole-in-a- 
bridge.  The  President  will  of  course  outlive 
me,  but  he  will  not  live  to  be  old. 

November  5. — This  morning  the  President 
published  his  answer  to  Parker's  stupid  slan- 
ders.2 I  was  sorry  for  the  necessity  of  it,  but 
of  course  he  could  not  let  these  blatant  false- 
hoods go  uncorrected,  and  nobody  but  him 
could  give  a  satisfactory  answer.  I  wrote 
a  letter  about  it  myself,  but  did  not  print 
it,  as  I  felt  sure  that  Parker  would  continue 
to  say  Roosevelt  admitted  his  guilt  by  si- 
lence. So  the  only  way  was  to  give  him  the 
lie  direct — and  I  think  the  President  did  it 
very  effectively.  .  .  . 

1  went  to  see  the  President.  He  said: 
"I  did  not  show  you  my  statement  because 
I  thought  you  might  not  approve,  and  I  did 
not  want  to  be  persuaded  out  of  it."  He  said 
further  that  he  had  to  do  it  now  or  never — 
as,  whatever  might  be  the  result  of  the  elec- 
tion, he  could  not  refer  to  it  afterward. 

November  6. — The  President  came  in  this 
morning  radiant  over  the  effect  of  his  state- 
ment and  Parker's  speech,  which  seemed  to 
him,  as  it  did  to  me,  a  complete  collapse  of 
his  accusations.  He  has  evidently  thought 
for  a  week  past  that  the  President  would  not 
answer  him,  and  he  was  exulting  in  his  im- 
munity, when  all  at  once  he  was  struck  silly 
by  this  unexpected  bolt  from  the  blue.  He 
has  "softly  and  silently  vanished  away  in  the 
midst  of  his  boisterous  glee."  The  Snark  was 
a  Boojum. 

The  President  said  he  felt  a  repose  of  mind 
to-day  he  had  never  felt  before.  He  sup- 
posed, from  what  his  friends  said,  that  he 
should  probably  be  elected;  but,  whether 
successful  or  not,  he  should  feel  that  he  had 
gone  through  the  campaign  on  his  character, 
and  that  this,  the  only  attack  on  his  honor, 
had  been  met  and  refuted.  He  was  particu- 
larly gratified  at  the  way  in  which  he  had 
been  supported:  the  other  side  had  nothing 
to  compare  with  the  speeches  of  Root  and 
Taft  and  Knox,  and  he  was  good  enough  to 
include  me — "though  I  had  trouble  enough 
to  get  you  on  the  platform." 

November  8. — I  went  over  to  the  White 

2  At  the  close  of  the  campaign  Judge  Alton  B. 
Parker,  the  Democratic  candidate,  accused  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt  of  employing  a  large  corruption 
fund. 


584 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


House  at  a  quarter  after  nine,  thinking  that 
the  returns  must  have  begun  to  come  by 
that  time.  I  found  the  Red  Parlor  full  of 
people,  the  President  in  the  midst  of  them 
with  his  hands  full  of  telegrams.  I  asked 
him  if  he  had  anything  decisive  as  yet.  He 
said:  "Yes.  Judge  Parker  has  sent  his  con- 
gratulations." .  .  .  Everywhere  the  majori- 
ties are  overwhelming.  .  .  .  "I  am  glad," 
said  Roosevelt,  "to  be  President  in  my  own 
right." 

November  12. — The  papers  this  morning 
announce  on  the  authority  of  the  President 
that  I  am  to  remain  Secretary  of  State  for 
the  next  four  years.  He  did  it  in  a  moment 
of  emotion — I  cannot  exactly  see  why — for 
he  has  never  discussed  the  matter  seriously 
with  me,  and  I  have  never  said  I  would  stay. 
I  have  always  deprecated  the  idea,  saying 
there  was  not  four  years'  work  in  me:  now 
I  shall  have  to  go  along  awhile  longer,  as  it 
would  be  a  scandal  to  contradict  him. 

J.  B.  Bishop  told  me  to-day  of  the  tumul- 
tuous dinner  last  night  at  the  White  House, 
and  the  speechless  amazement  of  John  Mor- 
ley  at  the  jaconde  of  the  President.  He  said 
afterward  to  Bishop,  "The  two  things  in 
America  which  seem  to  me  most  extraordi- 
nary are  Niagara  Falls  and  President  Roose- 
velt." 

November  20. — I  read  the  President's  mes- 
sage in  the  afternoon.  .  .  .  Made  several 
suggestions  as  to  changes  and  omissions. 
The  President  came  in  just  as  I  had  finished 
and  we  went  over  the  matter  together.  He 
accepted  my  ideas  with  that  singular  amia- 
bility and  open-mindedness  which  form  so 
striking  a  contrast  with  the  general  idea  of 
his  brusque  and  arbitrary  character. 

December  4. — The  President  talked  about 
revision.  He  has  omitted  the  passage  about 
the  tariff  from  his  message,  and  rather  doubts 
whether  he  can  find  enough  support  in  Con- 
gress for  attempting  any  revision  at  pres- 
ent. .  .  . 

He  told  me  to  say  to  [Henry]  White  that 
he  would  expect  the  resignations  of  all  the 
ambassadors  in  the  spring,  as  well  as  those 
of  the  Cabinet.  .  .  .  He  is  trying  to  harden 
his  heart,  in  several  directions,  but  I  doubt 
very  much  if  he  succeeds. 

December  25. — The  President  came  in  out 
of  the  snow-storm  looking  as  breezy  as  the 
weather.  He  had  just  got  Choate's  resigna- 
tion [as  ambassador  to  Great  Britain]  and 
was  charmed  by  the  tone  of  his  letter.  He 
will  leave  to  him  the  time  and  manner  of  his 
recall.  He  was  a  little  annoyed  at  being  told 
by  that  McKinley  had  promised  [White- 
law]  Reid  the  place.  I  assured  him  there 
was  nothing  in  it.  People  like  instinctively 
to  diminish  their  apparent  obligations  by 
assigning  part  of  the  load  to  the  dead.  .  .  . 


I  sent  him  a  MS.  Norse  Saga  of  William 
Morris.   He  replied  in  a  charming  letter. 

1905.  January  1. — The  President  came 
in  at  12.15,  saying  it  seemed  more  like  Easter 
than  New-Year's.  We  talked  of  the  Bureau 
of  American  Republics  without  coming  to 
any  conclusion.  .  .  .  He  is  quite  firm  in  the 
view  that  we  cannot  permit  Japan  to  be 
robbed  a  second  time  of  the  fruits  of  her 
victory — if  victory  should  finally  be  hers. 

January  3. — Little  of  importance  at  Cab- 
inet meeting.  The  President  was  talking  of 
an  erring  chaplain,  which  reminded  Morton 
of  a  Methodist  who,  in  giving  an  account  of 
himself  on  the  witness-stand,  said  he  had 
been  an  exhorter  for  twenty  years,  but  for 
only  six  a  regular  licentious  preacher. 

Secretary  Hay's  records  during  the 
months  of  January  and  February  are 
largely  taken  up  with  memoranda  on  the 
arbitration  treaties  which  the  Senate 
ruined,  as  he  and  the  President  thought, 
by  amendments;  on  negotiations  for 
protecting  China,  and  on  the  closing 
stages  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War.  Here 
is  a  vivid  description  of  Mr.  Roosevelt 
dictating: 

February  27. — The  President  asked  me  to 
dine  at  the  White  House,  as  Root  was  to  be 
there,  and  he  wanted  to  talk  over  Santo  Do- 
mingo. After  dinner  we  went  to  the  study 
up-stairs  and  for  two  hours  went  over  the 
whole  business.  The  President  sent  for  his 
stenographer  and  dictated  a  brief  message  he 
proposes  to  send  to  the  Senate  next  week. 
It  was  a  curious  sight.  I  have  often  seen  it, 
and  it  never  ceases  to  surprise  me.  He 
storms  up  and  down  the  room,  dictating  in  a 
loud  and  oratorical  tone,  often  stopping,  re- 
casting a  sentence,  striking  out  and  filling  in, 
hospitable  to  every  suggestion,  not  in  the 
least  disturbed  by  interruption,  holding  on 
stoutly  to  his  purpose,  and  producing  finally 
out  of  these  most  unpromising  conditions  a 
clear  and  logical  statement,  which  he  could 
not  improve  with  solitude  and  leisure  at  his 
command. 

Meanwhile  Secretary  Hay's  health, 
which  had  been  visibly  declining  for 
several  months,  showed  such  alarming 
symptoms  that  his  physicians  prescribed 
for  him  a  complete  rest  from  official 
duties  and  treatment  at  Nauheim.  On 
March  3d  he  sent  the  President  a  ring, 
with  this  note: 

Washington,  March  3,  1905.  > 
Dear  Theodore, — The  hair  in  this  ring  is 
cut  from  the  head  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Dr. 


JOHN  HAY'S  YEARS  WITH  ROOSEVELT 


585 


Taft  cut  it  off  the  night  of  the  assassination, 
and  I  got  it  from  his  son — a  brief  pedigree. 

Please  wear  it  to-morrow;  you  are  one  of 
the  men  who  most  thoroughly  understand 
and  appreciate  Lincoln. 

I  have  had  your  monogram  and  Lincoln's 
engraved  on  the  ring. 

Longas  0  utinam,  dux  bone,  ferias 
Praestes  Hesperiae. 

March  4. — The  President  wrote  me  last 
night  a  charming  letter  of  thanks  for  the 
Lincoln  ring  I  gave  him.  He  wore  it  to-day 
at  his  inauguration,  and  seemed  greatly 
pleased  to  have  it.  .  .  .  The  President  took 
the  oath  in  a  clear,  resonant  voice,  and  then 
delivered  his  Inaugural.  The  high  wind 
made  speaking  difficult,  but  his  voice  lasted 
well — the  address  was  short  and  in  excellent 
temper  and  manner. 

March  5. — The  President  sent  me  a  note 
this  morning  saying  he  wished  to  see  me,  but 
that  he  would  prefer  I  should  come  to  him 
this  morning,  instead  of  expecting  him  here 
as  usual.  I  went  over  to  the  White  House 
and  saw  the  reason  of  his  action.  Every 
approach  was  filled  with  a  curious  crowd. 
They  swarmed  over  the  porch  and  stood 
staring  in  the  windows.  As  I  came  into  his 
study  the  President  started  up  with  a  jar  of 
lilies  in  his  hand  and  came  to  the  door  to 
greet  me — recalling  Bunthorne  "Walking 
down  Piccadilly  with  a  poppy  or  a  lily  in  his 
medieval  hand."  He  said:  "You  will  see 
why  I  asked  you  to  come  over.  If  I  had 
come,  I  should  have  arrived  at  your  door 
with  a  tail  like  a  Highland  chief." 

March  12. — The  President  came  this  morn- 
ing, wearing  an  overcoat,  a  garment  which 
his  hardy  habit  generally  rejects.  .  .  . 

I  tried  to  walk  this  afternoon,  but  it  was 
tough  work.  By  going  very  slowly  and  stop- 
ping often  I  was  able  to  cover  about  a  mile — 
but  the  pain  does  not  pass  away  as  it  used. 
It  continued  all  the  way  home. 

That  last  item  indicates  the  serious- 
ness of  Mr.  Hay's  condition.  The  fol- 
lowing Saturday  he  embarked,  in  an  al- 
most desperate  condition,  on  the  Cretic 
for  Genoa.    After  resting  in  Italy,  he 


went  to  take  the  cure  at  Nauheim.  His 
improvement  was  very  slow.  On  May 
20th  he  wrote  the  President: 

I  hate  to  be  in  this  condition  of  Mahomet's 
coffin.  If  I  were  fit  for  work,  I  would  gladly 
go  back  to  my  desk.  If  I  were  ready  for  the 
knacker,  I  would  at  once  get  out  of  the  way. 
But  when  all  the  doctors  tell  me  I  am  going 
to  get  well,  but  that  it  will  be  a  matter  of 
some  months  yet,  I  feel  that  I  ought  not  to 
be  a  dead  weight  in  the  boat  for  an  indefinite 
time.  ...  I  need  not  say  that  when  you 
think  a  change  would  be,  for  any  reason, 
advisable,  I  shall  go.  I  don't  say  willingly, 
but,  as  Browning  says, 

Go  dispiritedly,  glad  to  finish. 

My  association  with  you  has  been  alto- 
gether delightful,  and  if  there  is  to  be  any 
space  left  me  for  memory,  I  shall  always  re- 
member it  with  pleasure  and  gratitude. 

Having  lived  to  reach  home,  Hay  im- 
prudently visited  Washington  for  a  few 
days,  to  confer  with  the  President  and 
"clear  his  desk."  The  last  memoran- 
dum in  his  diary  re^ds: 

June  18. — Spent  the  evening  at  the  White 
House.  The  President  gave  me  an  interest- 
ing account  of  the  Peace  Negotiations — 
which  he  undertook  at  the  suggestion  of 
Japan.  He  was  struck  with  the  vacillation 
and  weakness  of  purpose  shown  by  Russia; 
and  was  not  well  pleased  that  Japan  refused 
to  go  to  The  Hague. 

Taft  came  in  and  we  talked  of  the  Bowen- 
Loomis  matter  and  the  Chinese  Exclusion. 
The  President  is  determined  to  put  a  stop 
to  the  barbarous  methods  of  the  Immigration 
Bureau. 

On  June  24th  Secretary  Hay,  thor- 
oughly exhausted,  reached  his  summer 
home  at  Newbury,  New  Hampshire. 
There  he  died  on  July  I,  1905.  The 
quotations  I  have  given  serve  to  outline 
John  Hay's  portrait  of  Theodore  Roose- 
velt and  to  record  a  memorable  friend- 
ship. 


Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.-73 


The  Way  of  the  Reformer 


BY  HOWARD   BRU BAKER 


HE  boyhood  of  Lake- 
ville  trooped  through 
the  changing  seasons  in 
close  formation;  it  had 
no  use  for  advance- 
guards,  no  sympathy 
for  stragglers.  When 
society  decreed  that  it  was  time  to 
bounce  hard-rubber  balls  upon  side- 
walks, all  the  world  went  a-bouncing — 
until  potato-shooters  came  in  and  made 
bouncing  ridiculous.  A  nameless  paper 
device  that  produced  a  valuable  noise, 
a  button  buzzing  on  strings,  a  willow 
whistle,  each  strutted  and  fretted  its 
hour  upon  the  stage,  then  jackstones  be- 
came the  rage,  subject  to  change  without 
notice.  At  early  frost-time  when  the  air 
was  blue  and  pungent  with  burning 
leaves  all  the  best  people  wore  walnut 
stains  upon  their  fingers.  A  dry  place 
upon  the  bare  ground,  a  knuckle-warm- 
ing sun  and  a  shop-window  display, 
mixed  in  the  crucible  of  spring,  and  sud- 
denly it  could  be  seen  that  daylight  was 
made  for  marbles.  Now  it  was  a  mat- 
ter of  social  solidarity  to  be  lumpy  in 
contour  and  to  rattle  when  you  walked. 

Ranny  was  three  days  overdue  as  a 
marble  fiend,  and  was  beginning  to  feel 
like  a  fossil,  when  on  an  April  Saturday 
morning  of  mellow  breezes  he  came  into 
money.  This  ten  cents  was  a  weekly 
tribute  levied  upon  mother  for  alleged 
services  in  drying  dishes.  Ordinarily 
Ranny  did  not  spend  his  income  at  once, 
but  by  dribbling  it  into  his  interior 
sometimes  made  it  last  until  well  toward 
noon.  To-day,  however,  as  he  advanced 
along  the  sidewalk  by  an  elaborate  sys- 
tem of  hops  and  skips — a  method  of  loco- 
motion of  his  own  discovery — he  had 
bolder  and  nobler  plans. 

Presently  he  met  his  friend  Tom 
Rucker,  who  was  indulging  in  the  soli- 
tary pleasure  of  kicking  a  tin  can  along 
the  walk.  Tom  was,  of  all  persons,  the 
one  whom  Ranny  most  desired  to  see, 
but  the  coincidence  need  not  appear 


striking,  as  they  were  on  the  way  to  each 
other's  homes. 

"'Lo,  Tom!"  said  Ranny,  giving  the 
can  a  sociable  kick. 

"Did  ya  git  it?"  asked  Tom. 

Ranny  displayed  two  nickels.  "Come 
on  to  Mis'  Leonard's,"  he  said. 

"Aw,  Mis'  Leonard's  is  no  good  Fr 
marbles.  Le's  go  down-town.  Ya  git 
more." 

It  was  a  tragic  fact,  frequently  men- 
tioned to  customers  by  the  perennially 
tearful  Mrs.  Leonard,  that  she  could  not 
compete  with  the  larger  stores  down- 
town. Her  little  shop  in  the  residence 
district  was  an  economic  error  living 
precariously  upon  the  bad  memories  of 
adults  and  the  temptations  of  youth.  As 
Ranny  had  no  prejudice  in  her  favor, 
the  tin  can  was  now  belabored  toward 
the  busier  marts  of  trade  and  was  soon 
abandoned  in  favor  of  a  hitch  on  the 
back  of  Alleston's  delivery-wagon.  The 
two  boys  rode  almost  a  block  before 
they  were  discovered  and  chased  off. 

Tom  Rucker,  connoisseur  and  col- 
lector of  marbles,  led  his  friend  to  the 
completest  stock  in  Lakeville  and  gave 
out  free  advice  in  the  purchase,  produc- 
ing from  his  own  pocket  examples  of 
what  heights  of  excellence  marbles  can 
reach.  They  examined  hypocritically 
a  number  of  cornelians,  although  both 
knew  that  Ranny  was  in  no  position  to 
buy  such  luxuries.  Finally  they  settled 
upon  a  glassy  as  a  shooter,  and  a  line  of 
aggies,  commies,  and  white  alleys.  The 
commies  were  the  cheapest  of  all,  due 
in  part  to  the  fact  that  these  dabs  of 
brown  clay  were  not  entirely  round. 
They  were  useful,  Tom  explained,  for 
playing  keeps,  because  it  was  almost  a 
pleasure  to  lose  a  few  of  them. 

"One  time,"  said  Tom,  as  they  pro- 
ceeded toward  a  favorite  gaming-place, 
"I  saw  two  big  fellas  playin'  keeps  Pr 
canelias." 

"Tt's  gamblin'  to  play  keeps  for 
canelias." 


THE  WAY  OF  THE  REFORMER 


587 


This  phase  of  the  subject  did  not  four.    Also  there  was  a  game  of  purga- 
excite  Tom.    "They  c'd  stand  up  like  tory,  a  series  of  holes  in  the  ground  like 
this  and  plunk 'em."   Tom  made  gestures  a  microscopic  golf-course, 
as  of  one  plunking.  "Le's  play  by  our  own  self,"  said 
"One  time  I  saw  a  great  big  man  play-  Ranny.     Not  yet  an  expert,  he  pre- 
in'  marbles.    He  had  a  mustache  an'  ferred  the  shallow  waters  of  Tom  Rucker 
everything" — reminiscences  by  Ranny.  to  the  depths  of  general  society.  Tom 
"Ladies  always  steps  on  the  ring  and  readily  consented  and  they  provided 
their  dress  spoils  everything,"  was  Tom's  themselves  with  one  of  the  oval  rings, 
indictment.  The  two-handed  game  was  a  continu- 
ity a  perfect  understanding  the  two  ous  performance;  when  one  contestant 
marble  fiends  turned  their  faces  toward  knocked  a  marble  from  the  ring  the  other 
the  brick  church.    They  both  attended  had  to  supply  the  loss  from  his  pocket. 
Sunday-school  there,  but  it  was  not  dog-  Theoretically  the  game  had  no  end; 
matism  that  now  led  them  thither;  the  practically  it  ran  until  one  player  had 


brick  church  provided  the  best  gaming 
facilities  of  all  institutions  in  town — re- 
ligious or  secular. 
There  was  a  vacant  lot  .strotbme 
back  of  the  church, 
which  for  topographical 
reasons  was  the  first 
place  to  get  dry  in  the 
spring.  There  was  no 
fence  around  it,  yet  it 
was  safe  from  feminine 
skirts,  the  bane  of  side- 
walk playing.  The 
brick  church  had  no 
regular  janitor  like  the 
Center  School;  the 
man  who  came  on 
Saturday  to  sweep  and 
dust  had  a  deep  preju- 
dice against  persons 
who  attended  church 
and  tracked  in  dirt,  but 
no  feeling  at  all  toward 
those  who  merely  used 
the  back  yard.  He  did 
not  have  to  sweep  the 
back  yard.  As  a  con- 
sequence  the  brick 
church  was  unconsci- 
ously carrying  on  a 
flourishing  institutional 
work  with  boys. 

When  Ranny  and 
Tom  reached  this  place 
of  unbigoted  entertainment  they  found 
a  wide  choice  of  activities  and  racket 
of  a  high  character.  Pairs  of  young 
citizens  were  competing  for  commies 
in  small  oval  rings  scratched  in  the 
ground.  Two  squares,  each  about  the 
size  of  an  elementary  geography,  were 
providing  profit  and  loss  to  groups  of 


lost  all  his  capital  or  until  the  affair 
broke  up  in  a  dispute  over  whether  the 


THE  TIN  CAN  WAS  NOW  BELABORED  TOWARD  THE  MARTS  OF  TRADE 


shooter  committed  the  crime  of  hunch- 
ing. Ranny  did  not  know  the  rules  well 
enough  to  violate  them,  so  he  went  on 
doggedly  digging  up  fresh  capital  until 
his  resources  were  severely  strained.  He 
made  no  complaint,  showed  no  sign  of 
distress,  but  played  carefully  with  the 
aid  of  his  tongue,  the  corners  of  his 


588 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


mouth,  and  his  nose.  At  last  the  hand 
that  emerged  from  his  pocket  brought 
up  nothing  but  a  piece  of  chalk. 

"I  'ain't  got  nothin'  left  but  my  shoot- 
er," he  said.    "I  gotta  quit." 

Tom  Rucker's  friendship  was  the  most 
agreeable  fact  of  Ranny's  ninth  year. 
It  had  survived  repeated  tests  and  yet 
it  had  never  reached  the  heights  of  which 
it  was  capable.  What  Tom  did  now 
was  a  revelation  in  boy's  humanity  to 
boy. 

"We  wasn't  playin'  keeps,"  he  said. 
"I  kep'  'em  all  in  a  differ'nt  pocket." 

"Aw  right,"  said  the  amazed  Ranny, 
stowing  away  the  recovered  marbles. 
"I  thought  we  was  playin'  keeps."  It 
is,  of  course,  not  good  form  to  express 
thanks  in  any  way. 

Bud  Hicks  now  entered  the  palace  of 
pleasure,  rattling  his  assets  ostenta- 
tiously. "Come  on;  le's  have  a  square 
game,"  he  said. 

Tom  agreed  eagerly,  Ranny  scarcely 
less  so,  and  Ted  Blake,  who  had  the 
boastful  talk  and  the  cracked  knuckles 
of  the  experienced  marble-player,  made 
a  fourth. 

This  was  keeps  for  some  people,  but 
it  was  not  keeps  for  Randolph  Harring- 
ton Dukes.  When  the  dinner  whistle 
blew  in  father's  wagon-factory  Ranny 
left  for  home  with  nothing  but  his 
glassy.  (The  only  way  to  lose  a  shooter 
is  to  have  a  hole  in  your  pocket.)  Other- 
wise he  was  no  better  off  at  this  hour 
than  if  he  had  as  usual  poured  his  ten 
cents  into  the  alimentary  canal. 

Tom  accompanied  his  friend  as  far  as 
the  store  corner.  In  order  that  the  time 
devoted  to  travel  might  not  be  wasted, 
they  played  the  walking  game,  shooting 
alternately  at  each  other's  marbles.  It 
was  owing  to  this  glacial  system  of  trans- 
portation that  so  many  people  were  late 
to  meals  in  those  days. 

"When  ya  learn  to  play  a  little  bet- 
ter," said  Tom,  "you  an'  me  c'n  be 
pardners." 

"Aw  right,"  said  Ranny. 

"Come  on  over  'safternoon.  We  c'n 
play  in  the  back  yard — jes'  fun  ya 
know." 

<<  T'  1    "      '  1  " 

1  a  jes  as  leave. 
To  be  a  marble  partner  of  Tom's  was 
an  alluring  prospect.    Marble  partner- 
ships were  a  common  phenomenon  in 


Lakeville,  two  players  pooling  their  re- 
sources and  dividing  their  profits.  That 
there  were  no  advantages  whatever  in 
the  arrangement  did  not  prevent  its 
continuing — as  an  institution.  Such  al- 
liances never  survived  a  period  of  ad- 
versity because  of  the  well-known  law 
that  failure  is  inevitably  due  to  the  lack 
of  ability  of  one's  partner. 

The  afternoon  passed  in  patient  effort, 
also  with  various  matters  connected 
with  the  barn.  Once  the  scene  shifted 
to  Ranny's  house,  where  a  start  was 
made  in  putting  the  Dukes-Rucker  Drug 
Company  on  its  feet  for  the  summer,  the 
cold  weather  having  wrought  devasta- 
tion among  the  liquids. 

The  next  day  they  met  again,  but  this 
time  in  the  restraining  garments  of  Sun- 
day-school. Tom  was  humorous,  An- 
drew wore  a  red  bow-tie,  and  the  teacher 
was  late;  everything  was  as  usual  and 
there  was  no  sign  of  impending  trouble. 
But  at  class-time  Miss  Binford  twisted 
the  lesson  story  about  in  such  a  way  as 
to  get  a  moral  precept  out  of  it. 

"We  must  be  good  boys  and  always 
do  what  is  right,"  she  said.  "We  must 
not  drink  or  smoke  or  gamble." 

"It's  gambling  to  play  marbles  for 
keeps,"  said  Andrew,  who  was  always 
currying  favor  with  the  teacher. 

"Yes,  Andrew,  that  is  true.  It  is  not 
wrong  to  play  marbles,  but  we  must 
never  play  for  keeps;  that  is  gambling, 
and  leads  to  other  bad  habits.  Many  a 
man  who  leads  a  life  of  crime  began  by 
playing  marbles  for  keeps." 

Miss  Binford  did  not  support  this 
charge  with  actual  examples,  but  the 
bare  statement  fell  upon  Ranny  like  a 
blanket  of  dismay.  He  had  played  mar- 
bles for  keeps  only  the  day  before  just 
outside  that  colored  window;  he  in- 
tended, if  all  went  well,  to  make  some- 
thing of  an  industry  of  it.  He  had  heard 
that  it  was  gambling  to  play  keeps,  but 
had  never  given  the  report  credence 
except  in  the  case  of  cornelians  and  pos- 
sibly moss-agates.  Now  here  was  an 
authority  on  wickedness  affirming  that 
he,  Tom,  Bud  Hicks,  Ted  Blake,  and 
everybody  of  consequence  were  headed 
for  a  career  of  crime.  The  thought  of 
Ted  Blake  made  the  monstrous  thing 
seem  probable. 

After  Sunday-school  Ranny  slipped 


RANNY  PLAYED  CAREFULLY  WITH  THE  AID  OF  HIS 
TONGUE,  THE  CORNERS  OF  HIS  MOUTH,  AND  HIS  NOSE 


away  without  Tom,  a  thing  which  he  had 
not  done  for  months,  and  took  up  the 
matter  with  father.  "The  teacher  says 
it's  gamblin'  to  play  keeps." 

A  moment  of  silence  gave  birth  to  a 
hope  that  father  might  take  issue  with 
Miss  Binford.  Certainly  father  had 
never  mentioned  the  matter  before. 

"Yes,  Ranny,"  he  said,  "I  suppose  it 
is.  Why?  Have  you  been  winning  any- 
body's marbles?" 

"No,"  Ranny  replied,  truthfully. 

"Has  anybody  been  winning  yours?" 

"Yes— a  little." 

"Well,  I  guess  it  isn't  gambling  to 
lose  marbles,"  father  said,  with  a  smile. 
"But  if  I  were  you  I  wouldn't  play  for 
keeps.  It's  just  as  much  fun  the  other 
way,  especially  for  people  who  can't 
shoot  very  straight." 

A  load  was  lifted  from  Ranny's  con- 
science when  he  learned  that  he  had  not 
as  yet  started  upon  a  career  of  crime. 
He  would  go  to  Tom  to-morrow  and 
explain  that  the  partnership  was  dis- 
solved in  favor  of  some  stainless  pursuit 
like  running  a  drug-store;  Tom  would 
understand,  because  he  was  of  the  brick- 
church  faith. 


But  at  the  noon-hour  the  next  day 
Tom  was  cold  in  demeanor.  "Why  did 
ya  run  off*  home  yeste'day?"  he  asked. 
"Are  ya  mad  at  me?" 

"It  ain't  right  to  play  keeps,"  replied 
Ranny,  with  characteristic  directness. 
"It's  gamblin'.  Le's  don't  be  pardners  in 
marbles — only  drug-stores  and  things." 

"Aw,  wha's  the  matter  with  ya?  It 
ain't  gamblin'  to  play  f'r  commies  an' 
aggies  an'  white  alleys.  Everybody 
plays  keeps.  Ya  played  keeps  y'r  own 
self  Satu'day." 

"I  didn't  win  any  marbles,"  said 
Ranny,  with  retroactive  virtue. 

"No;  good  reason." 

"Miss  Binford  said  it's  gamblin'  to 
play  keeps,  didn't  she?  Are  ya  deef,  or 
what  ?" 

"What's  she  know  about  marbles?  I 
bet  she'd  think  a  aggie  was  a  canelia." 
"She  would  not!" 
"She  would,  too!" 
"Would  not!" 

There  was  fist-clenching  that  came  to 
nothing,  but  the  merits  of  the  case  were 
completely  lost  in  personalities.  Ranny 
predicted  for  his  recent  friend  a  life  be- 
hind prison  bars;   Tom  put  forth  the 


WHEN  HE  APPROACHED  THE  BRICK-CHURCH  MONTE  CARLO  HE  WAS  MET  WITH  RIDICULE 


unwarranted  view  that  Ranny  was  a 
sissy  and  a  poor  marble-player,  and — 
the  universal  lot  of  the  uplifter — that  he 
thought  he  was  smart. 

Thus  they  parted.  It  is  a  curious  fact 
that  a  friendship  which  had  weathered 
many  real  storms  finally  came  to  grief 
over  the  question  of  whether  or  not  Miss 
Binford  would  think  an  agate  was  a  cor- 
nelian. 

It  was  a  weak  issue  with  which  to  go 
before  the  public.  Persons  who  were 
total  strangers  to  the  Sunday-school 
teacher  in  question  promptly  conceded 
her  dense  ignorance.  Consequently 
Ranny  went  home  without  the  aid  of  his 
patent  hop  and  skip.  He  was  angry  and 
distressed,  but  not  remorseful.  Rather 
he  felt  that  he  had  escaped  from  the  so- 
ciety of  criminals  just  in  time. 

His  fame  as  an  enemy  of  personal 
liberty  spread,  and  when  he  approached 
the  brick-church  Monte  Carlo  after 
school  he  was  met  with  ridicule.  "Fat- 
ty" Hartman  addressed  him  in  the  fal- 
setto used  to  imitate  girls,  teachers,  and 
Clarence  Raleigh.  Bud  Hicks  was  less 
subtle  in  his  methods. 

"Go  home,"  he  said,  "and  tell  y'r 
mother  she  wants  ya." 


Tom  Rucker  took  no  part  in  these 
hostilities,  but  there  was  a  triumphant 
grin  among  his  freckles.  Ranny  backed 
slowly  away;  this,  obviously,  was  not  a 
profitable  way  to  dispose  of  one's  time. 

"Come  on,  Ranny;  let's  go  to  my 
house.  It  is  wrong  to  play  keeps.  My 
mother  says  so." 

It  was  a  sign  of  the  depths  to  which 
his  prestige  had  fallen  that  the  only 
voice  that  was  raised  in  his  defense  was 
that  of  Clarence  Raleigh. 

"All  right,"  said  Ranny,  without  en- 
thusiasm. "They  can  go  to  prison  fl- 
ail I  care." 

"My  father,"  said  Clarence,  when  the 
uproar  had  been  left  behind,  "would  buy 
me  all  the  marbles  in  town  if  I  wanted 
them,  but  it  isn't  right  to  gamble — or 
swear." 

"Or  chew  tobacco,"  added  Ranny, 
helpfully. 

"My  father  buys  me  everything.  I 
got  an  auto-wagon,  and  iron  stuff  to 
build  bridges  and  things,  and  an  elec- 
tric train.  And  I've  got  more  track  than 
anybody  in  town." 

Ranny  began  to  see  possibilities  in 
this  hitherto  neglected  youth  who  could 
wallow  in  marbles  if  he  but  said  the 


THE  WAY  OF  THE  REFORMER 


591 


word.  He  began  to  feel  that  virtue  was 
about  to  receive  a  prompt  reward.  He 
had  seen  the  auto-wagon  in  front  of  the 
store  which  had  it  for  sale,  and  had 
spoken  highly  of  it  to  father.  Also  he 
longed  to  get  his  fingers  into  that  struc- 
tural iron. 

When  they  reached  the  ambitious 
Raleigh  home  they  exercised  the  motor- 
car briefly  upon  the  front  sidewalk — 
that  is,  Clarence  exercised  it,  and  when 
it  came  Ranny's  turn  he  suggested  that 
they  play  something  else.  The  guest 
knew  his  rights,  but  waived  them  be- 
cause he  was  anxious  to  see  the  erector. 

"We'd  have  to  play  it  in  the  house," 
said  Clarence;  "we'd  get  it  all  dirty  on 
the  porch  and  probably  lose  things." 

Ranny  prepared  himself  for  the  ordeal 
of  meeting  adults. 

"Ranny  Dukes  has  come  to  play  with 
me,  mother,"  Clarence  said,  by  way  of 
introduction.  "We  want  to  play  with 
the  building  thing." 

Mrs.  Raleigh,  a  stately  lady  of  con- 
siderable girth,  gave  Ranny  a  critical 
examination  and  somehow  conveyed  the 
impression  that  he  was  passed  by  a  nar- 
row margin. 

"Very  well,"  she  said.  "See  that  you 
wipe  your  feet — both  of  you." 

The  mechanical  erector  proved  a  be- 
wildering delight  of  steel  pieces  and 
screws.  For  ten  minutes  or  more,  bar- 
ring a  tendency  on  Clarence's  part  to 
grab,  the  two  highly  moral  youths  got 
on  very  well.  But  just  as  Ranny  had 
his  plans  laid  for  an  ambitious  jail  that 
would,  by  a  charming  little  conceit,  con- 
tain all  of  his  former  acquaintances, 
Clarence  lost  interest  in  architecture  and 
transportation  and  life  in  general.  For 
the  first  time  in  history 
Ranny  became  obsessed 
with  the  idea  that  per- 
haps he  had  better  go 
home.  Mrs.  Raleigh 
made  no  objection,  only 
stipulating  that  nobody 
was  to  bang  the  door. 

At  the  supper-table 
Ranny  gave  his  parents 
a  hint  as  to  the  social 
changes  of  the  day. 

"I  played  with  Clar- 
ence Raleigh  'safter- 
noon,"  he  said. 


"Is  he  a  good  boy?"  mother  asked. 

This  was  solid  ground.  "Yes;  he 
don't  swear  or  gamble  or  anything." 

"Do  you  mean  he  doesn't  do  anything 
at  all?"  Father's  remark  was  too  near 
the  truth  to  be  a  successful  jest.  Ranny 
searched  his  mind  for  virtues  that  might 
be  tacked  upon  his  new  playmate — not 
cleanliness  or  politeness,  because  mother 
had  an  exaggerated  idea  of  these  things 
already.  Clarence  was  taking  violin  les- 
sons, but  this  secret  also  was  safe  in 
Ranny's  hands.  In  the  end  he  had  to 
fall  back  upon  worldly  goods. 

"He's  got  lotsa  nice  things — a  auto- 
wagon,  an'  a  'lectric  train  (only  I  didn't 
see  it  yet),  an'  one  of  them  building 
things  of  iron.  If  he  wanted  'em  he 
could  have  all  the  marbles  in  Lakeville. 
His  father  gets  him  ever'thing  he 
wants." 

"Now,  look  here,  son,"  said  father. 
"A  boy  doesn't  have  any  more  fun  be- 
cause he  has  expensive  toys.  I'll  bet 
Tom  Rucker  can  do  more  things  with  a 
couple  of  boards  and  nails  than  Clarence 
can  with  all  his  high-class  blocks." 

"They  ain't  blocks."  Ranny  was 
driven  to  technical  quibbles.  "They're 
made  of  iron,  and  you  put  'em  together 
with  screws." 

"Well — whatever  they  are — can  Clar- 


ILL  TELL   YOU  WHAT  LE  S  DO.     LE  S  GIVE  ME  A  RIDE 


592 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


ence  make  anything  with  them?  Is  he 
any  good  ?" 

"He's  a  good  boy"  said  Ranny,  des- 
perately. 

Herein  lay  the  weakness  of  the  new 
alliance,  the  reason  why  the  week 
dragged  out  in  a  weary  succession  of 
unsatisfactory  afternoons.  Being  good 
was  a  fine  thing,  but  it  did  not  solve  the 
problem  of  what  to  do  with  one's  time. 
Day  after  day  he  saw  vice  rampant  and 
joyous  back  of  the  brick  church,  and 
virtue  hideous  at  the  Raleigh  homestead. 
He  began  to  suspect  that  when  every- 
body was  in  prison  except  himself  and 
Clarence,  life  was  going  to  be  a  rather 
drab  affair.  Clarence  was  a  good  boy, 
but  as  a  companion  he  was  a  total  fail- 
ure, coveting  everything,  enjoying  noth- 
ing. He  could  not  throw  straight  like 
Bud  Hicks,  or  wiggle  his  ears  like  Tom, 
or  bunch  up  his  muscle  like  Ted  Blake. 
His  marble-playing  was  worse  than  a 
girl's;  if  his  father  had  bought  him  all 
the  marbles  in  Lakeville,  what  would 
he  have  done  with  them?  He  knew  no 
more  about  aggies  than  Miss — than 
Tom  said  Miss  Binford  did. 


HE  WOULD  TAKE  HIS  GLASSY  AND  HIS 
TEN  CENTS  AND  PLUNGE  INTO  INIQUITY 


In  despair  Ranny  made  an  effort  to 
get  Clarence  off  his  own  ground;  in  fact, 
offered  to  organize  the  Dukes-Raleigh 
Drug  and  Guinea-pig  Company.  But 
Clarence's  mother  forbade  him  to  go 
beyond  the  front  sidewalk;  apparently 
his  virtue  was  of  the  fragile  kind  that 
could  not  be  trusted  in  public. 

The  end  came  on  Friday  afternoon. 
Clarence  had  got  out  the  auto-wagon, 
and,  in  accordance  with  the  best  Raleigh 
traditions,  was  taking  the  first  ride  and 
prolonging  it  unduly.  Ranny  thought  of 
the  school-free  Saturday  impending,  and 
was  very  low  in  his  mind. 

"I  tell  you  what  le's  do — "  said  Clar- 
ence, at  last. 

"I  tell  you  what  le's  do.  Le's  give  me 
a  ride."  With  these  words  Ranny 
pushed  his  host  out  of  the  wagon  and 
took  his  place. 

Clarence  made  a  weak  effort  to  re- 
cover the  vehicle.  "I  guess  it's  my 
wagon,"  he  said.   "I'll  tell  my  mother." 

There  was  a  soft-looking  place  just 
above  Clarence's  uselessly  white  collar 
that  Ranny  had  for  days  felt  a.  growing 
desire  to  pinch.  He  realized  this  ambi- 
tion without  ceasing  to  be  a  chauffeur. 
Clarence,  with  bitter  cries,  started  for 
the  house. 

Ranny  sat  as  one  enthralled;  it  was 
the  most  delightful  sound  he  had  heard 
for  nearly  a  week.  Presently  he  realized 
that  he  was  being  addressed  by  an  angry 
adult. 

'Get  right  out  of  that,  Ranny 
Dukes,"  said  Mrs.  Raleigh,  "and  go 
home!  We  don't  want  bad  boys  around 
here,  fighting  and  abusing  Clarence." 

The  accused  lost  his  taste  for  motor- 
ing, for  Raleighs  of  all  sizes,  and  for  vir- 
tue in  general.  He  had  spent  the  most 
miserably  moral  week  of  his  life,  with  the 
result  that  he  was  being 
chased  home  as  a  bad 
boy.  When  he  reached 
the  "secret  den"  in  his 
own  woodshed  he  re- 
solved that  in  the  morn- 
ing bright  and  early  he 
would  take  his  glassy 
and  his  ten  cents  and 
plunge  into  iniquity. 
He  would  make  his 
peace  with  the  wicked 
and  unselfish  Tom,  and 


REVELATION 


593 


they  would  take  the  joyful  downward 
road  together. 

The  exclusive  hop  and  skip  was  put 
into  service  again  as  Ranny  set  forth  the 
next  morning  upon  his  criminal  career. 
Being  in  a  hurry  to  fall  from  grace,  he 
spent  his  dime  to  poor  advantage  at  the 
uneconomic  Mrs.  Leonard's — nine  cents 
for  marbles  and  one  for  two  caramels. 
With  a  cheek  stretched  in  a  pleasantly 
lumpy  way,  with  one  piece  of  candy  in 
his  pocket,  and  noisy  with  commies,  he 
approached  the  place  of  religious  instruc- 
tion and  unconfined  joy.  A  shout  of 
derision  greeted  his  appearance. 

"Where's  Clarence?"  asked  "Fatty," 
in  the  classic  falsetto.  "Wouldn't  mam- 
ma let  him  come?" 

There  was  only  one  person  who  did 
not  join  in  these  atrocities.  Tom  Rucker 
looked  at  the  approaching  reformer, 
and  to  Ranny's  amazement  pushed  his 
shooter  into  his  pocket.    Then  Tom's 


voice  rang  out  in  a  cry  that  had  not 
been  heard  in  Lakeville  for  many  dreary 
months: 

"Round  ball — inns!" 

"Inns!"  echoed  Ted  Blake. 

"Catcher!  —  pitcher!  —  first  base!" 
These  cries  from  different  boys  followed 
in  such  quick  succession  that  before 
Ranny  realized  what  was  happening  he 
had  to  take  an  ignominious  place  in  left 
field. 

"It's  purty  dry  back  of  the  pickle- 
works,"  shouted  Tom.  "I  saw  it  this 
morning.    Come  on,  Ranny." 

Ranny  shyly  pushed  his  peace-offering 
into  Tom's  hand. 

A  career  of  crime  was  blasted  in  its 
infancy.  A  greater  reformer  than  Ran- 
ny, the  springtime  sun,  had  dried  out  the 
ball-field  and  abolished  gambling.  Up- 
roar and  outrage  and  the  joy  of  living 
would  henceforth  be  found  back  of  the 
pickle-works. 


Revelation 

BY  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

IF  I  could  come  again  to  that  dear  place 
Where  once  I  came,  where  Beauty  lived  and  moved, 
Where,  by  the  sea,  I  saw  her  face  to  face, 

That  soul  alive  by  which  the  World  has  loved, 

If,  as  I  stood  at  gaze  among  the  leaves, 

She  would  appear  again  as  once  before 
While  the  red  herdsman  gathered   up  his  sheaves 

And  brimming  waters  trembled  up  the  shore, 

If,  as  I  gazed,  her  Beauty  that  was  dumb, 
In  that  old  time,  before  I  learned  to  speak, 

Would  lean  to  me  and  revelation  come 
Words  to  the  lips  and  color  to  the  cheek, 

Joy  with  its  searing-iron  would  burn  me  wise; 
I  should  know  all;  all  powers,  all  mysteries. 


Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.— 74 


In  the  Fifties 


BY  E.  S.  MARTIN 


EING  not  so  young  as 
you  were  is  not  all  loss. 
If  maturity  of  years  is 
an  ailment,  then  youth 
is  another.  To  be  fifty 
years  old  is  to  have 
made  a  fairly  complete 
recovery  from  the  ailment  of  youth,  and 
that  is  no  small  achievement.  It  is  not 
everybody  that  does  it.  The  person  who 
remembers  statistics  will  tell  you  what 
proportion  of  us  struggling  people  suc- 
cumb to  youth  and  its  mischances  and 
hardships.  It  is  a  large  proportion.  The 
rapids  of  the  river  of  life,  the  rockiest 
places,  the  swiftest  descents,  are  apt  to 
be  up-stream.  To  have  passed  them  all 
and  got  down  into  the  calmer  levels  of 
the  fifties  is  a  feat  that  justifies  a  good 
many  comfortable  thoughts. 

Yes,  it  is;  especially  if  one  is  not  too 
much  stove  in  by  arduous  preliminaries 
and  has  been  able  perhaps  to  bring  down 
some  cargo  with  him.  It  is,  or  used  to 
be,  a  fashion  to  sigh  for  lost  youth,  and 
there  are  people  who  do  sincerely  mourn 
for  it.  Women,  especially,  who  have  had 
full  measure  of  youthful  beauty,  part 
with  it,  usually,  with  sighs  and  reluc- 
tance. Gray  hair  seldom  pleases  them; 
they  don't  like  wigs;  the  "ravages  of 
time"  are  real  and  sad  to  them,  and 
they  repair  them  with  diligence  and 
what  skill  they  may  command.  Beauty 
in  a  woman  is  a  power.  To  be  noticed 
and  admired  and  courted  for  it  is,  no 
doubt,  a  very  considerable  stimulation 
and  entertainment,  not  to  be  indif- 
ferently parted  with,  and  not  in  all 
cases  offset  by  gains  in  authority,  or  the 
tribute  of  deference  that  is  paid  to  char- 
acter, or  the  tribute  of  love  that  comes 
to  unselfishness  and  gentleness  and 
power  of  sympathy.  What  a  woman 
loses  by  the  years  in  freshness  of  physi- 
cal beauty  she  ought  more  than  to  make 
up  in  wisdom  that  comes  from  living,  in 
the  fuller  understanding  of  people  and 
of  life,  in  all  the  kinds  of  knowledge,  in 


self-possession  and  increased  skill  in  the 
arrangement  and  discharge  of  the  parts 
of  speech.  So  it  does  happen  with  able 
women  who  have  had  a  chance  to  de- 
velop and  who  have  lived  good  lives. 
They  are  vastly  more  interesting  at  fifty 
than  at  twenty-two,  and  many  of  them 
are  lovelier  to  look  at.  But  beauty 
comes  ready-made,  and  these  maturer 
attractions  have  to  be  earned,  and  not 
all  women  earn  them. 

As  for  men,  to  lose  the  beauty  of 
youth  seldom  troubles  them.  Their  part 
in  the  visible  embellishment  of  life  is  of 
minor  importance.  A  moderate  degree 
of  self-discipline  is  apt  to  bring  them  to 
fifty  years  better-looking  than  they  were 
at  twenty.  Gray  hairs  or  shining  pates 
are  no  more  to  them  than  scars  to  a 
soldier.  What  comeliness  they  have  is 
hardier  than  women's  beauty.  The 
habits  of  thirty  years  tell,  and  good 
habits  leave  their  mark  as  well  as  bad 
ones.  A  man  at  twenty-two  is  still  clay 
to  be  shaped.  The  general  design  is  in 
it,  but  the  finish  is  still  to  come.  It 
comes  to  him  from  the  thoughts  he 
thinks,  the  burdens  he  carries;  from  ef- 
fort, from  fidelity,  from  service;  or  else 
from  self-indulgence  and  self-seeking. 
By  the  time  he  is  fifty  he  will  look  what 
he  is,  and  time  will  have  improved  or 
marred  him  accordingly. 

But  he  will  not  care  very  much  how  he 
looks.  Beauty  never  won  him  anything 
of  value  so  far  as  he  knows.  That  he 
has  come  so  far  and  brought  along  what 
he  has  brought,  he  will  attribute,  if  he 
is  modest,  to  good  fortune;  and  if  he 
is  self-appreciative,  to  merit  and  dili- 
gence. He  will  credit  nothing  to  beauty, 
will  mourn  never  a  day  over  lost  looks, 
if  he  has  lost  any,  but  be  thankful  he  is 
not  more  disfigured.  And  if  he  has 
formed  the  habit  of  keeping  clean  and 
presentable  he  will  maintain  that  habit 
to  the  end  because  he  is  more  com- 
fortable so. 

To  be  fifty  is  to  have  come  fairly  to 


IN  THE 

maturity.  The  fifties  may  be  a  man's 
best  years,  but  we  do  well  not  to  be 
too  exact  about  best  years.  They  vary 
in  different  people  and  according  to  cir- 
cumstances. The  twenties  may  be  best 
years  for  some  people  because  in  them 
came  their  great  opportunity  and  they 
shot  their  bolt  once  for  all.  Or  for  a  like 
reason,  the  thirties  or  forties  may  be 
best  years.  And  though  the  fifties  may 
fairly  be  called  years  of  maturity,  it  is 
not  safe  to  impute  decay  to  the  years 
that  follow  them.  There  are  people  who 
go  on  ripening  and  sweetening  to  the 
very  end  of  long  life,  whose  best  years 
are  the  sixties  and  seventies  and  the 
years  later  still;  whom  fourscore  finds 
not  only  serene  in  wisdom,  but  valiant 
and  bold  in  spirit,  penetrated  more  than 
ever  with  ideals  that  have  shaped  their 
lives,  and  clearer  than  ever,  out  of  ex- 
perience and  reflection,  as  to  the  means 
to  be  employed  to  realize  them.  There 
is  no  declared  age  of  ripeness.  Ripeness 
comes  when  it  comes  and  lasts  as  long 
as  it  lasts.  It  is  mostly  spiritual,  and 
whatever  is  spiritual  defies  time.  Even 
energy  is  not  all  physical.  That,  too, 
may  be  spiritual,  and  ordinarily  it  is 
largely  mental,  and  in  either  case  it 
often  drives  and  disciplines  the  body  it 
is  geared  to,  making  it  more  capable 
and  enduring  as  the  years  go  on.  Just 
as  we  see  robust  young  people  come  by 
unwise  management  to  early  infirmities, 
so  we  see  others,  fragile  in  youth,  come 
by  discipline  and  development  to  hardi- 
ness and  high  endurance.  To  be  sure, 
we  all  in  time  pass  the  top  point  of 
physical  strength,  but  most  useful  peo- 
ple, by  the  time  that  their  physical 
decline  begins,  have  become  special- 
ists in  their  department  of  life,  and  in 
their  own  line  can  outdo  younger  and 
stronger  persons.  When  strength  has 
been  duly  spent  in  learning  it  does  not 
take  so  much  to  apply  what  one  has 
learned. 

That  is  one  reason  why  the  mature 
people  who  have  learned  something  and 
are  still  good  earn  the  most  money  and 
have  the  most  power.  They  have 
reached  a  time  of  life  when  success  is 
thought  to  be  safer  than  it  is  in  earlier 
years;  when  they  are  supposed  to  have 
increased  in  wisdom  enough  to  be 
trusted,  and  when  money  and  power  in 


FIFTIES  595 

their  hands  is  less  enviously  regarded 
because  their  hold  on  them  cannot  be 
for  very  long.  They  are  valued  not  only 
for  what  they  do,  but  for  what  they 
know  enough  not  to  do;  for  judgment, 
dexterity,  avoidance  of  the  hazardous 
and  inexpedient.  Another  reason  is  that 
they  have  succeeded  to  the  command  of 
affairs;  that  their  hands  are  on  the 
throttle  of  the  engine  and  cannot  con- 
veniently be  dislodged  until  they  finally 
relax.  They  come  to  that  place  by  effort 
or  succession,  or  both;  and  while  they 
last  and  the  machine  contrives  to  go, 
it  is  usually  theirs. 

The  authority  that  comes  with  years 
is  hardly  appreciated  in  these  times. 
Liberty  and  independence  are  much 
esteemed  for  all  ages;  it  is  claimed  that 
the  commandment  has  been  amended 
and  now  reads,  "  Parents,  obey  your  chil- 
dren," and  it  is  supposed  that  authority 
has  pretty  well  gone  by  the  board.  But 
in  spite  of  all  carping  there  is  still  a 
great  deal  of  authority  left  in  age,  where 
age  has  earned  it.  Deference  to  one's 
elders  is  based  on  the  actualities  of  life 
and  dies  hard.  The  younger  generation 
still  looks  to  the  older  generation  to 
define  its  duties  and  settle  its  disputes. 
Twenty-five  will  not  necessarily  obey 
sixty  because  sixty  is  sixty,  but  twenty- 
five  is  often  perplexed,  and  feels  that  it 
can  more  safely  assist  its  conscience  by 
heeding  the  counsels  of  sixty  than  those 
of  its  own  generation.  In  France,  says 
Chesterton,  the  young  woman  is  pro- 
tected like  a  nun  while  she  is  unmarried; 
but  when  she  is  a  mother  she  is  really  a 
holy  woman,  and  when  she  is  a  grand- 
mother she  is  a  holy  terror.  Deference 
to  age  does  not  often  go  to  that  extreme 
in  this  bumptious  country,  but  it  does 
persist,  and  it  is  a  power,  and  it  is 
stronger  at  thirty  than  it  is  at  twenty. 
Boy  or  girl  at  twenty  is  possessed  by  the 
crude  individuality  which  is  the  core  of 
life  and  must  develop.  Parental  inter- 
position that  collides  with  that  develop- 
ment is  jarred.  But  by  thirty,  or  sooner, 
the  necessary  self-assertion  has  so  far 
accomplished  its  end  that  the  filial  mind 
begins  to  see  the  value  of  the  experienced 
point  of  view.  Then  the  parental  coun- 
sel, no  longer  feared  as  a  distraction 
from  an  individual  course,  may  be  valued 
as  an  aid  to  holding  the  course  selected. 


596 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Moreover,  the  advice  of  persons  on 
their  way  out  of  this  life  is  apt  to  seem 
more  disinterested  to  persons  still  on 
their  way  into  this  life  than  the  advice 
of  their  coevals.  To  thirty,  sixty  looks 
like  a  player  for  whom  the  whistle  is  just 
about  to  blow,  and  whose  interest  in  the 
game  must  have  come  to  be  chiefly 
benevolent.  So  thirty  will  take  details 
of  coaching  from  sixty  that  he  would 
by  no  means  take  from  thirty-one,  and 
that,  especially,  if  sixty  in  his  day  has 
been  rated  a  good  player.  In  spite  of  all 
that  is  said  of  the  decay  of  the  family 
and  the  loss  by  the  young  of  all  sense  of 
obligation  to  their  elders,  the  young  con- 
tinue to  rely  with  an  impressive  confi- 
dence on  their  elders'  benevolence. 
Sometimes  this  confidence  is  a  little  too 
positive,  and  goes  the  length  of  a  failure 
to  imagine  even  a  chastened  and  suitable 
degree  of  self-interest  in  the  elders,  or  a 
disposition  in  them  still  to  retain  for 
their  own  uses  some  share  of  life  and  its 
blessings  while  they  still  have  them.  In 
such  cases  it  is  sometimes  necessary  for 
this  confidence  of  youth  to  be  checked, 
but  usually  it  realizes  that  something  for 
nothing  is  not  the  rule  in  this  world,  and 
that  from  whom  much  is  received  and 
much  hoped  for,  to  them  is  due  some- 
thing fairly  substantial  in  return.  It  is 
true  that  the  main  debt  of  life  has  to  be 
paid  to  our  successors  rather  than  to  our 
progenitors,  and  that  it  is  a  sign  that  we 
are  fairly  faithful  to  our  obligations  to 
our  progenitors  if  our  successors  feel  that 
they  can  approve  and  commend  us. 
Nevertheless  progenitors,  too,  require 
some  direct  consideration,  and  deserve 
it  if  their  descendants  areany  worth. 

Maturity  in  its  dealings  with  youth 
has  it  in  its  favor  that  it  has  arrived  and 
means  to  keep  its  place.  Youth  in  its 
dealings  with  maturity  has  the  advan- 
tage that  it  is  maturity's  most  intense 
concern;  that  it  stands  for  life  itself; 
that,  if  it  comes  to  a  pinch,  maturity 
would  rather  die  for  it  than  survive  it. 
Lear  and  Pere  Goriot  were  not  sensible 
people,  but  they  were  fairly  natural 
parents,  and  are  not  at  all  out  of  date, 
either  of  them.  They  are  warnings  to  us 
all,  but  only  against  excess.  The  power 
to  give  to  youth,  is  very  valuable  to 
maturity.  It  ought  to  last  until  the 
mourners  get  back  from  the  funeral,  and 


elde  rs  who  exhaust  it  prematurely  by 
reckless  generosity  ought  to  expect  what 
they  usually  get.  Kind  people  who  have 
come  to  the  time  of  life  when  it  agrees 
best  with  them  to  take  life  easy  are  too 
much  disposed  to  think  that  what  is 
good  for  them  is  good  also  for  the  young. 
They  want  to  make  life  easy  for  every 
one  they  love,  and,  if  possible,  for  the 
rest  of  mankind;  no  one  to  be  pinched, 
no  one  to  have  to  struggle;  steeple- 
chases all  to  be  run  on  level  ground 
without  obstacles,  and  no  one  to  hurry  or 
violate  the  spirit  of  "after  you."  They 
can't  fix  over  the  world  that  way,  because 
there  are  not  enough  of  them,  and  they 
haven't  the  means;  but  for  those  nearest 
them  they  are  apt  to  try  to  do  it,  with 
the  result  sometimes  that  the  young  get 
too  little  of  the  discipline- of  life  in  the 
stages  when  it  is  salutary,  and  the  ma- 
ture get  rather  too  much  in  the  period 
when  ease  would  do  them  more  good. 

In  maturity  we  get  to  be  part  of  the 
going  world,  merged  enough  in  it  to  be 
no  longer  intolerably  self-concentrated. 
That  is  a  gain  and  makes  for  comfort, 
and  even  for  popularity.  To  lose  all 
interest  in  oneself  does  not  do.  It  im- 
plies that  one  is  not  interesting,  and  to 
be  alive  and  not  interesting  is  a  condi- 
tion imputable,  gently,  to  some  one  else, 
but  incredible  of  oneself.  But  it  is  more 
tolerable  to  be  interested  in  oneself  as  a 
factor  in  life  than  as  life's  great  center- 
piece, and  to  that  we  come  easily  as  our 
years  increase.  No  doubt  this  gentle 
decline  in  self-interest,  or  change  in  its 
quality,  is  one  of  the  steps  mercifully 
contrived  to  get  us  out  of  this  world 
without  too  great  a  jolt.  There  is  a  time 
of  life  when  to  want  to  be  the  hero  of  the 
piece  is  necessary  to  due  development. 
The  more  there  is  in  you,  the  stronger 
is  this  impulse  to  be  important.  It 
shows  in  little  boys  in  the  resolve  to  be 
a  pirate,  or  at  least  a  really  great  detec- 
tive, with  guns  in  his  clothing;  it  carries 
them  a  little  later  through  the  arduous 
exercises  of  baseball  and  even  football; 
it  fills  police-forces  and  fire-departments, 
mans  battle-ships  and  crowds  recruiting- 
offices  when  there  is  a  prospect  of  war. 
The  girls  have  it  too,  in  different  mani- 
festations, though  not  so  different  as 
they  used  to  be.  It  is  the  back-bone  of 
romance  and  helps  young  people  to  get 


IN  THE 

married.  They  never  would,  unless  they 
were  vitally  interested  in  themselves. 
When  a  young  person  is  "just  crazy" 
about  some  one,  that  is  the  temper  that 
adventures  matrimony,  but  it  must  in- 
clude a  due  tinge  of  craziness  about 
oneself.  In  that  timely  insanity  there  is 
the  will  fo  be;  the  life  principle  defined 
in  the  current  vernacular  as  "pep."  All 
that  makes  us  look  with  a  kind  of  rever- 
ence on  the  self-interest  of  the  young. 
It  is  necessary  to  inspire  and  sustain 
them  in  the  difficult  and  hazardous  stage 
of  life  that  they  are  passing  through. 

But  gradually  to  emerge  from  that 
stage  into  the  condition  when  one  sees 
himself  more  as  he  sees  other  people,  is 
no  small  relief.  We  think  of  other  peo- 
ple as  cogs  in  a  great  machine,  and  when 
we  have  found  our  place  in  the  world 
and  turned  in  it  long  enough  we  come 
increasingly  to  think  of  ourselves  more 
as  we  think  of  others.  We,  too,  are  cogs, 
and  we  know  that  it  is  important  that 
we  should  keep  turning  so  that  we  may 
not  rust,  and  our  young  may  be  fed, 
and  our  obligations  discharged.  If  we 
turn  effectively,  so  that  our  usefulness  is 
noticed  and  our  opportunities  increased, 
so  much  the  better.  It  seems  more 
agreeable  to  be  noticed,  and  the  senti- 
ment in  favor  of  enlarged  opportunities 
— which  usually  means  more  money — is 
doubtless  well  founded.  But  still  it  is  as 
factors  in  life  rather  than  as  objects  of 
supreme  interest  that  most  elders  think 
of  themselves,  and  find  satisfaction  in 
that  attitude.  To  twenty-five,  aspiring 
to  be  a  bank-president,  a  bank-president 
is  a  magnificent  figure  of  a  man,  sitting 
in  the  bank's  back  parlor,  letting  humble 
borrowers  have  money,  and  deriving  a 
large  salary  from  dignified  labors.  But 
to  sixty,  who  is  a  bank-president,  or 
something  equally  impressive,  a  bank- 
president  is  just  a  cog  in  the  financial 
machine,  who  tries  to  feed  out  other 
people's  money  so  that  it  will  earn  more 
and  come  back;  and  charges  what  in- 
terest the  market  warrants,  and  takes 
such  thought  as  he  can,  and  often  anx- 
iously, not  to  be  caught  in  bad  loans. 

It  is  not  true  that  all  jobs  look  alike 
to  sixty,  but  it  is  true  enough  that  as 
we  grow  older  we  see  more  distinction  in 
men  and  less  in  employments.  Obser- 
vation has  had  time  to  persuade  us,  if 


FIFTIES  597 

we  can  learn  at  all,  that  high  places  do 
not  necessarily  make  tall  men.  Accord- 
ingly we  get  to  look  more  at  people  and 
not  so  much  at  their  pedestals,  and  to 
consider  more  closely  whom  it  is  profit- 
able to  love  or  to  admire,  and  come 
perhaps  to  bestow  affection  more  on  ser- 
vants and  people  of  the  less-coveted 
vocations,  and  not  so  much  on  dinner 
company.  Not  that  by  mere  increase  of 
years  we  win  release  from  servitude  to 
mammon,  and  cease  to  admire  merely 
because  we  are  old  enough  to  know  bet- 
ter. A  release  of  that  sort  is  more  an 
achievement  of  grace  than  of  mere  time; 
but  time  may  help,  especially  by  modi- 
fying our  aspirations  for  prosperity  and 
glory,  and  making  us  content  with  what 
we  can  get  for  ourselves.  To  reach  the 
point  in  our  dealings  with  our  fellows 
where  we  need  no  longer  consider  what 
material  benefits  they  may  confer,  is  to 
get  to  a  place  worth  reaching;  and  if 
timely  thrift  helps  to  bring  us  there, 
even  thrift  may  seem  worth  while. 

In  this  extravagantly  progressive  and 
fast-changing  world  some  observers 
think  they  notice  that  life  belongs  more 
and  more  to  youth,  and  that  maturity  is 
losing  the  place  it  used  to  hold  in  human 
esteem.  The  average  term  of  life  con- 
tinues to  be  extended,  but  one  remarks 
this  growing  uncertainty  whether  the 
extension  is  worth  while.  Men  over  fifty 
when  thrown  out  of  work  find  it  hard 
to  get  new  jobs!  Churches  looking  for 
ministers  are  apt  to  prefer  young  men. 
When  any  business  collapses,  the  older 
men  who  have  had  the  best  positions 
find  it  harder  to  place  themselves  on  any 
terms. 

To  be  sure;  but  all  that  comes  to  is 
that  in  beginners'  places  it  is  handier  to 
have  beginners.  They  are  more  man- 
ageable and  cheaper.  If  a  congregation 
is  obliged  to  undertake  the  task  of  train- 
ing a  new  minister  it  would  rather  have 
one  not  too  fixed  in  habits.  Unless  an 
employer  needs  an  experienced  person 
upon  whom  he  can  put  responsibilities 
that  he  would  be  rid  of,  he  prefers  one 
who  does  not  yet  know  as  much  about 
his  business  as  he  does  himself.  This  is 
the  age  of  machines,  and  in  that  par- 
ticular it  is  a  very  young  age  that  has 
hardly  found  itself.  The  older  human 
values   have   been   disarranged,  likely 


598 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


enough,  by  the  immense  inrush  of  ma- 
chinery. Just  as  theology  has  changed 
enormously  in  a  generation,  and  a  young 
minister  whose  training  is  modern  may 
justly  be  more  acceptable  than  an  older 
one  whose  training  is  out  of  date,  so  in 
mechanical  and  clerical  employments  the 
young  to  whom  telephones,  type-writ- 
ers, and  motor-cars  are  second  nature 
have  a  special  and  artificial  advantage 
over  persons  whose  mastery  of  all  these 
new  means  came  late  in  life.  The  young 
are  handier  with  the  new  tools  and  also 
with  the  new  thoughts  than  their  el- 
ders; but  that  is  not  because  youth  is 
necessarily  handier  than  maturity,  but 
because  the  new  tools  and  the  new 
thoughts  had  not  yet  been  distributed 
when  contemporary  maturity  was  in  its 
pupilage.  A  craftsman's  skill  should  be 
surer  at  fifty  than  at  thirty,  but  when  a 
machine  furnishes  the  skill  and  the  office 
of  the  human  factor  is  merely  to  feed  it, 
the  readier  energies  of  thirty  may  be 
more  valuable  to  an  employer  than  what 
fifty  may  have  learned. 

Though  progress  is  not  steady  but  al- 
ternates with  reaction,  and  an  old  man 
may  have  imbibed  in  his  youth  and 
retain  ideas  much  more  progressive 
than  his  grandson's,  it  usually  happens 
that  twenty-five  is  somewhat  ahead  of 
fifty  because  of  being  born  into  a  more 
fully  developed  world.  More  happens 
usually  out  of  the  ideas  you  begin  with 
than  out  of  those  you  end  with.  The 
mind  works  on  the  facts  that  are  pre- 
sented to  it,  and  sometimes  the  assort- 
ment of  presentable  facts  changes  enor- 
mously in  twenty-five  years.  We  assure 
ourselves  that  in  all  the  world's  history 
it  never  changed  more  than  in  the  twen- 
ty-five-year period  that  began  in  1890 
and  has  not  yet  quite  ended.  The  dis- 
tance from  twenty-five  to  fifty  in  this 
contemporary  time  is  enormous.  Our 
visible  world  has  come  to  be  a  lightning- 
change  artist.  All  its  fixtures  have  been 
moving  about,  most  of  its  conclusions 
have  been  challenged,  and  just  now, 
especially,  we  are  standing  by,  open- 
eyed  and  open-mouthed,  to  see  where  it 
will  bring  up.  In  a  world  so  deranged, 
and  tumbling  so  rapidly  out  of  one  fit 
into  another,  little  is  predictable  and  no 
one  knows  quite  where  he  will  arrive. 
Old  age  is  fairly  confident  that  existence 


approximating  to  life  as  it  has  known  it 
will  last  out  its  time;  but  fifty,  with 
twenty  years  or  more,  possibly,  ahead  of 
him,  is  mighty  uncertain  where  he  will 
come  out.  The  world  that  is  about  to 
be  may  be  so  new  that  some  young 
person  may  think  it  necessary  to  take 
charge  of  it  altogether — a  thing  that  has 
sometimes  happened.  But  at  present  it 
is  still  being  managed  or  mismanaged  by 
the  mature,  and  the  chances  are  that 
even  if  it  changes  mightily  they  will  be 
able  to  keep  their  hands  on  it  and  to 
preserve  something,  if  not  all,  of  its  tra- 
dition. But  it  does  seem  true  that  ma- 
turity is  up  harder  against  youth  than 
usual,  and  it  may  continue  to  be  true 
after  this  special  season  of  demolition 
and  readjustment  passes. 

And  perhaps  that  will  be  a  good  thing. 
This  world  being  not  our  permanent 
home,  but  only  a  field  for  exercises,  it 
may  be  better  for  middle-age  to  feel 
itself  in  a  livelier  competition  with  youth 
than  it  likes,  and  obliged  to  keep  young 
if  it  would  succeed  in  it.  Fifty  is  more 
abstemious  than  it  used  to  be;  more  ab- 
stemious often  than  twenty-five.  Twen- 
ty-five has  strength  to  spare,  but  fifty, 
if  it  would  continue  in  the  ring,  must 
keep  in  training  and  husband  its  ener- 
gies. In  a  recent  play  of  Shaw's  there  is 
a  youth  full  of  intolerant  and  intolerable 
impetuosities,  whose  father  says  of  him 
that  the  problem  is  to  endure  him  and 
keep  him  along  in  the  expectation  that 
he  will  be  good  for  something  at  fifty. 
One  sees  such  youths,  in  whose  heads 
the  problems  and  paradoxes  of  our  new- 
born life  are  all  whirling  unassimilated 
and  unadjusted  and  who  are  groping 
their  way,  impatient  and  perplexed,  to 
some  definite  resultant  of  opinions  and 
conduct.  Be  patient  with  such  young 
people,  whether  they  are  girls  or  boys. 
In  any  kind  of  a  world  that  we  can  imag- 
ine, to  be  valuable  at  fifty  is  more  im- 
portant than  to  be  valuable  at  twenty- 
five.  There  are  those  who  are  valuable 
at  both  ages,  and  the  rule  is,  no  doubt, 
that  usefulness  at  twenty-five  is  an  ear- 
nest of  still  greater  usefulness  at  fifty. 
But  that  rule  does  not  always  hold, 
and  there  are  characters  whose  scope 
includes  so  many  warring  thoughts  and 
impulses  that  they  are  fractious  and 
difficult  in  their  earlier  years,  and  need 


THE  GUEST 


599 


an  extra  long  apprenticeship  to  fetch 
their  contradictions  into  line.  Authority 
strengthens  the  will,  which  gains  in 
power  by  the  exercise  of  power,  but  it 
does  not  necessarily  improve  the  intelli- 
gence. Intelligence  develops  out  of  what 
is  inside,  and  there  should  be  time  to 
store  before  heavy  demands  are  made  on 
our  accumulations. 

What  are  they,  these  accumulations 
which  ought  to  make  fifty  fitter  to  exer- 
cise authority  than  twenty-five?  Book- 
knowledge  partly;  but  for  the  most  part, 
thoughts.  By  the  time  he  is  fifty  a  man 
who  is  to  amount  to  anything  should 
have  come  to  a  few  large,  seasoned  con- 
victions that  are  part  of  the  fiber  of  his 
mind.  Convictions  of  that  sort  are  not 
blithely  obtained  out  of  books.  Books 
may  have  to  do  with  them,  but  they  are 
acquisitions  of  the  spirit,  and  though  the 
rudiments  of  them  may  be  come  by  in 
youth,  they  need  to  be  tempered,  tried 
out  and  adjusted  to  practice  by  years  of 
thought,  talk,  observation,  efTort,  and 
experiment  with  life!  Washington  at 
twenty-five  had  in  him  the  rudiments  of 
the  Washington  that  was  to  be,  but  he 
had  nearly  twenty  years  of  training  be- 
fore he  took  command  of  the  continental 
armies,  and  he  was  first  President  at 
fifty-seven.    Lincoln  in  early  manhood 


groped  his  way  through  grievous  dis- 
tresses and  perplexities,  but  by  the  time 
he  married,  when  he  was  thirty-three, 
he  had  come,  it  would  seem,  to  a  clear 
sense  of  the  fundamental  convictions 
that  made  him.  Eighteen  years  more  he 
thought  and  read  and  talked  in  courts 
and  taverns,  and  pleaded  on  the  stump 
the  faith  that  was  in  him,  and  travailed 
variously,  and  then,  at  fifty-one  he  was 
elected  President.  Pitt,  prime  minister 
at  twenty-four  because  England  was 
short-handed  and  couldn't  wait  for  him 
to  get  his  growth,  broke  down  in  the 
middle  of  his  job  and  died  at  forty- 
seven.  Napoleon  was  first  consul  at 
thirty,  had  completed  his  activities  at 
forty-six,  and  died  at  fifty-two.  Alex- 
ander at  thirty-three  had  done  every- 
thing that  seemed  to  him  desirable  to  do 
in  the  world  at  that  time,  and  departed 
out  of  it.  Youth  makes  a  greater  figure 
in  war  than  in  anything  else,  but  war 
is  a  comparatively  simple  business  and 
can  be  learned  young.  In  most  matters 
men  are  lucky  if  they  can  take  their 
time  to  learn  and  escape  the  prices  and 
the  heavy  responsibilities  of  leadership 
until  their  thoughts  are  matured,  their 
skill  is  fully  practised,  and  their  charac- 
ters have  been  shaped  and  hardened  in 
the  forge  of  life. 


The  Guest 

BY  MARY  SAMUEL  DANIEL 

THE  lengthening  shadows  lay  along  the  floor, 
The  low  gold  sun  flamed  in  the  purple  west: 
There  came  a  sudden  knocking  at  my  door, 
I  welcomed  in — a  guest: 

And  hastened  to  prepare  the  stranger's  bed: 
No  riches  and  no  luxuries  were  mine: 

So  on  the  board  I  laid  my  heart  for  bread, 
And  poured  its  blood  for  wine. 

I  stand  within  my  door;   beneath  the  thatch 
My  robin  pipes  his  sweet,  heart-piercing  lay: 

Now  God  forgive  the  one  who  raised  the  latch 
And  supped — my  guest — that  day. 


The  Obstacle 


BY  LEILA  BURTON  WELLS 


NNE  DOUGLAS  stood 
hesitating  in  the  center 
of  the  little  room  where 
the  servant  had  left  her, 
looking  for  some  trace 
of  her  husband,  some 
little  material  evidence 
of  his  presence. 

Now  that  she  was  safely  inside 
her  mother-in-law's  house,  she  paused, 
breathless,  as  if  she  had  run  up  a  long 
flight  of  stairs  and  found,  to  her  dismay, 
that  she  had  exhausted  her  last  strength 
in  reaching  the  landing.  She  knew  that 
she  had  everything  to  gain  and  nothing 
to  lose  by  the  ensuing  interview;  that 
if  it  failed  of  an  advantageous  issue,  her 
life  must  from  this  time  forward  at  least 
be  released  from  confinement.  She 
could  begin  to  use  it  again  tentatively, 
as  a  man  uses  an  arm  that  has  been  over- 
long  in  bandages. 

For  an  interminable  year  she  had  con- 
sidered meeting  her  mother-in-law  as 
one  of  life's  improbabilities,  and,  now 
that  the  improbability  was  a  possibility, 
she  wondered  at  all  those  months  of 
pliant  hesitancy.  It  had  been  quite  sim- 
ple. As  a  stranger  she  had  entered  the 
house,  and  as  a  stranger  she  was  looking 
around  her  with  eyes  that  vainly  strove 
to  gather  an  inner  clue  of  personality 
from  material  objects. 

The  room  was  more  suggestive  of  gen- 
tleness than  she  had  believed  possible 
from  the  knowledge  that  she  had  of 
her  husband's  mother.  It  indicated  a 
woman  of  another  generation  who  had 
sought  with  almost  pathetic  ardor  to 
keep  abreast  of  the  times.  Old-fash- 
ioned Shakespearian  prints  were  flanked 
on  the  wall  by  pretty  things  done  in  the 
Impressionistic  manner,  yet  on  the  backs 
of  the  modern  chairs  knitted  antima- 
cassars had  been  pinned  by  the  econom- 
ical hand  of  age.  On  the  long  library 
table,  pushed  back  against  the  wall,  was 
a  homely  basket  from  which  a  ball  of 
drab-colored  knitting  protruded,  and  the 


failing  summer  sun  crept  in  under  a  win- 
dow awning  so  chastely  lowered  that  one 
saw  only  a  fugitive  glimpse  of  blue  sky 
and  a  window-box  of  carefully  tended 
crocuses  and  mignonette.  The  room  was 
very  still  and  all  the  furniture  ample,  so 
that  one  got  an  effect  of  rest  and  seclu- 
sion and,  in  some  strange  and  indefinable 
way,  of  purity,  too,  and  of  sheltered 
goodness.  One  could  scarcely  imagine 
vice  as  intruding  here. 

Anne  turned  her  yearning  face  to  the 
window.  It  was  close  to  evening,  and 
the  light  creeping  under  the  striped  aw- 
ning was  not  full  of  color,  but  gray  and 
merciless.  She  had  stepped  from  the 
train  into  a  street-car,  and  the  long,  hot 
trip  had  left  little  shadows  under  her 
eyes.  She  was  near  thirty,  or  perhaps 
beyond  it,  and  because  of  a  certain 
childlike  outline  to  the  oval  of  her  face 
one  would  instinctively  address  her  as 
"Miss"  even  while  feeling,  as  the  ap- 
pellation was  extended,  that  it  might  in 
a  short  time  be  susceptible  of  change. 
She  was  very  slim,  and  yet  in  some  way 
she  gave  the  impression  of  immense 
vitality  and  exquisite  good  health.  The 
blood  raced  very  near  the  surface  of  her 
skin,  and,  now  that  the  heat  had  brought 
it  in  full  force  to  her  cheeks,  she  was 
beautiful  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
dark  hair  lying  on  her  forehead  was 
slightly  disarranged  and  lay  in  little 
damp  tendrils  on  her  forehead.  She  was 
dressed  with  a  careful  exploitation  of 
good  points  and  an  equally  careful  neu- 
tralization of  weak  ones.  You  would 
have  had  to  put  a  girl  of  high  birth  and 
breeding  beside  her  and  study  long  to 
detect  the  difference  between  the  orig- 
inal and  the  counterfeit,  for  an  imitative 
sensibility  had  enabled  her  to  surround 
her  person  with  an  aura  of  a  higher 
social  position  than  she  had  the  privilege 
of  claiming.  Without  the  color  of  ani- 
mation she  could  scarcely  call  beauty  her 
own,  for  her  body  was  a  tent  that  re- 
quired a  lamp  lighted  inside  to  render  it 


THE  OBSTACLE 


601 


in  any  way  luminous.  This  fact  had 
doubtless  manipulated  an  otherwise 
ascending  destiny. 

She  moved  over  the  rug-covered  floor 
now  on  tiptoe,  as  if  she  momentarily 
feared  being  accused  #f  a  criminal  act, 
pulling  off  her  gloves  as  she  walked,  to 
leave  her  slender  white  hands  bare. 

Behind  the  sofa  she  found  a  small 
taboret  pushed  back  out  of  view,  and 
on  it  a  well-colored  meerschaum  pipe. 
She  bent  down  swiftly  and  lifted  it  in  her 
fingers;  but  the  love  instinct  in  her  was 
not  strong  enough  to  allow  her  to  pro- 
claim it  as  his.  She  looked  inquisitively 
around  the  room  again.  No  sign!  No 
sign!  And  yet  he  must  be  living  in  this 
house — must  come  to  this  room  at  least 
once  every  day. 

The  sound  of  a  woman's  voice  speak- 
ing in  the  hall  outside  caused  her  to 
start  almost  guiltily,  and  then  stand 
poised — listening. 

"When  my  son  comes/'  the  voice  was 
saying,  "tell  him  I  have  placed  those 
papers  he  was  asking  for  on  the  table 
in  his  den." 

There  was  a  quick  click  as  of  the  turn- 
ing of  a  door-knob,  and  then,  before 
Anne  had  time  to  alter  her  anomalous 
position,  the  door  was  pushed  open,  and 
in  a  breathing-space  of  horror  she  felt 
the  pipe  slipping  from  her  hand  to  the 
floor. 

A  drab-colored  figure  stood  in  the 
aperture  yawning  before  her — a  little 
figure,  so  utterly  unlike  the  preconceived 
image  of  his  mother  that  had  lived  in  her 
resentful  consciousness  that  she  stood 
staring  stupidly.  Then,  even  while  be- 
wilderment was  partially  stultifying  her 
senses,  she  gathered  from  the  expression 
in  the  precise  face  before  her  that  she 
had  at  once  created  an  erroneous  im- 
pression by  the  trivial  circumstance  of 
having  in  her  hand  an  object  belonging 
to  the  furnishings  of  the  room.  Her  face 
flamed,  and  she  bent  and  raised  the 
fallen  pipe  in  her  hand,  and,  laying  it 
on  the  table  beside  her,  stammered  some 
inaudible  words  of  apology.  Her  moth- 
er-in-law's eyes  followed  her  hand  with 
a  politely  resentful  glance.  They  were 
standing  but  a  few  feet  apart — the  elder 
woman  in  the  doorway,  Anne  with  her 
face  averted.  Her  cheeks  were  hot  and 
abashed,  and  she  could  feel  the  flush 

You  CXXXI.— No.  784.-75 


that  she  knew  showed  on  her  forehead — 
even  over  her  neck  and  bosom.  She  let 
her  eyes  fall  again  to  the  inconsiderable 
object  she  had  laid  down,  as  if  seeking 
from  it  some  appeasing  explanation  of 
her  action.    None  was  forthcoming. 

"I — I — beg  your  pardon,"  she  began, 
and  her  words  tangled  ignominiously  in 
her  throat  before  she  could  get  them  out 
of  her  mouth.  "I  was  just  looking — I 
was  just — "  Her  voice  broke  and  fell 
away. 

Her  husband's  mother  advanced  a  few 
steps  into  the  room  with  the  vigorous 
protest  of  the  house-owner  whose  pri- 
vacy has  been  rudely  violated.  The 
shade  of  politeness  was  quite  gone  from 
her  voice. 

"I  think,"  she  remarked,  coldly, 
"that  you  have  made  some  mistake. 
My  maid  told  me  that  a  lady  wished  to 
speak  to  me  on — in  regard  to — business 
of  importance,  but — "  Her  eyes  flashed 
over  Anne's  face  and  figure.  "I  believe 
— I  am  quite  sure — that  I  do  not  know 

you." 

To  Anne's  surprise  she  found  a  small, 
frightened  voice  somewhere  in  her  being. 
"I — I  think  you  do  know  me,  in — a 
way! 

The  elder  woman's  brows  drew  to- 
gether disputingly.  Her  eyes  lingered 
over  the  face  before  her  with  an  identify- 
ing stare.  She  shook  her  head.  "No," 
she  reasserted.  Then,  after  a  moment's 
hesitation,  and  with  a  little  repelling  in- 
flection in  her  voice,  "Do  you  want — 
are  you  seeking — work?" 

Anne  smiled.  She  recognized  so  well 
the  mental  reception  accorded  the  men- 
dicant in  the  other's  whole  attitude. 
Well,  she  was  more  or  less  of  a  beggar, 
though  she  was  not  begging  for  gold. 
She  drew  up  her  head  and  turned  her 
tastefully  clothed  figure  full  on  the  other 
woman's  vision.  "Do  I" — she  put  the 
question  with  a  hint  of  certainty  of  the 
answer  already  in  her  voice — "Do  I  look 
like  a  person  who  is  seeking — work?" 

For  an  instant  the  elder  woman  did 
not  reply.  Then,  with  well-bred  reluc- 
tance in  her  voice  to  enter  further  into 
the  subject,  she  said,  "I  could  not 
imagine  any  other  reason  for  your — 
your—" 

She  paused,  and  Anne  knew  as  con- 
sciously as  if  she  had  spoken  that  she 


602 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


had  courteously  withheld  the  word  "in- 
trusion." She  was  thrown  back  on  her- 
self for  the  moment  by  the  poise  of  a 
class  that  had  learned  through  centuries 
to  separate  itself  from  close  contact  with 
anything  distasteful.  Something  in  the 
utter  misery  of  her  silence,  perhaps, 
penetrated  through  the  crust  of  conven- 
tion that  covered  the  other  woman's 
heart.   Mrs.  Douglas  moved  forward. 

"Are  you  in  trouble?"  she  asked,  her 
voice  chilly  with  a  do-not-impose-on-me 
sympathy,  her  face  sharpened  with  that 
curiosity  over  sorrow  which  is  one  of 
woman's  strongest  characteristics. 

"Yes,"  rejoined  Anne,  slowly — "yes,  I 
am  in  trouble." 

"You  are  in  need  of — pecuniary  assist- 
ance?" The  voice  was  already  regretful 
of  the  previous  compliance. 

Anne  shook  her  head.  "No."  She 
looked  Mrs.  Douglas  straight  in  the  face. 
There  was  something  electrical  and  mys- 
terious in  her  glance.  Her  husband's 
mother  looked  hastily  around  the  room, 
hesitated,  went  over  and  closed  the  door 
behind  her,  and  then  indicated  a  chair 
with  a  little  cool  gesture. 

"Won't  you  sit  down?"  she  invited. 

Anne  stood  for  a  moment  stock-still. 
It  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  facing  the 
supreme  moment  of  her  life.  They  were 
to  sit  opposite,  they  two!  She  was  to 
be  allowed  to  speak  at  last,  just  to  speak, 
to  present  her  long-repudiated  cause. 

Her  hands  trembled  and  her  face  went 
pallid.  She  was  hardly  conscious  that 
she  had  physically  complied  with  the  in- 
vitation until  she  felt  the  support  of  the 
chair  under  her  body  and  saw  Mrs. 
Douglas,  with  an  uneasy  indecision  in 
her  manner,  cross  to  the  table  and,  push- 
ing aside  the  basket  that  held  the  ball 
of  knitting  with  a  frankly  disturbed 
hand,  seat  herself  on  the  very  edge  of  the 
little  sewing-chair,  as  if  she  already  de- 
sired to  recall  the  impulsive  invitation. 

"My  time  is  limited,"  she  began, 
speaking  with  soft  haste  and  glancing 
admonishingly  at  the  little  clock  on  the 
mantel-shelf.  "I  am  expecting  my  son 
home  any  moment." 

Anne  tried  to  keep  the  excitement  out 
of  her  voice.  "I  won't  take  long,"  she 
stammered  hurriedly.  "Perhaps—  I 
think  you  can  help  me!" 

"I  am  sure  I  would  be  only  too 


happy."  Her  mother-in-law's  face  com- 
posed itself  into  civil  lines,  her  voice  was 
as  narrowly  conventional  as  her  shoul- 
ders, and  her  shoulders  were  very  nar- 
row. She  picked  up  the  ball  of  knitting 
and  laid  it  down  again  in  an  indecisive 
manner. 

Anne  suddenly  felt  a  sense  of  supreme 
apathy  and  dissatisfaction  with  strife  of 
any  sort.  This  woman  oppressed  her 
with  the  uselessness  of  anything  except 
sinking  back  and  letting  the  tides  of  the 
usual  flow  over  and  on.  Though  she  was 
subtly  ashamed  of  it,  she  realized  that 
her  voice  was  touched  with  a  physical 
and  mental  malaise  when  she  spoke.  The 
conviction  and  glow  had  gone  from  it. 
She  put  a  mechanical  question  first  with 
an  expression  of  rare  bitterness  on  her 
face. 

"I  suppose,"  she  regarded  her  mother- 
in-law  with  an  eye  used  to  weighing 
characteristic  atmospheres — "I  suppose 
you  had  a  father  and  mother  who  did 
things  for  you;  who  taught  you  to 
be  good  and  took  care  of  you,  and  to 
whom  it  mattered  whether  you" — she 
paused  as  if  unable  to  put  into  expres- 
sion her  subconscious  thought — "were 
alive  or  not.  /  never  had,  you  know. 
My  father  died  before  I  was  born,  and 
my  mother  taught  school  for  a  living, 
and  during  the  day  had  to  leave  me  with 
the  woman  who  afterward  gave  me  a 
place  to  sleep  and  eat,  just  that — noth- 
ing more.  I  didn't  see  enough  of  her — 
my  mother — to  care  when  she  was  taken 
away.  I  didn't  know  much  in  my  child- 
hood except  that  there  was  a  thing  called 
work  in  the  world  and  I  must  do  it  if  I 
wanted  something  to  eat.  When  I  was 
ten  years  old  and  went  to  the  factories, 
the  woman  who  had  supported  me  took 
the  first  money  I  made  to  pay  my  moth- 
er's funeral  expenses.  She  said  she  had 
defrayed  them  out  of  her  own  pocket 
and  I  must  pay  back.  It  took  a  long 
time,  and  I  thought  of  my  mother  for  the 
first  while  I  was  paying  for  burying  her. 

"A  minister  who  came  into  the  dis- 
trict where  I  lived  taught  me  the  differ- 
ence between  good  and  evil.  He  taught 
me  that  if  I  was  hungry  I  mustn't  steal, 
and  that  if  I  was  cold  I  couldn't  have  a 
fire  unless  I  could  pay  for  it.  He  told 
me  what  it  was  to  be  good,  and  that 
when  I  died  I  would  get  a  reward  if  I 


THE  OBSTACLE 


603 


was.  He  said  the  pleasant  things  were 
nearly  always  the  devil's.  He  took  me 
to  night-school  and  I  began  to  learn  to 
think"  She  paused,  turning  her  face 
for  a  moment  to  the  waning  light  creep- 
ing under  the  scalloped  awning.  "When 
I  found  I  could  think,"  she  went  on 
stolidly,  "I  started  to  raise  myself  out 
of  the  place  where  I  was.  I  couldn't  stay 
there!  Something  in  me  made  me  strug- 
gle. I  took  a  course  in  stenography  and 
bookkeeping.  I  went  and  worked  in 
business  offices,  among  all  kinds  of  men. 
I  watched  life,  and  watched  it,  and 
watched  it.  I  tried  to  imitate  the  things 
I  liked.  I  tried  to  dress  like  the  women 
above  me.  I  tried  to  talk  and  act  and 
think  like  a  lady."  Her  voice  trembled. 
"I  tried  so  hard  to  reach  toward  higher 
things,  but  men  did  not  offer  me  mar- 
riage— not  the  better  kind  of  men,  I 
mean;  and  I  was  so  often  tired,  and  the 
way  seemed  so  long." 

Mrs.  Douglas  half  rose  to  her  feet. 
Her  face  was  unpleasantly  disturbed,  as 
if  she  had  been  forced  to  look  upon  some 
alien  object  which  she  could  by  turning 
her  head  have  avoided  seeing.  "Really," 
she  commenced,  "I  don't  see  how  this 
concerns — " 

"Wait!"  Anne  put  out  her  hand  as  if 
on  first  impulse  she  would  have  pushed 
the  other  back  into  her  seat,  so  strong 
was  her  determination  to  be  heard  unto 
the  end,  but  her  fingers  went  instead  to 
her  head  and  pressed  a  loose  tress  of  hair 
back  from  her  flushed  face.  The  little 
unconscious  gesture,  that  seemed  to  be 
the  manifestation  of  a  rebounding 
thought,  caused  the  pure  outline  of  her 
cheek  to  come  into  view.  In  a  moment 
she  glowed  with  vitality  and  a  soft,  de- 
sirable beauty.  Her  rounded  arms  and 
the  curve  of  her  young  bosom  showed 
through  the  thin  lawn  of  the  shirt-waist, 
and  the  quickening  pulses  throbbed  in 
her  white  throat.  She  seemed  in  a  mo- 
ment and  in  some  subtle  way  to  have 
lifted  an  intangible  curtain  from  before 
her  beauty,  even  as  an  Eastern  woman 
lifts  a  veil  from  her  face. 

"At  this  moment,"  she  stammered, 
her  voice  rushing  into  unreckoning  haste 
as  if  she  feared  that,  after  all,  she  might 
not  be  allowed  to  proceed  until  the  end — 
"at  this  moment  the  man  came  who 
offered  to  lift  me  out  of  the  life  I  was 


living.  He  was  from  the  West,  and 
came  to  the  office  where  I  was  employed 
to  have  some  stenographic  work  done. 
I  suppose  you — any  one — would  say  he 
became  infatuated  with  me.  I  don't 
know  what  word  would  explain  his  feel- 
ings. The  world — you,  I  suppose,  call 
it  'infatuation'  when  a  man  marries  a 
woman  of  my  class.  He  did  marry  me, 
though.  I  think  he  couldn't  help  it. 
Something  drew  him  to  me,"  she  said, 
her  voice  taking  on  a  thrill  as  if  she  had 
forced  by  an  effort  of  sheer  will  a  living 
quality  into  it  which  it  had  not  possessed 
before. 

"I  married  him.  It  was  wonderful, 
though  it  only  lasted  a  few  weeks — our 
life  together;  but  he  did  marry  me,  and 
because  I  expected  so  little  of  life  I  ap- 
preciated what  I  got.  Love  seemed  to 
explain  so  many  things!  It  was  strange 
— just  to  feel  it.  To  think  more  of  an- 
other person  than  of  yourself.  To  begin 
to  fear  that  even  their  body  might  be  hurt 
— and  to  feel  that  you  would  offer  your 
body  instead  to  prevent  their  feeling 
pain.  I  began  to  feel — that"  She  bit  her 
lip,  driving  back  an  emotion  she  instinc- 
tively felt  she  must  not  exhibit.  "The 
man  I  married  seemed  to  need  me,  too. 
We  fitted  together.  I  guess  that  is  what 
draws  people — a  need.  I  don't  know. 
But  I  was  so  happy  I  was  afraid,  and  I 
used  to  lie  awake  at  night  and  listen  to 
his  even  breathing  and  think  that  some 
day  I  would  hold  a  child  of  his  in  my 
arms,  a  child  that  would  be  fine  and 
strong  and  honest,  somehow,  and  then — 
then—" 

"Then?"  Mrs.  Douglas  leaned  for- 
ward, fascinated  in  spite  of  herself  by  the 
vital  personality  facing  her. 

"Then,"  said  Anne,  unemotionally, 
meeting  the  other  woman's  eyes  level 
and  straight.  "Then  his  mother  tele- 
graphed him  that  she  was  ill,  that  she 
was  dying.  His  family  had  always  been 
opposed  to  me,  of  course — and  he  went 
away." 

Mrs.  Douglas  rose  slowly  to  her  feet. 
Very  slowly,  like  one  in  a  trance.  An 
incredulous  wonder  lay  wavering  in  her 
eyes.  "You!"  She  began  putting  out 
both  her  wrinkled  hands  as  if  to  push 
something  away.  "Oh  no!  Why — it 
isn't  possible!" 

Anne  smiled  nervously.   "I  thought  it 


604 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


was  impossible  once  that  you  could  take 
him  away  from  me,"  she  said.  "For 
weeks  and  months  I  believed  it  was  im- 
possible. I  thought  he  would  come  back. 
But  I  am  not  blaming  him.  I  under- 
stand. You  got  him  under  your  influ- 
ence again  and  worked  and  worked,  and 
never  stopped  working.  If  I  had  been 
of  your  class  you  couldn't  have  done  it; 
but  when  a  man  marries  beneath  him, 
as  the  world  calls  it,  the  woman  has  a 
double  battle  to  fight.  ..." 

Her  words  were  tumbling  thick  and 
fast  from  her  lips,  as  if  by  leaving  no 
opening  she  could  avert  instant  repudia- 
tion. A  pain  that  a  person  of  less  vital- 
ity could  never  comprehend  trembled  in 
her  eyes. 

"You  got  him  away  from  me,"  she 
whispered,  "and  then  you  poisoned  his 
mind.  You  had  the  influence  of  all  his 
past  life  on  your  side — and  I  had  only 
the  few  months  we  spent  together — that 
time  when  we  were  just  beginning  to 
know  each  other.  I  was  back  there  in 
New  York  waiting,  hoping.  ...  I  have 
been  waiting  and  hoping  ever  since." 

There  were  no  tears  in  her  voice,  but 
it  was  more  pitiful  than  tears  could  have 
rendered  it. 

"You!"  stammered  Mrs.  Douglas 
again,  gazing  wide-eyed  into  the  girl's 
face,  her  wrinkled  lips  slowly  turning 
paper-white.  "Oh  no!"  She  put  her 
left  hand  to  her  head  with  a  little  gesture 
of  horror. 

"Yes,"  assented  Anne.  "I've  just 
stopped  waiting — that's*  ail.  I  wrote 
and  wrote,  and  you  returned  them  un- 
answered— my  letters — all  of  them.  I 
begged  you  on  my  knees  just  to  see  me 
— to  let  me  see  him — once,  only  once, 
but  you  took  no  notice.  You  worked  on 
him  at  first  through  your  illness,  I  sup- 
pose. It  seems  strange,  doesn't  it,  but 
you  made  him  write  that  it  had  all  been 
a  mistake.  I  suppose  you  made  him 
think  you  knew  better  than  he  did — and 
it  didn't  matter  about  me  at  all.  It 
seemed  to  you,  I  suppose,  little  more 
than  discharging  a  servant.  You  thought 
I  had  accepted  my  fate — had  forgotten, 
or  I  wouldn't  have  gotten  in  here  to-day. 
You  would  have  told  your  maid  to  turn 
me  away.  But  you  see  I  hadnt  forgot- 
ten. I  was  back  there  struggling,  saving 
enough  out  of  what  he  sent  me  to  live  on 


to  get  here — just  to  get  here  and  speak. 
She  turned  her  face  away,  her  lips 
twitching. 

"You,"  repeated  Mrs.  Douglas  for 
the  third  time.  Her  eyes  traveled  slowly 
over  Anne's  face  and  figure,  grasping  her 
body  with  an  appraising  eye;  measuring, 
as  one  measures  who  has  suddenly  been 
forced  to  make  a  lightning  estimate  of  a 
piece  of  goods  that  they  have  already 
decided  not  to  buy. 

"His  wife,"  she  repeated  in  a  stunned 
whisper.  Her  hands  touched  the  table 
with  an  unconsciously  destructive  ges- 
ture. A  book  fell  to  the  floor.  Her 
eyes  followed  it,  and  she  started  at  the 
slight  noise  and  then  bent  instinctively 
to  recover  it.  At  the  same  moment, 
with  a  youthful  swiftness,  Anne  bent, 
too,  and,  snatching  it  from  the  floor, 
replaced  it  on  the  table.  The  gesture 
brought  her  very  close  to  her  mother- 
in-law.  They  stood  with  their  clothes 
almost  touching.  In  that  moment  of 
nearness  their  eyes  had  bridged  the  gulf 
of  acquaintanceship  and  touched  an  un- 
willing intimacy  of  status. 

Mrs.  Douglas  realized  that  this  was  no 
longer  a  stranger  who  was  standing  in 
her  room.  A  strange  woman,  yes!  But 
some  one  that  was  hatefully  linked  to 
her  life.  Her  voice  was  still  dazed.  She 
had  taken  her  hand  from  the  table  now 
and  stood  erect,  her  pale-gray  gown 
falling  bleakly  around  her. 

"You  are  the  —  that  girl  he  —  mar- 
ried ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Anne,  quietly. 

"How  did  you  get — here?"  The  old 
eyes  wandered  around  the  little  sheltered 
room  to  the  door,  even  to  the  window, 
as  if  the  improbable  idea  of  a  forced  en- 
trance had  come  to  her  mind. 

"The  maid  let  me  in.  I  came  by 
train,"  answered  Anne,  speaking  with 
great  simplicity. 

"You — you  forced  yourself  into  my 
house — my  home!"  There  was  outraged 
dignity  in  the  voice. 

"I  thought  I  had  a  right  to  see  you." 

"To  see  my  son,  you  mean."  The 
implacable  resistance  in  the  voice  was 
instantly  present. 

"Oh  no — to  see  you.  When  you  have 
heard  me  I  will  go  away  again." 

"You  will  go  away?" 

"When  you  have  heard  me,  yes,"  as- 


THE  OBSTACLE 


605 


sented  Anne,  a  little  contempt  for  the 
other's  ill-concealed  fear  in  her  voice. 
She  watched  Mrs.  Douglas  gather  her 
startled  faculties  together,  saw  her  catch 
at  the  back  of  the  chair  before  which  she 
stood  and  let  her  body  down  heavily. 
She  recognized  behind  the  intense  fear  in 
the  eyes  that  strange  maternal  instinct 
that  will  fight  to  the  death  for  its  off- 
spring, that  will  fight  to  the  death  and 
crawl  on  bleeding  knees  to  the  side  of  a 
child  who  has  drawn  life  at  its  bosom 
and  make  almost  any  compromise  to 
avert  a  threatened  evil. 

"Sit  down  again — please."  His  mother 
was  speaking  with  an  effort. 

Anne  obeyed.  All  the  flame  and  ardor 
seemed  to  have  passed  away  from  her 
mind  and  body.  It  was  cold  like  a  thing 
that  the  sun  had  never  touched.  Now 
that  without  reservation  she  could 
speak  she  seemed  to  have  no  words  to 
say.  She  looked  at  his  mother  from  un- 
der her  tired  eyelids,  and,  because  she 
could  think  of  nothing  else,  asked  a 
pregnant  question:  "Would  you —  Do 
you  think  you  would  have  liked  me  if  I 
had  been — any  one  else — coming  to  you 
here?" 

Mrs.  Douglas  was  silent. 

Anne  flushed.  She  held  on  to  her  self- 
possession  with  an  effort.  Looking  down 
at  the  little  silk  purse  in  her  hand,  she 
mechanically  opened  and  shut  the  clasp. 
"I  have  to  make  you  see,"  she  declared, 
stolidly.  "That  is  why  I  came — to  make 
you  see!" 

"Make  me  see!"  Mrs.  Douglas  lift- 
ed amazed  eyes.  "Make  me  see— 
what?" 

"Make  you  see  how  wicked  it  was  for 
you  to  try  to  put  me  out  of  his  life!" 
She  stepped  closer,  her  voice  thrilling 
with  recovered  confidence.  "You 
thought — you  imagined — that  I  would 
injure  him  in  some  way,  and  you  wanted 
to  protect  him,  I  suppose.  You  thought 
I  might  hurt  him  because  of  my  birth 
and  position  in  the  world.  Did  you  ever 
think  that  I  might  help  him  ?" 

"Help  him!"  Mrs.  Douglas  repeated 
the  last  words  incredulously. 

Anne  smiled.  "Some  law  of  need 
brought  us  together,  speaking  with  pas- 
sionate insistence.  He  wanted  something 
in  me — something  he  didn't  have." 

"Something  in  you/"   Class  prejudice 


was  still  uppermost  in  the  disdainful  em- 
phasis. 

Anne's  face  flamed.  "For  his  future 
children,  perhaps,"  she  answered,  proud- 
ly. "Women  of  your  kind  don't  bear 
them — big  men,  strong  men;  and  the 
world  wants  them.  Why,  can't  you 
seer 

Mrs.  Douglas  turned  away  her 
shocked  eyes,  as  if  from  a  sight  it  would 
be  indelicate  to  look  upon. 

Anne  clasped  her  hands  together  in 
her  lap — clasped  them  tightly.  "It  is 
true!"  she  reaffirmed — "what  I  am  say- 
ing. It  came  to  me  all  those  long  nights 
when  I  lay  alone  wondering,  wondering 
what  made  you  think  you  had  the  right 
to  stop  the  wheels  of  my  life  because — of 
an  opinion."  She  lifted  her  hands  and 
pressed  them  passionately  against  her 
breast.  "What  makes  you  think  you 
can  judge  what  is  good  and  bad  for 
another  person  ?  Are  you  sure  you  know 
it  when  you  see  it — goodness?  Are  you 
sure" — she  leaned  forward — "are  you 
sure  you  are  good  yourself?  Were  you 
ever  tempted — here?"  Her  eyes  flashed 
around  the  secluded  room.  "Have  you 
ever  gone  to  bed  in  a  mean  little  room 
night  after  night,  staring  at  the  sky 
through  a  window  no  bigger  than  a 
band-box — like  a  prisoner?  Have  you 
taken  off  your  clothes  shivering  as  you 
listened  to  some  Elevated  train  rattling 
past  your — home?  And  then  have  you 
known  that  if  you  wanted  to  get  a  decent 
bite  to  eat,  in  a  decent  place,  among 
decent  people,  you  had  to  get  it  by 
sinning?  Good?  Yes,  I'm  good.  Are 
you?    Do  you  know  it?" 

The  rush  of  her  emotion  had  carried 
her  off  her  feet,  and  it  swept  the  other 
woman  back  in  her  chair,  crouching  like 
one  who  has  been  physically  assaulted. 
Her  eyes  were  wide  and  startled,  as  if  a 
light  had  been  flashed  suddenly  before 
them,  while  a  voice  cried,  "Behold!" 

Anne's  face  grew  tender  as  she  looked. 
Her  hands  relaxed  and  fell  to  her  sides. 

Mrs.  Douglas  trembled.  "I  don't 
want  to  hear  any  more!"  she  stammered, 
putting  out  her  hands  almost  pathet- 
ically.   "Dont — say  any  more!" 

Anne  grew  suddenly  pale.  "I'm 
sorry,"  she  said,  "but  I'm  not  begging. 
I'm  asking  for  my  rights!"  She  threw 
out  her  arms  with  the  relieved  expression 


606 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  one  who  is  flinging  the  last  weight 
from  him  in  a  race  for  a  goal.  "It  has 
been  seething  in  me  all  these  months — 
the  injustice  of  it!  The  knowledge  that 
you  were  a  woman,  too — and  had  never 
thought  of  me!  That  you  were  a  mother, 
too,  and  could  trample  me  down!  Why, 
I  eat,  and  go  to  bed  in  my  narrow  room; 
I  get  up  in  the  morning  and  go  through 
the  day,  and  go  back  and  go  to  bed  and 
sleep,  and  get  up  again  and  go  back  and 
go  to  sleep  again,  but  that  isn't  living! 
I'm  young  still.  There  is  blood  in  my 
veins.  My  heart  beats.  I  am  alive  in 
this  body  that  is  going  through  the  only 
motions  you  have  left  it.  But  don't  you 
understand  ?  I  won't  be  young  always." 
The  blood  flamed  to  her  face,  and  she 
stopped,  panting.  "You  are  wicked," 
she  ended,  coldly.  "That's  what  I  have 
come  to  tell  you — that  you  are  wicked, 
and  you  don't  know  it!" 

She  reached  forward  with  the  first 
fierce  gesture  she  had  allowed  herself, 
and  closed  her  fingers  around  the  other 
woman's  arm,  as  if  by  the  passionate 
pressure  she  could  wake  the  sleeping 
pulses  in  that  placid  body.  "Don't  you 
see  ?"  she  whispered,  with  a  voice  touched 
with  awe,  "what  a  terrible  thing  it  is  to 
change  the  course  of  another  woman's 
life?"  She  looked  down  at  the  frail 
hand  she  was  holding,  that  hand  which 
carried  many  trivial  jeweled  rings  and 
its  justifying  gold  band.  "Don't  you 
realize  that  you  might  as  well  have  gone 
out  and  stabbed  some  one  in  the  back  as 
to  try  to  take  the  chance  of  honest  moth- 
erhood away  from  another  woman? 
What  made  you  think  you  could  do  it?" 
she  demanded,  bewildered  at  the  majes- 
tic extension  of  her  own  thought.  She 
flung  the  hand  she  was  holding  away  in 
rebellion,  as  if  emotion  had  at  last  bro- 
ken every  conventional  barrier,  and  she, 
a  primal  thing,  had  only  to  do  with 
the  supreme  problem  of  existing,  and 
fighting  for  food,  and  mothering  her 
young. 

Mrs.  Douglas  put  her  hand  to  her  face. 
Her  eyes  were  still  wide  and  startled. 
"Wicked,"  she  faltered,  referring  back 
to  the  word  as  if  unable  to  define  it  as 
applied  to  herself.  A  slow  flush  of  com- 
prehension lifted  itself  over  her  face.  She 
looked  down  to  her  hands,  her  gown, 
around  the  dim,  peaceful  room. 


Anne  began  to  cry.  She  sat  down  in  a 
chair  and  pressed  the  backs  of  her  hands 
against  her  eyes  to  stop  the  flood  of  tears. 
"I'm  not  asking  you  to  pity  me,"  she 
defended  herself.  "I'm  not  begging  for 
anything.  I'm  just  asking  for  my  right 
— the  right  to  bear  my  children  as  you 
have  born  yours.  I  only  want  you  to 
take  the  obstacle  of  your  opinion  out  of 
my  life,  and  leave  me  what  is  rightly 
mine." 

"You  think — ?"  Mrs.  Douglas  whis- 
pered, with  frightened  eyes. 

"I  think  he  can't  help  coming  to  me! 
I  think  we  belong  together."  Her  voice 
was  choked.  "And  he  will  come,  too,  if 
you  will  get  out  of  the  way,  because  he 
needs  me!" 

There  was  an  intense  childishness  in 
her  tears.  She  had  spoken  almost  with 
inspiration,  driven  by  a  dominating 
emotion.  She  wept  with  the  little  mate- 
rial self  that  was  hurt. 

"You  cant  take  it  from  me,"  she 
moaned.  "You  can't.  I'm  going  to 
fight.  I  can't  live  all  my  life  without 
love!  I  want  little  hands  around  my 
neck — babies  of  my  own!  I've  come  all 
this  way  to  make  you  see  that  it  isn't 
right  to  have  opinions  about  other  peo- 
ples lives  and  act  on  them.  It's  a  sin, 
that's  what  it  is.    The  great  sin!" 

All  restraint  had  fallen  from  her.  She 
crouched  in  the  chair,  crowding  her  face 
against  its  back,  the  arraignment  in  her 
last  words  thrilling  through  the  room. 

Evening  had  fallen  unnoticed,  and 
everywhere  there  was  that  brooding 
lethargy  that  follows  intense  heat.  A 
faint  insinuating  breeze  stirred  the  scal- 
loped edges  of  the  awning  at  the  window. 
The  pictures  on  the  wall  were  dim,  the 
furniture  hazy;  nothing  showed  salient- 
ly.  From  outside  came  the  rattle  of  pass- 
ing cars  and  the  hum  of  the  street.  In- 
side there  was  the  breathlessness  of 
rising  and  falling  emotion — a  silence 
that  had  no  peace  in  it. 

The  little  clock  on  the  mantel-shelf 
began  to  strike  the  hour.  It  struck  slow- 
ly, almost  calmly,  as  if  to  silence  the 
noise  of  emotion  with  its  mechanical 
voice.  One — two — three  —  four — five! 
There  was  the  sound  of  footsteps  in  the 
hall  outside,  and  then  a  man's  voice 
whistling  a  popular  air.  There  was 
something  contented  and  desultory  in 


THE  OBSTACLE 


607 


the  tone.  One  caught  at  once  the  sense 
of  well-being,  of  every-day  content. 

If  a  pistol-shot  had  gone  off  in  the 
room,  the  effect  upon  the  two  women 
could  not  have  been  more  electrical. 
Anne  raised  her  head  and  slowly  turned 
her  eyes  to  her  mother-in-law's  face  as 
she  listened  incredulously  to  the  easy, 
light  tones  of  the  voice  outside.  As  she 
listened  the  stunned,  blasted  wonder 
grew  on  her  face. 

"Is  it?"  she  breathed  in  an  appalled 
whisper. 

His  mother  did  not  even  bow  her  head. 
Her  eyes  answered. 

Anne  gave  a  little  blanched  cry.  "And 
he  is — whistling!" 

There  was  a  long  silence,  so  crucial 
that  it  seemed  to  Anne  she  was  actually 
experiencing  bodily  pain.  For  a  long 
year  she  had  yearned  and  suffered  and 
tortured  her  mind;  she  had  fought  and 
agonized,  and  he  had  been — whistling! 
She  looked  at  the  older  woman  before 
her,  at  the  one  obstacle  she  had  intended 
to  remove  from  her  path,  and  stretched 
out  her  hands  piteously.  "He  doesn't 
care!"  she  cried,  terrified  by  the  informa- 
tion so  swiftly  snatched,  with  the 
absence  of  logic  of  womankind,  from  an 
accident  of  circumstance.  She  stumbled 
to  her  feet. 

"Oh,"  she  moaned,  "I  thought  you 
were  the  obstacle.  I  didn't  know  he  had 
forgotten!  He  couldn't  have  whistled  if 
he  hadn't  forgotten!"  She  stretched  out 
groping  hands. 

The  little  moment  of  helpless  femi- 
nine woe  was  more  far-reaching  in  its 
effects  than  all  that  had  gone  before. 
His  mother's  face  expressed  at  last  a 
mothering  instinct  that  had  passed  from 
the  individual  to  the  universal.  The 
impulse  of  kind  to  succor  kind  spoke  in 
her  voice. 

"Child!"  she  stammered,  and  gave 
her  hands  impulsively  and  mercifully. 

Anne  stumbled  forward.  "I  didn't 
have  any  mother,"  she  sobbed,  clinging 
to  those  extended  hands,  her  face  all 
distorted  with  famine  for  tenderness. 
"That's  why  I  wanted  so  to  be  one. 
Don't  you  understand?" 

Mrs.  Douglas  hesitated  for  a  moment, 
and,  putting  up  embarrassed  fingers,  she 
brushed  back  a  strand  of  hair  from  the 
girl's  flushed  brow.    She  moved  awk- 


wardly, as  if  she  did  not  know  just  what 
to  do  with  the  involuntary  emotion  that 
was  actuating  her.  Then,  as  she  listened 
to  the  desultory  whistling  outside  and 
looked  down  at  the  convulsed  young 
face  on  her  breast  her  lips  trembled  into 
a  little  understanding  smile. 

"Aren't  you  having  an  opinion  now?" 
she  asked,  rebukingly,  and  then,  releas- 
ing the  hands  she  held  she  turned  to  the 
door.  "Wait!" 

Anne  caught  her  as  she  passed.  "Oh 
no!  I  don't  want  to  see  him!  I  don't 
want  to!" 

It  was  so  dark  in  the  room  now  that 
Mrs.  Douglas  had  to  grope  her  way  to 
the  door.  "You  are  going  to  have  your 
chance,"  she  said.  "I  am  going  to  give 
it  to  you.  You  told  the  truth:  I  haven't 
the  right  to  judge.  I  am  going  to  get 
out  of  the  way — and  see!" 

But  even  as  Anne  gave  voice  to  a  re- 
sisting cry  she  had  a  swift  impression  of 
her  mother-in-law's  gray-clad  figure 
framed  in  the  doorway,  the  letting  in  of 
a  shaft  of  light,  and  then — darkness. 

Unconsciously  she  began  to  moan  to 
herself.  "I  don't  want  it,"  she  whis- 
pered the  words  aloud,  "I  don't  want  it 
— now!  Please  don't  get  him! — please!" 
She  felt  a  shamed  flush  creeping  to  her 
very  eyes,  and  put  her  hands  over  her 
face  with  a  woman's  swift  instinct  to 
seek  shelter  after  having  unwittingly 
humiliated  herself. 

She  stumbled  over  to  the  window, 
groping  blindly.  She  had  been  so  sure 
that  it  was  a  cobweb  of  opinion  that  lay 
between  them;  mentally  she  had  never 
pictured  him  save  as  manifesting  a  mis- 
ery equal  to  her  own.  She  had  imbued 
him  with  her  own  feminine  singleness  of 
emotion,  and  in  an  instant  a  trivial, 
masculine  act  had  thrown  her  from  her 
mental  focus.  She  thought  of  the  words 
she  had  said  to  his  mother,  and  burned 
from  head  to  foot  with  self-conscious 
shame.  "Let  what  is  mine  come  to 
me  .  .  . 

She  heard  the  door  opening,  but  she 
had  no  power  to  look  around.  The  scent 
of  the  mignonette  in  the  window-box 
was  blown  toward  her  by  a  passing 
breeze,  and  she  knew  that  in  all  ways 
and  for  ever  it  would  be  associated  in  her 
mind  with  this  moment  of  sick  shame 
and  defeat. 


608 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


From  the  open  door  a  full  band  of  light 
fell  into  the  room,  and  she  felt  his 
presence  without  moving.  She  turned 
abruptly  like  one  in  a  trance,  and  moved 
forward  with  the  stiff  steps  of  a  thing 
that  walks  without  mental  volition. 
Then,  suddenly,  she  saw  his  face  and 
figure  as  he  stood  in  the  light — his  slen- 
der body  and  thin  face,  and  she  could 
have  screamed  at  the  mere  naturalness 
of  it.  Why — he  was  her  husband  after 
all.  He  had  always  been  her  husband. 
He  might  have  but  opened  the  door  of 
her  room,  after  an  hour's  absence,  and 
advanced  with  an  every-day  sentence  on 
his  lips. 

The  dominance  of  the  reality,  which 
had  brought  her  back  to  him  over  bul- 
warks of  opinion  and  class  prejudice  and 
compliant  apathy,  stirred  in  her  again. 
She  flamed  with  the  primal  strain.  Her 
face  glowed  with  beauty  and  strength. 
She  advanced  into  the  light  with  unerr- 
ing footsteps.  She  stood  at  one  end  of 
that  luminous  band  of  light,  and  he  at 
the  other;  and  they  looked  into  each 
other's  eyes. 

She  did  not  stir,  but  the  man  moved 
forward.  Slowly  and  inevitably  he 
came,  his  face  as  slowly  growing  pale. 
It  took  three  great  strides  to  reach  her. 
She  was  absolutely  still  under  his  hands. 
She  felt  his  fingers  slowly  tightening  on 
the  flesh  of  her  arms. 

"She  sent  me!"  he  said,  stammering. 
"My  mother — "  His  hands  trembled 
where  they  were  clasped  about  her 
arms.  He  stared  down  at  her  as  a  man 
stares  who  has  received  a  blow  which  has 
restored  his  memory.  "I  have  been 
wanting  you,"  he  whispered,  dizzily,  as 
if  surprised,  as  he  spoke  the  words,  at 


the  depth  of  the  long-undeclared  need, 
"wanting — just  you!" 

She  made  no  answer. 

"I  was  going  back,"  breathed  the 
man,  still  in  that  stupefied  tone.  "I  was 
thinking,  when  I  put  my  latch-key  in  the 
door  to-night,  that  you  were  the  one  big 
thing  in  life — that  the  rest  didn't  matter 
so  much,  after  all!" 

"You  were  thinking- — to-night?"  she 
repeated,  dully.  Then  her  voice,  leaping 
to  an  astonished  outcry,  "  But  you  were 
whistling — whistling!"  Then,  as  she 
met  his  blank,  uncomprehending  stare, 
she  began  to  laugh  tearfully  as  a  child 
laughs  who  has  found  that  a  broken  toy 
may  be  mended,  after  all.  "It  is  so 
absurd."  Her  voice  choked  in  her  throat. 
"When  I  came  all  this  way  to  say  how 
wicked  it  was  to  have  an  opinion — and 
act  on  it — and  I  was  having  one,  too,  and 
would  have  acted  on  it — if  she  hadn't 
stopped  me;  and  it  never  was  real  at  all. 
You  were  caring  all  the  time — even  if 
you  did  whistle."  She  leaned  closer, 
her  lips  parted,  her  eyes  swimming  with 
light.    "Oh,  you  man!" 

Half  closing  her  eyes,  she  waited  to 
feel  his  arms  gently  encircling  her,  the 
familiar  roughness  of  his  coat,  the  beat 
of  his  racing  heart — to  feel  his  cheek  as 
it  bent  down  to  her  hair  with  a  shame- 
faced emotion.  Then  she  lifted  herself 
with  all  the  throbbing  beautiful  life  and 
vitality  in  her  body  to  his  embrace. 

"Oh,  let  me  love  you,  love  you,  love 
you!"  she  sighed.  She  drooped  a  little 
as  she  felt  the  long-coveted  support  of 
his  hands  under  her  shoulders.  Then 
turning  her  cheek  to  his  breast,  "I  am 
so  tired,"  she  whispered,  confidingly, 

so  tired. 


Do  Insects  Migrate  Like  Birds? 


BY  HOWARD  J.  SHANNON 


VER  the  dunes  they 
drive,  often  veering  to 
the  wind  as  they  crest 
the  highest  mounds  of 
sand,  then,  after  bal- 
ancing upon  even  wings 
again,  in  innumerable 
multitudes  they  volley  past.  Increas- 
ingly, impressively,  portentously  they 
come  in  a  driving  hail  of  green  bodies 
and  gleaming  wings;  or,  rather,  they 
seem  like  an  invading  winged  army  with 
glittering  hosts  overspreading  the  entire 
width  of  the  beach,  and  with  rank  be- 
yond rank,  company  beyond  company, 
steadily  emerging  from  the  misty  dis- 
tance as  far  as  the  eye  can  penetrate. 
For  I  am  crouched  beneath  the  crest  of 
a  sea-shore  dune,  watching  the  vast 
spectacle  of  the  seldom  observed  and 
less  understood  dragon-fly  migration 
sweeping  over  the  shore. 

They  travel  parallel  with  the  ocean, 
and  in  irregularly  regular  order — that 
is,  at  fairly  even  distances  apart;  and  so 
concerted  is  the  movement  that  even 
my  sudden  striking  gesture  with  the 
net  turns  aside  only  the  insects  immedi- 
ately attacked;  it  does  not  disturb  the 
onsweeping  advance  of  the  general  body 
that  seems  like  a  sentient  river  in  irre- 
sistible, ceaseless  flow.  Indeed,  their 
number  is  enormous!  For  a  brief  calcu- 
lation of  the  numerical  strength  of  the 
ranks — that  is,  the  number  of  insects 
passing  in  a  given  minute,  when  multi- 
plied by  the  period  of  time,  two  hours, 
during  which  the  hastening  hosts  were 
in  transit  —  produces  the  impressive 
though  probably  underestimated  total 
of  three  hundred  and  sixty  thousand 
dragon-flies.  When  I  look  toward  their 
unknown  haven  in  the  West  I  see  rank 
beyond  crowding  rank,  cloud  beyond 
hastening  cloud  enfilading  ofT  between 
the  grass-covered  dunes,  with  the  Sep- 
tember sunlight  all  aglitter  and  ashim- 
mer  upon  the  retreating,  slanting  bay- 
onets of  innumerable  shining  wings. 
Vol.  CXXXL— No.  784  —70 


How  were  they  marshaled — these  col- 
umns, regiments,  and  companies  without 
number?  What  impulse  or  purpose  cap- 
tains them  in  united  flight?  And  the 
same  questions  confront  the  curious 
observer  who  considers  those  other  insect 
hosts  which  traverse  the  earth  or  the 
upper  and  lower  avenues  of  the  air. 

Not  all  of  these  impressive  manifesta- 
tions are  contained  in  the  same  category; 
sharp  differences  exist  in  the  initial  im- 
pulses, characteristics,  and  results  of 
forced  marches  in  the  insect  world. 
Most  of  us  know  the  army  worm's  ac- 
tivities; for  example,  those  swarming, 
caterpillar  myriads  which  recently  ap- 
peared in  damaging  numbers  in  the 
vicinity  of  New  York,  but  which  in  their 
most  devastating  marches  through  New 
England  have  left  broad  belts  of  barren 
brown  where  the  timothy  and  blue-grass 
waved,  and  in  their  impetuous  advances 
upon  the  harvest  lands  have  swarmed 
over  sheds  and  houses  in  their  path  so 
th  at  such  structures  have  been  literally 
covered  with  a  moving,  black  curtain 
of  the  hungry  hordes. 

The  blight  of  the  Western  locusts  may 
be  recalled — how  in  certain  unforget- 
able  years  they  have  risen  above  their 
native  plateaus  along  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, and  after  appearing  in  the  far 
western  sky  as  shining  clouds  of  sunlit, 
membranous  wings  advancing  in  fan- 
like formation  over  the  wheat-lands 
of  Kansas,  Missouri,  and  neighboring 
states,  they  have  settled  down  as  masses 
of  jumping,  struggling,  voracious  mouths 
that  marched  and  countermarched  over 
fields,  over  fences,  through  brooks  and 
larger  streams  here,  there,  everywhere — 
even  into  the  forests,  devouring  every 
living  green  thing  and  leaving  devasta- 
tion behind.  In  such  ways  did  the 
pestilential  locust  of  the  Scriptures  origi- 
nate in  the  mountain  regions  of  Arabia 
and  descend  upon  the  fields  of  Egypt,  for 
such  is  the  behavior  of  its  descendants 
to-day. 


610 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


But  these  are  not  true  migrations. 
For  the  army  worm  is  always  with  us, 
and  only  in  certain  years  of  favorable 
weather  (a  wet  season  following  one  of 
drought)  are  its  numbers  able  to  increase 
until  they  assume  the  proportions  of  a 
plague;  their  so-called  march  is  only 
an  advance  upon  more  and  better  food. 
The  Rocky  Mountain  locust's  behavior, 
too,  is  due  to  an  exceptional  increase  in 
numbers  that  demand  new  feeding- 
grounds,  so  they  take  flight  from  their 
mountain  strongholds  just  as  European 
lemmings  desert  home  fields  and  travel 
over  land  and  water  until  the  animals 
eventually  cast  themselves  into  the 
North  Sea.  These  instances  of  massed 
movement  are  largely  due  to  the  produc- 
tion of  unusual  numbers  which  move 
outward  from  exhausted  home  fields, 
seeking  a  new  food-supply;  there  is  no 
annual  exodus  from  one  region  and  a 
return  in  the  following  season,  such  as 
one  finds  in  certain  birds  and  fishes. 

Some  hint  of  this  trait  appears,  how- 
ever, in  the  locust's  after  behavior.  For, 
in  the  summer  following  the  invasion. 


the  progeny  of  these  swarms  often  take 
a  united  and  extensive  flight  northwest- 
ward from  the  Missouri  lands  of  their 
invasion  in  an  attempt,  as  Dr.  Riley 
believed,  to  reach  their  home  breeding- 
grounds  along  the  Rockies'  foot-hills. 
But  many  fall  by  the  way,  and,  although 
when  met  by  adverse  winds  they  settle 
to  the  ground  and  await  more  favorable 
breezes,  few  ever  return  to  the  land  of 
their  origin. 

A  Southern  traveler,  also,  is  sometimes 
described  as  a  migrant,  but  the  attempt 
is  abortive.  For  when  the  cotton-worm 
multiplies  excessively — when  brood  fol- 
lows brood  until  the  productive  fields 
are  aswarm  with  the  moths,  and  cotton- 
plants  hang  all  ragged  and  torn — then 
these  fully  developed  moths,  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  latest  births,  rise  in  great 
companies,  particularly  on'cloudy  days, 
and  with  a  strength  and  unity  of  flight 
hitherto  unmanifested,  the  great,  brown 
flocks  advance  over  the  Carolinas,  Vir- 
ginia, and  in  some  years  even  over  the 
autumn  shores  of  Long  Island  and  New 
York.     Indeed,  they  fly  farther  still, 


A  GLITTERING  HAIL  OF  GREEN  BODIES  AND  GLEAMING  WINGS 


INSECT  MIGRATION  ROUTES  ON  LONG  ISLAND 

(Dragon-flies  represented  by  lozenge-tipped  arrows;    "  monarchs  "  by  circle-tipped  arrows.) 

The  flight  at  Cape  May  would  seem  to  be  a  continuation  of  the  Long  Island  movement.  At  both 
places  the  movements  coincide  with  the  flight  lines  of  migratory  birds  (indicated  by  feathered  arrows 

as  determined  by  C.  C.  Trowbridge.) 


even  to  Wisconsin  and  Canada;  more- 
over, so  late  in  the  year  is  their  impetu- 
ous advance  pursued  that  they  once 
swept  within  the  city  limits  of  Pittsburg 
during  an  early-winter  snow-storm.  But 
these  far  travelers  never  return  to  native, 
Southern  fields,  nor  do  they  leave  any 
progeny  in  Northern  lands  so  laboriously 
gained;  this  impulsive,  irrepressible,  al- 
most explosive  outburst  of  multitudi- 
nous life  from  the  South  is  ended  by  the 
Northern  winter,  when  the  worn  wings 
close,  and  with  autumn  leaves  and  first 
snowflakes  all  alike  are  swept  away. 

A  presumably  true  migrant,  and  the 
only  one  hitherto  known,  is  our  "mon- 
arch," or  milkweed  butterfly — that  fa- 
miliar, red-winged,  black-limbed  hoverer 
above  roadside  blooms  and  swamp-land 
flowers.  For  it  does  fly  south  in  autumn 
and  is  believed  to  return  with  the  fol- 
lowing spring.  Indeed,  many  notable 
autumn  flights  in  Western  states  have 
been  reported,  for  there  great,  ruddy 
flocks  often  swarm  for  miles  and  move 
southward   in   immense   clouds,  while 


lesser  flocks  appear  in  the  East.  But 
peculiar  opportunities  for  such  observa- 
tions are  ofFered  by  southern  Long 
Island  beaches  where  the  southward- 
flying  insects,  becoming  confused  by  the 
land  limits  fronting  the  wide  waters, 
hesitate  and  reveal  their  hidden  pur- 
poses. For,  although  great  flocks  do  fly 
directly  southward  over  the  sea,  usually 
they  turn  westward  along  the  shore  in  a 
sidewise  diversion  that,  with  every  re- 
curring year,  converts  these  barrier 
beaches  into  great  migratory-insect  high- 
ways. 

Ruddy,  black-veined,  beating  wings 
are  passing  in  considerable  numbers  al- 
most any  mid-August  or  September  day, 
and  as  three  miles  of  salt-marsh  and 
open  water  separate  this  particular  Long 
Beach  sand-pit  (my  principal  place  of 
observation)  from  the  mainland,  these 
butterflies  can  be  nothing  less  than  mi- 
grants, for  almost  all  are  trending  west- 
ward. During  pleasant  days,  steadily 
fluttering  units  traverse  the  dunes  in  an 
intermittent  but  unquestionable  proces- 


TRUE  MIGRANTS  FOLLOWING  THE  SEA-SHORE  HIGHWAYS 


sion,  hinting  at  some  slowly  marshaling 
assemblage  farther  to  the  west;  in  blus- 
tery weather  gathering  companies  con- 
gregate on  the  beach-grass  or  bay- 
berry  shelters,  and  fitfully  flutter  about 
the  swaying  stems  and  twigs.  But  when 
sunset  approaches  they  gather  for  eve- 
ning rest,  and  reveal  a  more  splendid 
sight.  For  still  greater  companies,  ad- 
vancing and  foregathering  from  the  east, 
come  clustering  to  all  the  surrounding 
vegetation  till  golden-rod  plants  are  al- 
most hidden  beneath  the  winged  clouds 
that  settle  there.  They  fringe  every 
terminal  stalk  with  red  wings  arranged 
in  pendent  series,  or  cling  closer  in 
massed  myriads  that  sleep  more  quietly 
along  the  lower  leaves;  while,  farther 
away,  the  more  restless  groups  and  clus- 
tering clans,  settling  and  resettling 
themselves  in  the  level,  autumn  light, 
seem  to  glow  and  flame,  then  die  to 
flame  again  like  uptossed  embers  from 
half-extinguished  signal-fires  set  here 
and  there  among  the  hollow,  purple 
dunes  between  me  and  the  setting  sun. 

Their  individual  behavior,  too,  is  far 
different  from  that  of  the  butterfly  when 
traveling  alone;  but  this  transformation 
is  common  to  other  insects  moving  in 
mass,  and,  in  the  writer's  opinion,  bears 


a  probable  relationship  to  distinctive 
traits  revealed  in  certain  human  gather- 
ings— psychic  peculiarities  such  as  the 
half-hypnotic  contagions  in  which  indi- 
vidual desires  are  submerged,  resulting 
in  a  sense  of  invincibility  and  an  abey- 
ance of  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion that  Le  Bon  has  called  the 
" psychology  of  the  crowd."  These 
down-drooping  wings  can  be  gently 
stroked  without  exciting  alarm;  sepa- 
rate insects  can  be  lifted  to  one's  finger 
so  that  four  slender  legs  clasp  this  un- 
usual support  until,  in  the  presence  of 
such  allowed  intimacies,  one  marvels  at 
the  mysterious  new  nature  with  which 
the  shy  creatures  have  been  informed, 
enabling  them  to  move  in  unhesitating 
unison  upon  their  continental  journey. 

Specific  evidences  of  such  annual  ven- 
tures are  now  very  considerable,  not  only 
in  Long  Island  and  the  Western  states, 
but  also  in  New  York  City  (where  the 
writer  has  seen  such  migrating  butterflies 
flying  westward  over  City  Hall  Park), 
New  Jersey,  New  England,  and  Canada; 
while  their  presumable  return  in  spring 
(tentatively  accepted  by  most  ento- 
mologists) completes  the  reciprocal 
movement  between  north  and  south,  the 
only  autumnal  exodus  and  spring  return 


DO  INSECTS  MIGRATE  LIKE  BIRDS? 


613 


which  is  generally  believed  to  take  place 
in  the  North-American  insect  world. 

What  meaning,  then,  attaches  to  our 
great  dragon  flight?  Were  they  driven 
to  some  farther  station  by  a  scarcity  of 
food?  Such  a  reason  is  unacceptable, 
for  the  near  meadows  still  swarmed  with 
insects,  and  the  nuptial  or  marriage 
flight  of  the  sea-shore  ants  was  yet  to 
take  place — that  great  aerial  festival 
when  the  lower  and  upper  spaces  of  the 
air  are  thronged  with  millions  of  the 
hitherto  invisible,  virgin  queens  upon 
which  the  dragons  may,  and  often  do, 
forage  and  satiate  themselves. 

Were  they  searching  for  water  in 
which  to  lay  their  eggs?  For  this  medi- 
um is  the  essential  element  in  which 
young  dragons  are  born  and  pass  their 
larval  and  nymphal  life.  This  reason — 
the  drying  up  of  home 
ponds  —  has  been  ac- 
cepted by  many  stu- 
dents as  a  solution 
of  other  flights;  but 
swarms  have  been  seen 
passing  over  ponds  in 
their  path  of  advance, 
and  large,  perennial 
bodies  of  water  are 
wide  -  spread  to  the 
north  of  this  particular 
region.  Moreover,  me- 
teorological observa- 
tions at  Prospect  Park, 
Brooklyn,  show  that 
the  year  of  flight,  1912, 
was  not  especially  dry. 
So,  in  the  writer's  opin- 
ion, this  reason  fails  to 
account  for  the  dragon's 
multitudinous  advance 
upon  the  unknown. 

Then,  too,  certain  la- 
ter observations  of  less- 
er flights  seem  to  show 
that  these  movements 
are  annual  events.  In 
late  August  or  Septem- 
ber days  the  large  drag- 
ons, as  well  as  the 
"monarch"  butterflies, 
habitually  travel  west- 
ward along  this  Long 
Island  ocean-shore  in  a 
grand,  undeviating  pro- 
cession  which  reveals 


unmistakable  characteristics  of  an  in- 
sect migration,  for,  in  contrast  to  their 
usual  helter-skelter  dashings  to  and  fro 
among  the  summer  dunes,  their  flight 
is  steady,  unfaltering,  and  imbued  with 
the  peculiar  distinction  and  dignity 
assumed  by  all  creatures  when  on  pil- 
grimage. For  now  it  is  the  race  or 
species,  rather  than  the  individual, 
whose  future  and  integrity  is  involved; 
so,  all  through  the  long  September  after- 
noons, these  gold-hued  and  viridian  drag- 
ons, with  silver  wings  glinting  in  the 
light,  sail  steadily  onward,  undeterred, 
intent,  oblivious. 

By  following  their  course  along  the 
beach  one  discovers  that  no  change  of 
direction  takes  place;  where  dune  slopes 
lead  they  inevitably  follow  mile  after 
mile;  and  when  the  beach  extremity  is 


MIGRATING      MONARCHS      RESTING  AT  EVENING 


614 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


gained  and  only  the  wide  channel  and 
open  ocean  lie  before,  up,  up  and  away 
they  fly  northwestward,  where,  beyond 
the  intervening  waters,  Rockaway's  out- 
lands  stretch  far  toward  the  sunset. 
"Monarchs"  follow  the  same  northwest- 
ward course,  flutter  across  the  ocean 
channel,  and  take  up  their  westward 
journey  on  the  other  side.  So  it  would 
seem  that  both  creatures  are  diverted 
from  their  southward  course  by  this 
east-and-west-lying  coast,  the  only  such 
ocean-shore  between  Nova  Scotia  and 
Florida,  so  they  are  compelled  to  travel 
toward  the  mainland  seeking  an  over- 
land route  to  their  presumable  winter 
station  in  a  warmer  region. 

As  these  movements  are  now  seen  to 
be  annual  events  that  recur  day  after 
day  in  regular  succession,  why  have  they 
never  been  defined  before?  One  reason 
is  that  the  processions  are  much  broken 
and  scattered.  For  repeated  tests  have 
shown  that  often,  even  at  the  height  of 
the  migration,  one  "  monarch  "  will  fly 
out  of  sight  long  before  another  appears; 
so,  if  the  observer  did  not  know  that  a 
definite  movement  was  taking  place,  the 
occasional  butterflies  that  fluttered  by 
would  fail  to  attract  attention.  On  one 
mid-August  day  of  last  year,  for  in- 
stance, twenty-seven  butterflies  passed 
westward  between  eleven  -  thirty  in 
the  morning  and  two-fifteen  in  the 
afternoon;  on  August  31st,  twelve 
passed  in  about  the  same  period;  on 
September  3d,  fifty  or  more  flew  past 
against  the  northwest  wind.  At  other 
times  they  pass  in  scattered  groups  of  a 
dozen  or  in  clouds  of  hundreds.  More- 
over, much  the  same  statements  hold 
true  of  the  dragon-flies,  for  they,  too, 
pass  by  at  wide  intervals,  or  in  clusters 


A  RETURNING  MIGRANT  FROM  THE  SOUTH 

The  torn  and  weather-worn  wings 
bear  all  the  marks  of  extensive  travel. 


of  a  dozen  or  more;  sometimes  a  min- 
gled cloud  of  "monarchs"  and  dragons 
drift  west  together. 

Still,  judging  from  many  European  ob- 
servations, much  vaster  dragon  swarms 
must  traverse  this  country,  even  though 
they  are  almost  unknown.  For  such 
descriptive  phrases  as  "we  saw  a  great 
cloud  approaching  the  ship  from  the 
shore,"  or  "a  great  cloud  came  up  from 
the  north,  so  great  that  for  hours  it 
darkened  the  sun,"  or  "millions  upon 
millions  swept  past  during  the  day" — 
all  these  attest  to  the  immense  numbers 
that  travel  in  the  Old  World.  That  they 
are  unseen  here  is  due,  in  part,  to  the 
fact  that  they  fly  at  great  altitudes. 
Even  the  Long  Beach  swarm  of  191 2 
began  to  mount  higher  as  it  approached 
tall  buildings  to  the  westward  where  the 
writer  followed  them;  and,  as  already 
noted,  the  later  flights,  upon  approach- 
ing the  ocean  channel  terminating  that 
beach,  suddenly  darted  to  higher  levels 
and  soon  vanished  from  sight.  Indeed,  a 
recent  test  shows  that  lofty  altitudes 
are  habitually  visited  by  dragons,  for, 
by  taking  his  stand  upon  the  Elevated 
station  at  Gates  Avenue  and  Broadway, 
Brooklyn — the  center  of  a  populated 
section  over  a  mile  from  water  in  any 
direction — the  writer  was  able  to  see 
dragons  flying  about  over  the  houses, 
while  higher  still  were  several  others 
cruising  about  at  so  great  an  elevation 
within  the  blue  that  only  an  occasional 
white  cloud  rendered  them  visible.  So, 
although  these  individuals  were  not 
truly  migrating,  the  traveling  swarms 
might  easily  pass  over  great  cities.  Un- 
doubtedly they  do  so  pass  over  the  lower 
portion  of  Manhattan  Island,  which  lies 
in  their  direct  coastwise  route  coming 
down  from  the  east  and  north. 

As  these  Long  Island  insect-routes  co- 
incide with  local  bird-routes,  they  suggest 
the  probability  that  such  parallel  move- 
ments are  in  the  nature  of  a  general 
law.  For  many  birds,  too  (as  shown  by 
the  exhaustive  studies  of  C.  C.  Trow- 
bridge), are  diverted  westward  by  the 
coast-line  here,  and  travel  along  these 
land-limits  only  to  turn  southward  upon 
reaching  the  mainland  and  continue 
down  the  Jersey  shore.  At  Cape 
May  swarms  of  Anax  junius,  the  same 
dragon  observed  on  Long  Island,  have 


been  seen  in  southwestward  flight  during 
September  by  Herman  Wolff,  while  the 
"monarchs"  habitually  make  an  autum- 
nal journey  there  as  shown  by  Dr.  Hol- 
land's October  observations.  Doubtless 
these  insects  are  the  same  individuals 
which  have  traversed  the  Long  Island  or 
Connecticut  shore;  and  the  coincidence 
of  their  route  with  the  bird-routes  must 
be  more  than  accidental. 

Still  further  confirmations  of  this  the- 
ory of  identical  routes  for  both  winged 
creatures  is  offered  by  such  few  instances 
of  insect  migrations  as  are  recorded  in 
this  country.  Mr.  Saverner,  a  student 
of  bird  migration  in  the  West,  noticed 
that  a  regular  bird-route  which  comes 
down  from  the  North,  passes  out  over 
Point  Pelee  to  the  various  islands  in 
western  Lake  Erie,  and  then  continues 
southward  to  the  Ohio  shore,  is  also  a 
route  for  <kmonarchs."  He  observed  them 
there  for  three  successive  autumns. 
They  came  down  through  the  country, 
passed  along  this  point,  or  peninsula, 
and  then  traveled  away  over  the  lake 
to  the  southward;  and,  as  the  butterflies 
flew  in  open  order,  one  at  a  time  and  in 
a  scattered  procession,  this  student  of 
bird  activities  wondered  if  it  was,  indeed, 
a  true  insect  migration.  Undoubtedly 
it  was  such  a  movement,  and  strikingly 
analogous,  both  in  manner  of  flight  and 
in  its  coincidence  with  a  great  migratory 
bird-route,  to  the  writer's  observations 
on  Long  Island. 

So  few  dragon  flights  are  recorded  in 
this  country  that  their  nature  is  almost 
unknown.  To  be  sure,  a  great  flight 
of  Epiczschna  heros  was  observed  at 
Fairbury,  Illinois,  on  August  13,  1881, 
when  they  were  moving  southwestward. 
They  have  been  reported  as  not  uncom- 


mon events  in  Tennessee,  while  at  She- 
boygan, Wisconsin,  a  flight  has  been  re- 
ported as  taking  place  annually  and 
lasting  several  days.  As  the  movements 
occur  in  September,  and  follow  the  same 
direction,  which  (although  not  given) 
is  probably  south  through  Sheboygan 
and  along  the  west  coast  of  Lake  Mich- 
igan, the  line  of  flight  very  likely  coin- 
cides with  a  bird-route  leading  down 
the  Mississippi  Valley  to  the  south. 
Otherwise  North-American  swarms  are 
almost  unknown. 

But  an  examination  of  the  more  de- 
tailed reports  gathered  from  sixty  or 
more  records  in  Europe,  and  from  the 
year  1494  to  the  present  time,  shows  not 
only  that  spring  flights  are  northward 
and  autumnal  flights  are  toward  the 
south,  supporting  the  theory  of  a  sea- 
sonal interchange,  but  also  that  to  a 
quite  remarkable  degree  they  coincide 
with  the  coast-lines  and  the  courses  of 
large  rivers,  which  are  the  routes  trav- 
ersed by  the  birds.  Of  course,  as  Eagle 
Clarke  says  of  the  birds,  "  there  are 
many  subsidiary  routes  of  only  a  local 
nature,"  and  this  statement  must  also 
apply  to  the  insects;  but  the  great,  well- 
defined  trunk  routes  find  a  remarkable 
parallel  in  these  scattered  observations 
by  many  observers  and  throughout 
widely  scattered  years  when  dragon-fly 
swarms  have  been  seen. 

Autumnal  flights  pass  southward  near 
Genouille,  along  the  west  coast  of 
France,  every  year;  while  others  seen  at 
Havre  in  October,  and  in  Switzerland 
during  September,  were  trending  south- 
west, which  would  take  them  along  the 
peninsula  of  Spain  or  even  farther  south. 
Northward  flights  in  spring  have  usually 
been  observed  in  May,  except  farther 


DRAGON-FLY  MIGRATION  ROUTES  IN  EUROPE 


Scattered  observations  seem  to  show  that  a  northward  movement  takes  place  in  spring  and  a  southward 
flight  in  autumn.  In  many  places  the  lines  of  flight  correspond  to  the  coastwise  or  river-valley  air-lanes 
which  are  followed  by  migrating  birds.    Bird-routes,  as  determined  by  Palmen,  Menzbier,  and  Eagle  Clarke, 

are  indicated  by  the  dotted  lines. 


north  in  northern  England,  Sweden,  and 
Finland.  They,  too,  follow  the  same 
coastwise  courses  along  western  France, 
Belgium,  the  Netherlands  (as  deter- 
mined by  traced  and  co-ordinated  obser- 
vations); then  they  pass  across  the 
English  Channel  to  the  west  coast  of  the 
British  Isles,  as  the  bird-routes  do,  and 
continue  northward  as  shown  by  obser- 
vations of  the  swarms  in  191 1  at  Penarth 
Head  and  at  St.  Annes-by-the-Sea.  June 
flights,  too,  have  been  seen  crossing  the 
channel  at  Berwick,  parties  of  four  or 
five  flying  up  over  the  low  cliffs  and  pro- 
ceeding inland.  The  noted  bird-observa- 
tory, the  island  of  Helgoland,  is  visited 
regularly  each  year  by  enormous  swarms 
that  depart  as  mysteriously  as  they 
come. 

On  the  continent  as  well,  these  move- 
ments coincide  very  closely  with  bird- 
routes  laid  down  by  Palmen  and  Menz- 
bier; great  swarms  have  passed  over 
Denmark  and  southern  Sweden,  as  the 
migrating  birds  do.  Other  flights  have 
swept  northeast  over  Reval,  Russia,  co- 
inciding with  a  bird-route  there,  while 


observations  at  Tvarminne,  in  Finland, 
during  the  years  1906  and  1907,  seem 
to  show  that  several  June  and  July 
flights  passed  northeastward  along  the 
coast  in  a  line  which  coincides  very  per- 
fectly with  the  bird-routes  continuing  up 
the  Finnish  coast  to  the  far  North. 

Even  inland  flights  in  Germany  con- 
firm the  theory,  as  nearly  all  observa- 
tions were  recorded  in  valleys  or  along 
rivers  and  lakes.  In  fact,  Weissen- 
born,  in  1839,  found,  by  correspondence 
among  neighboring  observers,  that  a 
great  swarm  observed  by  him  as  going 
north  at  Weimar  had  companioning 
swarms  moving  north  at  Halle,  and  west 
at  Eisenach;  and  as  these  movements 
coincided  with  the  flow  of  the  several 
rivers — the  Ilm,  the  Saale,  and  the 
Nesse,  respectively,  upon  which  these 
towns  are  situated,  he  proposed  the 
theory  that  swarms  fly  in  the  direction 
of  the  river  currents.  This  was  a  sig- 
nificant suggestion;  but  when  laid  down 
as  a  general  law  it  is  no  less  far-fetched 
than  are  the  causes  he  adduces  for  the 
flight  itself.     For  the  facts  he  noted 


DO  INSECTS  MIGRATE  LIKE  BIRDS? 


617 


merely  mean,  of  course,  that  the  drag- 
ons, like  the  birds,  follow  the  river 
valleys;  and  as  in  this  case  they  were 
going  north,  the  flow  of  the  water  into 
the  North  Sea  and  the  insect  move- 
ments coincided. 

In  western  Russia,  also,  the  direction 
of  the  spring  bird  migration — north 
tending  to  northeast,  according  to  von 
Middendorf,  and  following  to  a  large 
extent  the  course  of  the  river  Dneiper — 
is  paralleled  by  the  records  of  a  few 
dragon  flights.  For  all  were  seen  along 
streams  tributary  to  that  river  or  to  the 
river  Don,  and  bearing  north  or  north- 
east. So  the  European  flights,  with  very 
few  exceptions,  seem  to  support  the 
theory  which  our  Long  Island  phenom- 
ena suggest — namely,  that  northward 
dragon-fly  flights  in  spring  and  the 
southward  flights  in  autumn  follow  pre- 
scribed routes  that  parallel  the  courses 
of  the  birds.  Certain  apparently  con- 
tradictory records  are  not  considered 
very  reliable,  particularly  the  southward 
flight  on  the  Russian  coast  at  Libau  in 
May  (which  was  verbally  related  to  Kop- 
pen.)  Some  local  land  feature  may  in  this 
instance  have  diverted  the  flight  which 
afterward  corrected  itself  to  follow  a 
more  northerly  or  northeasterly  direction. 

Any  evidence  regarding  the  winter 
stations  of  either  "  monarchs  "  or  drag- 
ons is  very  meager.  Whether  the  butter- 
flies winter  in  our  Southern  states,  in 
Mexico,  or  in  the  West  Indies  is  un- 
known. Nor  do  we  know  where  the 
dragons  go.  Indeed,  the  fact  that  cer- 
tain migratory  species  {Anax  junius  and 
Libellula  quadrimaculata,  of  a  certainty) 
lay  their  eggs  in  Northern  ponds,  and 
that  these  eggs  hatch  into  larvae  or 
nymphs  which  live  on  the  pond-bottoms 
for  six  months,  or,  possibly,  for  a  year 
or  for  a  longer  period,  would  seem  to 
raise  a  question  why  the  dragons  fly 
south  at  all.  For,  apparently,  the  future 
of  the  race  is  already  secured.  Yet,  as 
Eimer  claims  he  found  them  loaded  with 
ripe  eggs  while  they  were  flying  south 
through  Sils  Maria  in  September,  he 
assumes  that  they  were  traveling  to  a 
warmer  climate  for  further  breeding. 
Then,  too,  both  sexes  comprise  these 
swarms  (they  have  even  been  seen  to- 
gether, completing  their  nuptials,  during 
the  flight),  and  as  the  life  period — in 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.-77 


fact,  the  entire  life  history  of  the  larger 
dragons — has  never  been  completely 
made  out,  there  is  no  reason  why  these 
strong-flying  adults  should  not  lengthen 
their  existence  by  one  or  even  by  several 
southern  sojourns  where  breeding  could 
continue.  This  supposition  is  confirmed 
by  the  widely  recorded  distribution  of 
Anax  junius,  our  Long  Island  migrant. 
It  is  found  not  only  throughout  North 
America,  but  also  in  the  Hawaiian 
Islands,  China,  the  West  Indies,  and 
Central  America. 

Studies  at  Tvarminne  by  Federley 
uphold  this  idea  that  the  swarming 
movement  is  connected  with  a  psycho- 
logical impulse  to  wander  coexistent 
with  the  breeding  instinct;  but  he  be- 
lieves that  the  wandering  is  without  a 
definite  goal.  Yet,  as  he  says,  the  con- 
stant direction  they  follow  in  Finland — 
the  same  coastwise  course  for  two  years 
in  succession — shows  that  the  movement 
is  not  indiscriminate  and  raises  a  pro- 
found question.  By  means  of  our  widely 
collected  evidence  this  question  now 
seems  to  have  been  solved.  It  should  be 
added,  however,  that  the  incompleteness 
of  data  as  to  the  life-periods  of  these 
dragons  renders  it  not  impossible  that 
individuals  flying  north  in  spring  are  the 
progeny  of  those  which  flew  south  in  the 
preceding  or  even  an  earlier  autumn, 
while  autumn  flights  may  be  largely 
composed  of  the  offspring  of  earlier  in- 
vaders from  the  South.  That  is,  the 
balance  and  interchange  between  North 
and  South  may  affect  generations  rather 
than  individuals,  which  is  true,  in  a 
limited  and  occasional  degree,  of  the 
migratory  movements  of  Rocky  Moun- 
tain locusts. 

If  the  parallel  between  bird  and  insect 
holds  true,  one  would  expect  to  find  a 
spring  northward  movement  of  both 
"monarchs"  and  dragons  in  this  country. 
Actual  records  are  very  slight.  Much- 
worn  "monarchs"  with  faded  and  scale- 
less  wings  have  been  seen  flying  north 
in  late  May  by  observers  at  Minne- 
apolis; Dr.  Riley  has  repeatedly  observed 
them  in  spring  going  northwestward 
against  the  wind;  while  the  writer  has 
found  such  a  faded,  torn-winged  "mon- 
arch" flying  in  the  June  fields  near  Jamai- 
ca, L.  I.  On  the  other  hand,  no  such 
dragon  flights  are  known  if  we  except 


618 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  two  rather  confirmatory  June 
flights  seen  on  the  Massachusetts 
coast  by  the  bird  student  Bradford 
Torrey.  But,  judging  from  the  law 
which  has  been  proposed,  they  as 
well  as  the  "monarchs"  should  move 
up  the  Mississippi  Valley  —  the  au- 
tumn routes  already  mentioned — and 
in  the  East  they  should  follow  the  Hud- 
son, the  Housatonic,  the  Connecticut 
valleys,  and  the  Eastern  coast,  which  are 
all  great  trunk  routes  of  the  birds.  Dur- 
ing spring  flights,  however,  both  insects 
and  birds  would  not  be  obstructed  and 
turned  aside  by  the  Long  Island  coast- 
line as  they  are  in  autumn.  They  would 
naturally  advance  in  wider,  more  open 
order,  so  no  opportunities  exist  for  ob- 
servations of  narrow,  crowded  avenues 
of  travel  here  in  spring  such  as  form 
so  striking  a  feature  of  the  autumn 
shore. 

It  is  strange  indeed  that  insect  mi- 
grations and  the  laws  which  govern 
them  have  been  so  neglected,  for  many 
are  considered  rather  anomalous,  almost 
haphazard  manifestations.  To  be  sure, 
many  insects  do  not  migrate,  just  as 
some  birds  live  in  an  approximately  fixed 
habitat.  But,  whereas  such  birds  live 
as  active  adults,  the  non-migrating  in- 
sects either  hibernate  in  the  mature, 
winged  form,  or  pass  the  cold  months  in 
the  egg  or  crysalid  stage.  And,  also,  some 
butterfly  swarmings  may  resemble  the 
aimless,  unproductive  outbursts  of  the 
cotton-moths.  Nevertheless,  a  deeper 
significance  is  given  to  many  reports 
scattered  throughout  scientific  literature 
by  reason  of  this  theory  concerning 
laws  of  time,  direction,  and  route  which 
govern  the  movements  of  an  unknown 
number  of  the  smaller  winged  creatures. 
Eagle  Clarke's  observation,  while  study- 
ing bird  movements  from  the  Kentish 
Knock  lightship,  that  the  thistle  butter- 
fly Vanessa  cardui  flew  toward  England 
from  the  Continent  against  a  head  wind 
at  night,  opens  interesting  possibilities  of 
further  discovery,  for  this  butterfly  is 
believed  by  many  entomologists  to  mi- 
grate from  the  mainland  to  the  British 
Isles  every  year.  Along  the  California 
coast,  too,  this  same  butterfly,  the  most 
widely  distributed  of  all  such  insects, 


sometimes  moves  northward  in  great 
swarms  that  may  come  from  Mexico. 
The  green  -  clouded  swallow-tail,  too, 
Papilio  troilus,  and  the  giant  swallow- 
tail, Papilio  cresphontes,  were  seen  by 
Saverner  flying  in  company  with  the 
"  monarchs  "  and  going  south  along  the 
bird-route  which  extends  across  western 
Lake  Erie;  so  all  these  species  (with  an 
unknown  number  of  others)  are  certainly 
partial,  or  perhaps  even  true,  migrants 
in  some  parts  of  this  country. 

Tropical  observations  also  give  evi- 
dence that  the  movements  are  more  than 
accidental.  Vast  coastwise  swarms  an- 
nually traverse  the  shores  of  British 
India;  small  yellow  butterflies  also  under- 
take great  journeys  there,  while  another 
species,  related  to  our  swallow-tails,  is 
believed  to  travel  from  that  country  to 
the  island  of  Ceylon  every  year.  Others 
make  periodical  journeys  along  the 
Venezuelan  coast  and  in  the  Amazon 
Valley;  so  there,  too,  the  recurring  ac- 
tivities seem  to  be  quite  different  from 
aimless  wanderings,  and  more  in  the 
nature  of  racial  functions  intimately 
bound  up  with  the  creature's  life  history. 

Indeed,  accumulating  evidences  show 
that  the  principles  and  laws  govern- 
ing the  better-known  bird  migrations 
have  a  remarkable  parallel  in  the  annual 
movements  of  certain  members  of  the 
insect  world.  They,  too,  are  influenced 
in  their  flight  by  meteorological  and 
geographical  conditions  which  deflect 
and  determine  the  bird-routes,  and  their 
psychologies  react  to  the  traveling  im- 
pulses which  are  unsatisfied  in  some 
cases  with  anything  less  than  a  world- 
wide distribution.  And  whatever  causes 
were  originally  responsible  for  the  m'gra- 
tory  movements  of  birds,  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  movements  of  certain  of  the 
smaller  creatures  are  equally  ancient  and 
have  been  affected  by  the  same  or  similar 
factors.  In  fact,  if  we  could  lift  the  veil 
which  hides  the  distant  past  we  might 
see  that  certain  of  the  apparently  fee- 
bler, but  in  some  cases  more  ancient 
orders,  of  animal  life  were  the  first  to 
follow  those  natural  and  clearly  defined 
avenues  which  traverse  the  continental 
spaces,  only  to  return,  after  long  travels, 
to  their  native  home. 


The  Saint 


BY  HARRISON  RHODES 


HAD  the  honor  of 
Rujdi's  acquaintance — 
if  honor  is  precisely 
what  it  was — at  Tan- 
gier. The  first  time  I 
saw  him  he  occupied 
the  table  next  mine  out- 
side the  Cafe  de  Paris  in  the  Little  Soko 
— the  squalid,  crowded,  gay,  unworthy 
little  open  place  where  the  fantastic 
Franco-Hispano-Moorish  cosmopolitan- 
ism of  the  town  surges  for  ever  to  and 
fro  as  if  arranged  by  a  supremely 
obliging  stage-manager  for  the  sole 
benefit  of  tourists  and  idlers  seated  as 
I  was.  It  was  my  first  afternoon  in  the 
town;  had  it  been  my  second  I  should 
doubtless  have  known  my  neighbor  by 
sight,  and  possibly  by  reputation;  as  it 
was,  I  formed  my  own  opinion. 

He  was  an  elegant  creature,  and  no 
ordinary  Tangerine  Moor,  I  felt  certain. 
The  agreeable  combination  of  dull  blue 
and  pale  straw-yellow  which  he  wore 
reminded  me  of  Tunis,  where  the  best- 
dressed  young  gentlemen  affect  even 
light  pinks  and  mauves,  and  are  admit- 
tedly the  dandies  of  the  North-African 
coast.  He  viewed  the  scene  of  the  Little 
Soko  with  eyes  that  were  sharp  and 
watchful  and  yet,  contradictory  though 
it  may  seem,  also  tolerant,  amused,  and 
meditative.  I  decided  then  that  he  was 
both  a  rascal  and  a  philosopher,  and  I  am 
still  excessively  proud  of  that  first  day's 
estimate. 

All  Tangier,  I  found,  agreed  with  me 
that  he  was  a  rascal.  They  were  less 
certain  that  he  was  a  philosopher.  But 
his  acquaintance  procured  me  in  due 
time  proof  upon  this  point,  and  brought 
me  to  know  the  story  I  have  now  to  tell 
of  his  stay  in  Bar-el-Azrah,  the  Holy 
Place,  and  his  escape  from  there. 

As  to  his  rascality  of  the  moment,  he 
was  supposed,  so  I  was  told,  to  be  deep 
in  a  plot  with  some  corrupt  French  land 
officials  to  vitiate  the  titles  of  most  of  the 
native  landowners  in  the  village  where 


he  had  been  born,  so  that  a  land-develop- 
ment company  might  grab  it.  Indeed, 
it  appeared  that  from  an  early  day  it 
had  appealed  to  him  to  combine  the 
trickeries  of  Europe  and  Africa.  For- 
eign grants  and  concessions,  native  bri- 
bery and  wire-pulling,  had  always  been 
his  affair.  It  was  upon  intrigues  of  this 
character,  in  favor  of  some  foreign  syn- 
dicate, that  he  had  gone  to  Bar-el-Azrah, 
and  on  account  of  them  that  his  neck 
had  been  in  danger  from  the  Shereef  of 
the  Holy  Place  and  from  the  Sultan  of 
that  moment,  whom  Allah  did  not  pre- 
serve— for  this  is  a  story  of  the  days 
before  the  sultans  of  Morocco  came  to 
live  in  palaces  that  are  only  prisons  at 
Tangier. 

Such  operations  in  high  finance  were 
of  course  his  most  gentlemanly  faults. 
He  was  also  reported — in  the  legations — 
to  have  an  interest  in  the  two  gambling 
establishments  at  which  at  that  time 
young  Moors  and  young  men  from 
Gibraltar  and  Cadiz  met  in  the  strangest 
confusion  of  tongues  and  costumes  which 
can  ever  have  existed  around  the  green 
tables.  He  was  more  vaguely  reported 
to  have  interests  in  other  establishments, 
less  reputable  but  equally  profitable. 
Certainly  he  was  willing  enough  to  see 
that  strangers  found  their  way  to  all  the 
agrements  of  the  town  without  taking 
it  upon  himself  to  judge  of  the  moral 
value  of  pleasure. 

To  my  credit  or  discredit,  I  was  con- 
siderably in  his  company  while  I  was  at 
Tangier,  though  I  protest  it  was  mostly 
upon  the  terrasse,  where  I  first  met  him, 
or  upon  the  hard  dais  of  a  dark  little  den 
of  a  Cafe  Maure,  where  the  coffee  was 
remarkable,  and  the  proprietor,  a  with- 
ered and  ancient  Moor,  paid  my  com- 
panion almost  incredible  respect,  prob- 
ably for  good  if  dark  reasons.  Rujdi 
was  one  of  the  most  agreeable  persons 
you  could  see  in  the  world,  whatever  you 
might  think  of  his  moral  character.  And 
I  believe  he  found  me  agreeable,  what- 


620 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


ever  he  may  have  thought  of  mine.  I 
presume  that  he  saw  in  me  the  makings 
of  either  a  rogue  or  an  honest  man;  I 
was  content  not  to  know  which. 

It  was  in  Mustapha's  coffee-stall  that 
I  caught  the  first  hint  of  the  story  of 
Bar-el-Azrah.  There  came  into  its 
gloom  late  one  afternoon  a  venerable, 
white-bearded  man  clad  in  the  coarse 
brown  sacking  which  is  the  simple  cos- 
tume of  so  many  poor,  venerable  men  in 
Morocco.  He  had  a  long  staff  in  his 
hand,  and  he  somehow  suggested  that  he 
was  a  pilgrim  from  across  far,  dusty, 
desert  ways.  He  sat  down  mildly  and 
drank  his  coffee.  After  a  moment  I  went 
on  with  my  conversation  with  Rujdi. 
At  the  sound  of  my  companion's  voice 
the  old  man  turned  his  head.  Rujdi 
stopped.  In  the  half-darkness  the  stran- 
ger peered  at  us.  Then  he  gave  a  kind 
of  cry  and,  mumbling  things  in  Arabic 
which  I  could  not  understand,  came 
across  toward  us.  He  leaned  for- 
ward, staring,  and,  falling  on  his  knees, 
caught  the  edge  of  Rujdi's  burnoose  and 
bent  his  head  to  the  ground  over  it. 
Then  he  broke  into  a  kind  of  chant  that 
might  well  have  been  a  psalm  of  praise. 
My  companion  rose,  it  seemed  to  me 
impatiently.  I  even  thought  his  pale 
face  grew  a  little  flushed.  He  pulled  his 
flowing  garment  away  from  the  brown- 
sacked  pilgrim  who  still  knelt,  with  eyes 
fixed  wonderingly  upon  him.  I  thought 
we  were  about  to  break — I  can  only  call 
it  that — for  the  open,  when  suddenly,  as 
if  falling  from  the  little  patch  of  African 
sky  which  we  could  see  through  the 
doorway,  there  came  from  the  minaret  of 
the  mosque  in  the  next  street  the  call  to 
evening  prayer.  With  an  arresting  ges- 
ture Rujdi  seemed  to  say  that  the  muez- 
zin had  intervened  in  an  unseemly  dis- 
cussion. The  venerable  stranger  and 
the  venerable  proprietor  of  the  booth 
turned  their  faces  to  Mecca.  And  we, 
blasphemously — so  it  seemed  to  me— 
strode  out,  almost  across  their  prostrate 
forms. 

As  we  came  into  the  white  Tangier 
street  lit  by  a  sunset  sky,  Rujdi  laughed 
ironically.  "To  miss  evening  prayer  is 
terrible  sin  for  us,"  he  said.  "But  it  will 
teach  that  swine  of  the  desert — "  He 
stopped  abruptly.  I  wondered  exces- 
sively what  it  was  designed  to  teach  the 


mild,  aged  creature  we  had  left.  But  I 
was,  for  a  time,  left  to  wonder. 

The  final  episode  in  Tangier  can  be 
told  briefly.  I  was  at  the  cafe  in  the 
Little  Soko.  Rujdi  was  at  the  next 
table  when  there  came  by  young  Mercier 
and  a  certain  Fontiere  whom  I  had  met 
that  very  day  at  lunch  at  the  Hotel  de 
1'Esplanade.  Fontiere  had  been  up- 
country  on  some  government  mission. 
He  was  an  amazing  fellow,  full  of 
strange  Moorish  lore.  It  was  no  sur- 
prise to  me  that  he  knew  Rujdi  and 
paused  an  instant  to  accost  him.  But 
his  exact  greeting  was  incredible.  Its 
effect  was  as  if  a  whirlwind  had  seized 
me  as  I  sat  at  a  cheap  European  tin 
table  before  a  mongrel  cafe  and  trans- 
ported me  instantly  into  the  ancient 
secret  Morocco  which  lies  for  ever  at 
Tangier's  gates,  that  land  where  a  wild 
fanatical  religion  is  making  its  last  fight 
against  the  West. 

"  Tiens,"  said  Fontiere  to  Rujdi,  "I 
thought  you  were  a  saint  at  Bar-el- 
Azrah." 

Rujdi  did  not  bat  an  eyelid.  "No 
longer,"  he  said,  with  grave  politeness. 
But  when  Mercier  and  Fontiere  ap- 
peared to  be  looking  for  a  table  on  the 
terrace,  he  rose.  "Come,"  he  said  to  me, 
"let  us  go  to  Mustapha's.  You  had 
better  hear  the  story  from  me  than  from 
him.  I  think  perhaps  I  tell  it,  and  know 
it,  better." 

There  is  very  little  sense  of  time  in 
the  East.  There  was  very  little  in  Mus- 
tapha's booth.  No  one  came  to  inter- 
rupt us  except  the  old  man  occasionally 
bringing  coffee.  The  rest  of  the  time 
he  squatted  by  the  street  door,  and,  by 
Rujdi's  orders,  in  my  belief,  turned  away 
custom.  I  know  I  must  abridge  the 
story,  for  I  remember  that  we  sat  there 
until  the  little  patch  of  African  sky 
which  one  could  see  grew  pale  lemon- 
yellow  and  then  flushed  with  sunset 
pink  in  which  at  last  there  shone  a  large, 
soft  star — and  still  Rujdi  went  on.  I 
must  abridge,  and  I  must  translate  from 
the  mixed  French  and  English  he  used. 
But  I  shall  try  to  make  it  his  story — and 
his  philosophy. 

He  had  gone  to  Bar-el-Azrah,  as  has 
been  earlier  suggested,  on  the  somewhat 
dubious  business  of  a  concession  which, 


THE  SAINT 


621 


so  far  as  I  could  understand,  had  to  do 
with  handing  over  to  a  French  syndicate 
of  lands  belonging  to  the  zaouia,  or 
monastery  of  Azrah,  of  which  the 
Shereef,  as  direct  descendant  of  the 
Saint,  was  hereditary  abbot,  or  head.  To 
this  end  the  Sultan's  palm  was  to  be 
considerably  greased,  I  gathered.  Now, 
whether  the  Sultan  thought  that  this 
greasing  was  insufficient  because  Rujdi 
had  tried  to  hold  back  a  good  portion  of 
the  foreign  funds  for  himself,  or  whether, 
the  plan  for  alienating  the  monastery 
lands  having  been  betrayed  to  the  She- 
reef,  his  Majesty  could  save  his  digni- 
ty only  by  discrediting  the  intermediary, 
I  was  not  definitely  told.  Does  it,  after 
all,  matter,  since  it  so  singularly  led  to 
sainthood  ? 

The  occasion  of  Rujdi's  visit  to  Bar- 
el-Azrah  and  the  Holy  Place  was  the 
season  of  the  Sultan's  solemn  pilgrimage 
to  the  tomb  of  the  Saint,  traditional 
every  seven  years,  which  on  this  occa- 
sion his  Majesty  had  planned  to  combine 
with  some  profitable  spoliation  of  the 
Saint's  descendant.  Since  then  I  have 
been  to  Azrah,  at  the  time  of  the  ordi- 
nary yearly  festival,  and  even  under  the 
tranquilizing  French  regime  the  town 
seethed  and  fermented  with  all  the 
varied  humanity  of  South  Morocco,  and 
even  of  the  desert,  from  as  far — they 
told  me  —  as  Lake  Chad.  In  the  old 
days,  with  the  Sultan  and  all  the  fol- 
lowers of  his  caravan  from  Morocco  City 
encamped  outside  the  zaouia  gates,  it 
must  have  been  even  more  tumultuous 
and  barbaric. 

Rujdi  had  preceded  the  Sultan  by  a 
fortnight,  and  was  domiciled — in  ex- 
treme comfort,  we  may  be  sure — in  a 
house  which  he  had  taken  near  the 
Mosque  of  Ali.  The  Sultan  came,  and, 
as  was  the  custom,  the  Shereef  supped 
with  him  in  his  tent  on  the  evening  pre- 
ceding his  solemn  visit  to  the  tomb  of 
the  Saint.  Rujdi  supped,  too,  "prob- 
ably better  than  the  two  great  men,"  so 
he  commented,  "though  not  in  their 
immediate  presence."  Here  and  there 
in  the  white  town  dance-music  and 
tom-toms  kept  on  through  the  night, 
and  in  the  street  along  the  river  women 
sat  outside  their  doors  almost  till  day, 
like  jeweled  idols  on  lamp-lit  shrines. 

"I  came  home  as  the  crescent  of  the 


dying  moon  rose,"  said  Rujdi.  "I  was 
happy  in  all  that  the  night  had  been  of 
pleasure  and  all  that  the  day  would  be 
of  profit.  I  thanked  Allah,  and  it  was 
with  no  evil  in  my  heart  that  in  order 
to  enter  in  at  my  house  I  kicked  out  of 
my  way  a  saint,  a  holy  marabout,  who 
was  sleeping  in  humility  upon  my  door- 
sill.  Earlier  I  had  resented  him.  I  had 
thought  that  the  royal  pilgrimage  at- 
tracted far  too  many  of  these  fellows 
from  their  villages  and  their  little  cor- 
ners of  the  land  that  edges  the  desert. 
I  realized  that  each  village  needed  its 
example  of  piety,  but  I  sometimes 
thought  that  weakness  of  the  intellect 
and  incapacity  to  earn  another  living 
were  perhaps  all  that  was  needed  to  be 
such  a  lesser  marabout  or  saint.  May 
the  Prophet  forgive  me  if  I  underesti- 
mated a  great  and  difficult  profession. 
I  have  been  told  that  in  the  American 
religion,  unlike  the  French  religion,  you 
do  not  believe  in  saints.  You  are  wrong, 
monsieur;  you  should  try  to  be  one." 

Mustapha  brought  fresh  coffee  and  a 
small  bottle  of  orange-flower  water  with 
which  to  perfume  it.    Rujdi  went  on: 

"It  was  at  a  little  before  dawn  that 
Zembi  came  to  me.  He  was  a  creature 
who  had  already  had  much  gold  from 
me.  Now  he  demanded  fifty  louis  be- 
fore he  would  tell  his  news.  I  gave  it, 
but  it  was  poor  news  for  so  much  money. 
I  was  betrayed,  and  even  as  we  spoke 
they  might  be  coming  from  the  Sultan's 
tents  to  seize  me." 

Here  I  omit  an  intricate  passage  de- 
signed to  convince  me  of  the  absurdity 
and  injustice  of  any  proceeding  against 
him.  I  remember  that  it  ended,  char- 
acteristically enough,  "It  was  then, 
when  I  saw  what  was  capable  of  happen- 
ing to  me,  that  for  the  first  time  I  com- 
pletely recognized  the  wickedness  of 
man. 

Rujdi  spoke  lightly,  and  even  with 
some  gaiety,  of  the  danger  he  stood  in. 
Yet  he  made  me  feel  it — the  fierce  and 
sudden  punishment  which  could  pounce 
upon  any  one  in  these  regions  where  law 
and  justice  had  not  altered,  except  for 
the  worse,  in  centuries.  I  did  not  be- 
lieve Rujdi  had  been  innocent,  but  I 
grew  a  little  chill  as  I  thought  of  that 
gray  dawn  in  Azrah,  and  death  that 
might  come  with  it. 


622 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Zembi,  before  he  went  away,  had  told 
me  that  the  city  gates  were  watched. 
I  had  little  faith  in  Zembi;  still,  somehow, 
I  knew  I  had  small  chance  of  getting 
away.  Yet  I  wanted  them  not  quite  to 
find  me  waiting  tamely  at  home.  I 
went  quickly  down  the  staircase  and 
opened  the  door.  Then  I  stopped.  The 
wretched  holy  man  had  waked,  and  by 
him  in  the  filth  of  the  street  crouched 
two  or  three  pious  admirers  of  his  saint- 
liness  who  had  brought  small  bowls  of 
food  for  his  refreshment.  He  was  gob- 
bling it  up  and  grinning  from  time  to 
time  upon  his  dupes.  Somehow  the 
sight  made  me  furious.  This  creature 
was  free — free  from  both  toil  and  fear. 
The  pious  fed  him,  though  they  fed  him 
vilely,  and  he  slept  without  anxiety, 
though  upon  my  door-sill,  for  even  the 
Sultan  of  Morocco  would  hesitate  to 
harm  one  of  the  chosen  fools  of  Allah 
who  sit  by  the  wayside.  I  stepped  for- 
ward quickly  in  my  anger,  and  I  struck 
the  bowl  in  which  he  was  gobbling 
from  his  hand.  As  it  clattered  on  the 
stones  set  in  the  street  I  caught  in  the 
eyes  of  those  kneeling  there  the  look  of 
fright  and  anger  at  my  sacrilege. 

44 'Ah/  I  cried,  half  aloud,  'this  it  is 
to  be  holy/ 

"And  then  in  that  quick  instant  the 
miracle  happened.  My  mind  worked 
with  a  swiftness  which  was  not  the 
swiftness  of  the  minds  of  other  men.  I 
am  to-day  uncertain  whether  Allah  or 
the  foulest  fiend  prompted  me.  But  I 
saw  the  way  to  safety  and  to  certain 
satirical  satisfactions. 

"'This  it  is  to  be  holy,'  I  cried  to 
them  in  a  loud  voice.  'Know  that  I  am 
holier  than  he.' 

"Then  I  took  my  cloak  from  off  me — 
it  was  the  color  of  rich  cream  and  saffron 
— and  threw  it  over  the  marabout's 
shoulders.  I  cried  loudly  to  those  there 
that  Allah  called  me  to  share  all  with 
them,  and  soon  I  was  standing  before 
them  as  He  sent  me  into  the  world. 

"In  the  interests  of  a  decency  which 
the  dogs  themselves  did  not  feel,  I  tore 
a  rag  from  the  marabout's  vile  cloak  and 
bound  it  about  me. 

"'Come,'  I  cried,  'you  shall  eat  of  the 
best.'  And  I  rushed  into  the  house. 
The  re  had  been  the  day  before  a  stewed 
kid  with  almonds  and  a  sweet  pastry. 


I  brought  them  forth  and  put  them 
before  the  greedy  creatures  in  the  street. 
And  while  they  fell  upon  the  victuals, 
such  as  they  had  doubtless  never  seen 
before,  I  gathered  from  the  ground  the 
trampled  food  earlier  placed  before  the 
holy  man,  and — yes,  I  ate  it." 

The  quarter  was  roused  by  their  cries 
and  tumults  and  this  new  holiness. 
Rujdi,  who  in  the  interval  had  daubed 
his  body  and  hair  with  street  mud,  called 
the  crowd  that  had  gathered  into  the 
house. 

"Take  of  my  house  what  you  like," 
he  cried  in  ecstasy.  "What  are  the 
world's  goods  to  one  whose  hand  is  in 
the  Prophet's  and  who  lies  upon  the 
heart  of  Allah?" 

With  yells  of  frenzied  satisfaction  the 
mob  turned  to  pillage.  ' 

"I  had  first  secured  the  leather  bag 
with  all  my  gold,"  Rujdi  explained  to 
me.  "As  to  the  house,  I  had  taken  it 
furnished  from  a  Jew  who  was  gone  upon 
a  journey  to  the  Rif.  He  was  aggrieved 
upon  his  return.  He  even  sought  legal 
satisfaction.  But  what  chance  before 
a  Cadi  in  a  court  in  South  Morocco  has 
a  Jew  against  a  saint?  There  is  still 
some  justice  left  in  the  world." 

"And  did  the  Sultan  send?"  I  asked. 

"At  the  exact  moment  I  could  have 
wished,"  he  answered.  "We  had  picked 
the  Jew's  house  fairly  clean,  and  they 
crowded  around  me.  Hugging  their  loot 
to  their  breasts,  they  kissed  my  feet  and 
my  foul  rags. 

"'Will  you  take  me  to  the  Sultan?'  I 
asked.  'Will  you  take  me  to  meet  him 
by  the  tomb  of  the  Saint?' 

"They  cried  hoarsely,  and  like  a 
stream  in  flood  we  poured  forth  into  the 
street  just  as  four  soldiers  from  the 
royal  tents  reached  the  door.  We  bore 
them  down.  'The  Saint!  The  Saint!' 
my  followers  cried. 

"It  would  have  been  useless  for  the 
poor  fellows  to  have  tried  to  seize  me, 
even  could  they  have  recognized  me  in 
my  vile  attire — or  lack  of  attire.  There 
was  already  a  feeling  in  Bar-el-Azrah 
that  I  belonged  to  God." 

Rujdi  paused  to  light  a  cigarette,  and 
he  smiled,  though  not  irreverently,  at 
the  thought  of  his  consecration. 

"Then  we  went  to  the  market-place, 
where  on  one  side  were  the  tomb  of  the 


THE  SAINT 


623 


Saint  and  the  Great  Mosque  of  Azrah. 
Once  every  seven  years  the  Sultan  of 
Morocco  comes  to  bow  before  the  Holy 
Place.  Not  every  seven  years  does  a 
new  saint  appear  there.  When  his 
Majesty  arrived,  the  news  had  already 
reached  him  that,  as  it  were  to  honor 
his  pilgrimage,  Allah  had  chosen  one 
upon  whom  all  holiness  was  descending. 
He  rode  quickly  forward  on  his  white 
stallion  to  where  I  stood  on  the  steps 
of  the  Saint's  tomb  with  hundreds — no, 
thousands — prostrate  around  me.  The 
Shereef  on  a  bay  mare  came  with  him. 
And  both  peered  at  me  eagerly. 

"There  was  silence  in  the  whole  mar- 
ket-place. In  a  half-minute  I  knew  that 
they  both  knew  me.  The  Sultan  raised 
his  hand  and  pointed  at  me.  I  saw  he 
was  about  to  speak.  It  might  still  per- 
haps have  been  my  end.  But  I  gave  a 
shrill  yell  and  twirled  seven  times  round 
as  do  the  whirling  dervishes — I  had  prac- 
tised once  with  them  at  Maressa  for 
pure  love  of  their  art.  He  paused  in  his 
speech,  and  swiftly  I  opened  my  leather 
bag  and  pulled  forth  my  fist  full  of  gold 
coins.  I  threw  them  as  far  as  I  could 
in  the  very  faces  of  the  fools  that  knelt 
around  me.  From  all  the  market-place 
there  rose  a  roar  that  was  half  a  sigh. 
I  looked  the  Sultan  of  Morocco  straight 
in  the  eye — and  he  was  silent.  But, 
though  I  knew  he  would  not  speak  then, 
I  did  not  wholly  trust  him  or  the  Shereef. 
So  I  came  down  the  steps  and  toward 
them.  And  half  the  gold  I  placed  in  the 
Sultan's  hands,  and  half — perhaps  a 
smaller  half — in  the  Shereef's.  And  I 
cried  out — always  loudly — that  I  had 
now  despoiled  myself  of  my  last  posses- 
sions, which  I  had  intrusted  to  these  two 
as  the  followers  of  the  Saint. 

"'As  for  me,'  I  went  on,  'it  is  revealed 
to  me  that  I  shall  sit  by  the  Saint's 
tomb  for  seven  years  and  that  my  holi- 
ness shall  be  an  honor  to  Bar-el-Azrah 
and  the  memories  of  the  Holy  Place.' 

"And,  while  all  the  thousands  in  the 
Soko  knelt  now  fairly  worshiping  me, 
again  he  and  I  looked  each  other  full 
in  the  eye — and  understood  each  other. 

"'I  recognize  a  saint  in  you,'  he  said, 
'and  so  long  as  you  sit  in  holiness  by 
the  Saint's  tomb  all  will  be  well.'" 

"And  did  you  sit  seven  years?"  I 
asked  of  Rujdi. 


"Seven  months,"  he  answered. 
"More  coffee,  Mustapha.  I  will  tell 
you  something  of  what  holiness  is  like." 

I  remember  that  we  paused  for  a  little 
while.  Outside  the  murmur  of  the 
streets  went  on,  and  from  a  house  in  the 
next  street  there  came  music. 

"There  can  be  no  doubt,"  mused 
Rujdi,  "that  sainthood,  by  its  genuine 
and  extreme  discomfort,  is  a  real  offer- 
ing. It  cannot  but  be  flattering  that 
any  one  should  be  so  badly  lodged  and 
nourished  for  your  sake. 

"All  day  I  sat  there,  and  all  night  I 
lay  there.  In  the  heat,  in  the  cold.  I 
ate  such  food  as  the  vegetable-sellers 
in  the  market  cooked  in  their  pots.  I 
drank — I  can  only  say  that  since  my 
intercourse  with  those  of  Europe  I  had 
not  for  a  long  time  lived  so  strictly 
according  to  the  Prophet's  injunctions 
as  to  wine.  I  found  such  abstinence — 
to  my  annoyance — excellent  for  my 
health.  But  I  will  not  enlarge  upon  the 
exigencies  of  my  life.  You  can  imagine 
the  incredible  discomfort  of  such  sim- 
plicity, of  such  dirt,  of  such  exposure,  of 
such  loss  of  all  that  is  accounted  pleasant 
in  life.  Life  had  always  given  me  much. 
I  now  asked  myself  at  times  what  there 
was  to  choose  between  my  present  exist- 
ence and  death." 

"You  never  tried  to  go  away?" 
No. 

"You  still  distrusted  the  Sultan?" 

"No.  It  was  not  that.  The  Sultan 
had  seen,  perhaps  better  than  I,  that 
my  holiness  would  be  indeed  my  jailer. 
The  people  of  Bar-el-Azrah  who  dwelt 
in  the  shadow  of  the  Holy  Place  would 
not  let  their  saint  depart." 

"Did  you  not  think  of  escaping  se- 
cretly?" 

Rujdi  looked  at  me  a  moment  before 
answering.  He  drank  of  the  coffee 
which  he  had  perfumed  heavily  with 
orange-flower  water.  Then  he  smiled, 
and  for  the  first  time  in  our  acquaintance 
I  detected  the  faintest  touch  of  shyness, 
almost  embarrassment. 

"You  and  I  are  men  of  the  world," 
he  said.  "I  do  not  need  to  hesitate  to 
confess  to  a  certain  weakness.  There 
were  curious  moments  when  one  would 
have  said  one  began  to  understand." 

As  he  stopped  again  I  looked  at  his 


624 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


finely  cut  face  and  his  eyes  that  now 
seemed  to  see  beyond  Mustapha's  shop 
to  the  remote  and  holy  city.  I  had 
called  him  rascal  and  philosopher.  I  felt 
now  I  must  perhaps  add  to  that,  poet — 
or  even  saint. 

"One  had  first  of  all  no  care,  no  anxi- 
ety, no  fear.  One  had  time  to  meditate 
in  the  sun.  I  wonder  whether  you  will 
understand.  For  example,  there  was  a 
bit  of  old  wall  I  for  ever  looked  at,  pink 
in  color,  and  when  the  season  for  them 
came,  a  withered  old  man  who  sold 
leather  just  underneath  it  used  some- 
times to  place  a  bunch  of  flowers  of  the 
pomegranate  in  a  jar,  so  that  I  saw  them 
against  the  wall's  pink.  I  had  never 
before  in  my  life  looked  at  pomegranate 
blossoms  hour  by  hour.  But  now  that 
I  had  the  leisure  for  it,  it  seemed  enough 
to  do.  Then  there  were  summer  moon- 
light nights  when  I  sat  awake  after 
most  of  the  town  was  still,  except  that 
there  were  always  some  who  watched  to 
guard  my  saintliness. 

"They  thought  me  holy.  But  let  me 
tell  you  what  I  feared  most.  It  sounds 
absurd — but  it  was  that  I  should  ever 
come  to  think  myself  so.  You  see" — ■ 
and  his  voice  fell  as  if  what  he  had  to 
tell  were  painful  to  him — "in  the  second 
month  they  brought  creatures  to  me  to 
heal — lambs  and  cows,  and  once  I  re- 
member a  child's  pet  raven.  And  the 
third  month  human  sick  things.  By  the 
beard  of  the  Prophet — !" 

"And  was  there  much  to  do  to  heal?" 
I  asked. 

"There  was  not  much  to  do.  It  was 
their  faith,  I  assume,  which  did  it.  So 
I  told  myself,  for  indeed  it  was  not  the 
kind  of  thing  I  cared  to  feel  myself 
implicated  in.  But  that  one  last  time. 
A  young  man,  about  the  age  my  younger 
brother  Ali  would  have  been,  on  a 
stretcher,  looking  as  one  dead,  almost 
dead.  And  a  father  and  mother  wailing 
dismally  at  my  feet.  And  I  was  sorry 
for  them;  sorry,  very  probably,  as  a 
real  saint  would  have  been.  And  I  asked 
Allah  as  one  recompense  at  least  for  all 
the  tribulations  of  this  irksome  saint- 
hood that  this  young  man  should  be 
spared.  Cursed  fool  that  I  was,  I  lifted 
up  my  hands  toward  Mecca  and  prayed. 
And  the  young  man  rose,  as  if  indeed  he 
were  well.     I  knew  then  that  I  had 


gone  too  far,  for  I  was  afraid.  And  that 
night  I  wondered  how  I  might  escape. 

"Was  that  the  first  time  you  had 
thought  of  it?"  I  asked  him. 

"No.  It  had  before  that  been  sug- 
gested to  me."  He  laughed;  his  mood 
was  changed.  "There  was  a  woman," 
he  said.  "I  noted  her  first  by  the 
superior  savor  of  the  food  she  placed  on 
the  ground  before  me.  And  then  by  a, 
certain  light  in  her  eye.  Even  under  her 
enveloping  garments  one  discerned  a 
delicious  and  ripe  rotundity.  She  was 
indeed  as  the  moon  at  her  full,  and  I 
somehow  guessed  that  she  thought  not 
unfavorably  of  me." 

Rujdi  paused  as  if  in  memories. 

"Could  you  discover  who  she  was?" 
I  meant  to  urge  on  his  story. 

"Yes,"  replied  my  friend;  "I  dis- 
covered that  she  was  a  woman  who  in  a 
rich  and  garnished  home  was  not  quite 
happy." 

"I  have  known  such  in  the  West,"  I 
answered.  "So  you  talked  with  peo- 
ple?" I  pursued. 

"Yes,  I  talked.  But  what  will  inter- 
est you  most  will  be  to  hear  of  a  certain 
man  called  Hassan." 

This  man  Hassan  was  the  climax  of 
Rujdi's  story.  He  was  a  rich  man, 
steward  in  some  sort  under  the  She- 
reef  of  the  monastery  lands  upon 
which  Rujdi's  foreign  syndicates  had 
earlier  cast  a  hungry  eye.  The  She- 
reef,  after  the  episode  of  Rujdi,  had 
wakened  to  the  value  of  the  land 
and  was  pressing  his  steward  for  a  more 
minute  accounting  for  the  past  ten 
years.  This  is  the  essential  fact  of  a 
long  and  complicated  version  which 
Rujdi  gave,  in  which  figured  not  only 
the  zaouias  tenants,  but  the  pilgrim 
who  goes  each  fifth  year  from  Azrah  to 
Mecca,  and  whose  expenses  are  a  charge 
upon  the  monastery  lands.  It  appeared 
that  twice  this  pilgrim  had,  presumably 
by  arrangements  of  Hassan's,  gone  only 
as  far  as  the  Holy  City  of  Kairouan  in 
the  south  of  Tunis,  a  pious  but  a  cheaper 
journey.  Suspicion,  in  short,  gathered 
in  a  cloud  about  Hassan,  who  felt  ag- 
grieved that  such  things  could  come  to  a 
man  prosperous,  honored,  and  in  his 
forties.  At  home,  too,  storms  brewed,  it 
seemed.  His  wife  was  of  a  shrewish  and 
unbridled  temper,  the  husband  alleged, 


THE  SAINT 


625 


so  much  so  that  he  had  never  ventured 
to  take  those  other  wives  permitted  by 
the  Prophet. 

"I  could  give  him  neither  advice  nor 
comfort  as  to  his  wife,  though  I  thought 
marriage  might  have  unduly  prejudiced 
him  against  her.  But  as  to  the  folly  of 
any  connections  with  foreign  syndicates 
I  distilled  wisdom  as  a  press  filled  with 
ripe  olives  does  oil.  I  was  moved  almost 
to  boastfulness  with  this  Hassan  one 
day,  and  I  vaunted  the  superior  happi- 
ness— and  security — of  a  saint  crouch- 
ing by  the  Holy  Place. 

"He  looked  at  me  suddenly,  as  though 
a  new  thought  had  come  to  him — he  had 
shrewd  eyes,  though  rather  like  a  pig's. 

"'Yes/  he  said,  'I  shall  almost  wish 
to  be  as  you  if  things  go  on.' 

"It  was  evident  that  things  did  go  on, 
for  the  next  week  he  came  to  me,  a  shade 
whiter  than  usual.  The  Shereef  had  in- 
terviewed the  Cadi  and  had  sent  a 
messenger  to  the  Sultan.  Hassan  feared 
for  the  rich  accumulations  of  his  thieving 
years — and  even  for  his  life. 

"'I  wish  I  were  as  you,'  he  now  said. 
'It  is  evident  that  sainthood  is  the  only 
refuge  from  injustice  in  this  troubled 
land — and  from  matrimony,'  he  added. 
'A  saint  must  perforce  divorce  his  wife 
or  wives.' 

"'Yes,'  I  answered  him,  'but  there 
is  not  yet  room  for  two  holy  men  on  the 
steps  that  lead  to  the  Saint's  tomb.' 

"He  came  again  that  night,  and  the 
morning  chill  made  him  shiver  like  a 
leaf.  Zembi,  whom  I  remembered  well, 
had  sold  him  some  information.  Now 
he  negotiated  openly  and  frankly  with 
me,  and  at  last  I  said,  'When  one  more 
holy  than  I  comes  to  Azrah  I  will  yield 
him  my  seat.' 

"I  did  not  admit  to  Hassan  that  I 
panted  for  the  world  as  does  the  hart 
for  the  waterbrook;  and  that  sainthood 
had  become  to  me  like  an  evil  dream, 
evil  even  though  sometimes  beautiful. 

"We  conferred  somewhat  as  to  the 
attributes  of  greater  sainthood  when  it 
should  come  upon  him.  Hassan,  by  my 
advice,  shaved  his  head  in  concentric 
circles.  This  proved  a  moderately  en- 
gaging novelty.    Also  his  gifts  of  gold 


were  double  mine,  and  his  house,  which 
he  begged  those  of  Azrah  to  make 
free  of,  was  more  richly  furnished  than 
that  of  the  miserable  Jew  had  been 
when  I  grew  holy.  Hassan,  as  we  had 
planned  it,  came  into  the  market- 
place as  the  day  dawned,  and  in  the 
first  transports  he  was  remarkable,  I 
must  admit.  He  made  as  if  to  cast 
himself  upon  the  fire  which  some  camel- 
drivers  had  lit.  Also  later,  upon  the 
steps  to  the  Saint's  tomb,  he  cut  and 
scourged  himself.  And  yet  I  doubt 
whether  they  would  have  recognized 
him  for  the  saint  he  was  had  I  not  at 
last — who  until  then  had  sat  like  a 
statue  on  those  steps — risen  with  a  great 
cry  and  saluted  him,  casting  upon  him 
my  ragged  and  filthy  cloak.  Then,  with 
a  greater  cry  than  mine,  they  of  the 
market-place  seized  him  and  rushed  on 
to  the  Shereef's  house  that  the  Shereef 
might  acknowledge  him  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  Holy  Place. 

"It  was  a  morning  of  confusion  in 
Bar-el-Azrah.  Toward  eight  I  got  away 
by  the  eastern  gate,  more  resembling 
a  merchant  of  Tlemcen  in  Algeria  than 
a  holy  man.  I  had  a  purse,  of  Hassan's 
giving,  suitable  to  my  changed  char- 
acter.   That  was  the  end." 

"And  Hassan?"  I  asked. 

"I  have  heard  that  he  is  there  yet,  and 
that  the  Shereef  himself  watches  over 
his  holiness.  If  ever  the  population  of 
Azrah  should  come  to  doubt  him,  it  will 
go  ill  with  Hassan,  I  fear. 

"Another  saint  may  come,"  he  con- 
tinued. "But  one  cannot  count  on 
saints;  they  are  not  increasing  in  the 
world." 

It  had  grown  late,  and  we  stirred 
ourselves  as  if  to  go. 

"And  the  woman?"  I  asked,  suddenly 
remembering  her  again. 

"The  woman?"  he  said,  lightly,  as  we 
stepped  toward  the  door.  "Hassan  had 
been  right.  She  was  incurably  shrew- 
ish." 

We  passed  out  into  the  star-lit  African 
night.  "Every  one  should  have  his  time 
of  being  a  saint,"  commented  Rujdi. 
And  then  he  added,  tolerantly,  "Perhaps 
every  one  has." 


Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.— 78 


The  White  Elephant 


BY  MARGARET  CAMERON  AND  JESSIE  LEACH  RECTOR 


S  Rand,  entering  late, 
looked  about  the 
crowded  drawing-room 
in  search  of  his  hostess, 
he  smiled  reminiscently, 
remembering  his  own 
comment  that  the  deco- 
rations of  Betty  Aldrich's  house  were 
always  an  echo  of  day  after  to-morrow. 
Presently  he  caught  sight  of  her  passing 
through  the  hall,  and  with  the  privilege 
of  an  intimate  friend  he  followed,  over- 
taking her  in  a  small  reception-room 
where  she  was  giving  final  instructions 
to  the  maid  in  charge  of  a  huge  pile  of 
parcels,  each  wrapped  in  white  tissue 
and  tied  with  ribbon. 

"Hello,  Betty!"  he  said.  "Sorry  I'm 
so  late." 

"Oh,  Cliff!  I  didn't  know  you  were 
in  town."  She  greeted  him  enthusias- 
tically, both  hands  outstretched,  and  he 
explained : 

"I'm  just  off  the  train.  Found  your 
card,  and  it  excited  my  curiosity.  What's 
it  all  about?" 

"I'm  so  glad  you  could  come!" 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  couldn't.  I'm 
up  to  my  neck  in  work.  But  then" — 
his  whimsical  smile  appeared — "where 
you're  concerned,  all  my  trains  are  ac- 
commodations. Tell  me,  what's  a  white- 
elephant  sale?" 

"Dear  man,  did  you  never  own  a 
white  elephant?" 

"Never."  He  shook  his  head  gravely, 
only  his  twinkling  eyes  betraying  his  hu- 
mor. "Mine  always  prove  to  be  blind 
kittens  and  meet  an  untimely  end." 

Betty's  light  laughter  made  quick  re- 
sponse. 

"You  must  be  loved  of  the  gods," 
she  declared;  "if,  in  that  annual  ex- 
change of  'something  you  can't  afford 
for  something  you  don't  want'  you've 
never  acquired  a  white  elephant,  you 
couldn't  drown!"  Again  he  shook  his 
head,  and  she  demanded,  "Clifford 
Rand,  have  you  no  sentiment?" 


"My  dear  Betty,  there's  no  end  to 
that!  Whistler's  'damned  little  thing  on 
the  mantelpiece  that  gives  the  whole 
show  away'  increases  and  multiplies  in 
the  sunshine  of  sentiment  until  it's  all 
over  the  place." 

"Then  one  acquires  merit  by  sacri- 
ficing love's  offering  on  the  altar  of 
charity" — she  indicated  the  pile  of  mul- 
tiformed  parcels — "and  it  becomes  a 
pig  in  a  poke  for  somebody  else.  That's 
what  a  white-elephant  sale  is." 

"And  all  the  world  contributes  to  it," 
he  appended,  nodding  toward  the  ad- 
joining rooms,  whence  came  the  con- 
fused babble  of  many  voices.  "By  the 
way,  who's  the  chap  out  there  who  looks 
like  Grove  Carrington  ?" 

"It  is  Grove  Carrington." 

"I  thought  he  was  building  bridges 
and  draining  swamps  and  cutting  roads 
through  the  jungle  somewhere." 

"He  was — and  is.  He's  going  back 
next  month."  After  a  moment  she 
added,  significantly,  "Eleanor's  coming 
to-night,  too." 

"Is  she?"  He  also  hesitated.  "I 
wonder — " 

"Yes,  we  all  wonder.  You  were  with 
us  last  summer  at  Murray  Bay,  Cliff, 
and  you  know  him  awfully  well.  What 
broke  off  that  affair?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"When  she  went  up  there  we  all 
thought  she  was  going  to  marry  Clayton 
Page.  I  think  she  thought  so  herself. 
But  then  she  and  Grove  renewed  their 
acquaintance,  and  seemed  so  much  more 
than  friends,  that  everybody  thought  it 
was  serious,  until — one  day  it  wasn't, 
and  he  was  gone." 

"Still,  the  whole  thing  was  so  sud- 
den," he  reminded  her.  "When  he  went 
out  he  didn't  expect  to  stay,  you  know. 
He  was  summoned  by  cable — as  con- 
sulting engineer  in  an  emergency,  don't 
you  remember? — and  left  the  same  day 
for  New  York.  Surely  she  had  nothing 
to  do  with  that." 


THE  WHITE  ELEPHANT 


627 


"No.  But  even  when  the  work  went 
wrong  and  he  had  to  stay  she  never 
spoke  of  him.  Apparently,  in  all  this 
time — almost  a  year — she's  never  heard 
from  him.  Cliff,  something  happened. 
What  was  it?" 

"I  wish  you'd  tell  me!  He  isn't  the 
sort  of  chap  one  questions.  He's  always 
on  guard  against  daws." 

"They're  well  matched  there!  Elea- 
nor doesn't  wear  a  decorated  sleeve, 
either.  But  in  all  the  years  I've  known 
her  that  was  the  only  time  when  her 
interest  seemed  equal  to  the  man's.  Of 
course,  people  said  she  had  decided  to 
marry  Mr.  Page,  after  all — but  she 
didn't.  She  hasn't  even  seen  him  since 
— and  certainly  she's  never  encouraged 
anybody  else."  Betty,  whose  kindly 
soul  rejected  all  gossip,  hesitated  before 
crystallizing  in  words  even  an  old  con- 
jecture, but  experience  had  taught  her 
that  she  might  trust  Rand's  discretion, 
so  she  continued:  "For  a  long  time  I 
thought  Grove  might  be  going  to  marry 
Miriam  Latimer,  but  that's  never  been 
announced,  either.  She  and  her  mother 
came  to  Murray  Bay  just  after  he  ar- 
rived, you  remember,  and  her  interest  in 
him  was  very  manifest." 

"But  she's  his  cousin,"  he  demurred. 

"What  has  that  to  do  with  it?  Some- 
thing evidently  came  between  Grove  and 
Eleanor.  Why  not  an  earlier  attach- 
ment?" 

"Oh,  woman!  woman!  I'll  bet  it  was 
a  woman  who  first  said  '  Cherchez  la 
femme.9  "  Rand  cast  his  fly  with  delib- 
erate intention,  and  Betty  rose  to  it 
characteristically,  retorting: 

"I  dare  say.  Women  have  said  most 
of  the  clever  things  men  take  credit  for. 
But  just  the  same,  I've  never  been  able 
to  convince  myself  that  Eleanor's  deci- 
sion was  not  influenced  in  some  way  by 
Miriam's  arrival — and  I've  never  really 
liked  Miriam  since."  Laughing  as  she 
made  this  confession,  she  added:  "Elea- 
nor's so  dear  to  me,  I  always  want  to 
fight  her  battles.  You  see,  she's  too 
generous.    Her  claws  are  atrophied." 

"My  dear  Betty,"  he  said,  a  sincere 
warmth  underlying  his  light  tone,  "ad- 
equate defense  implies  a  consistent 
scratcher,  which  you  are  not.  At  the 
mere  sight  of  blood  you  run  for  your 
first-aid  kit!" 


Just  then  the  curtain  which  partially 
screened  the  door,  preserving  for  this 
gray-toned  little  room  its  air  of  semi- 
privacy,  was  hastily  pushed  aside,  and 
there  entered  a  woman  of  perhaps  thirty, 
still  wearing  the  fur  coat  in  which  she 
had  left  her  motor — a  woman,  one  saw 
at  a  glance,  fastidious,  discriminating, 
and  humorously  intellectual,  but  at  the 
moment  much  perturbed,  as  was  evinced 
by  her  breathless:  "Oh,  Betty,  Betty! 
Where's  my  parcel?" 

"Eleanor!  What's  the  matter?"  Rand 
asked,  with  solicitude,  startled  by  her 
obvious  agitation. 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  in  town, 
Cliff."  She  gave  him  a  careless,  friendly 
hand,  and  turned  at  once  to  her  hostess, 
repeating:  "Betty,  where  is  my  parcel? 
I  want  it  back!" 

"Here's  one  whose  candle  burns  dimly 
on  the  altar.  She  wants  it  back,"  com- 
mented Rand,  with  a  return  to  his  cus- 
tomary whimsical  manner,  but  Eleanor 
gave  no  heed  to  him. 

"I'd  know  it  anywhere,"  she  urged, 
feverishly.  "Do  help  me  find  it!  We 
can't  miss  it!  It's  tied  with  green  Tafia." 

"But  everything's  been  rewrapped — ■ 
and  a  lot  of  them  boxed,"  Betty  told  her, 
"so  no  one  could  possibly  recognize  his 
own." 

"Didn't  you  know  this  was  a  domino 
party?"  jested  Rand. 

"Oh,  Cliff,  do  be  still!  Can't  you  see 
I'm  in  trouble?  I  must  find  it!"  Slip- 
ping out  of  her  coat,  Eleanor  had 
snatched  a  parcel  from  the  pile  and  was 
unwrapping  it. 

"But  why?"  Betty  questioned. 

"Don't  ask  me  why!  I've  got  to  find 
it!"  Discovering  in  her  hand  a  piece  of 
art  nouveau  pottery,  she  put  it  aside 
with  an  impatient  ejaculation  and  seized 
another  parcel. 

"Betty" — Rand  was  regarding  the 
porcelain  with  an  appraising  eye — "the 
vintage  of  that  might  almost  place  it  as 
one  of  your  wedding-presents." 

"You  underestimate  the  devotion  of 
my  friends,"  was  her  dry  retort.  "On 
that  happy  occasion  they  scorned  clay 
and  cast  their  bread  upon  the  waters  in 
the  form  of  imperishable  silver.  But  I 
assure  you,  Cliff,  I've  always  returned 
breakable  crusts!" 

"And  still  a  man's  friends  ask  him 


628 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


why  he  doesn't  marry!"  he  commented, 
with  a  grin.  Then,  as  Eleanor's  nervous 
fingers  uncovered  a  piece  of  sculpture  of 
the  sentimental  school,  he  took  it  from 
her  and  held  it  at  arm's-length,  exclaim- 
ing: "O  Art!  How  many  crimes  in  thy 
name — " 

"I  do  think  you  people  are  perfectly 
heartless!  Why  don't  you  help  me?" 
Eleanor  reproached  them.  "This  is 
really  vital  to  me.  Won't  you  please  be 
serious?" 

But  Rand,  caught  in  the  irresistible 
current  of  his  own  humor,  extended  the 
bit  of  marble  toward  her,  demanding: 
"Doesn't  that  strike  you  as  being  seri- 
ous, in  Heaven's  name?  Yesterday  that 
was  art!  To-day — "  Looking  about 
the  room,  he  picked  up  a  little  portrait 
in  bronze  of  Betty's  child,  signed  by  one 
of  the  most  advanced  of  modern  sculp- 
tors, and  placed  the  two  side  by  side. 
Then,  with  a  shrug:  "My  children! 
What  of  to-morrow?" 

"Never  mind  to-morrow!  I  can't 
wait!  I  must  find  it  now!  I  must!" 
Only  half-listening,  Eleanor  began  un- 
tying another  knot,  and  Betty,  deter- 
mined to  rescue  the  remainder  of  her 
parcels,  covered  her  friend's  cold  fingers 
with  her  own  warm  ones,  insisting: 

"But  why?  Why?" 

"Because  I — I  just  happened  to  real- 
ize that  the  person  who  gave  it  to  me 
may  be  here." 

"Don't  let  that  trouble  you,"  laughed 
Betty.    "We're  all  in  the  same  boat." 

After  a  speculative  glance  at  Eleanor, 
Rand  mentioned,  dryly:  "There  are 
boats  and  boats,  Betty.  Yours  may  be 
a  pleasure-craft,  but  hers  seems  to  be  a 
destroyer." 

"Plaze,  Mrs.  Aldrich,  they're  afther 
wantin'  to  begin,"  said  a  maid  at  the 
door.    "Which  '11  I  be  takin'  first?" 

As  Betty  handed  her  an  imposing  par- 
cel there  was  a  rattle  of  applause  in 
the  drawing-room;  the  hum  subsided, 
and  a  resonant  voice  proclaimed,  with 
the  intonation  approved  of  all  auction- 
eers: 

"Ladies  and  gentlemen:  I  am  to  have 
the  pleasure  to-night  of  offering  you  an 
unparalleled  aggregation  of  artless  art 
and  untreasured  treasures.  And  in  call- 
ing attention  to  the  fact  that  the  proceeds 
of  this  sale  are  to  swell  the  ever-depleted 


coffers  of  home  charities  I  may  mention, 
in  passing,  that  each  of  us  is  definitely 
demonstrating  for  himself — and  herself 
— the  truth  of  that  good  old  adage, 
Charity  begins  at  home.'" 

The  voice  was  drowned  in  laughter 
and  applause,  and  Rand  cocked  his  head 
a  little  to  one  side,  saying:  "Me  for  the 
firing-line!  Coming?" 

"We'll  be  there  presently,  Cliff," 
Betty  promised,  and  with  a  nod  he  went 
out.  Meanwhile  Eleanor  fell  upon  an- 
other parcel,  and  again  her  hostess  laid 
arresting  hands  upon  it,  crying:  "Elea- 
nor, stop  it!  You  mustn't!  You've  no 
idea  how  we  worked  tying  all  those  up! 
Anyway,  there  are  scores  of  them.  I'm 
sorry,  but  you  can't  possibly  find  it, 
dear." 

"I  must  find  it!"  Eleanor  turned  a 
tragic  face  towTard  her.  '  "Grove  Car- 
rington  gave  it  to  me — and  he's  here! 
I  had  no  idea  that  he  would  be — but  he 
was  the  first  person  I  saw  as  I  came  in, 
and — Betty,  there's  a  reason  why  I  must 
have  it!  I  can't  have  him  see  that  here! 
You  don't  know — and  I  can't  tell  you — 
but  it  just  can't  happen!    It  can't!" 

Realizing  at  last  that  the  situation 
held  grave  possibilities  for  two  of  her 
guests,  Betty  was  at  once  resourceful, 
announcing:  "There's  only  one  sure 
way  to  prevent  that.  You  distract  his 
attention  until  your  thing  has  been  dis- 
covered and  I've  suppressed  it." 

"Oh,  I  couldn't!" 

"My  dear  child,  you're  a  woman, 
aren't  you?  Talk!  Talk!  That  was 
Eve's  first  garden  implement!" 

"But  Eve  had  no  temperament — and 
no  competition.  Besides,  I've  nothing 
to  say  to  him  now." 

"Then  talk  patter  —  high-brow  art 
patter,"  Betty  prescribed,  briskly. 
"You  can  do  that  in  your  sleep.  You 
go  out  and  find  him.  I'll  see  every  parcel 
opened  until  your  thing  turns  up —  By 
the  way,  what  is  it?" 

"My  Ming  statuette." 

"Why — Eleanor!  You've  always  con- 
tended that  that  thing  was  genuine!" 

"I  know!  Don't  ask  me  to  explain. 
I  can't!" 

"But  why  on  earth  do  you  want  it 
back?" 

"I've  told  you.  He's  here!"  Eleanor's 
tone  was  still  desperate,  but  this  time  it 


THE  WHITE 

elicited  only  an  incredulous  stare  from 
her  friend. 

"Grove?  Surely  Grove  Carrington 
never  gave  you  a  spurious  Ming!" 

The  other  responded  only  with  a  help- 
less gesture. 

"But — Eleanor,  were  we  all  wrong? 
Is  it  genuine?" 

"No." 

"Of  course  it  isn't,  or  you'd  never 
have  sent  it  here!  But — Grove  knows! 
Nobody  better!  He  has  a  wonderful 
Ming  himself  that  he  bought  at  Chris- 
tie's. Heaven  knows  what  he  paid  for 
it!  He  never  would  tell,  but  we  heard 
rumors  that  it  was  a  tremendous  price. 
How  could  he  send  you  that  thing?  Was 
it  a  joke?" 

"No;  it  wasn't  a  joke."  Even  to 
Betty,  Eleanor  could  not  confess  that  a 
man  she  had  loved  had  sent  her  a  clever 
counterfeit,  at  the  same  time  assuring 
her  that  it  was  a  symbol  of  his  devotion. 

"Well,  if  he  really  sent  it  seriously,  I 
should  think  you'd  be  glad  to  have  him 
discover  it  here!"  her  friend  declared, 
indignantly;    "Why  aren't  you?" 

"I  don't  know!  Don't  ask  me!  When 
I  saw  him,  I — I  just  knew  I  couldn't 
stand  it  to  have  him  see  it!  I've  always 
intended  that  he  should  find  it  in  my 
drawing-room  when  he  returned.  Then, 
on  an  impulse,  I  sent  it  here,  but  now — 
Betty,  I  must  have  it  back!" 

"All  right."  Betty,  ever  practical, 
turned  toward  the  door.  "You  find 
him.  I'll —  Eleanor,  here  he  comes!" 
The  younger  woman  dropped  into  a 
chair,  and  her  hostess  spurred  her  with 
an  energetic  whisper,  "Brace  up!  Brace 
up!"  before  going  forward,  still  amazed 
by  Eleanor's  revelation,  to  greet  this 
man  whom  she  thought  she  had  known 
so  well,  and  of  whose  taste  she  had  been 
so  sure. 

Grove  Carrington  was  a  big,  tanned, 
crisp-haired  man,  whose  years  in  the 
open  had  accentuated  his  authoritative 
manner  and  helped  him  forget  that  he 
was  born  on  the  water  side  of  Beacon 
Street  and  educated  at  Harvard.  He 
came  in  quickly,  with  a  certain  eager- 
ness, smiling  at  Betty,  but  looking  be- 
yond her  as  if  seeking  some  one,  and  she 
asked:  "What's  the  matter,  Grove? 
Are  you  finding  our  elephant-hunt  too 
tame?" 


ELEPHANT  629 

"I'm  on  the  trail,  all  right,  but  it's  not 
elephants  I'm  hunting.  Didn't  I  catch 
a  glimpse  of  Eleanor  Baird?" 

"Yes.  Haven't  you  seen  her?  Elea- 
nor, here's  Grove."  Her  tone  conveyed 
no  hint  of  her  consciousness  that  the 
situation  was  not  casual.  Then,  after 
one  stimulating  glance  at  the  other 
woman,  she  slipped  out,  and  they  were 
alone. 

A  burst  of  laughter  and  applause  had 
died  away;  the  maid  had  taken  out  an- 
other parcel,  and  now  the  auctioneer's 
unctuous  tones  again  filled  the  rooms 
as  Carrington  stepped  quickly  toward 
Eleanor,  exclaiming,  half  under  his 
breath,  "Have  I  really  found  you 
again  r 

She  gave  an  unresponsive  hand  into 
his  eager  clasp,  saying,  "How  do  you 

"Did  they  tell  you  I  called  yesterday? 
And  again  to-day?" 

"Yes,  they  told  me."  Her  manner 
was  friendly,  but  remote. 

Determined  not  to  recognize  the  chill 
wall  she  had  built  between  them — of 
which,  nevertheless,  he  was  acutely  con- 
scious—  he  demanded,  "Why  haven't 
you  answered  my  letters?" 

"Oh,  no  one  writes  letters  these  days," 
she  evaded,  to  which  he  insistently 
retorted : 

"But  you  did  write!  Eleanor,  why 
did  you  write  that  last  letter?" 

"Evidently  yours  is  a  great  soul." 
She  summoned  a  faint  smile.  "You 
scorn  consistency.  First  you  take  me  to 
task  because  I  didn't  write,  and  then 
because  I  did." 

"But  that  last  letter!  What  did  it 
mean?  To  be  followed  into  the  wilds 
by  an  extinguisher  like  that — and  then 
nothing!  Weeks  —  and  months  —  and 
nothing!  I  wrote  twice,  and  when  you 
didn't  answer  I  knew  I  must  wait  until 
I  could  see  you  face  to  face.  Then  I 
began  to  hear  that  Page  was  going  about 
everywhere  with  you,  and  I  thought — " 

"Page!"  For  a  moment  surprise 
made  her  manner  almost  natural. 
"Clayton  Page?  I  haven't  seen  him  for 
nearly  a  year." 

"What?  But  I  certainly  heard — 
Anyway,  Betty  wrote  afterward  that  he 
had  disappeared,  and  I  began  trying  to 
get  home  again.    But  the  work  delayed 


630 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


me.  I  couldn't  get  away  until  now. 
Tell  me  what  it  meant!" 

There  could  be  no  question  that  his 
emotion,  of  its  kind,  was  genuine,  and 
in  spite  of  her  conviction  that  the  thing 
he  had  done  would  have  been  impossible 
to  a  man  to  whom  she  could  trust  her 
life,  she  still  realized  that  she  must 
fortify  herself  for  more  than  passive  re- 
sistance if  she  would  withstand  the 
charm  of  his  pleading  presence.  There- 
fore she  arose,  exclaiming,  with  an  at- 
tempt at  lightness: 

"Oh,  why  talk  about  it?  It's  all 
ancient  history  now,  and  there  are  so 
many  nice  new  things  to  talk  about." 
Then,  in  her  extremity,  she  fell  back 
upon  Betty's  parting  injunction,  con- 
scious of  its  inadequacy,  but  fearing  her 
own  emotion.  "New  people,  new  books, 
new  music,  new  art —  Why,  it's  a 
brand-new  world  you've  come  back  to! 
How  does  it  feel  to  be  born  again  ?" 

"I  don't  want  a  new  world,"  he  de- 
clared. "I  want  the  old  world — and 
you! 

"That's  because  you  don't  know  how 
many  amusing  things  there  are  in  all 
these  new  ones — and  there  are  such  a 
lot  of  them!  It's  a  poor  creator  who 
hasn't  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth 
of  his  own  these  days,  and  the  rest  of  us 
are  breathless  keeping  pace  with  their 
creations."  His  puzzled  gaze  made  her 
keenly  aware  of  the  flippancy  of  her 
tone,  but  she  was  unable  to  control  it, 
and  now  he  brushed  her  words  aside 
with  a  gesture: 

"I  don't  care  anything  about  that! 
Eleanor,  I've  come  all  the  way  back  to 
ask  you  this  question.  Tell  me,  tell  me 
definitely,  why  you  wrote  that  letter." 

"You're  reverting  to  an  earlier  man- 
ner, Grove."  She  was  resolved  to  with- 
hold from  him  at  all  costs  any  knowledge 
of  the  emotions  he  had  stirred.  "One 
isn't  definite  these  days." 

"These  evasions  of  yours  make  me 
want  to  revert  to  type!  I  feel  like  a 
cave-man!"  he  growled,  to  which  she 
retorted: 

"Get  you  to  a  studio,  then.  Primitive 
impulses  are  encouraged,  at  the  moment, 
in  the  arts." 

"Only  in  the  arts?"  He  placed  him- 
self directly  before  her.  "  Eleanor,  won't 
you  at  least  let  me  tell  you  what  this  has 


meant  to  me?  Just  for  a  moment,  won't 
you  be  serious?" 

Strongly  moved,  she  almost  swayed 
into  his  arms,  but  remembering  the  bit- 
terness of  her  first  disillusionment,  and 
knowing  that  her  own  heart  might  be- 
tray her  into  an  acceptance  of  his  ex- 
planation, no  matter  how  specious,  she 
turned  away,  forcing  herself  to  reply, 
with  a  shrug:  "Oh,  you  forget!  This  is 
not  a  serious  occasion." 

For  a  moment  he  vainly  tried  to  make 
her  meet  his  level  glance.  Then,  with- 
drawing a  step,  he  said,  formally:  "I 
beg  your  pardon.  I  had  an  impression 
that  it  was.  I  thought  that  when  a  man 
had  traveled  half  around  the  globe  to 
say  one  thing  to  a  woman  he  had  earned 
the  right  to  be  treated  seriously.  I'm 
sorry  if  I  have  bored  you." 

He  bowed  and  turned  to  go,  and  she 
realized  that  if  he  left  her  then  he  would 
go  permanently  out  of  her  life.  Scorn- 
ing herself  for  her  desire  to  hold  a  man 
whose  standard  of  ideals  had  proved  to 
be  so  much  lower  than  her  own,  but 
impelled  by  an  irresistible  impulse,  she 
contrived  to  smile,  and  said:  "I'm  sorry 
if  I  seem  unsympathetic.  Time  was 
when  you  always  modulated  into  my 
key,  Grove." 

"But  in  this  long  silence  you've  im- 
posed I  seem  to  have  lost  the  pitch,"  he 
said,  pausing.  From  without  came  the 
sound  of  the  auctioneer's  voice,  calling: 
"Are  you  all  done?  Ten  twenty-five! — 
last  bid! — going! — going! — "  Carring- 
ton  strode  back  to  rrer  side.  "  Eleanor,  I 
don't  know  you!  I  don't  know  you  in 
this  mood!  Tell  me  what  has  come 
between  us." 

"Many  months — and  several  thou- 
sand miles,"  she  began,  and  stopped 
short,  looking  over  his  shoulder.  He 
turned,  impressed  by  her  manner,  and 
saw  their  hostess  approaching.  As  Mrs. 
Aldrich  entered  the  room,  he  heard 
Eleanor  breathe,  "Oh,  Betty,  have 
you —  r 

"Cliff  hasn't  been  here  yet?"  the 
other  asked,  glancing  quickly  about. 

"Cliff?  No — yes — he  was  here,  you 
know,"  Eleanor  faltered.  Then,  catch- 
ing the  significance  of  her  friend's  ques- 
tion: "Clifford  Rand?  Did  he  get  it? 
And  he  doesn't  understand!  Oh,  why 
didn't  you  stop  him?" 


Drawn  by  Edward  L.  Chase  Engraved  by  Nelson  Demarest 

"I    DON'T    WANT    A    NEW    WORLD,"    HE  DECLARED 


THE  WHITE 

"You  forget  that  mob  of  people!  He 
was  gone  before  I  could  get  to  him." 

"Well,  don't  waste  time  here.  Go 
and  find  him!" 

"Let  me  go.  I'll  find  him,"  Carring- 
ton  volunteered,  but  again  Eleanor 
stayed  him. 

"No,  no;  you  can't  go!  Why  should 
we  let  Clifford  Rand  interrupt  the  first 
talk  we've  had  in  months?"  Turning  to 
Betty,  she  explained,  "WVre  endeavor- 
ing to  build  bridges." 

"With  Grove's  help  that  should  be 
easy,"  was  the  quick  response.  "Build- 
ing bridges  is  his  genius." 

"But  my  bridges  demand  solid  foun- 
dations," he  said,  looking  at  Eleanor, 
and  she  returned: 

"Do  you  always  find  bed-rock  on  the 
surface?  Betty,  do  go  and  find  Cliff!" 
Once  more  alone  with  Carrington,  she 
attempted  to  steer  the  conversation  into 
less  perilous  channels.  "You  know 
Clifford  Rand,  don't  you?" 

"Very  well.  We  were  at  college  to- 
gether." 

"Then  you  also  know  his  over-devel- 
oped sense  of  humor.  We  all  rather 
dread  him  at  times,  fond  as  we  are  of 
him." 

"Coming  back  to  this  new  world  you 
emphasize,"  he  remarked,  "my  jungle- 
fed  mind  is  rather  bewildered,  appar- 
ently, by  any  facetious  point  of  view. 
But  I  suppose  it  does  make  a  difference 
whose  ox  is  gored." 

Evidently  he  was  not  to  be  diverted 
from  his  purpose,  and  sounds  of  merri- 
ment from  the  drawing-room  suggested 
an  effective  barrier  to  intimate  conver- 
sation, now  that  her  statuette  was  sold, 
so  she  said: 

"Oh,  well,  if  you're  homesick  for  the 
jungle,  let's  go  out  and  buy  white  ele- 
phants. We're  not  contributing  our 
share." 

"And  leave  our  bridge  resting 
on  shifting  sands?  I  can't  do  that! 
Won't  you  help  me  make  a  solid  founda- 
tion  r 

For  once  she  looked  directly  into  his 
eyes,  and  his  seeming  frankness  trou- 
bled her.  Wavering  between  her  im- 
pression of  what  he  seemed  and  her 
memory  of  what  he  had  done,  she  forced 
herself  to  say,  lightly,  if  somewhat  in- 
coherently, "Why  is  a  bridge  without  a 


ELEPHANT  631 

foundation  any  worse  than  a  foundation 
without  a  bridge?" 

"The  foundation  may  safely  wait  for 
years  without  the  bridge,  but  the  bridge 
without  the  foundation  comes  to  grief," 
he  mechanically  explained,  perceiving 
at  last  that  her  evasions  were  more  than 
caprice,  and  studying  her  gravely. 

"Even  an  ephemeral  bridge  may  be  a 
thing  of  beauty  on  the  sky-line,"  she 
supplied. 

"But  I  want  a  bridge  that  will  span 
the  years — a  foundation  on  which  I  can 
rest  my  life!  And  only  you  can  help  me 
build  it!" 

"Your  life  rests  lightly  on  its  founda- 
tions, Grove.  You  keep  bed-rock  and 
cement  for  your  profession." 

She  turned  wearily  away,  but  he 
caught  her  arm,  demanding:  "Eleanor, 
what  do  you  mean?  There's  something 
under  this  that  I  don't  understand." 

"Oh,  why  equivocate?"  For  the  first 
time,  she  showed  visible  impatience  and 
dropped  her  light  manner.  "You  know 
perfectly  well!" 

"Know?  Know  what?  What  do  you 
mean  r 

Before  she  could  frame  a  reply  Rand 
appeared  in  the  doorway,  looking  very 
much  amused,  and  when  he  discovered 
her  only  companion  to  be  a  man  well 
known  as  a  connoisseur  of  porcelains,  he 
gleefully  exclaimed,  "Carrington,  for 
once  I've  done  you!"  Then,  turning  to 
Eleanor:  "I  owe  you  a  lifetime  of  grati- 
tude, for  if  you  had  not  kept  this  invet- 
erate old  bargain-hunter  occupied  I 
should  never  have  been  permitted  to 
acquire  the  most  unblushing  white  ele- 
phant now  in  captivity.  Behold!"  Tri- 
umphantly he  displayed  his  new  posses- 
sion, a  mandarin  in  brilliantly  tinted 
porcelain,  and  bowed  ironically  as  he 
added,  "A  glowing  spark  from  your 
burnt-offering,  I  think?" 

"Mine?"  She  regarded  the  thing 
dully.  For  the  moment  her  feeling  was 
almost  one  of  detachment.  "It  does 
look  a  little  like  mine,  doesn't  it?" 
Then,  realizing  that  it  was  Carrington 
who  stood  beside  her,  she  affected  to 
look  closely  at  the  porcelain  lest  she 
should  look  at  him,  unconscious  that  he 
was  quietly  watching  her. 

"Like!"  Rand  laughed.  "I've  heard 
his  every  seductive  curve  defended  in 


632 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


your  drawing-room!  After  being  so  gal- 
lant a  champion  in  private,  do  you  re- 
pudiate him  in  public?  I  wouldn't  have 
believed  it  of  you!" 

Carrington,  who  had  been  turning  the 
statuette  about  in  his  hands,  now  re- 
marked: "  There  can  be  only  one  reason 
why  Eleanor  should  defend  a  thing  like 
that.  Our  sentimental  associations  are 
frequently  chosen  for  us." 

Amazed  at  his  effrontery,  she  turned 
indignantly  toward  him,  gasping, 
"Weill"  Then,  pointedly,  "I  assure 
you  I've  never  been  able  to  find  an  ex- 
cuse for  that!" 

"Is  it  possible  I've  been  rendering 
honors  where  no  honors  were  due?" 
Rand's  smile  was  quizzical,  and  Car- 
rington asked: 

"Then  this  was  not  yours?" 

"I've  been  the  unhappy  possessor  of 
one  like  it,"  she  said,  coldly. 

"Can  I  believe  my  senses?"  teased 
Rand.    "Is  that  an  admission?" 

"If  it  is,  it's  not  for  publication."  Her 
tone  betrayed  her  nervous  tension,  but 
the  irrepressible  Rand  continued,  with  a 
touch  of  grandiloquence: 

"I'll  guard  your  secret  as  my  own! 
But  that  empty  niche  in  your  drawing- 
room  will  bear  mute  testimony  to 
woman's  emancipation  from  sentimen- 
tal slavery." 

"It  must  have  been  a  strong  senti- 
ment," Carrington  intimated,  with  a 
critical  glance  at  the  porcelain,  "that 
could  give  a  thing  like  that  even  a  tem- 
porary place  in  your  drawing-room." 

"Temporary!"  jeered  the  other  man, 
with  enjoyment.  "He's  been  there  long 
enough  to  have  acquired  squatter's 
rights!"  The  entrance  of  the  maid  for 
another  parcel  reminded  him  that  the 
sale  was  not  over,  and  he  lifted  an  im- 
pressive hand,  calling  to  their  attention 
the  ceaseless  flow  of  the  auctioneer's 
eloquence.  "Hark  to  the  voice  of  the 
tempter!  I'm  off  to  acquire  a  few  more 
sentimental  misfits.  But  I  think  Jumbo 
will  be  happier  with  you,  Eleanor.  He 
hasn't  learned  to  know  his  master's 
voice  yet.  Will  you  guard  him  for 
me  r 

"No.  Take  it  away."  She  was  al- 
most brusque. 

"Why,  I  thought  you  were  so  anxious 
to  keep  it  dark!"  marveled  Rand,  in 


genuine  surprise,  and  she  impatiently 
agreed : 

"Oh  yes,  I  am!  Leave  it  here,  by  all 
means." 

"But  treat  him  tenderly,  you  two! 
He's  been  told  he  was  genuine  until  his 
faith  in  himself  is  akin  to  hope!" 

"Well,  if  that's  true,"  said  Carring- 
ton, "there's  no  question  that  the  blind 
god  inspired  this  gift.  He  couldn't  see 
the  difference  between  1 5 19  and  191 5." 

"Here's  a  new  beatitude!  Since 
blindness  and  gifts  go  hand  in  hand, 
blessed  is  the  receiver  who  is  also  blind." 
Rand  took  his  departure,  and  Carrington 
turned  to  the  woman,  asking: 

"But  you  weren't  blind,  Eleanor? 
You  knew?" 

"Our  eyes  are  holden  sometimes  from 
choice.  Grove,  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
loyalty." 

"How,  then,  could  you  send  this 
here?"  he  asked,  watching  her  keenly. 
"Since  you  have  treasured  it  so  long, 
you  must  once  have  cared  for  the  giver, 
if  not  for  the  gift.  How  could  you  send 
it  to  a  place  like  this?" 

"Remember  your  own  words.  A 
flawed  foundation  brings  any  structure 
to  grief  in  time.  Even  now  you're  not 
sincere  enough  to  admit  that  the  faulty 
stone  was  yours!" 

"Mine!  What  do  you  mean?"  he 
questioned,  sharply. 

"Oh,  why  can't  you  be  honest?  You 
know  that  I  kept  this  statuette  because 
you  gave  it  to  me." 

"That?  I?"  He  looked  entirely  mys- 
tified.   "I  never  saw  the  thing  before!" 

"But — Grove!  You  sent  it  to  me! 
It  was  your  parting  gift!" 

"That?  I  sent  you  my  own  Ming 
figure,  that  I  bought  at  Christie's  ten 
years  ago!" 

"This  is  what  came  to  me,"  she  told 
him,  shaking  her  head. 

"I  knew  it  had  some  unhappy  asso- 
ciation for  you.  I  could  see  that,  but 
I  never  dreamed —  Why,  Eleanor,  how 
could  you  think  for  a  moment  that  I'd 
send  you — you — a  thing  not  genuine?" 

"Still — there  it  is,"  she  mentioned 
indicating  the  porcelain.  "The  label 
was  addressed  in  your  hand,  and  inside 
the  box  was  your  card,  saying  that  this 
would  remind  me  during  your  absence 
of  the  quality  of  your  devotion." 


THE  WHITE  ELEPHANT 


633 


For  a  moment  Carrington  stared  at 
her  in  utter  incredulity,  and  then, 
glimpsing  the  truth,  he  exclaimed  with 
conviction,  "  That's  why  you  wrote  that 
cruel  letter!" 

"I  was  cruelly  hurt,"  she  said. 

"But  couldn't  you  see  that  it  was  a 
hideous  mistake?" 

"How  could  it  be  a  mistake?  I've 
tried — oh,  I  have  tried  to  find  excuses," 
she  faltered,  brokenly.  "If  it  had  been 
something  you  bought  for  me,  sent  from 
a  shop —  But  you  wrote  that  you  were 
sending  me  the  first  piece  you  ever 
owned,  the  foundation-stone  of  your 
wonderful  collection.  And  that  is  what 
came  to  me  as  a  symbol  of  the  quality  of 
your  devotion!" 

A  quick  illumination,  as  quickly 
masked,  had  come  into  Carrington's 
eyes,  but  he  said  only:  "It's  a  hideous 
mistake!  Eleanor,  won't  you  believe  me 
when  I  say  I  never  saw  that  thing 
before?" 

"Then  how  did  it  reach  me  with  that 
card?   And  that  label?" 

"I  don't  know!"  He  made  a  despair- 
ing gesture.    "I  can't  explain  it!" 

"But  you  saw  it  packed!" 

"No,  I  didn't.  You  know  I  was  here 
only  one  day,  and  I  was  fearfully  busy. 
I  wrote  the  card  and  the  label,  and  left 
instructions  that  the  figure  was  to  be 
carefully  packed  and  sent  to  you  as  soon 
as  you  got  home.  I  supposed — until 
this  moment — that  it  had  been  done!" 
His  sincerity  was  unquestionable,  and, 
perceiving  this,  Eleanor  demanded,  with 
a  flash  of  intuition: 

"To  whom  did  you  give  the  instruc- 
tions ?" 

"I  don't  yet  understand  how  such  a 
mistake  could  occur,"  he  evaded. 

"How  could  there  be  a  mistake  about 
this,  Grove?  Tell  me,  who  had  your 
instructions?" 

"You  see,  she's  no  judge  of  these 
things.    She  didn't  know." 

|'Who  didn't  know?" 

"My  cousin  Miriam.  You  remember 
she  and  her  mother  lived  in  my  apart- 
ment last  fall."  He  made  the  explana- 
tion reluctantly,  realizing  its  inade- 
quacy. "I  left  a  letter  in  the  apartment, 
asking  her  to  have  the  Ming  packed  and 
sent  to  you,  and  somehow — " 

"But  what  about  this?"  she  asked, 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  784.-79 


appreciating  his  hesitation,  but  feeling 
that  they  both  had  suffered  too  much  to 
leave  any  depths  unprobed  now.  "You 
insist  that  you  never  saw  it  before.  Was 
this  in  your  apartment?" 

"I  didn't  know  it  was.  I  don't  re- 
member it.  But  I  suppose  it  must  have 
been.  And  you  know  Miriam  is  not  a 
connoisseur.  She  wouldn't  understand 
the  difference." 

"Oh,  wouldn't  she!  It  was  Miriam 
who  came  the  day  after  I  received  this, 
and  pounced  upon  it  at  once  as  a  brilliant 
imitation.  Was  it  she  who  wrote  you 
that  I  was  going  about  with  Clayton 
Page?" 

Carrington  made  a  helpless  gesture, 
and  the  only  reply  possible  to  him,  "I 
can't  explain  it!" 

"Ah,  well,  now  that  we  understand, 
do  you  think — "  Hesitating  only  an 
instant,  she  let  him  see  deep  into 
her  eyes  as  she  continued,  unstead- 
ily, "do  you  really  think,  Grove,  that 
any  further  explanations  are  neces- 
sary  r 

"Eleanor!  Do  you  mean — "  He 
checked  his  quick  movement  toward  her 
as  he  caught  sight  of  Mrs.  Aldrich  and 
Rand  in  the  doorway. 

"How  are  the  bridges  coming  on?" 
Betty  asked,  lightly,  but  with  an  anxious 
glance  at  Eleanor. 

"They're  strong  enough  now  to  carry 
all  your  white  elephants,"  Carrington 
buoyantly  asserted,  but  Rand  expostu- 
lated: 

"Heaven  forbid!  I've  seen  'em  and 
you  haven't!  Apropos  of  elephants, 
where's  my  property?" 

"Here  he  is,"  said  Eleanor,  radiantly. 

"Cliff,  what  will  you  take  for  that 
object?"  Carrington  asked. 

"He's  not  for  sale." 

"  I'll  buy  him  back  at  your  own  price," 
Carrington  persisted. 

"Look  here.  What  is  this  critter?" 
Rand's  twinkling  glance  interrogated 
Eleanor  and  Carrington.  "I  always  was 
weak  on  zoology.  What  I  want  to  know 
is  whether  this  is  a  white  elephant  or  a 
blind  kitten?" 

"For  a  long  time  I  was  sure  he  was  a 
serpent,"  Eleanor  began,  and  Carring- 
ton finished: 

"But  now  he's  going  to  be  a  house- 
hold pet." 


W.  D.  HOW  ELLS 


IF  we  could  believe  the  publishers 
(and  we  are  far  from  wishing  to 
dispute  them)  we  are  in  the  pres- 
ence of  such  a  poetic  sunburst  as  has  not 
flashed  upon  the  world  within  something 
like  a  geological  period.  They  assure 
the  reader  of  the  fact  from  the  covers 
of  a  good  third  of  the  sixteen  or  seven- 
teen volumes  of  recent  verse  at  hand, 
and  if  not  from  all  it  may  be  because 
all  publishers  cannot  give  way  to  their 
feelings  in  equal  measure.  Or,  one  may 
not  have  so  many  feelings  as  another, 
though  he  may  be  of  the  same  emotional 
make;  and  it  is  to  be  considered  that 
perhaps  these  avowals  on  the  book 
covers  are  less  the  expression  of  pas- 
sionate admiration  than  of  an  ardor  for 
publicity.  What  is  to  be  said  in  favor 
of  them  is  that  the  purposing  purchaser 
cannot  complain  in  any  instance  that 
he  does  not  know  what  he  is  getting. 
Our  own  case  is  a  little  different,  and 
as  an  habitually  appreciative  critic,  we 
have  to  lament  that  our  praise  has  been 
taken  out  of  our  mouths;  our  friendly 
phrases  come  to  our  pen  tarnished  with 
use  from  the  publisher's  glowing  hands, 
and  we  are  at  a  loss  what  to  say  of 
poets  and  poetry  already  so  sung,  so 
sounded,  so,  as  it  were,  dinned  into 
us.  Not  that  we  blame  the  authors 
any  more  than  the  publishers.  The 
poets  could  not  help  being  so  wonderful, 
and  the  publishers  could  not  help  won- 
dering at  them,  but  quite  the  same  we 
find  ourselves  a  little  disabled  by  the 
situation,  and  we  have  to  arm  ourselves 
for  something  more  than  our  customary 
justice  in  dealing  with  these  young  poets, 
though  they  have  been  already  so  boun- 
tifully recognized  at  their  great  worth, 
they  must  not  have  one  of  our  carefully 
chosen,  hand-painted  adjectives  the  less. 
The  time  was  when  their  praise  would 
not  have  been  so  lavish,  so  confident,  so 
authoritative,  from  the  trade;  but  now 
all  is  new.  New  outside  as  well  as  inside 
their  books,  and  the  Easy  Chair  must 


not  grumble,  as  Easy  Chairs  are  apt  to 
do,  with  or  without  reason,  merely  from 
getting  on  in  years. 

But  is  all  so  new  inside  these  books, 
which  came  to  us,  rustling  in  this  tinsel 
of  compliment,  this  machine-lace  of  pro- 
fessional glorification?  We  say  no; 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  the  eternal  beau- 
tiful which  cannot  put  on  even  a  new 
form,  however  it  would  come  masking 
in  novel  phase.  The  best  things  in  the 
new  poets  are  of  the  oldest  form,  and 
where  some  of  the  second-best  brave  it 
in  the  fashions  which  are  supposed  new, 
after  all  it  is  only  a  reversion  to  the 
novelties  of  an  earlier  day.  There  is 
much  straining  in  several  of  the  books 
for  the  mechanical  emancipation  of  vers 
libre;  but  Walt  Whitman  broke  loose 
sixty  years  ago,  and  before  him  the 
Proverbial  Philosophy  of  Martin  Far- 
quhar  Tupper  danced  in  the  rhythm  of 
David's  psalmody.  Until  now,  in  fact, 
vers  libre  has  been  rhythmical,  and  it  had 
remained  only  for  what  we  may  call  the 
shredded  prose  of  the  new  poets  to  attest 
their  newness  in  that  at  least.  But,  no, 
are  they  new  even  in  that  ?  We  have  not 
forgotten  the  Black  Riders  of  Stephen 
Crane,  very  powerful  things  in  the  beat 
of  their  short  lines,  rhymeless,  meterless. 
Yet  were  they  quite  shredded  prose,  like 
Miss  Amy  Lowell's  vers  libre,  in  her 
Sword  Blades  and  Poppy  Seeds,  or  the 
epitaphs  of  Mr.  Edgar  Lee  Masters's 
Spoon  River  Anthology  ?  Not  quite,  how- 
ever, for  though  the  Black  Riders  did  not 
prance  or  curvet,  they  did  somehow 
march;  they  did  keep  time  as  prose 
never  does  at  its  best. 

It  is  when  Miss  Lowell  permits  herself 
to  rhyme  and  to  measure  her  verse  that 
we  are  most  aware  of  her  being  indeed 
a  poet  with  something  to  say,  something 
to  make  us  feel.  It  is  when  the  strong 
thinking  of  Mr.  Masters  makes  us  forget 
the  formlessness  of  his  shredded  prose 
that  we  realize  the  extraordinary  worth 
of  his  work.    It  is  really  something  ex- 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


635 


traordinary,  that  truth  about  themselves 
which  his  dead  folk  speak  from  their 
village  graveyard;  for  it  is  the  truth 
about  the  human  nature  of  us,  if  not  the 
whole  truth  about  our  respective  lives. 
We  should  say  that  we  were  some  of  us 
better  than  those  dead  folk,  though 
some  of  us  are  as  much  worse  as  can  be, 
Yet  as  to  the  form  of  their  record,  it  is 
shredded  prose  without  even  a  slow, 
inscriptional  pulse  in  it,  and  we  doubt  if 
it  will  last,  for  a  witness  of  the  civic  and 
ethical  quality  of  our  time,  as  long  as  the 
rhymes  of  Uncle  Walt  Mason,  beaten 
merrily  out  on  his  typewriter,  and  day 
by  day  testifying  to  our  nature,  by 
no  means  altogether  fallen.  His  rhymes 
wear  the  mask  of  prose,  just  as  the 
poetry  of  Mr.  Masters  wears  the  mask 
of  verse;  but  neither  of  them  has  the 
sound  of  the  spiritual  verity  which  the 
exalted  phrase  of  the  great  Emily  Dick- 
inson bore  to  the  reader's  soul,  with  its 
proud  unheed  of  whether  it  was  prose  or 
verse. 

Freak  for  freak,  we  prefer  compressed 
verse  to  shredded  prose,  but  because 
both  of  these  are  freak  things  we  will 
not  decide  whether  Uncle  Walt  will  be 
more  enduring  than  Mr.  Masters.  We 
merely  speak  here  of  their  respective 
truth  to  our  human  nature  and  our 
American  mood  of  it.  Prophecy  is  not 
our  job,  or  not  our  present  job,  but  we 
have  a  fancy  that  when  it  comes  to  any 
next  book  of  shredded  prose  it  will  not  be 
so  eagerly  welcomed  as  some  next  book 
of  Mr.  Robert  Frost's  or  Mr.  Dana  Bur- 
net's. Mr.  Frost's  volumes,  A  Boy  s  Will 
and  North  of  Boston,  have  already  made 
their  public  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic, 
and  they  merit  the  favor  they  have  won. 
They  are  very  genuinely  and  unaffect- 
edly expressive  of  rustic  New  England, 
and  of  its  deeps  as  well  as  its  shallows. 
We  should  say  the  earlier  book  sings 
rather  the  most,  but  youth  is  apt  to  sing 
most,  and  there  is  strong,  sweet  music  in 
them  both.  Here  is  no  vers  libre,  no 
shredded  prose,  but  very  sweet  rhyme 
and  pleasant  rhythm,  though  it  does  not 
always  keep  step  (wilfully  breaks  step 
at  times,  we  should  say),  but  always 
remains  faithful  to  the  lineage  of  poetry 
that  danced  before  it  walked.  When 
we  say  Mr.  Frost's  work  is  unaffectedly 
expressive  of  New  England  life,  we  do 


not  mean  that  it  is  unconsciously  ex- 
pressive; we  do  not  much  believe  in  un- 
conscious art,  and  we  rather  think  that 
his  fine  intelligence  tingles  with  a  sense 
of  that  life  and  beautifully  knows  what 
it  is  at  in  dealing  with  it.  If  we  may 
imagine  the  quality  of  Sarah  Orne 
Jewett  and  Miss  Mary  Wilkins  and  Miss 
Alice  Brown  finding  metrical  utterance, 
we  shall  have  such  pleasure  in  character- 
izing Mr.  Frost's  poetry  as  comes  to  us 
from  knowing  what  things  are  by  know- 
ing what  they  are  like;  but  this  knowl- 
edge by  no  means  unlocks  the  secret  of 
his  charm,  and  it  does  not  adequately 
suggest  the  range  of  his  very  dis- 
tinctive power.  His  manly  power  is 
manliest  in  penetrating  to  the  heart  of 
womanhood  in  that  womanliest  phase  of 
it,  the  New  England  phase.  Dirge,  or 
idyl,  or  tragedy,  or  comedy,  or  bur- 
lesque, it  is  always  the  skill  of  the  artist 
born  and  artist  trained  which  is  at  play, 
or  call  it  work,  for  our  delight.  Amidst 
the  often  striving  and  straining  of  the 
new  poetry,  here  is  the  old  poetry  as 
young  as  ever;  and  new  only  in  extend- 
ing the  bounds  of  sympathy  through 
the  recorded  to  the  unrecorded  knowl- 
edge of  humanity.  One  might  have 
thought  there  was  not  much  left  to  say 
of  New  England  humanity,  but  here  it 
is  as  freshly  and  keenly  sensed  as  if  it 
had  not  been  felt  before,  and  imparted 
in  study  and  story  with  a  touch  as  sure 
and  a  courage  as  loyal  as  if  the  poet 
dealt  with  it  merely  for  the  joy  of  it. 

But  of  course  he  does  not  do  that. 
He  deals  with  it  because  he  must  master 
it,  must  impart  it  just  as  he  must  possess 
it.  The  like  is  so  with  Mr.  Burnet  and 
Mr.  Aiken  in  their  dealing  with  those 
aspects  of  New  York  life  which  poetry 
is  beginning  to  perceive.  Mr.  Burnet's 
War  Poems  are  above  most  poems  of  the 
war  which  we  have  seen,  for  they  are 
not  mere  shouting  and  screaming  of 
hate  and  defiance,  but  real  imaginative 
thinking  about  the  dreadful  thing,  and 
genuine  passion  in  realizing  it.  The 
ballads  about  Panama  past  and  pres- 
ent are  good,  too,  but  it  is  when  we 
come  to  the  iliad  of  Gayheart  and  his 
"success"  that  we  feel  ourselves  in  the 
presence  of  a  poet  peculiarly  author- 
ized to  do  the  work  he  is  doing.  He 
calls  it  a  story  of  defeat,  and  it  is  in 


636 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


fact  the  tragedy  of  a  young  poet  who 
comes  to  New  York  hoping  to  take  the 
town  with  his  poetry  and  finds  his  defeat 
at  her  hands  in  the  success  of  his  farce- 
comedy.  The  scheme  has  its  sentimen- 
tal dangers,  but  escapes  them  by  its 
frank  fealty  to  vulgar  fact.  The  board- 
ing-house where  Gayheart  lives  is  a  real 
boarding-house,  with  real  boarders  in 
it,  and  the  social  and  moral  circum- 
stance is  fearlessly  recognized  almost 
to  the  immortal  odors  of  the  long-dead 
dinners.  But  if  this  were  ail,  this 
realization  of  the  city's  sordidness,  it 
would  not  be  nearly  enough  to  make 
us  feel  the  poem  the  genuine  thing  it  is. 
The  outdoor  splendor  of  the  mighty 
town  by  day  and  by  night  pervades  it, 
and  gives  it  a  right  to  be,  as  a  New 
York  creation,  equal  to  Mr.  Hanson 
Towne's  hitherto  unequaled  studies,  his 
very  picturesque  and  dramatic  studies 
of  the  vast,  magnificent,  inglorious  me- 
tropolis. None  of  Mr.  Burnet's  poems 
may  be  passed  without  loss,  for  each  is 
the  effect  of  an  uninvited  emotion,  the 
response  of  a  veritable  impression;  and 
if  this  is  not  constantly  true  of  all, 
there  are  lines  in  every  poem  which 
would  make  us  sorry  wholly  to  lose  it. 

The  question  of  how  to  keep  any  poem 
to  such  lines  is  the  difficult  question 
which  challenges  the  reader  from  the 
whole  body  of  verse  in  every  literature. 
It  defies  us  from  the  metrical  romances 
of  Mr.  Conrad  Aiken's  Earth  Trium- 
phant^ with  their  music  and  their  color, 
and  their  somewhat  solicited  sensations, 
and  from  the  shredded  prose  of  Mr. 
James  Oppenheim's  Songs  for  the  New 
Age,  which  apparently  does  not  want 
to  sing  its  songs,  but  to  talk  them.  We 
have  read  a  good  many  of  these  talks, 
and  we  own  in  all  kindness  and  respect 
that  we  can  come  to  no  conclusion  about 
them  that  satisfies  us.  They  seem  to  be 
the  words  of  a  man  very  much  in  earnest 
about  all  the  important  things  in  the 
world,  whether  he  speaks  reverently  and 
prayerfully  about  them,  or  whether 
defiantly.  We  often  have  the  sense  of 
being  on  the  brink  of  great  things,  and 
the  feeling  of  a  powerful  uplift,  but 
our  feet  remain  on  the  ground.  At 
other  times  we  feel  as  if  held  above  deep 
significances  over  the  face  of  immeasu- 
rable precipices,  but  when  we  are  let  go 


we  drop  six  inches.  Mr.  Oppenheim's; 
sympathies  and  aspirations  are  all  right, 
but  when  everything  is  said  they  look 
like  the  sympathies  and  aspirations  of 
well-willing  men  in  every  age.  He  says 
startling  things,  but  to  our  surprise  and 
disappointment  we  do  not  startle.  At 
the  bottom  of  our  heart  we  have  a  vague 
fear  that  we  are  not  doing  him  justice 
here,  and  we  wish  we  knew  how  to  do- 
it. But  if  we  are  of  Old  Age,  how 
shall  we  divine  the  mystery  of  the  New 
Age  from  the  Songs  talked  for  it?  That 
is  the  difficulty  with  the  experienced 
critic;  for  the  work  of  judging  the  new 
poets  possibly  the  critic  ought  to  be  in- 
experienced. 

It  is  a  sensible  relief  to  turn  from  our 
uncertainty  about  the  Songs  for  the  New 
Age,  which  do  not  sing,  but  can  possi- 
bly be  chanted,  to  Mr.  Nicholas  Vachel 
Lindsay's  book,  where  the  songs  begin 
their  music  with  the  cymbal  clash  and 
bass-drum  boom  of  the  fine  brave  poem, 
"General  William  Booth  Enters  into- 
Heaven."    That  makes  the  heart  leap; 
and  the  little  volume  abounds  in  meters: 
and  rhymes  that  thrill  and  gladden  one. 
Here   is  no   shredding  of  prose,  but: 
much  of  oaten  stop  and  pastoral  song, 
such  as  rises  amid  the  hum  of  the 
Kansas  harvest  fields  and  fills  the  em- 
pyrean from  the  expanses  of  the  whole 
Great  West.    There  is  also  song  of  sol- 
emn things  everywhere,  civic  things, 
social  things,  and  ail  of  it,  so  far  as  we 
know,  good.    There  are  two  books  of 
it,  and  in  the  one  we  have  not  named — 
namely,  Adventures  While  Preaching  the- 
Gospel  of  Beauty — there  is  such  novelty 
as  you  may  find  in  Heine's  Reisebilder — 
the  old,  old  novelty  of  beautiful  thought 
and  thinking  emotion,  but  with  a  con- 
science and  a  pathos  which  the  novelty 
of  Heine  did  not  always  know.   That  is 
Mr.  Lindsay's  contribution  to  the  Amer- 
ican poetry  which  has  felt  itself  new 
from  the  beginning,  whether  it  spoke 
with  the  voice  of  Bryant,  or  Longfellow,, 
or  Whittier,  or  Emerson,  or  Lowell,  and 
did  not  prefer  the  ground-gripping  shoes 
of  prose  to  the  singing  robes  of  rhyme. 
As  in  the  Reisebilder,  there  is  quick 
transition  from  prose  to  verse  and  back 
from  verse  to  prose,  but  the  prose  does 
not  put  on  the  form  of  verse. 

We  may  as  well  confess  here  as  any- 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


637 


where  that  we  have  not  read  the  longer 
pieces  in  these  many  books,  or  at  the 
best  more  than  read  at  them.  But  where 
we  have  looked  into  them,  as,  for  instance, 
into  the  versified  tales  of  Mr.  Aiken,  or 
into  the  "  Nimrod  "  of  Miss  Anna  Hamp- 
stead  Branch's  Rose  of  the  Wind,  some 
fine  page  has  stayed  us  and  accused  us 
of  slight  and  inadequacy  in  judging 
of  their  authors.  Well,  it  is  true;  we 
are  guilty,  we  are  to  blame;  but  life  is 
so  short,  and  art  is  so  long.  There  ought 
to  have  been  two  or  three  of  these  poets, 
and  there  are  a  good  seventeen  of  them, 
and  they  are  so  active  and  vigorous! 
What  is  a  decrepit  critic  to  do?  Simply, 
we  are  outnumbered,  and  yet  we  must 
make  an  effort  to  cope  with  these  em- 
battled hosts  of  the  new  poetry. 

The  fiftieth  of  Mr.  Arthur  Davison 
Ficke's  Sonnets  of  a  Portrait  Painter,  be- 
ginning, 

"There  we   strange   shadows  fostered  of 
the  moon," 

is  so  delicately  and  truthfully  studied 
that  we  cannot  help  believing  all  the 
fifty-four  others  are  like  it.  In  "Over 
the  City  Night,"  from  Miss  Fannie 
Stearns  Davis's  Myself  and  I,  there 
is  an  uncommon  charm  which  may 
well  be  the  quality  of  the  whole  book. 
There  is  such  fine,  manly  go  in  "The 
Klondike"  of  Mr.  Edwin  Arlington 
Robinson's  Captain  Craig:  a  Book  of 
Poems  as  makes  us  wish  to  read  the 
whole  book;  and  the  "Connecticut 
Road  Song"  in  Miss  Anna  Hampstead 
Branch's  Rose  of  the  Wind  is  of  an  old- 
fashioned  folk-song  grace  and  lilt  which 
carries  the  heart  with  it.  We  are  quite 
ready  to  believe  that  the  sonnet  "April 
Noon,"  so  tenderly  and  delicately  felt, 
is  characteristic  of  all  Mr.  Brian  Hook- 
er's Poems.  The  dreadful  but  not  un- 
pitying  realism  of  Mr.  Arthur  Davison 
Ficke's  "Portrait  of  an  Old  Woman"  in 
his  volume  The  Man  on  the  Hilltop  is 
doubtless  not  the  work  of  a  man  who 
can  do  only  one  good  thing;  andjieither 
is  "A  Tulip  Garden"  in  Miss  Amy 
Lowell's  Sword  Blades  and  Poppy  Seeds 
the  sole  proof  of  the  rich  fancy  that 
plays  in  plentiful  light  and  color  through 
her  book.     "The  Gates  of  Sleep"  in 


A.  A.  C.'s  Semitones  may  not  too  ven- 
turously be  called  typical  of  the  serious 
mood  of  that  music.  In  Mrs.  Olive  T. 
Dargan's  Path  Flozver,"The  Road"  is  so 
good  that  it  may  not  be  the  best  of  the 
pieces  which  seem  expressive  of  thinking 
even  when  they  seem  overfreaked  with 
fancying.  If  in  Mr.  John  Gould 
Fletcher's  Irradiations:  Sand  and  Spray 
the  reader  is  withheld  by  the  preface 
from  what  may  be  called  the  illustra- 
tions of  that  polemic  in  favor  of  vers  libre, 
we  will  not  say  it  is  not  to  his  loss.  Mr. 
Fletcher  is  earnestly  persuaded  of  his 
opinions,  and  if  he  does  not  make  us 
share  his  belief  that  in  emancipation 
from  the  old  forms  high  achievements 
are  to  follow,  that  is  not  his  fault.  It 
may  be  our  fault,  and  it  will  certainly 
be  our  fault  if  we  deny  his  vers  libre  the 
opportunity  to  prove  his  thesis.  But 
we  hardly  know  which  of  his  rather 
voluntarily  impassioned  pieces  to  let 
bear  him  witness.  Perhaps  one  will  do 
as  well  as  another,  though  as  they  have 
none  of  them  titles,  it  is  hard  to  sum- 
mon them  by  name.  But  here  is  one  as  it 
would  be  in  prose  before  it  was  shredded: 

It  is  evening,  and  the  earth  wraps  her 
shoulders  in  an  old  blue  shawl.  Afar  off 
there  clink  the  polychrome  points  of  the 
stars,  indefatigable,  after  all  these  years! 
Here  upon  earth  there  is  life  and  then  death, 
dawn  and  then  nightfall,  fire  and  the  quench- 
ing of  embers:  but  why  should  I  not  remem- 
ber that  my  night  is  dawn  in  another  part  of 
the  world,  if  the  idea  fits  my  fancy?  Dawns 
of  marvelous  light,  wakeful,  sleepy,  weary, 
dancing  dawns,  you  are  rose  petals  settling 
through  the  blue  of  my  evening:  I  light  my 
pipe  to  salute  you,  and  sit  puffing  smoke  in 
the  air  and  never  say  a  word. 

This  is  pictorial,  even  poetical;  it  is 
suggestive  at  moments  if  it  is  never  very 
convincing.  But  would  it  be  more  con- 
vincing if  it  were  printed,  as  Mr.  Fletch- 
er prints  it  in  thirteen  lines,  long  and 
short?  The  vers  libretistes  seem  to  think 
so;  but  suddenly  here  comes  the  ques- 
tion: Would  Ossian  now  survive  in  all 
the  original  wonder  and  favor  which 
hailed  him  if  he  had  come  from  Mac- 
pherson's  hand  shredded  into  long  and 
short  fibers  instead  of  solid  blocks  of 
prose  ? 


HENRY  MILLS  ALDEN 


WE  alluded  in  the  August  Study 
to  the  fact  that  for  half  a  cen- 
tury the  short  story  in  maga- 
zine fiction  had  been  steadily  encroach- 
ing upon  the  space  formerly  devoted  to 
the  serial  novel,  our  object  being  to  show' 
why  the  short  story  could  never  wholly 
displace  the  serial.  The  readers  of  this 
Magazine  need  go  no  further  back  than 
twenty-five  years  to  recall  the  fact  that 
while  there  might  be  but  one  or  two 
short  stories  in  a  number,  there  would 
be  perhaps  as  many  as  three  serials  run- 
ning at  the  same  time,  whereas  now  but 
one  serial  would  be  permitted  and  there 
are  at  least  seven  short  stories  in  every 
number.  It  is  true  that  the  single  serial 
is  an  exemplary  selection;  but  why  so 
many  short  stories?  They  do  not  suc- 
cessfully compete  with  novels  in  the 
hook  market.  Why  are  they,  and  so 
many  other  things  that,  like  them,  are 
for  the  most  part,  unbookish  in  quality 
and  form,  so  much  more  desirable  to 
magazine  readers  than  they  were  two' 
generations  ago? 

In  order  to  answer  these  questions 
intelligently  it  is  necessary  to  consider 
the  change  which  has  taken  place  since 
1850  in  the  conditions  of  publication  as 
affecting  books  and  periodicals,  owing 
to  the  ever-increasing  complexity  of 
modern  life.  A  cumulative  progress  has 
meant  for  the  people  greater  and  more 
varied  means  of  communication,  and, 
along  with  these,  a  widening  scope  and 
greater  variety  of  intellectual  and  spir- 
itual opportunity.  The  popular  attitude 
has  changed  from  one  of  waiting  and  of 
quiet  response  to  one  of  growing  urgency 
and  demand.  The  reading  audience  has 
been  transformed.  Publishers,  educa- 
tors, and  libraries  find  themselves  hard 
pressed  to  keep  up  with  the  demand 
which  formerly  they  strove  to  create  and 
stimulate.  The  audience  finds  itself  ever 
more  in  a  condition  to  grasp  and  choose 
where  formerly  it  was  provided  for  and 
guided  in  its  choice. 


We  are  referring,  of  course,  to  an  in- 
telligent audience  that  has  come  to  think 
for  itself  and  to  know  what  it  wants 
without  being  told.  Our  democracy  has 
been  a  leveling  up,  which  is  its  only  jus- 
tification of  being  at  all.  The  present 
audience  for  literature,  while  it  is  not 
all  upon  the  same  level  of  culture 
or  of  self-knowledge,  with  the  same 
definiteness  of  view  as  to  its  wants  is, 
in  all  its  diversifications,  thoroughly 
democratic.  It  is  not  indocile,  and,  in 
proportion  to  its  intelligence,  acknowl- 
edges real  dependencies  and  craves  sym- 
pathetic leadership. 

It  is  just  here,  in  response  to  this 
craving,  that  the  later  literature  of  all 
democratic  countries  has  found  its  mis- 
sion and  developed  its  new  tendencies. 
Here  we  have  to  reckon  with  publishers, 
authors  of  books,  editors,  and  writers 
for  periodicals,  in  their  relations  to  the 
so  rapidly  progressive  reading  public. 
Making  every  just  concession  to  the 
initiative  and  enterprise  of  those  who 
have  been  the  organizers  and  responsible 
conductors  of  literary  undertakings,  we 
have  mainly  to  do  with  the  actual  pro- 
ducers of  literature  in  our  consideration 
of  the  movement  which  has  so  materially 
changed  the  conditions  of  publications — 
a  movement  to  which  every  factor  in  our 
material  and  social  progress  has  more  or 
less  directly  contributed.  Writers  are  as 
widely  diversified  as  readers,  and  not 
one  of  them  has  any  real  value  that  is 
not  estimable  in  some  stratum  of  the 
immense  audience. 

So  much  is  being  said,  by  way  of  ad- 
verse criticism,  of  the  democratic  tend- 
encies of  current  literature,  especially 
in  fiction,  that  we  are  in  danger  of  losing 
our  bearings.  Like  teaching,  preaching, 
leadership  in  every  field,  which  have  lost 
so  much  of  their  ancient  privilege  and 
traditional  authority,  literary  criticism 
also  has  been  divested  to  a  great  extent 
of  its  old  officiousness  and  of  that  arro- 
gance of  logic  which  prescribed  what 


EDITOR'S  STUDY 


639 


literature  should  be,  instead  of  recog- 
nizing it  as  a  living  and  ever-changing 
embodiment  of  human  feeling  and  think- 
ing. A  sympathetic  reasonableness  has 
displaced  the  fixed  formula  in  all  criti- 
cism that  can  be  regarded  as  itself  a  part 
of  the  living  movement  of  literature,  of 
literature  in  the  making.  To  that  criti- 
cism which  still  stands  aloof  from  the 
fresh  becomings  in  the  living  movement 
only  that  literature  is  amenable  which 
stands  equally  aloof  from  life. 

We  cannot  deny  to  the  highest  stra- 
tum of  the  intelligent  modern  audience 
the  reality  of  its  life,  of  the  literature  it 
creates,  and  of  its  criticism,  in  so  far 
as  it  holds  itself  a  part  of  the  whole. 
This  is  the  very  essence  of  the  demo- 
cratic movement — that  it  is  sympathet- 
ically co-operative  in  all  its  parts  accord- 
ing to  the  developed  power  and  capacity 
of  each,  the  sense  of  community  eclips- 
ing that  of  class  distinction.  Sympathy, 
not  as  a  pretense  or  as  a  mere  sentiment, 
but  as  the  real  basis  and  dynamic  bond 
of  social  solidarity,  outwardly  expressed 
in  the  common  welfare  and  happiness, 
is  the  consummation  of  the  whole  move- 
ment. 

It  is  due  to  this  movement  that  our 
later  literature  has  so  intimately  blended 
with  the  life  of  common  humanity,  help- 
ing forward  the  movement  itself.  Those 
most  directly  engaged  in  the  production 
of  this  literature,  and  in  all  that  consti- 
tutes its  publication,  themselves  arise 
from  the  audience  to  which  it  is  ad- 
dressed, imbued  with  its  spirit  and  im- 
mediately responsive  to  its  claims,  in- 
cluding among  these  the  claim  for  the 
most  capable  leadership  in  the  lines  of 
its  aspirations,  comprehendingly  toler- 
ant without  condescension. 

A  high  intelligence  may  be  as  reac- 
tionary as  ignorance,  and  the  confirmed 
" highbrow"  may  be,  in  his  way,  as 
mischievous  as  the  demagogue.  The 
condescension  of  the  reformer  is  a  bar 
to  genial  sociability,  which,  after  all,  is 
the  most  distinctive  achievement  of  a 
real  culture. 

All  literature  was  exclusive,  confined 
to  a  class,  when  the  mass  of  the  people 
were  illiterate.  Its  associations  were 
inevitably  aristocratic,  and  aristocracy 
itself  was  a  necessity,  as  knowledge  and 
as  power.     Humanism,  which  was  as 


necessary  to  the  preservation  of  author- 
ity against  the  perils  of  its  own  exclu- 
siveness  as  that  imperial  authority  was 
to  the  social  development  of  humanity, 
was  itself  jealous  of  its  traditional  stand- 
ards. But,  notwithstanding  the  influ- 
ence of  Alfred  and  Charlemagne  and  the 
growth  of  the  great  medieval  universi- 
ties, there  was,  outside  of  Italy,  no  living 
modern  literature  before  the  breaking 
up  of  feudalism  and  the  rise  of  a  middle 
class,  when  the  rude  foundation  of  de- 
mocracy was  laid. 

But  the  realization  of  democracy,  even 
in  its  fullest  possibilities,  while  it  in- 
volves political  equality  and  equality  of 
opportunity,  and  may  finally  succeed 
in  the  experiment  of  representative  gov- 
ernment, can  never  abolish  qualitative 
distinction.  Genius,  which  knows  no 
class,  either  in  its  origin  or  appeal,  is 
really  the  most  valuable  asset  of  a 
democracy,  and,  fortunately,  because  of 
its  sympathetic  quality,  the  most  avail- 
able as  well  for  creative  ministration  as 
for  service. 

Thus  in  the  past,  creations  in  litera- 
ture have  emerged,  and  may  at  any  time 
emerge,  which  cannot  be  said  to  respond 
to  any  definite  demand  or  to  meet  crit- 
ical expectations.  Such  conditions  as 
permit  their  emergence  are  apparent 
only  after  the  fact;  no  conditions  ac- 
count for  their  quality  or  content.  As 
they  arise  from  new  atmospheres  of  hu- 
man thought  and  feeling,  so  they  create 
new  criticism  and  extend  the  area  of  its 
interpretations. 

The  criticism  which  does  not  yield  to 
this  compulsion  itself  comes  into  judg- 
ment and  is  discredited. 

But  in  an  age  like  ours,  when  litera- 
ture is  as  diversely  specialized  as  every 
other  form  of  human  activity,  only  a 
small  proportion  of  it  reaches  the  su- 
preme distinction,  though,  taken  alto- 
gether, it  meets  the  needs  of  its  diversely 
specialized  audience,  and  enters  inti- 
mately into  its  life  on  the  various  levels 
of  its  intelligence.  Excluding  literary 
efforts  of  an  anti-social  character,  it  is 
sympathetic  and  helpful  while  conscious- 
ly or  unconsciously — the  better  if  un- 
consciously— it  satisfies  the  popular 
craving  for  leadership. 

It  seems,  in  view  of  these  conditions, 
that  independent  criticism  should  con- 


640 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


fine  itself  to  "pure  literature" — that  is, 
as  pure  as  genius  would  ever  confess  to — 
rather  than  betray  the  ungracious  dispo- 
sition it  cannot  help  showing  in  close 
contact  with  the  things  which  must 
offend  its  over-rigidly  fastidious  taste. 
Why  be  so  inclusive  of  what  it  must 
treat  in  a  spirit  of  exclusiveness?  Yet 
we  enjoy  this  criticism  in  its  own  place, 
upon  the  serene  heights  where  dwells  the 
literature  to  which  it  is  pertinent  and  of 
which  it  is  a  true  interpretation.  It  is 
only  in  the  market-place  and  jostling 
with  a  self-confessed  mediocrity  that  it 
loses  its  face.  Moreover,  there  are 
critics  of  this  order  who  invite  our  sym- 
pathy by  their  wholesome  contempt  of 
commercialism  in  literature,  and  whose 
quarrel  with  democracy  and  mediocrity 
is  because  of  the  association  of  these 
with  that  commercialism  and  not  be- 
cause of  their  own  over-refinement. 
They  would  find  themselves  at  home  in 
the  desert,  in  the  wilderness,  or  on  the 
outskirts  of  civilization — in  any  environ- 
ment uninfested  by  the  conceits  and 
pretenses  of  sophistication. 

But  sophistication  is  an  unavoidable 
transitional  stage,  and  we  may  reason- 
ably hope  that  the  sordid  phases  and 
the  serious  perils  of  commercialism  are 
merely  incidental  to  the  main  current 
of  the  social  movement,  which,  if  we  are 
not  to  regard  civilization  itself  as  a  fail- 
ure, must  clear  itself  of  such  obstruc- 
tions. Our  tolerance  of  mediocrity  is 
not  merely  a  putting  up  with  it;  it  is 
positive,  a  sympathetic  upholding  of 
it  as  a  distinctive  modern  excellence, 
something  competent,  having  itself  well 
in  hand,  with  self-knowledge,  and  far 
from  being  devoid  of  aspiration.  Genius 
has  oftener  arisen  from  its  levels  than 
from  any  loftier  station.  This  medi- 
ocrity is  not  of  a  sameness,  as  of  a  level 
world;  it  has  all  varieties  of  landscape 
and  every  sort  of  wind  and  weather. 
The  sower  in  the  gospel  parable  found 
no  greater  diversity  of  soil  for  his  seeds. 
But  the  integrity  of  the  social  organism 
presented  by  the  collective  mediocrity, 
with  all  its  possibilities  of  solidarity  and 
sympathetic  co-operation, notwithstand- 
ing the  unassimilated  weight  it  bears  of 
illiteracy  and  of  alien  literacy,  cannot  be 
thus  physically  represented,  either  as  a 
living  whole  or  in  the  complex  variations 


of  its  life  due  to  conscious  will  and 
choice,  or  to  deeper  currents  of  psychical 
determination. 

This  mediocrity,  so  comprehensive 
that  it  includes  our  colleges  and  universi- 
ties as  well  as  all  other  forms  of  social 
development,  material  or  intellectual, 
must  determine  the  trend  of  our  litera- 
ture. Though  so  dominant  in  the  gen- 
eral field  of  taste  and  entertainment  by 
virtue  of  its  competence,  it  is  not  domi- 
neering or  exclusive.  It  does  not  claim 
all  of  literature  or  anything  beyond  the 
range  of  general  interest  and  aspiration 
— certainly  nothing  that  holds  itself  de- 
liberately aloof  from  these;  but,  as  we 
have  said,  it  does  crave  sympathetic 
leadership;  and  this  leadership  is  as 
much  associated  with  its  diversions  as 
with  its  aspirations. 

We  are,  by  this  view  of  the  whole 
field  of  contemporary  literature,  and 
especially  of  the  contemporary  audi- 
ence, able  to  see  more  clearly  how  the 
changed  conditions  of  modern  publica- 
tion have  been  brought  about.  What 
the  present  conditions  are  is  obvious 
enough.  Their  significance  in  connec- 
tion with  the  democratic  movement  is 
their  chief  interest,  mainly  because  that 
movement  is  based,  not  upon  a  theory 
or  a  sentiment,  but  upon  that  dynamic 
principle  of  sympathy  which  has  given 
new  horizons  to  our  faith,  reason,  and 
imagination. 

A  new  light  is  thus  thrown  upon  the 
mission  of  periodical  literature,  including 
journalism,  in  its  complex  diversifica- 
tion to  meet  the  taste  and  desires  of  the 
whole  people  and  to  blend  intimately 
with  its  life  as  it  is  lived.  Since  books, 
including  novels,  have  become  so  abun- 
dant and  accessible,  the  line  of  separa- 
tion between  the  book  and  the  magazine 
has  been  more  sharply  drawn.  This  ac- 
counts for  the  smaller  space  a  magazine 
gives  to  the  serial  novel  as  compared 
with  the  generous  allotment  to  short 
stories,  and,  in  general,  to  unbookish 
features  of  contemporaneous  interest  for 
the  entertainment  and  enlightenment  of 
such  portions  of  the  general  audience 
as  by  spontaneous  choice  belong  to 
the  fellowship  in  which  conductors,  wri- 
ters, and  readers  accordantly  partici- 
pate. 


Uncle  Joe's  Romance 

BY  LEE  SHIPPEY 


UNCLE  JOE  NEALE  took  patent  medi- 
cine all  the  year  around,  and  took  it 
seriously.   Slickhair  Smith,  the  genial 
clerk  in  the  Smileyville  Pharmacy, 
said  that  Uncle  Joe  had  sampled  everything 
on  the  shelves  of  that  establishment  except 
Maxim's  Matchless  Bust  Developer. 

If  examining  physicians  for  an  army  or  a 
police  force  had  assured  Uncle  Joe  he  was 
physically  fit,  he  would  have  derided  them. 
He  had  prophetic  bones,  and  it  was  a  rare 
day  when  he  did  not  feel  in  them  the  ap- 
proach of  some  menace  to  his  health.  And 
he  had  a  knack  for  knowing  when  something 
was  wrong  with  him.    It  was  an  almanac. 

Careful  reading  of  that  almanac  would 
have  made  a  man  who  was  the  ultimate 


triumph  of  eugenics  feel  dizziness,  heartburn, 
strange  weakness  in  the  back  and  legs,  and 
darting  pains  in  the  head.  And  Uncle  Joe 
read  it  religiously.  Whenever  a  feeling  of 
depression  came  over  him  on  hearing  the 
alarm-clock  ring  at  5  a.m.,  a  seizure  of  dread 
would  make  him  lie  back  on  his  pillow  and 
worry  over  the  well-memorized  chapter  on 
"Lack  of  Vitality."  And  though  thrice  daily 
he  managed  to  wield  the  knife  and  fork  with 
vigor  and  spirit,  he  arose  from  every  meal 
sadly  shaking  his  head,  and  tottered  to  an 
easy-chair  near  the  window  to  reread  the 
chapter  on  "Distress  After  Eating." 

But  weather  and  roads  and  maladies  had 
to  be  bad  indeed  when  he  did  not  hitch  up 
old  Molly  and  drive  to  town.    For  there,  in 


642 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  rear  part  of  Mendelssohn's  store,  gathered 
around  the  stove  which  radiated  heat  in 
winter  and  legs  in  summer,  he  was  sure  to 
find  congenial  company,  a  group  which  loved 
to  talk  of  rheumatics  and  lumbago  and  all 
the  other  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to,  and  of 
which  he  was  the  acknowledged  dean,  ad- 
mittedly the  greatest  sufferer  and  most 
afflicted  man.  Abner  Batterby,  an  old  man 
gnarled  and  twisted  by  rheumatism,  was  a 
frequent  contender  and  dangerous  rival  for 
this  honor,  but  that  only  made  the  sessions 
of  the  group  more  interesting.  Uncle  Joe's 
triumphs  over  this  worthy  foeman  in  their 
competitive  recitals  of  ills  were  the  sweetest 
things  in  life  to  him,  and  constantly  spurred 
him  on  to  feel  his  worst. 

Uncle  Joe  had  never  married,  though  he 
had  inherited  prosperity,  probably  for  the 
reason  that,  besides  being  known  as  Finn 
County's  most  afflicted  man,  he  was  re- 
nowned as  its  stingiest.  An  orphaned  niece 
made  his  home  a  pleasant  place,  and  he  lived 
happy  in  his  ills  and  independence  until  she 
married. 


FOR  AN  INSTANT  A  FEELING  OF  ENVY  SURGED  IN  HIS  BREAST 


Then  a  real  sensation  came  to  Smileyville. 
Mrs.  Lucetta  Watkins,  a  delightful  widow, 
established  herself  there  as  the  only  mental- 
science  healer  in  Finn  County. 

Uncle  Joe  had  felt  keenly  the  lack  of 
woman's  nursing  and  dearth  of  woman's 
biscuit  since  his  niece's  departure,  and  when 
he  met  Mrs.  Watkins  it  was  a  case  of  love  at 
first  sight  with  him.  He  decided  at  once 
to  try  the  new  cure. 

From  the  first  treatment  he  was  a  changed 
man.  He  began  to  walk  straighter  and  talk 
cheerfully.  Then  he  began  to  dress  more 
neatly.  And  when,  in  the  early  summer,  he 
had  his  buggy  repainted  and  his  whiskers 
blocked  down  to  a  mustache,  all  Smileyville 
knew  what  was  coming. 

Only  once  after  his  transformation  did  he 
visit  the  rear  part  of  Mendelssohn's  store. 
And  then  he  found  it  had  lost  its  charm. 
No  more  could  he  take  part  in  the  old  loved 
conversations  and  disputes.    And  when  old 
Abner,  with  triumph  in  his  jeyes,  began  re- 
citing the  painful  details  of  a  new  and  curious 
malady,  Uncle  Joe  hastened  away,  sadly 
realizing  he  was  not  the  sick 
man  he  used  to  be.  After  that 
he  avoided  Abner  Batterby. 

The  Finn  County  fair  is 
Smileyville's  one  big  annual 
event,  and  when  it  came  the 
rejuvenated  Uncle  Joe  and  his 
rejuvenated  buggy  took  Mrs. 
Watkins  to  it  every  afternoon. 
And  they  were  its  chief  at- 
traction. Uncle  Joe  became 
recklessly  extravagant.  With 
the  glee  of  a  school-boy,  and 
an  arm  once  almost  palsied, 
he  hurled  baseballs  at  the  poll 
of  a  dodging  negro,  not  shar- 
ing a  dimes'  worth  of  the 
missiles  with  Mrs.  Watkins, 
but  buying  a  dimes'  worth 
apiece.  He  spent  two  silver 
quarters  with  Isis,  the  Gen- 
uine Gipsy  Fortune-Tell- 
er,  and  handed  the  young  man 
who  played  the  part  an  extra 
nickel  as  he  emerged  from  the 
tent  with  a  blush  which  flamed 
like  a  signal  fire.  He  bought 
lemonade  and  candy  without 
considering  the  price.  Nothing 
was  too  good  for  him. 

Later  in  the  day  he  passed. 
Abner  Batterby,  hobbling' 
along  on  crutches.  For  an  in- 
stant a  feeling  of  envy  surged 
in  the  breast  of  Uncle  Joe,  but 
he  put  it  down,  congratulating 
himself  that  his  new  passion 
was  stronger  than  the  old. 


EDITOR'S  DRAWER 


643 


The  third  day  was  Big 
Thursday,  the  biggest 
day  of  the  fair.  That 
day  Uncle  Joe  gallantly 
bought  reserved  seats 
for  his  lady  and  himself, 
so  close  to  the  band  that 
its  blare  made  their  ear- 
drums vibrate.  In  one 
pocket  he  carried  a  box 
of  the  best  candy  ob- 
tainable at  the  Smiley- 
ville  Pharmacy;  in 
another,  a  bag  of  peanuts 
and  two  p  a  ck  a  g  e  s  of 
cne  wing-gum.  The 
soda-pop  boy  found  him 
a  generous  customer. 
Uncle  Joe  intended  to 
propose  that  evening. 

In  the  midst  of  pleas- 
ures he  was  alarmed  at 
sight  of  Abner  Batterby 
Working  his  way  toward 
them.  He  could  not 
flee,  for  he  had  paid  a 
quarter  apiece  for  the 
reserved  seats.  So  he 
sat  his  ground,  hoping 
the  band  would  play  its 
loudest.  But  the  music 
ceased  just  as  Abner 
stood  before  them,  lean- 
ing heavily  on  his 
crutches  and  panting. 

"Howdy,  Joe,"  saluted  Abner. 

"Why,  hello,  Ab!" 

"Mighty  hard  for  me  to  get  out  to-day," 
volunteered  Abner,  "but  I  couldn't  miss  Big 
Thursday." 

"Uh-huh." 

"You  jest  can't  imagine  what  I'm  a-suf- 
ferin',"  declared  Abner.  "You  uster  have  a 
leetle  tech  of  rheumatiz  yerself,  Joe,  but 
nothin'  like  this,  I'll  bet." 

"Shucks!"  snorted  Uncle  Joe.  "It  ain't 
nothin',  Ab.  There  ain't  any  sech  thing.  If 
you'd  only  let  Mrs.  Watkins  here  take  holt 
of  you,  you'd  be  all  right  in  no  time." 

Abner  shook  his  head  sadly.  "Not  an 
old,  chronic  case  of  the  real,  blown-in-the- 
bottle  kind  like  mine,"  he  asserted.  "It 
may  be  all  right  for  folks  that  jest  have  a 
leetle  tech  of  rheumatiz.  But  mine  is  the 
genuwine  ar-tickle." 

"Why,  daggone  it,  Ab,"  cried  Uncle  Joe, 
with  rising  choler,  "you  know  dratted  well 
my  rheumatiz  uster  be  lots  worse'n  yourn!" 

"Couldn't  'a'  been,  Joe — couldn't  'a' 
been,"  insisted  Abner.  "If  'twas,  you 
couldn't  'a'  ever  got  over  it,  nohow.  Why, 
they  tell  me  yesterday  you  was  out  here 
throwin'  baseballs  and  ridin'  on  the  merry- 


I  M  A  MIGHTY  SICK  MAN  RIGHT  NOW,      ASSERTED  UNCLE  JOE 


go-round.  That  don't  sound  like  you  ever 
had  real  rheumatiz,  like  mine." 

It  was  too  much.    Uncle  Joe  broke  out: 

"Yes,  and  nobody  knows  how  I've  suffered 
for  them  fool  tricks!  Nobody  knows  what 
gnawin'  pains  I've  got,  and  hid  'em!  Just 
because  I've  bore  up  under  'em  an'  acted 
the  man,  nobody  knows  how  my  vitals  an' 
innards  has  given  me  misery  a  ordinary  man 
like  you  couldn't  'a'  stood!  An'  jest  be- 
cause I  hid  'em  I  get  no  credit  for  'em!" 

"Why,  Joseph— Mr.  Neale!"  exclaimed 
Mrs.  Watkins.    "What  are  you  saying?" 

"It's  gospel  true,  ma'am,"  asserted  Uncle 
Joe,  wildly.  "I'm  a  mighty  sick  man  right 
now — sicker  'n  this^feller  ever  dared  to  be." 

"Nonsense!"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Watkins,  dis- 
gustedly. 

Just  then  the  band  began  to  play  again 
and  Abner  hobbled  away  to  a  seat  in  the 
unreserved  section.  Uncle  Joe  and  Mrs. 
Watkins  sat  grimly  side  by  side,  she  in 
haughty  dignity,  he  in  bitter  silence.  At  its 
conclusion  he  said,  in  a  strained  voice: 

"I'm  feelin'  powerful  poorly.  Let's  go 
home." 

It  was  the  old  Uncle  Joe  who  returned  to 


644 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


his  farm  that  night.  He  climbed  stiffly  from 
his  buggy,  and  dragged  from  under  the  seat 
a  small  basket  filled  with  bottles. 

''Looks  like  you  was  goin'  to  start  a  drug- 
store," commented  Elmer,  the  hired  man. 

"Jest  a  little  medicine,"  said  Uncle  Joe. 
"When  a  man's  really  sick  he  has  to  have 
medicine." 


"But  what '11  the  widder  say?"  asked 
Elmer. 

"The  widder  'ain't  got  any  say  comin'," 
replied  JQncle  Joe.  "It's  all  off  with  the 
widder."  He  looked  at  Elmer  sadly  a  mo- 
ment, then  chuckled.  "  But  I'll  mighty  soon 
take  the  wind  out'n  Ab  Batterby's  sails," 
he  added,  cheerfully. 


Rebellious  Small  Boy:    "Wait  a  minute!    I've  lost  my  penny" 


Coming  Up  to  Expectations 

TT  was  the  custom  in  the  village  for  the 

well-to-do  inhabitants  to  make  good  any 
loss  which  the  villagers  might  sustain 
through  the  death  of  any  live  stock.  A  re- 
tired millionaire,  recently  settled  in  the  vil- 
lage, was  ignorant  of  this  laudable  practise, 
and  was  considerably  puzzled  by  the  visit 
of  a  laborer's  wife,  who  explained  that  she 
had  lost  a  pig. 

"Well,  I  haven't  got  it,"  said  the  bewil- 
dered millionaire. 

"What  I  mean,  sir,  of  course,  is  that  the 
pig  died,"  nervously  explained  the  woman. 

"Well,  what  do  you  want  me  to  do?" 
cried  the  thoroughly  exasperated  man, 
"Send  a  wreath?" 


And  He  Was  Right 

"  DOBBY,"  said  the  Sunday-school  teach- 
er,  "can  you  tell  me  two  things  neces- 
sary to  baptism?" 

"Yes'm,"  answered  Bobby;  "water  and  a 
baby." 


A  Natural  Inquiry 

f-JELEN  was  a  very  inquisitive  child  who 
greatly  annoyed  her  father  each  evening 
with  endless  questions,  while  he  tried  to  read 
the  newspaper.  One  evening,  among  other 
things,  she  demanded,  "Papa,  what  do  you 
do  at  the  store  all  day?" 

Exasperated  at  her  persistence,  he  an- 
swered, briefly,  "Oh,  nothing!" 

Helen  was  silent  a  moment,  and  then 
asked,  "But  how  do  you  know  when  you  are 
done?" 


Duty 

C\  happy  cow — 

Whose  duty  'tis,  and  pleasure,  too, 
Fresh  cuds  of  grass  and  flowers  to  chew 
The  whole  day  through! 

Just  fancy  now — 
How  simple  life  for  me  and  you, 
If  what  we  liked  we  ought  to  do 
The  whole  day  through! 

Isabel  Valle  Austen. 


The  Flirt 


Weighted  Down 

A  MAN  from  the  East  visiting  in  a  small 
Western  town  stopped  one  morning  to 
watch  a  funeral  procession  passing  through 
the  one  long  street. 

"Do  you  always  have  four  horses  to  the 
hearse?"  asked  the  man,  turning  to  a  native 
standing  near. 

"No,  not  always,"  was  the  reply.  "The 
passenger  in  there  came  out  to  this  country 
bragging  that  he  was  the  champion  light- 
weight of  the  world,  and  one  night  when  he 
got  too  fresh  Dead  Eye  Dave  pumped  him 
so  full  of  lead  that  it  took  the  extra  team 
of  horses  to  pull  the  hearse." 


A  Reasonable  Advance 

'THERE  is  a  young  author  in  Baltimore 
who  is  determined  to  achieve  fame  in 
the  writing  line  if  it  takes  his  whole  life. 
Accordingly,  he  is  even  willing  to  defray  the 
cost  of  putting  on  the  market  the  numerous 
novels  he  writes  from  year  to  year. 

On  the  occasion  of  his  last  visit  to  his 
publisher,  however,  he  was  somewhat  vexed, 
a  rather  unusual  thing  with  him.  "Why," 
asked  he,  "do  you  charge  me  more  this  time 
than  before?" 

"Well,"  said  the  publisher,  with  the  utmost 
frankness,  "the  compositors  were  constantly 
falling  asleep  over  your  last  novel." 


Under  the  Table 

F^URING  dinner  the  other  evening  in  a 
certain  Brooklyn  household  the  eight- 
year-old  girl  child  suddenly  interrupted  the 
conversation  in  this  wise: 

"Dad,  you  and  mother  can't  guess  what 
I  have  under  the  table." 

Then,  after  the  manner  of  parents  who 
like  to  please  their  children,  they  guessed  all 
kinds  of  things,  but  without  success.  So  they 
said,  "We  give  it  up.    Tell  us." 

Whereupon  the  kiddie,  drawing  her  face 
up  in  a  grimace,  replied: 

"A  stomach-ache." 


"  /  really  should  have  a  safety-deposit 
box,  you  know!" 


646 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Self-conscious  Owner  of  Second-hand  Car 
mind  your  own  business ! 


Beating  Him  to  It 

IN  Montana  a  railway  bridge  had  been 
A  destroyed  by  fire,  and  it  was  necessary 
to  replace  it.  The  bridge  engineer  and  his 
staff  were  ordered  in  haste  to  the  place. 
Two  days  later  came  the  superintendent  of 
the  division.  Alighting  from  his  private  car, 
he  encountered  the  old  master  bridge-builder. 

"Bill,"  said  the  superintendent — and  the 
words  quivered  with  energy — "I  want  this 
job  rushed.  Every  hour's  delay  costs  the 
company  money.  Have  you  got  the  engi- 
neer's plans  for  the  new  bridge?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said 
the  bridge-builder, 
"whether  the  engineer  has 
got  the  picture  drawed  yet 
or  not,  but  the  bridge  is 
up  and  the  trains  is  passin' 
over  it." 


A  Painstaking  Servant 

C^NE  evening  this 
spring,  while  a  certain 
New-Yorker  was  putting 
in  a  week  at  his  country 
place  in  New  Hampshire, 
he  prepared  to  take  a 
ride  in  his  motor-car, 
expecting  to  remain  out 
until  late. 

He  therefore  told  his 
new  man  that  he  need 
not  wait  for  him,  instruct- 
ing him  when  he  had  fin- 
ished his  work  to  lock  the 
garage  and  place  the  key 
under  a  stone,  the  location 
of  which  the  owner  de- 
scribed with  much  exact- 
ness. 

When   the  employer 
reached  home  after  h  i  s 
ride  he  was  surprised  to 
find  that  the  key  was  not 
in  its  place.    When  his 
patience  had  been  exhausted  after  a  fruitless 
search,  he  awoke  the  man  and  received  this 
explanation: 

"Why,  sir,  1  found  a  much  better  place 
for  it." 

Cmincus 

" A  LETTER  in  a  square  envelope,  marked 
'  private'  came  for  you  this  morning/' 
announced  Mrs.  Waite,  glancing  at  her  hus- 
band scrutinizingly. 

"Is  that  so?  Who  was  it  from?"  came  the 
reply. 


"Aw, 


Unmasculine 

TOMMY  had  a  profound 
contempt  for  the  little 
boy  next  door,  who  threw 
a  ball  like  a  girl,  seldom 
had  on  any  but  a  clean 
shirt,  and  who  generally 
wore  gloves. 

"Do  you  know  why 
he's  a  sissy?"  asked  Tom- 
my of  his  aunt.  "It's 
'cause  he  looks  just  like 
his  mother,  and  that 
shows  he's  got  girl  blood 
in  him." 


Teacher  (relating  an  experience  with  a  tramp):  ''''And 
then  I  fainted." 

Small  Boy  (excitedly):   "  Wid  yet  right,  or  wid  yer  left?" 


EDITOR'S  DRAWER 


647 


His  by  Right 

AN  Irish  chauffeur  in  San  Francisco,  who 
had  been  having  trouble  with  numerous 
small  boys  in  the  neighborhood  of  his  stand, 
discovered  one  day  on  examining  his  car 
that  there  was  a  dead  cat  on  one  of  the  seats. 
In  his  anger  he  was  about  to  throw  the  car- 
cass into  the  street,  when  he  espied  a  police- 
man. 

Holding  up  the  carcass,  he  exclaimed: 
"This  is  how  I  am  insulted.  What  am  I 
to  do  with  it?" 

"Well,  don't  you  know?  Take  it  straight 
to  headquarters,  and  if  it  is  not  claimed  within 
a  month  it  becomes  your  property." 


The  Common  Practice 

"  JOHNNY,"  said  the  teacher,  "if  coal  is 
selling  at  #6  a  ton  and  you  pay  your 
dealer  #24,  how  many  tons  will  he  bring 
you?" 

"A  little  over  three  tons,  ma'am,"  re- 
turned Johnny,  promptly. 

"Why,  Johnny,  that  isn't  right,"  cor- 
rected the  teacher. 

"No,  ma'am,  I  know  it  ain't,"  said  John- 
ny, "but  they  all  do  it." 


Another  Answer 


DROFESSOR  (in  literature  class):  "What 
do  you  think  of  Stevenson's  style?" 
Gladys  (blushing):  "I  do  not  know;  he 
never  made  a  dress  for  me." 


How  Cculd  He  Tell? 

"THE  absent-mindedness  of  talented  people 
has  been  a  source  of  joy  to  lesser  folk 
from  time  out  of  mind.  The  forgetfulness 
of  one  of  the  South's  most  brilliant  bishops 
does  much  to  promote  the  gaiety  of  his 
friends.  The  following  story  of  him  has 
lately  come  to  light. 

The  bishop,  it  seems,  was  traveling,  and 
when  the  conductor  appeared  for  his  ticket 
it  was  not  to  be  found.    One  pocket  after 
another  of  the  episcopal 
garb  was  searched  in 
vain,  the  bishop  all  the 
while  keeping  up  little 
ejaculations    of  con- 
cern. 

"Why,  this  is  very  seri- 
ous!" he  murmured. 
"I'm  sure  I  bought  a 
ticket.  I  must  have 
bought  a  ticket.  Why,  I 
always  buy  a  ticket! 
Dear  me,  this  is  very 
serious!" 

At  length  the  con- 
ductor, wishing  to  be 
helpful,  said,  "Well, 
don't  trouble,  Bishop; 
just  tell  me  where  you're 
going  and  we  can  fix  it 
up- 

"But,  my  dear  friend !" 
cried  the  bishop,  earnest- 
ly, "that  is  just  the 
trouble!  Without  my 
ticket  how  am  I  to 
know  where  I'm  going?" 


Circumstantial  Evidence 

MISS  MIRANDA  BROWN  and  Angelina 
Johnson  were  in  the  midst  of  a  rather 
heated  argument  as  to  the  meaning  of  "cir- 
cumstantial evidence"  when  old  Uncle  Ras- 
tus  poked  his  woolly  head  in  at  the  door.  He 
was  immediately  besieged  to  give  his  worthy 
opinion  on  the  matter  in  question. 

"De  way  ah  und'stand  it,  f'um  de  way 
it's  been  'splained  to  me,"  announced  the 
old  fellow,  "circumstantial  evidence  is  de 
fedders  dat  yo'  leaves  lyin'  'round." 


Which  ? 


[  ITTLE  Edward's  twin  sisters  were  being 
christened.    All  went  well  until  Edward 
saw  the  water  in  the  font.    Then  he  anx- 
iously turned  to  his  mother  and  exclaimed: 
B"Ma,    which    one    are    you    going  to 
keen?" 


"  I'm  sorry  I've  got  to  light  these  here  lamps,  folks, 
been  there  meself." 


I've 


Advice  to  Debutantes 

Never  select  a  chaperon  who  may  prove  more  attractive  and  entertaining  than  you  are. 


His  Peculiarity 
A  MAN  who  was  in  the  habit  of  stuttering 
was  asked  why  he  did  so. 
"That's  my  p-p-peculiarity,"  returned  the 
man.    "Everybody  has   his  p-p-peculiari- 
ties. 

"I  have  none,"  asserted  the  other. 
"Don't  you  s-s-stir  your  t-t-tea  with  your 
right  h-h-hand  ?" 
Yes. 

"Well,  t-t-that's  your  p-p-peculiarity. 
Most  p-p-people  use  a  s-s-spoon." 


Unnecessary  Preparation 

"TOMMY,"   cautioned   his  mother,  "be 
sure  to  come  in  at  four  this  afternoon 
to  get  your  bath  before  you  go  to  the  Joneses' 
to  supper." 

"  But,  mother,"  protested  the  lad,  "  I  don't 
need  a  bath  for  that.  They  said  it  was  to 
be  most  informal." 


A  Natural  Choice 

A  BOY,  being  asked  which  of  the  Biblical 
parables  he  liked  the  best,  answered: 
"That  one  where  somebody  loafs  and 
fishes." 


Current  Events 
QCHOOL  No.  4  usually   began  the  day 
with  a  discussion  of  current  events  or 
items  of  world  interest. 

"  Do  you  know  any  current  events  to- 
day?" asked  the  teacher,  brightly. 

One  little  boy  raised  his  hand  excitedly. 

"Well,  Jake,"  encouraged  the  teacher. 

"They  shot  a  lady  in  the  C.  &  O.  yards 
yesterday  for  stealing  coal." 


His  Part 

THE  magistrate  was  examining  a  witness, 
to  whom  he  remarked: 

"You  admit  you  overheard  the  quarrel 
between  the  defendant  and  his  wife?" 

"Yis,  sor,  I  do,"  stoutly  maintained  the 
witness. 

"Tell  the  court,  if  you  can,  what  he  seemed 
to  be  doing." 

"He  seemed  to  be  doin'  the  listenin\" 


And  So  Would  Others 

"PROSPERITY  has  ruined  many  a  man," 
declared  the  moralizer. 
"Well,"  rejoined  the  demoralizer,  "if  I 
was  going  to  be  ruined  at  all  I'd  prefer  pros- 
perity to  do  it." 


Painting  by  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green  Illustration  for  "Alan  of  Lesley  " 

THE    SIGHT    BEFORE    HIM    SHONE    BRIGHT    AND  DAINTY 


Harper's  Magazine 


Vol.  CXXXI  OCTOBER,  1915  No.  DCCLXXXV 


In  Search  of  a  New  Land 


BY  DONALD  B.  M A CM ILL  AN 

Leader  and  Ethnologist  of  the  Crocker  Land  Expedition 

The  Crocker  Land  Expedition,  under  the  auspices  of  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History  and  the  American  Geographical  Society, 
was  undertaken  to  solve  the  last  great  geographical  problem  of  the  North: 
Is  there  in  the  Polar  Sea  a  large  body  of  land  still  undiscovered?  In- 
vestigations of  the  tides  and  currents  in  the  polar  regions  seemed  to 
favor  this  view;  geologists  were  disposed  to  deny  it.  Finally,  in  iqo6, 
Peary,  scanning  the  northwest  from  the  summit  of  Cape  Thomas  Hub- 
bard, believed  that  he  saw  "  snow-clad  summits  above  the  ice  horizon" 
approximately  120  miles  distant.  He  named  it  Crocker  Land,  and  the 
present  expedition  s  chief  aim  was  to  verify  this  discovery,  which  has 
been  questioned  up  to  this  time. 


HAT  we  were  compelled 
to  establish  headquar- 
ters in  Etah,  j  North 
Greenland,  in  August, 
191 3 ,  is  not  an  evidence 
of  the  fact  that  the 
condition  of  the  ice  in 
Smith  Sound  precluded  our  crossing  to 
Cape  Sabine.  The  results  of  inexperi- 
ence in  Arctic  waters  were  never  more 
clearly  demonstrated  than  when  the 
captain  of  our  vessel  absolutely  refused 
to  enter  ice  that  Bob  Bartlett  would 
have  thoroughly  enjoyed  bucking.  From 
the  crow's-nest  leads  could  be  seen  ex- 
tending nearly  to  Ross  Bay.  Through 
these  I  am  certain  the  Erik  would  have 
poked  her  way  and  have  landed  us 
somewhere  on  the  other  shore.  It  is  a 
strange  anomaly  that  insurance  com- 
panies will  refuse  to  accept  a  man  trained 
in  Arctic  work  and  experienced  in  ice- 
navigation  on  the  ground  that  he  has  no 
"ticket,"  but  will  accept  a  warm-water 

Copyright,  1915,  by  Harper  & 


man  who  happens  to  know  something 
about  practical  astronomy.  In  event  of 
a  crisis,  a  pencil,  paper,  and  sextant  will 
not  save  the  ship  or  the  lives  of  the 
men  aboard. 

Realizing  that  arguments  were  of  no 
avail,  I  ordered  everything  landed  at 
Etah,  eighty  miles  from  my  objective 
point,  thus  placing  across  my  path 
Smith  Sound,  with  its  violent  tides,  rapid 
southerly  current,  and  shifting  ice-pack. 
But  a  far  more  serious  handicap  was  the 
impossibility  of  laying  out  during  the 
fall  and  moonlight  periods  depots  of 
supplies  along  the  trail  we  were  to  take 
in  the  spring,  a  practice  among  explorers 
to-day  which  means  much  toward  suc- 
cess. 

On  December  6th,  almost  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  big  Arctic  night,  our  attack  on 
Crocker  land  began,  five  heavily  loaded 
sledges  leaving  to  establish  our  first  pro- 
vision depot  at  Cairn  Point,  seventeen 
miles  up  the  Greenland  coast.  My  col- 
Brothers.    All  Rights  Reserved. 


652 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


leagues,  Ekblaw,  Green,  and  the  Eski- 
mos, were  instructed  to  go  well  out  into 
the  middle  of  the  sound  and  report  the 
condition  of  the  ice  to  me  on  their  re- 
turn. Two  days  later  they  were  back. 
To  my  surprise  and  delight  they  found 
Smith  Sound  covered  with  young  ice, 
over  which  their  dogs  trotted  for  eigh- 
teen miles  before  turning  back.  Realiz- 
ing that  a  southerly  wind  might  grind 
this  up  at  any  moment,  preparations 
were  immediately  begun  for  crossing  and 
establishing  a  big  cache  in  Ellesmere 
Land  as  far  up  Buchanan  Bay  as  possi- 
ble. On  the  nth  seven  sledges  got 
away  with  this  object  in  view.  On  the 
15th  they  were  back,  piled  high  with 
skins  and  meat  of  five  polar  bears,  hav- 
ing been  successful  in  reaching  the  other 
side  and  leaving  provisions  at  Cape 
Rutherford. 

Upon  the  appearance  of  the  January 
moon  I  sent  my  Eskimos  south  to  Peter- 
ah-wik  to  kill  walrus,  fatten  up  the 
dogs,  and  notify  all  Eskimos  who  were 
to  be  of  my  party  to  be  at  Etah  ready 
to  leave  on  February  7th.  On  that  day 
Green  with  his  division  of  three  Eskimos 
got  away  promptly,  Tanquary  on  the 
8th,  Ekblaw  on  the  9th,  Hunt  on  the 
10th,  and  myself  on  the  13th.    At  Kah- 


mow-witz,  the  site  of  our  first  camp, 
seventeen  miles  from  Etah,  the  ther- 
mometer registered  480  below  zero,  P  ah- 
renheit.  Here  we  found  that  all  supplies 
had  been  moved  across  the  sound  by  the 
advance  sledges,  enabling  us  the  next 
day  to  run  across  in  six  hours  with  very 
light  loads  to  Cape  Sabine,  well  known 
to  the  world  because  of  the  tragedy  en- 
acted there  thirty  years  ago. 

Proclaimed  to  the  world  sixty-two 
years  ago,  when  it  was  first  seen  by 
Commander  E.  A.  Inglefield,  R.N.,  the 
first  to  ever  enter  the  portals  of  Smith 
Sound,  it  has  played  a  large  part  in 
Arctic  history,  witnessing  the  passing  of 
the  ships  of  three  nations  in  their  en- 
deavors to  penetrate  into  the  unknown 
and  plant  their  country's  flag  at  "Far- 
thest North."  As  we  groped  with 
numbed  fingers  in  the  gathering  dark- 
ness amid  the  rocks,  seeking  a  shelter 
for  the  dogs,  my  mind  was  filled  with 
incidents  of  the  past  connected  with  this 
inhospitable  place.  Peary's  old  hut  in 
Payer  Harbor  was  not  inviting  for  a 
night's  rest.  It  was  dark,  damp,  and 
dirty — no  floors,  no  windows,  no  ceiling, 
a  cracked  stove,  and  a  more  than 
cracked  stove-pipe,  and  a  non-closing 
door!    We  were  glad  to  get  out  in  the 


HEADQUARTERS  OF  THE  EXPEDITION  AT  ETAH, GREENLAND 


PULLING  IN  A  POLAR  BEAR 


morning  on  the  smooth  ice  of  Rice 
Strait,  the  bitter  head  wind  compelling 
us  to  lie  low  on  our  komatiks  with  faces 
buried  in  the  furs  to  prevent  frost-bite. 
In  a  few  hours  we  reached  the  big  cache 
at  Cape  Rutherford,  where  we  loaded 
our  sledges  to  the  limit.  It  was  now 
push,  pull,  and  yell  at  the  dogs  as  they 
plodded  through  rough  ice  and  deep 
snow  for  a  mile  or  two  before  taking  the 
ice  foot,  where  we  found  excellent  going. 
Pemmican  tins,  stained  snow,  hitching- 
holes  for  the  dogs  betrayed  where  the 
advance  divisions  had  slept  on  their 
sledges,  finding  no  snow  suitable  for 
igloos.  It  looked  like  a  night  to  be  spent 
out  of  doors  at  500  below — not  an  in- 
viting prospect  when  covered  with 
sweat  as  we  were  from  pushing  the 
sledges.  In  the  lee  of  our  loads  we 
shivered,  pounded  our  toes,  and  impa- 
tiently watched  our  blue-flame  stove  as 
it  struggled  to  convert  ice  into  boiling 
tea.  Fortified  with  this  beverage,  along 
with  pemmican  and  biscuit,  we  were 
soon  asleep  with  our  backs  against  the 
sledges. 

When  crossing  Alexandra  Fiord  we  re- 
ceived our  first  premonition  of  trouble. 
We  passed  two  dead  dogs  on  the  trail — 
far  too  early  in  our  undertaking  for  such 
an  occurrence.    A  few  hours  later  in  a 


jog  in  the  ice  foot  we  came  upon  two 
boxes  of  biscuit,  a  pair  of  snow-shoes, 
and  a  note  from  Dr.  Hunt  stating  that 
he  had  slept  there  three  nights  with  a 
sick  Eskimo  and  was  leaving  that  morn- 
ing. There  was  still  no  snow  for  a  snow- 
house,  so  we  endeavored  to  heat  up  a 
few  cubic  feet  of  air-space  by  building  a 
fire  out  of  our  biscuit-boxes.  Placing 
our  sleeping-bags  on  the  snow  near  the 
fire,  we  crawled  in  for  what  we  thought 
would  be  a  good  night's  sleep.  A  few 
hours  later  I  awoke  choking  for  breath, 
and  discovered  to  my  astonishment  that 
my  bag  and  sheepskin  shirt  were  blazing 
merrily.    I  was  warm  at  last. 

A  few  hours  traveling  in  the  morning 
brought  us  in  sight  of  the  doctor  and  his 
Eskimo,  whose  face  was  badly  swollen 
with  the  mumps.  Although  unable  to 
walk,  he  was  game  and  wanted  to  go  on. 
As  this  Eskimo  was  one  of  my  best  men, 
I  relieved  him  of  a  large  part  of  his  load 
and  ordered  him  to  stick  to  the  sledge 
until  he  felt  better.  Within  an  hour  we 
came  up  with  the  whole  party  encamped 
in  snow  igloos  in  the  middle  of  Hayes 
Sound.  Some  had  influenza,  some  had 
the  mumps,  and  some  had  cold  feet 
literally  and  figuratively;  nearly  all  re- 
fused to  go  on,  stating  that  the  dogs 
were  weak,  unable  to  pull  an  ordinary 


654 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


load,  and  would  probably  all  die  on  the 
glacier,  and  they  attributed  this  condition 
to  the  salt  in  the  pemmican.  All  the 
Eskimos  strongly  advised  returning  to 
Etah,  feeding  up  the  dogs  on  walrus 
meat,  and  trying  it  again  later. 

Fortunately  it  was  so  early  in  the  year 
that  I  could  do  this  without  endangering 
the  success  of  the 
expedition,  but 
not  for  reasons  as 
stated  above,  but 
to  eliminate  the 
sick,  the  chicken- 
hearted,  and  the 
older  and  more 
influential  E  s  k  i  - 
mos,  who  seemed 
to  be  very  much 
afraid  of  walking 
home  in  case  their 
dogs  should  die. 
In  a  discussion  of 
this  kind  as  to 
what  they  should 
do,  the  younger 
men  of  the  party 
listen  respectfully 
to  the  opinion  of 
their  elders  and 
do  as  they  advise. 
Young  Eskimos 
on  a  long  and  dan- 
gerous trip  are 
much  to  be  preferred,  for  they  are  fond 
of  adventure  and  willing  to  take  a  chance, 
while  the  older  men  wish  to  make  certain 
of  getting  home. 

Placing  the  sick  in  charge  of  Hunt  and 
Green,  with  orders  to  stand  by  them 
until  they  were  able  to  travel,  we  started 
back  on  the  next  day  with  light  sledges, 
leaving  supplies  and  equipment  in  cache 
in  Hayes  Sound.  The  dogs  of  my  divi- 
sion were  in  fine  fettle,  and  covered  the 
ninety  miles  in  two  marches,  making 
Etah  on  the  second  day;  the  remainder 
of  the  party  arrived  on  the  third.  From 
the  sixteen  Eskimos  I  picked  out  seven 
who  appeared  to  me  to  be  of  the  right 
stuff  and  who,  I  thought,  would  go  the 
limit.  From  the  members  of  my  party 
there  were  two  who  were  very  anxious 
to  go  and  who  were  ambitious  to  drive 
a  dog-team,  Ensign  Green,  U.S.N.,  and 
Ekblaw,  our  geologist. 

Suspicious  of  the  pemmican,  and  de- 


THE  PET  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD 


sirous  of  keeping  the  dogs  on  walrus 
meat  as  long  as  possible,  on  March  ioth 
I  sent  four  of  the  party  in  advance  to 
Cape  Sabine  with  meat  to  be  thawed 
out,  cut  up,  and  held  ready  for  the  dogs 
of  the  other  men  who  would  arrive  one 
day  later.  Although  the  nth  was  not 
favorable  for  traveling — a  gale  from  the 

north,  with  drift- 
ing snow  and  the 
thermometer  a  t 
310  below  zero — 
we  felt  that  not 
a  day  should 
be  lost,  as  it  was 
now  late  in  the 
year  for  a  twelve- 
hundred-mile  trip, 
of  which  three 
hundred  miles 
were  'over  the  ice 
of  the  Polar  Sea, 
which  would  be 
soon  breaking  up. 
Frost  -  bitten 
cheeks  that  night 
attested  to  the 
severity  of  the 
weather.  Anoth- 
er run  across  the 
sound  in  six  hours 
brought  us  to  the 
hut  at  Payer  Har- 
bor, where  the 
Eskimos  greeted  us  with  the  cry,  "We 
have  killed  a  bear!"  This  was  good- 
news,  not  so  much  because  we  needed 
the  meat,  but  for  the  spirit  of  good- 
fellowship  which  always  follows  a  killing 
when  on  the  trail. 

In  two  marches  we  were  at  the  big 
cache,  finding  everything  as  we  left  it 
some  weeks  before.  We  were  now  ready 
for  the  crossing  of  Ellesmere  Land.  The 
regular  pass  is  at  the  head  of  Flagler 
Bay,  where,  as  shown  by  the  tupic  sites, 
the  Innuits  have  crossed  for  centuries. 
My  Innuits  advised  following  the  glacier 
at  the  head  of  Beitstadt  Fiord.  In  two 
days  we  were  looking  up  at  an  almost 
vertical  wall  of  ice  stretching  back  into 
the  sky  to  a  height  of  forty-seven  hun- 
dred feet.  How  we  were  ever  to  get  up 
there  I  did  not  know.  Pee-ah-wah-to 
and  Ki-o-tah  walked  along  the  base  of 
the  glacier  laughing  and  joking,  but  at 
the  same  time  critically  examining  every 


IN  SEARCH  OF  A  NEW  LAND 


655 


square  foot  of  it.  In  the  same  leisurely 
manner  they  began  cutting  into  the  face 
of  it  with  their  hatchets  to  secure  a  good 
grip  for  the  hands  and  a  good  step  for 
the  feet,  and  up  they  went  until  they 
stood  on  the  crest  some  fifty  feet  above 
the  ground.  As  it  was  now  getting  dark, 
we  burrowed  for  shelter  into  the  base  of 
a  large  snow-bank  at  the  foot  of  the 
glacier  and  were  soon  resting  for  the 
strenuous  work  of  the  morrow. 

All  the  next  day  we  were  busy  tump- 
ing our  supplies  and  equipment  far  back 
on  the  slope  of  the  ice.  Ee-took-ah-shoo, 
who  simply  loved  hard  work,  put  a 
tump-line  on  his  one-hundred-and-twen- 
ty-five-pound  sledge  and  started  up  the 
ice  steps.  I  said  to  myself,  "He  will 
never  get  there."  But  he  did,  smiling 
and  sweating.  Two  of  the  other  men 
attempted  the  same  feat,  one  failing 
and  one  succeeding.  At  dusk  we  had 
transferred  over  four  thousand  pounds 
to  the  surface  of  the  ice  ready  for  loading 
the  next  day.  That  night  the  Eskimos 
gathered  around  Pee-ah-wah-to,  the 
only  man  who  had  gone  over  the  glacier, 
to  learn  from  him  what  it  was  like,  how 
far  it  was,  if  there  was  any  more  such 
hard  work,  and  if  we  could  get  back  be- 
fore the  sound  broke  up  in  the  spring. 
The  next  morning  Mene  Wallace,  the 


New  York  Eskimo,  decided  that  hard 
work  did  not  agree  with  him  and  wanted 
to  go  home.  Knowing  that  my  Eskimos 
would  all  be  the  happier  for  his  going, 
I  did  not  try  to  dissuade  him  in  any  way. 
As  he  rounded  the  point  about  an  hour 
later,  Ekblaw  detected  two  sledges  in- 
stead of  one  and  yelled  to  me,  "Did  you 
know  that  Tau-ching-wah  had  gone, 
too?"  At  first  I  could  not  believe  it,  and 
thought  he  was  upon  the  glacier.  This 
second  desertion  caused  me  some  anxiety 
as  to  the  outcome  of  the  trip.  That  the 
Eskimo  is  not  to  be  depended  upon  is 
well  known.  He  may  go  and  go  the 
limit,  or  he  may  quit  without  apparent 
reason. 

The  withdrawal  of  these  two  men  with 
their  sixteen  dogs  reduced  the  total 
amount  of  food  which  could  be  trans- 
ported over  the  glacier  to  a  dangerous 
limit.  The  success  of  the  trip  now  de- 
pended upon  our  finding  game  on  the 
other  side.  Our  loads  were  now  so 
heavy  and  the  gradient  so  steep  and 
slippery  that  it  was  only  by  the  very 
hardest  kind  of  effort  and  free  use  of  the 
whip  that  the  dogs  could  be  compelled 
to  move  at  all.  After  surmounting  the 
first  rise,  the  slope  was  more  gentle 
and  the  going  much  better,  enabling  us 
to  reach  the  summit  in  a  little  over  two 


DONALD  MACMILLAN,  LEADER  OF  THE  CROCKER  LAND  EXPEDITION 


65G 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


days.  Here  we  built  two  snow  igloos 
at  an  altitude  of  forty-seven  hundred 
and  fifty  feet,  with  the  temperature 
at  500  below  zero.  Although  the  snow 
was  hard  and  wind-swept,  showing  the 
prevalence  of  violent  winds  here  in 
the  mountains,  we  were  very  fortunate 
in  having  absolutely  calm  weather. 
Green  informed  me  in  the  evening  that 
Ekblaw's  feet  were  in  bad  shape  and 
asked  me  to  look  at  them.  Going  into 
his  igloo,  I  found  the  ball  of  one  foot 
badly  blistered  and  the  big  toe  swollen 
and  waxy  in  appearance.  Naturally  Ek- 
blaw  was  worried,  for  the  Eskimos  had 
told  him  that  it  was  just  like  "Peary-ak- 
swah's"  foot  some  years  ago  when  he 
lost  all  his  toes.  I  hated  to  lose  such  a 
good  man,  and  decided  to  hold  on  to  him 
as  long  as  I  could,  not  considering  his 
frost-bite  nearly  as  serious  as  the  natives 


EE-TOOK-AH-SHOO 


would  have  us  think.  They  are  mor- 
tally afraid  of  having  their  feet  frost- 
bitten, nursing  them  as  tenderly  as  a 
mother  would  her  youngest  child.  I 
have  seen  tough  old  Oo-tah  mounted 
on  top  of  his  load  with  boot  ofF  at  6o° 
below  zero  holding  his  toes  in  his  warm 
hand  with  a  worried  look  on  his  face. 
Frozen  cheeks,  nose,  or  ears  are  of  little 
concern;    one  can  still  go  on  without 


them,  but  when  a  man's  feet  are  frozen 
he  is  done  for. 

Breaking  camp  on  the  morning  of 
March  20th,  we  felt  that  our  troubles 
were  over  for  a  while,  as  we  could  see  the 
crest  of  the  glacier  only  a  few  miles 
beyond.  In  a  few  hours  we  were  where 
we  could  command  a  good  view  of  this 
western  land,  with  its  towering  snow- 
capped peaks,  its  deep  valleys  and  wind- 
ing glaciers,  and  far  to  the  west  dimly 
outlined  in  the  haze  the  smooth  ice  of 
Eureka  Sound.  Our  glacier  led  straight 
on  into  the  west  down  through  a  mag- 
nificent range  of  hills  into  which  no  man 
had  ever  been.  Reluctantly  we  left  this 
long,  white  path  for  a  valley  leading  to 
the  northwest  more  in  line  with  our 
course  to  the  Polar  Sea. 

Our  Eskimos  were  determined  to  make 
Bay  Fiord  in  one  march,  so  on  we  toiled 
for  sixteen  hours,  first  down 
into  what  appeared  to  be 
the  old  bed  of  a  lake,  then 
making  the  mistake  of  turn- 
ing to  the  right  instead  of  to 
the  left,  which  led  us  along 
the  sloping  side  of  a  glacier 
through  deep  snow  concealing 
many  a  crevasse  into  which 
our  dogs  fell  repeatedly,  warn- 
ing us  against  a  similar  fate. 
Arriving  at  the  face  of  the 
glacier,  tired  and  hungry, 
although  we  searched  long 
and  earnestly  we  failed  to  find 
any  part  of  it  which  would 
permit  a  descent  without 
risk  of  life.  Finally  Pee-ah- 
wah-to  returned  with  the  en- 
couraging news  that  he  had 
discovered  an  old  river-bed  in 
the  ice  down  through  which 
we  might  possibly  lower 
everything  with  ropes  in  the 
morning. 

At  daylight  we  inspected 
the  ravine  in  the  ice,  cut  by  running- 
water  during  the  spring.  Fortunately 
its  bottom  was  covered  with  about  a 
foot  of  compact  snow  which  enabled  us 
to  keep  our  footing  while  working  with 
the  dogs,  sledges,  and  ropes.  To  a  large 
eye  cut  in  the  solid  blue  ice  was  fastened 
a  long,  stout  rope  made  of  the  heavy 
skin  of  seal  flipper;  for  its  size  I  be- 
lieve this  to  be  the  strongest  rope  made 


 SCALE  OF  MILES  

5      5ft     100  200  3(5o 

MAP  SHOWING  ROUTE  TAKEN  BY  THE  CROCKER  LAND  EXPEDITION 


with  the  exception  of  the  wire  ropes. 
Carefully  everything  was  lowrered  to  the 
surface  of  the  fiord  below,  only  one 
sledge  getting  away  from  the  men  and 
plunging  into  the  rough  ice  which  had 
fallen  from  the  face  of  the  glacier.  The 
massive  bow  of  the  Peary  komatik  saved 
it  from  destruction. 


Proceeding  a  few  miles  down  the  fiord, 
we  found  the  snow  trampled  and  criss- 
crossed in  all  directions  with  the  tracks 
of  musk-oxen.  We  were  all  now  on  the 
qui  vive,  the  dogs  with  heads  up  sniffing 
the  air,  running  their  noses  deep  into 
the  footprints  in  the  snow,  the  men 
scanning  the  slope  of  every  hill.    In  a 


ESKIMOS  ERECTING  AN  IGLOO 


few  minutes  we  reached  a  point  which 
commanded  a  view  of  the  whole  fiord, 
and  here  Pee-ah-wah-to  thought  it  best 
to  camp,  assuring  us  that  we  would 
certainly  find  musk-oxen  within  a  few 
hours. 

In  the  morning  the  first  man  out  of 
the  igloo  yelled  "  Oo-ming-muck-swee !" 
(Musk-oxen).  Across  the  fiord  outlined 
against  the  white  snow  five  black  dots 
could  be  seen,  which  to  the  inexperi- 
enced eye  very  much  resembled  five 
black  rocks.  As  these  rocks  slowly 
changed  their  relative  positions,  we  were 
compelled  to  admit  that  they  must  be 
alive.  Arklio  and  Pee-ah-wah-to  imme- 
diately doubled  up  their  dogs  for  speed, 
hitching  them  to  one  komatik,  and 
grabbed  their  rifles.  The  other  Eskimos 
at  once  set  off  in  different  directions  to 
scour  the  hills.  Leisurely  the  team 
made  its  way  across  the  fiord;  they  had 
not  yet  sighted  or  smelled  the  animals. 
As  I  watched  through  the  field-glasses, 
one  musk-ox  started  directly  up  the  al- 
most vertical  slope,  immediately  fol- 
lowed by  the  four  others  and  two  more 
which  we  had  not  seen.  It  was  hard  to 
believe  that  the  black  line  behind  them 
going  with  such  incredible  speed  could 
be  our  dogs  pulling  some  six  hundred 
pounds.     They  were  now  a  band  of 


wolves  with  fresh  meat  in  sight,  and 
nothing  could  stop  them;  sand,  rocks, 
boulders,  and  snow  seemed  to  be  taken 
without  efTort.  A  wild  ride  behind  a 
good  fast  team  of  dogs  in  pursuit  of  a 
bear  or  a  musk-ox  is  one  of  the  joys  of 
this  world  and  certainly  compensates  for 
much  of  the  discomfort  of  Arctic  work. 
As  the  dogs  stopped  at  the  foot  of  the 
talus  we  could  see  the  three  men  slowly 
making  their  way  up  the  slope  to  get 
within  rifle  range.  Before  the  report  of 
the  first  shot  reached  our  ears,  a  black 
object  was  seen  rolling  rapidly  down  the 
hill,  indicating  that  the  slaughter  had 
begun.  Knowing  that  one  sledge  could 
not  possibly  bring  all  the  meat  to  camp, 
Green  and  I  harnessed  up  our  dogs  and 
ran  over  to  where  we  found  the  two 
Eskimos  busily  skinning  and  cutting  up 
the  seven  which  had  been  killed. 

Plenty  of  meat  now  for  dogs  and  men 
put  every  one  in  good  spirits,  enabling 
us  to  save  our  pemmican  for  the  Polar 
Sea.  I  had  repeatedly  been  assured  by 
the  Eskimos  that  it  would  be  possible 
to  subsist  upon  the  country  from  the 
head  of  Bay  Fiord  to  Cape  Thomas 
Hubbard.  This  optimistic  view  of  things 
I  could  not  accept,  and  so  planned  to 
use  pemmican  for  half  the  distance, 
hoping  to  secure  game  enough  for  the 


IN  SEARCH  OF  A  NEW  LAND 


659 


other  half.  Viewing  the  big  pile  of  red 
meat  around  our  igloos,  I  felt  that  we 
had  certainly  made  a  good  start. 

Now  that  our  loads  were  safely  across 
Ellesmere  Land,  my  supporting  party 
was  no  longer  needed;  I  could  dispense 
with  at  least  two  of  the  sledges.  In  the 
morning  Ekblaw  and  Ki-o-tah  started 
back  for  Etah.  With  them  went  Green, 
New-car-ping-wah,  and  Arklio,  with  or- 
ders to  load  up  at  the  big  cache  in 
Hayes  Sound  with  oil  and  pemmican  and 
rejoin  me  at  Cape  Thomas  Hubbard.  In 
the  mean  time  I  was  to  go  on  slowly 
laying  in  caches  of  meat  on  the  trail  for 
use  during  our  return  trip. 

As  we  swung 
across  to  the  north 
side  of  Bay  Fiord 
on  the  25th,  two 
large  white  wolves 
loped  along  be- 
hind us  just  out 

0  f  range,  finally 
disappearing  i  n 
the  rough  i  c  e  in 
the  middle  of  the 
sound.  At  the 
end  of  this  march 

1  feared  that  the 
Eskimos  were  al- 
together too  opti- 
mistic when  they 
declared  that  we 
could  live  on  the 
country.  Two 
days  now,  and 
not  the  sign  of  a 
musk-ox.  Reluc- 
tantly I  told  the 
boys  to  feed  a 
pound  of  pemmi- 
can to  each  dog. 
Although  not  fed 
for  two  days,  as 
was  their  custom, 
they  had  quietly 
lain  down  and 
gone  to  sleep  as 
soon  as  hitched  to 

the  ice-foot;  not  a  whine  or  a  bark,  or  a 
look  in  our  direction,  indicated  that  they 
were  hungry.  What  keeps  an  Eskimo 
dog  alive  and  keeps  him  going  for  days 
and  days  and  days  I  do  not  know.  It 
is  my  earnest  belief  that  no  animal  or 
machine  known  can  do  the  work  that 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785.-82 


W.  E.  EKBLAW,  GEOLOGIST  OF 
THE  CROCKER  LAND  EXPEDITION 


an  Eskimo  dog  can  do  on  an  equal 
amount  of  food  or  fuel.  It  is  a  common 
occurrence  for  an  Eskimo  to  travel  for 
five  days  with  a  light  load  without  feed- 
ing his  dogs. 

The  next  morning  we  continued  on 
through  heavy  going  until  the  dogs  be- 
gan to  smell  seal  holes,  and  then  there 
was  a  rush  from  hole  to  hole  along  the 
ice-foot.  The  huge  footprints  of  a  polar 
bear  and  a  bloody  track  through  the 
snow  indicated  that  the  Tiger  of  the 
North  had  succeeded  in  capturing  a  seal. 
The  dogs  were  now  fairly  excited,  dash- 
ing along  with  head  and  tail  up,  whining 
and  yelping.    In  a  few  minutes  a  white 

wolf,  so  large  that 
we  all  thought  it 
was  a  bear,  bound- 
ed out  of  the  ice- 
foot and  took  to 
the  side  hill,  every 
twenty  yards  or  so 
stopping  to  look 
us  over  carefully, 
wondering  what 
kind  of  strange 
animals  we  were. 
The  sledges  fairly 
leaped  through the 
rough  ice  of  the 
tidal  crack,  but 
came  to  a  sudden 
stop  in  the  grit  a 
short  distance 
from  the  shore. 
Pee  -  ah  -  w  a  h  -  to 
seized  his  rifle,  ran 
to  the  crest  of  a 
little  knoll,  drop- 
ped on  one  knee, 
and  fired.  I  have 
never  seen  a  bet- 
ter shot.  The  ani- 
mal at  the  time 
was  going  at  full 
speed  away  from 
him  at  a  distance 
of  about  one  hun- 
dred yards.  The 
bullet  passed  completely  up  through  his 
body,  turned  him  over,  and  left  him  a 
crumpled  mass  without  a  quiver.  With 
curiosity  I  examined  the  first  white  wolf 
I  had  ever  seen.  He  was  larger  than  the 
Eskimo  dog,  which  is  supposed  to  be 
his  descendant,  although  not  as  thick- 


660 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


set.  The  skin  having  been  removed, 
the  dogs  sniffed  for  a  long  time  at  the 
flesh,  finally  walking  away  without  touch- 
ing it. 

The  bear  tracks  continued  up  the 
sound,  and  the  dogs  were  again  hot  on 
the  trail.  Astride  the  sledges,  with  rifles 
across  our  legs  we  closely  scanned  every 
hummock  of  ice,  every  crack  and  crevice. 
At  last,  disappointed,  we  were  forced  to 
give  it  up,  and  pulled  in  toward  the  ice- 
foot to  find  suitable  snow  for  an  igloo. 
The  dogs  had  worked  long  and  well. 
I  could  not  refuse  them;  they  would 
have  their  pound,  anyway.  As  we  sat 
there  on  our  sledges,  too  lazy  or  too  tired 
to  begin  cutting  snow  blocks  for  a  house, 
Pee-ah-wah-to,  whose  little,  black  eyes 
were  ever  roaming  over  the  hills,  uttered 
an  exclamation  of  surprise,  followed  by  a 
long,  deep,  "Tak-koo!"  There,  right 
above  our  heads>  sound  asleep,  were 
three  black,  woolly  bodies.  Our  musk- 
oxen  had  come  into  camp  and  were 
patiently  waiting  for  us.  The  two  Eski- 
mo boys  fairly  beamed,  repeating  over 
and  over  again,  "Well,  well,  right  along- 
side of  us!"  White  men  would  have 
gone  up  at  once  and  made  sure  of  their 
game;  not  so  with  Ee-took-ah-shoo  and 
Pee-ah-wah-to.  As  if  they  had  all  the 
time  in  the  world  and  meat  were  of  no 
value,  they  deliberately  harnessed  their 


dogs,  just  as  deliberately  lit  their  pipes, 
laughed,  joked,  and  talked  of  things  a 
hundred  miles  away.  You  can  imagine 
how  constantly  I  kept  my  eye  on  those 
three  black  balls  which  meant  so  much 
to  me,  although  only  meat,  to  them. 
With  them  we  could  do  anything  and 
everything;  without  them  we  would  be 
compelled  to  go  home,  and  home  did  not 
have  any  attractions  for  me  just  then. 

Finally  the  snow  blocks  were  cut,  the 
house  built,  furs  inside,  and  the  stove 
humming,  and  off  they  started,  leading 
one  dog  only — one  which  they  could 
best  afford  to  lose,  for  musk-ox  horns 
are  sharp  and  inflict  ugly  wounds. 
Skirting  the  hill,  they  came  upon  them 
from  the  rear,  thus  cutting  off  their  re- 
treat. At  the  first  report  of  the  rifles 
three  were  outlined  against  the  sky,  then 
four,  then  five!  There  was  no  escape; 
I  knew  they  were  ours. 

The  next  morning  we  drove  our  dogs 
to  the  base  of  the  cliff  over  which  the 
Eskimos  had  rolled  the  bodies,  and  we 
had  the  comforting  satisfaction  of  seeing 
the  dogs  eat  to  repletion.  In  skinning 
and  cutting  up  these  five  animals,  and 
sledging  the  meat  down  to  the  igloo, 
half  the  day  was  consumed,  so  we  de- 
cided to  spend  the  rest  of  it  in  drying 
our  komatiks,  sheepskin  stockings,  and 
sleeping-bags. 


TAKING  ICE  FROM  AN  "  ICE-HOUSE  " 


PEARY'S  OLD  HEADQUARTERS  AT  PAYER  HARBOR,  CAPE  SABINE 


Quoting  from  my  field  diary  for  the 
next  few  days,  I  find  as  follows: 

Saturday,  March  28th,  18th  day. — A  per- 
fect day  and  perfect  going  enabled  us  to 
cover  at  least  twenty-five  miles.  The  whole 
sound  has  been  so  swept  by  strong  northerly 
winds  that  the  smooth  surface  of  the  new  ice 
is  covered  with  an  inch  layer  of  hard  snow. 
Pee-ah-wah-to's  old  rattail  dogs  can  smell 
a  seal  a  mile  away;  they  have  kept  us  on  the 
jump  all  day.  About  five  miles  below  here, 
while  resting  our  dogs,  we  shot  eleven, 
giving  three  to  each  team  and  keeping  two 
for  our  supper. 

Sunday,  March  29th,  iQth  day. — We  are 
in  8o°  north  latitude  to-night.  Have  covered 
a  whole  degree  in  two  days.  Perfect  sledging 
all  day  long,  continuing  just  as  far  as  we  can 
see.  Another  large  white  wolf  is  added  to 
our  game  list  to-day.  Were  following  the 
tracks  of  a  large  bear  when  he  jumped  out  of 
the  ice-foot.  These  wolves  are  so  large  that 
we  were  again  deceived,  judging  it  to  be  a 
bear.  My  dogs  leaped  ahead  at  the  sound 
of  Pee-ah-wah-to's  rifle,  arriving  in  time  to 
see  the  wolf  take  to  the  ice  and  start  for  the 
middle  sound  covered  with  blood.  Crawling 
out  to  the  front  of  the  sledge,  I  slipped  the 
knot  which  held  the  whole  team,  and  away 
they  went  at  full  speed,  but  before  they 
reached  him  Pee-ah-wah-to  fired  again,  drop- 
ping him  dead. 

On  the  way  across  to  Blamanden  to-day 
a  blue  fox  crossed  in  front  of  our  teams.  Had 
the  fox  been  going  our  way  we  should  have 


made  a  record  march,  but  as  it  was  he  had 
our  ill  will  for  some  hours  afterward.  To 
stop  or  control  Eskimo  dogs  with  the  tail  of 
a  blue  fox  waving  in  their  faces  would  be  like 
stopping  the  world  from  going  around.  The 
komatiks  fairly  leaped  through  space.  Such 
a  sudden  and  unexpected  rush  caught  us  all 
unawares;  pipes,  tobacco,  matches,  pieces 
of  frozen  meat — everything  not  tied  on  was 
left  lying  along  the  trail.  The  fox  trotted 
along  slowly  at  first,  now  and  then  looking 
back  over  his  shoulder,  as  if  saying  to  himself, 
"I  wonder  if  they  are  really  after  me?"  As 
the  dogs  approached  he  quickened  his  pace 
a  bit  as  if  to  tease  them;  then,  to  show  them 
that  he  could  run,  he  turned  into  a  bounding 
black  ball  which  quickly  faded  away  to  a 
tiny  speck  in  the  distance.  The  dogs  slowed 
down,  looked  foolish,  then  turned  their  heads 
to  us  as  if  to  ask,  "What  was  that?"  It  is 
said  that  these  foxes  catch  Arctic  hares  for 
food.  If  so,  that  one  will  live  for  a  long  time 
yet! 

From  the  Fosheim  Peninsula  we 
headed  across  Eureka  Sound  for  Skrae- 
lingodden  on  the  morning  of  the  30th. 
A  heavy  mist  hung  low  over  the  fiord; 
this  with  the  light  breeze  from  the  north- 
east gave  warning  of  an  approaching 
storm.  This  point  marked  the  end  of 
our  good  sledging  and  good  weather.  As 
we  rounded  Skraelingodden  our  hitherto 
light  wind  freshened  to  a  strong  breeze; 
at  400  below  zero  it  seemed  to  go  right 


662 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


through  us.  However,  plodding  through 
ankle-deep  snow  all  the  way  to  Schei's 
Island,  and  running  ahead  of  the  dogs  to 
increase  our  speed,  soon  warmed  us  up. 
It  was  drifting  and  blowing  so  hard  as 
we  approached  the  island  that  we  could 
scarcely  make  out  its  outline.  Unable  to 
find  snow  suitable  for  building  an  igloo, 
we  continued  on  toward  the  south,  look- 
ing for  shelter.  After  traveling  a  short 
distance  we  discovered  that  there  was 
land  on  both  sides  of  us;  we  had  either 
entered  an  inlet  and  were  in  a  cul-de-sac, 
or  there  were  low-lying  islands  off  the 
southern  point  of  the  island  which  the 
map  of  Sverdrup  did  not  show.  The 
shelving  shore  to  the  north  offered  no 
shelter  whatever,  and  shelter  we  must 
have,  as  our  clothes  were  driven  so  full 
of  snow  that  we  could  not  possibly  sleep 
in  our  bags. 

At  last,  to  our  relief,  Ee-took-ah-shoo 
prodded  with  his  whip-stock  down  into 
the  snow  and  said  it  was  all  right. 
Our  igloo  up,  the  next  thought  was  for 
our  dogs,  which  were  now  nearly  buried 
in  the  white  drift.  To  the  windward  of 
each  team  was  constructed  a  good  thick 
wall  of  snow  blocks  to  serve  as  a  wind- 
break, close  up  to  which  they  cuddled 
and  were  asleep  almost  before  we  fin- 
ished it.  As  well  as  we  could  under  the 
circumstances,  with  the  snow-beater  we 
pounded  the  snow  out  of  our  bearskin 
pants  and  out  of  our  sheepskin  coats. 
Once  inside,  the  door  tightly  closed  with 
a  snow  block,  and  the  stove  humming, 
there  is  a  feeling  of  perfect  contentment, 
which  comes  to  a  man  after  a  long  day's 
march.  Here  we  decided  to  stay  for  a 
while.  Our  dogs  must  have  fresh  meat, 
and  the  dogs  of  our  supporting  party, 
which  was  doing  its  best  to  catch  us, 
were  depending  upon  it. 

At  noon  the  next  day  there  was  every 
promise  of  clear  weather,  so  the  boys 
harnessed  their  dogs  and  were  off  to  the 
westward  to  look  for  a  passage  through 
the  island  and  for  tracks  of  the  herd. 
At  midnight  they  were  back.  Sure  of 
their  success,  I  yelled  out  through  the 
peep-hole  in  the  front  of  the  igloo, 
"How  many?"  "  Ah-meg-you-lock- 
swee"  was  the  immediate  reply — "a 
great  many" — but  how  many  I  did  not 
know  until  Ee-took-ah-shoo,  who  could 
not  count  more  than  twenty,  indicated 


by  holding  up  his  fingers  that  they  had 
killed  thirty-five!  Like  savages  they  had 
slaughtered  the  whole  herd  for  the  pure 
love  of  killing,  knowing  that  we  could 
not  possibly  use  so  many. 

On  their  sledges  were  the  four  quarters 
of  a  musk-ox  for  my  dogs,  who  were  now 
sitting  up  wondering  what  had  hap- 
pened. Their  old  friends  in  the  other 
teams  could  hardly  be  recognized,  being 
so  distended  that  they  could  barely  get 
into  camp.  In  through  the  door  of  the 
igloo  came  hearts,  tongues,  livers,  and 
juicy  tenderloins.   What  a  feast! 

I  thought  we  had  better  move  while 
we  could,  so  I  ordered  the  men  to  pack 
up  their  sledges  and  drive  over  to  the 
battle-field.  After  going  a  short  distance, 
a  yell  from  Pee-ah-wah-to  turned  our 
attention  toward  the  south.  Could  we 
believe  our  eyes!  It  was  like  a  picture 
from  one  of  the  old  books  on  travel  in 
Siberia.  Twelve  white  wolves  were  leap- 
ing over  the  snow  directly  at  us.  Fiction 
would  have  us  now  fighting  for  our  lives, 
knives  between  teeth  and  rifles  constantly 
going.  On  the  contrary,  we  prayed  that 
they  would  not  stop,  but  keep  coming 
on.  Undoubtedly  they  would  have  done 
so,  had  we  been  able  to  control  our  dogs, 
who  were  now  wild  with  excitement, 
whining,  yelping,  and  straining  on  the 
traces.  We  shouted  and  threatened,  and 
lashed  with  the  whip,  at  the  same  time 
holding  back  with  all  our  strength  on 
the  upstanders  of  the  sledge.  The  leader 
of  the  band  stopped,  surveyed  us  criti- 
cally for  an  instant,  and  wheeled,  followed 
by  the  others.  By  the  time  that  we 
could  tear  the  covers  from  the  rifles  they 
were  out  of  range. 

I  have  no  compunction  whatever  in 
shooting  at  these  sneaking  cowards  of 
the  animal  world.  Axel  Heiberg  Land 
is  infested  with  them,  their  tracks  being 
found  intermingling  with  those  of  the 
musk-ox  and  white  caribou.  A  mother 
and  her  young  are  surrounded,  worried 
to  death,  and  torn  into  pieces.  During 
Sverdrup's  expedition  the  wolves  came 
into  camp,  attacked  and  killed  some  of 
the  dogs,  and,  later  on  the  trail,  even 
attacked  one  of  the  men  who  had  no 
other  weapon  to  defend  himself  with 
than  a  skee.  No  animal  in  the  North  is 
so  enduring,  none  has  such  a  wide  range, 
and  none  an  easier  existence,  their  food 


IN  SEARCH  OF  A  NEW  LAND 


663 


being  musk-oxen,  caribou,  Arctic  hare, 
lemmings,  and  possibly  foxes.  There  is 
also  every  evidence  to  believe  that 
wolves  prey  upon  seals  along  the  ice- 
foot. 

Proceeding  for  about  half  an  hour, 
we  reached  a  well-sheltered  spot  with 
southern  exposure  near  the  slain  musk- 
oxen.  Here  the  two  boys  constructed  a 
beautiful  igloo,  with 
high  bed  platform, 
gently  sloping  back, 
an  almost  flat  roof, 
the  sixty  blocks  inter- 
locking in  a  rather 
artistic  design.  It  is  a 
pleasure  to  see  an 
Eskimo  cut  and  handle 
snow.  One  cannot 
but  admire  the  skill 
and  dexterity  with 
which  he  cuts  it  on 
the  surface,  breaks  it 
out  with  his  toe,  lays 
it  up  on  the  wall, 
bevels  the  edges,  and 
thumps  it  into  place 
with  his  hand.  I  am 
wondering  if  there  are 
any  other  people  i  n 
the  world  who  attempt 
to  build  an  arch  or 
dome  without  a  support.  Starting 
from  the  ground  in  a  spiral  contrary  to 
the  hands  of  a  clock,  the  blocks  mount 
higher  and  higher,  ever  assuming  a  more 
horizontal  position  until  the  last  two 
or  three  appear  to  hang  in  the  air,  the 
last  block  locking  the  whole  structure. 
This  work  can  be  done  by  two  good  men 
in  about  one  hour. 

Upon  entering  a  newly  constructed 
igloo  it  seems  like  a  touch  of  fairy- 
land, the  light  filtering  through  the 
snow  a  beautiful  ethereal  blue;  every- 
thing— the  bed,  the  two  side  plat- 
forms, the  walls — absolutely  spotless. 
Such  a  retreat  at  low  temperatures  is 
so  far  superior  to  a  tent  as  to  cause  one 
to  regret  exceedingly  that  the  brave  fel- 
lows of  old,  who  struggled  over  frozen 
tents  with  frozen  fingers,  could  not  have 
availed  themselves  of  the  services  of 
these  men  of  the  North.  During  a  gale 
the  incessant  banging  and  slatting  of  the 
walls  of  a  tent  precludes  all  conversa- 
tion and  interferes  seriously  with  much- 


needed  rest.  If  snow  is  drifting,  the  sides 
collapse  under  the  accumulated  weight 
to  such  a  degree  that  it  is  hardly  possible 
for  one  man  to  sit  upright  in  the  center 
of  the  tent,  the  remainder  of  the  party 
being  compelled  to  lie  in  their  bags. 
Once  in  a  snow-house,  with  the  door 
closed,  it  is  as  still  as  death,  snow  being 
an  excellent  non-conductor,  while  drift- 


ENSIGN  FITZHUGH  GREEN,  U.  S.  N. 


ing  snows  without  only  add  to  the 
warmth  and  security. 

Our  four  days  at  Schei's  Island  stand 
out  as  one  of  the  bright  spots  of  our  trip 
— a  large,  well-warmed  and  well-lighted 
igloo,  plenty  of  food,  and  a  wealth  of 
fresh  meat  for  the  dogs.  Two  Eskimo 
lamps,  made  of  oil-tins,  canvas,  and 
musk-ox  fat,  burned  night  and  day,  dry- 
ing mittens,  komatiks,  and  stockings. 
Next  in  order  of  importance  to  a  man 
on  the  trail  are  dry  clothes;  throwing 
aside  the  wet  and  putting  on  the  dry  at 
500  below  zero  is  really  being  born 
again.  The  layman  will  never  know 
what  it  means  to  put  his  feet  into  a 
frozen  stocking  at  500  or  6o°  below  zero, 
and  try  to  keep  them  warm  for  eight 
or  ten  hours. 

Leaving  instructions  in  this  igloo  for 
Green  to  feed  his  dogs,  hold  to  his  loads, 
and  come  on  as  quickly  as  possible,  we 
started  on  for  Hvitberg  (White  Moun- 
tain). As  we  swung  around  the  corner 
of  the  island,  its  high,  white  head  was  the 


664 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


most  conspicuous  point  on  the  northern 
horizon.  Another  herd  of  musk-oxen  on 
our  right!  I  was  glad  that  we  were  not 
compelled  to  break  into  their  quiet  life. 
Our  dogs  were  now  so  full  that  it  would 
be  some  hours  before  we  could  speed 
them  up  to  good  work.  Heavy  going 
in  the  lee  of  the  island  and  a  strong 
head  wind  as  we  crossed  the  sound  made 
things  a  bit  unpleasant;  however,  we 
made  the  twenty  miles  in  about  seven 
hours.  While  resting  the  dogs  for  a 
moment,  both  Eskimos  rushed  toward 
a  little  knoll,  where  they  engaged  in  a 
friendly  tussle  over  something  on  the 
ground.  In  answer  to  my  inquiry  they 
yelled  back,  "Pemmican,  eemu  tau" 
(Pemmican  and  "milk).  The  pemmi- 
can  was  American,  but  the  milk  was  Nor- 
wegian. Only  two  men  had  preceded 
us  along  this  coast.  We  had  undoubted- 
ly come  upon  one  of  Sverdrup's  caches, 
placed  here  by  him  twelve  years  ago 
and  in  good  condition.  As  there  were 
only  two  cans  of  each,  I  allowed  the 
Eskimos  to  gnaw  the  pemmican  and 
crack  the  frozen  milk  in  their  teeth  to 
their  hearts'  content. 

It  had  now  been  blowing  so  long  that 
I  hoped  as  we  crawled  into  the  igloo 
that  night  it  would  blow  itself  out  before 
morning,  for  go  on  we  must,  as  there  was 
no  game  here.  Breakfast  over,  a  cloud 
of  snow  whirled  up  into  our  faces  as  we 


kicked  out  the  snow  block  forming  the 
door,  causing  us  to  dive  into  our  bags 
for  wind-proofs  to  prevent  the  snow  from 
driving  into  our  sheepskin  shirts.  Laying 
a  course  by  the  wind,  we  headed  out 
across  the  bay  into  the  drift,  hoping  to 
strike  well  up  the  coast.  It  was  only  a 
few  miles,  but  with  our  view  restricted 
as  it  was  it  seemed  many  before  we  found 
ourselves  among  a  series  of  low  hills 
and  the  sledges  dragging  on  gravel.  We 
headed  north,  following  the  interminable 
windings  of  the  shore,  which  was  so  low 
and  shelving  that  time  and  time  again 
we  kept  our  course  only  by  following  the 
tidal  crack.  It  cleared  up  beautifully 
that  night  as  we  were  finishing  the  igloo, 
and  we  were  able  to  look  back  at  Hvit- 
berg,  which  seemed  so  near  that  we  were 
very  much  disappointed  in  the  day's 
march. 

On  April  nth  we  reached  what  we 
thought  must  be  the  cape.  Another 
furious  wind  storm  compelled  us  to  take 
refuge  in  another  dugout  beneath  a  high, 
black  cliff,  and  here  we  were  determined 
to  remain  until  it  cleared  up  so  as  to 
give  us  our  bearings.  In  the  morning 
we  were  startled  by  the  crunching  of 
snow  at  our  entrance — the  supporting 
party  had  come  on  schedule  time,  I  was 
mighty  glad  to  see  Green  and  his  two 
Eskimo  boys.  Their  sledges  contained 
everything  that  I  needed  to  fill  out  the 


ON  THE  JOURNEY  OVER  BAY  FIORD 


IN  SEARCH  OF  A  NEW  LAND 


665 


twenty-five  full  days  on  the  Polar  Sea. 
If  Crocker  Land  were  only  one  hundred 
and  twenty  miles  distant  from  shore,  as 
Peary  thought,  and  as  indicated  on  the 
latest  maps,  then  we  should  go  out  in 
twelve  days  and  back  in  seven.  Two  or 
three  days  on  the  new  land,  together  with 
storms  and  hold-ups,  would  probably 
demand  the  extra  six-days'  food. 

The  thirty-three  days'  continuous 
work,  during  which  they  had  covered 
five  hundred  and  eighty  miles,  an  aver- 
age of  seventeen  and  a  half  miles  a  day, 
had  told  heavily  upon  the  dogs.  Strong 
head  winds,  heavy  loads,  and  insuffi- 
cient food  gradually  wore  them  out,  ten 
dropping  in  harness.  I  was  more  con- 
vinced than  ever  that  the  salt  in  our 
pemmican  was  responsible  for  the  vom- 
iting, dysentery,  and  apparent  weakness 
among  all  the  dogs  when  feeding  upon 
pemmican  alone.  That  it  could  not  be 
relied  upon  for  a  long  trip  on  the  Polar 
Sea,  where  it  would  be  impossible  to 
secure  fresh  meat,  was  very  evident. 
Musk-oxen,  caribou,  and  Arctic  hares 
had  saved  the  day  thus  far.  My  only 
plan  now  was  to  fill  up  the  dogs  on 
whatever  meat  we  could  get,  musk-ox 
preferred,  double  feed  them  with  pem- 
mican on  the  hard  marches,  and  do  the 
one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  with  a 
rush. 

It  had  been  blowing  so  long  now  that 
I  began  to  doubt  that  good  weather  ever 
occurred  at  this  Cape  Horn  of  the 
North.  As  if  to  dispel  this  belief,  on  the 
morning  of  the  13  th  a  golden  ray  of  sun- 
shine streamed  in  through  our  door;  a 
more  perfect  day  was  never  made — not 
a  cloud,  not  a  breath  of  air.  The  four 
Eskimos  started  off  at  once  scouring  the 
hills  for  game,  while  Green  and  I  planned 
to  reach  the  top  of  the  cape — Peary's 
record — and  a  possible  sight  of  Crocker 
Land. 

As  we  rounded  the  first  point  we 
descried  an  Eskimo  running  toward  the 
camp.  An  accidental  discharge  of  a 
rifle  and  a  wounded  or  dead  Eskimo 
were  my  first  thoughts.  We  quickened 
our  pace;  something  had  surely  hap- 
pened. Yes,  something  had — barely  a 
few  minutes  from  the  dugout,  and  he 
had  killed  four  caribou!  This  was  cer- 
tainly luck.   If  the  other  Eskimos  found 

[to  be  C( 


them  as  plentiful  our  dogs  could  go  on 
for  some  time,  although  caribou  meat 
is  lamentably  lacking  in  strength  and 
stamina  producing  properties. 

Going  on  up  the  valley  and  ascending 
the  highest  ridge,  we  scanned  in  vain 
the  horizon  for  a  cairn,  and  continued  to 
do  so  for  some  eight  hours,  passing  from 
crest  to  crest.  Every  inch  of  the  horizon 
was  examined  closely  with  powerful 
glasses,  which  failed  to  betray  the  slight- 
est appearance  of  land.  Tired  and  dis- 
appointed, we  trudged  back  to  camp, 
arriving  late  in  the  evening, finding  all  our 
hunters  in,  but  all  reporting  no  success. 

My  plans  were  quickly  made — send 
Arklio  and  New-car-ping-wah  back  to 
Etah  at  once,  limiting  our  party  to  four 
only — Ee-took-ah-shoo,  Pee-ah-wah-to, 
Ensign  Green,  and  myself — thus  econo- 
mizing on  provisions  and  enabling  us  to 
remain  in  the  field  for  a  much  longer 
period.  The  two  boys,  furnished  with 
oil,  tea,  and  biscuit,  by  proceeding  slowly 
could  easily  depend  upon  the  country 
for  meat. 

Upon  failing  to  find  Peary's  cairn  and 
record,  we  reasoned  that  Cape  Thomas 
Hubbard  must  be  some  distance  yet 
along  the  shore;  and  so  it  proved  to  be, 
for  as  we  swung  out  from  land  on  to  the 
Polar  Sea  we  commanded  a  good  view 
of  the  whole  coast,  easily  recognizing  the 
Point  from  a  picture  in  Peary's  Nearest 
the  Pole.  The  giving  out  and  dropping 
of  one  of  Green's  dogs  on  the  first  day 
caused  me  considerable  anxiety.  If  they 
were  dropping  now,  where  would  they 
be  a  week  later?  We  lightened  the  loads 
at  once  to  try  and  save  them,  hoping 
that  with  light  loads  they  would  gradu- 
ally gain  strength  and  eventually  re- 
cover. Rest  I  could  not  give  them  so 
late  in  the  year. 

As  we  headed  out  toward  the  north- 
west over  a  hard,  rolling  surface  of  blue 
ice  I  felt  that  our  work  had  really  begun; 
the  five  hundred  miles  behind  us  was 
but  the  path  leading  up  to  our  field  of 
work.  We  were  going  into  the  unknown 
toward  that  point  where  land  is  put 
down  with  a  question  mark,  where  Dr. 
Harris  has  said  it  might  exist,  where 
well-known  geologists  have  declared  that 
it  could  not  exist,  where  Peary  claims 
that  it  does  exist. 

CLUDED.] 


Simeon  Small-  -Peacemaker 


BY   CLARENCE    BUDINGTON    K  ELL  AND 


AM  an  observant  per- 
son; indeed,  I  am  safe  in 
saying  I  am  an  ex- 
traordinarily observant 
person.  This  is  due  to 
no  natural  endowment, 
but  solely  to  training 
and  habit.  I  observe  in  order  that  I 
may  reflect  and  draw  enlightening  con- 
clusions. Had  I  been  the  sort  of  person 
who  neglects  the  small  phenomena 
which  go  on  about  him,  I  would,  doubt- 
less, never  have  noticed  the  distressing 
fact  that  the  membership  of  our  Coun- 
try Club  was  divided  into  two  sections 
or  factions  between  which  friendly  in- 
tercourse was  negligible.  Adherents  of 
each  faction  spoke  in  regrettable  terms 
of  asperity  of  adherents  of  the  other 
faction;  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  on  occasions  perfectly  well-bred  in- 
dividuals bore  themselves  in  an  objec- 
tionable manner. 

There  must  be  some  underlying  cause 
for  this  condition.    It  was  a  sociological 


manifestation  worthy  of  investigation. 
Therefore,  with  a  promptness  and  deci- 
sion which  is  a  part  of  my  character  I 
resolved  to  undertake  the  labor.  I 
found  it  interesting. 

The  club-house  was  deserted,  but  I 
knew  I  should  find  some  one  playing  at 
the  game  of  golf,  so  I  betook  myself  out 
of  doors.  At  a  considerable  distance  I 
saw  Colonel  WicklifF  in  the  act  of  strik- 
ing at  a  ball  with  an  odd  club  of  Scottish 
origin.  Mr.  Weatherly  was  his  oppo- 
nent.   I  walked  toward  th-em. 

When  I  arrived  within  speaking  dis- 
tance they  were  standing  on  a  small 
area  of  lawn — a  putting-green  so-called. 
Colonel  WicklifT  was  about  to  put  the 
green  to  the  purpose  for  which  it  is 
intended,  namely,  to  strike  the  ball  so 
that  it  rolls  into  a  tiny  hole  in  the 
ground.  I  advanced.  The  colonel  did 
not  greet  me,  but  continued  to  take  aim 
— which  was  useless,  inasmuch  as  one 
of  my  feet — inadvertently,  it  is  true — ■ 
quite  covered  the  objective  hole. 


"  I  BEG  YOUR  PARDON,"  I  SAID,  INTERRUPTING 


SIMEON  SMALL— PEACEMAKER 


667 


"I  beg  your  pardon,"  I  said,  interrupt- 
ing, because  my  investigations  seemed  of 
more  moment  than  his  futile  pastime. 

The  colonel  turned  his  head  slowly, 
very  slowly,  until  he  glared — I  use  the 
word  advisedly — at  me  with  one  eye. 
I  was  startled.  He  suddenly  stood  up- 
right, his  teeth  visible,  and  raised  his 
club  high  above  his  head 
to  bring  it  down  on  the 
ground  with  terrific  force. 
The  club  snapped  into 
three  pieces.  Gripping  the 
shorter  section,  the  colonel 
turned  his  back  and 
walked  rapidly  away  after 
uttering  a  word  which  I 
did  not  quite  catch.  He 
did  not  return. 

I  looked  at  Mr.  Weather- 
ly,   who  seemed  to  be 
d.    "Sir,"  said  I, 


amuse 

"may  I  have  a  moment 
of  your  time?" 

"I  have  rheumatism," 
he  replied, "and  cannot 
run."  I  did  not  follow 
him,  but  imagined  this  to 
be  a  cant  phrase  express- 
ing consent. 

"You  are  a  man  ex- 
perienced in  the  ways  of 
society,"  I  said.  "Let 
me,  therefore,  put  to  you 
a  hypothetical  question. 
In  a  certain  club — a  coun- 
try club  —  the  following 
condition  exists:  A  por- 
tion of  the  club  members 
manifest  by  their  bearing 
a  distaste  for  a  certain 
other  portion  of  the  members 
each  portion  is  frigidly  polite  to  the 
other;  privately  each  portion  is  ironic, 
even  acrimonious.  The  result  is  a  dis- 
turbance of  that  serene  atmosphere 
which  should  be  maintained  in  a  club 
of  the  character  described.  What,  Mr. 
Weatherly,  would  bring  about  such  a 
condition?" 

"It  may  be  caused,  Mr.  Small,  by  a 
variety  of  actions.  For  instance,  by 
omitting  certain  names  from  a  list  of  the 
invited;  by  living  on  different  streets; 
by  ancestors  or  the  lack  of  them;  by 
money  or  the  lack  of  it;  by  coaxing 
away  a  cook;  by  repeating  an  innocent 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785— S3 


HE  KAISED  HIS  CLUB 
HIGH  ABOVE  HIS  HEAD 


Publicly 


remark;  by  bulling  the  market;  by 
having  a  pretty  daughter;  by  keeping 
a  bulldog;  by  an  irritating  knowledge 
of  the  French  language;  by  patronizing 
or  failing  to  patronize  a  certain  tailor. 
Those  are  a  few  putative  causes,  Mr. 
Small." 

"They  seem  inadequate — what  one 
might  call  trivial,"  said  I. 
"Your  answer  is  helpful, 
doubtless,  but  a  trifle  dif- 
fuse. I  shall  analyze  it 
at  leisure.  However,  time 
presses.  I  shall  be  direct 
with  you,  sir.  The  condi- 
tion I  pictured  actually 
exists."  I  paused  for  em- 
phasis. 

"You  astonish  me," 
said  Mr.  Weatherly.  I 
was  gratified  at  his  sur- 
prise. It  affirmed  my  un- 
usual qualities  of  close 
observation. 

"It  exists,"  said  I,  "in 
this  very  club." 

"Mr.  Small!"  he  ex- 
postulated. "If  that  be 
true,  something  should  be 
done.  It  should,  indeed, 
but  I  trust  you  are  mis- 
taken." 

"It  is  only  too  true," 
said  I.  Then,  after  a 
pause,  "Have  you  any- 
thing to  suggest?" 

"You  might,"  he  said, 
"discuss  the  matter  with 
Mrs.  WicklifF." 

''With  ^Colonel  Wick- 
lifFs  wife?" 
"No  less,"  said  he.   "Also  the  mother 
of  Colonel  WicklifFs  daughter  Iseult." 

"Deplorably  named,"  said  I.  "It  is 
regrettable  to  perpetuate  the  name  of  a 
woman  who  if  alive  to-day  would  fea- 
ture in  our  divorce  courts,  and  doubtless 
become  a  singer  in  comic  opera  wearing 
immodest  costume.  .  .  .  However,  I 
shall  call  upon  Mrs.  WicklifF. 

I  called  upon  Mrs.  WicklifF  that  very 
afternoon  and  was  received  with  flatter- 
ing cordiality. 

"This  is  an  unusual  pleasure,"  said 
Mrs.  WicklifF  when  we  were  seated  on 
the  piazza. 

"I  am  able  to  devote  little  time  to 


668 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


social  matters,  as  you  can  understand," 
I  said;  "nevertheless,  I  wish  I  might 
have  more  leisure  to  study  our  so-called 
upper  classes.  They  present  interesting 
phenomena." 

"Ah,"  said  Mrs.  Wickliff. 

"Indeed,"  said  I,  "I  am  applying 
scientific  methods  to  the  investigation 
of  a  peculiar  condition  at  the  Country 
Club." 

"Ah,"  said  Mrs.  Wickliff  a  second 
time. 

"Yes,"  said  I.  "There  seems  to  be  a 
deplorable  enmity  between  two  factions 
of  the  membership." 

"Ah,"  said  Mrs.  Wickliff  again.  I 
had  never  seen  her  so  monosyllabic. 

"I  came  to  you  to  ask  if  you  could 
assist,  if  you  could  give  me  facts  that 
would  enable  me  to  penetrate  to  the 
true  cause  of  the — the  animosity." 

"I  can,"  said  Mrs.  Wickliff,  with  some 
asperity.  "I  am  indeed  in  a  position 
to  do  so.  It  may  be  traced  to  the  fact 
that  some  years  ago — for  alleged  busi- 
ness reasons — our  husbands  allowed  to 
be  admitted  to  membership  several  per- 
sons who  would  have  been  much  more 
at  home  elsewhere.  These  persons, 
men  who  have  little  interest  in  the  club, 
were  no  doubt  hectored  into  pushing 
themselves  in  by  wives  who  hoped  for 
social  recognition.  These  individuals 
have  not  only  grown  in  number,  but  in 
energy.  There  has  been  a  deliberate 
and  offensive  campaign.  In  the  case  of 
certain  families  who  make  large  sums  of 
money  from  overalls  or  some  other  com- 
modity there  has  been  an  effort  to  de- 
ceive the  public.  The  press  has  been 
subsidized,  I  am  told,  with  the  result 
that  the  public  has  become  confused  and 
often  mistakes  those  families  for  genuine 
leaders  in  our  society.  This  is  very  gall- 
ing, you  will  admit." 

I  nodded,  though  without  intention  to 
partisanship.  It  was  my  desire  to  re- 
serve judgment  until  the  facts  were  thor- 
oughly spread  before  me. 

"And  latterly,"  Mrs.  Wickliff  said, 
with  what  I  recognized  as  a  mingling  of 
wrath  and  disdain,  "efforts  have  been 
made  to  marry  their  daughters  to  our 
sons,  or  our  sons  to  their  daughters. 
You  may  discredit  my  veracity,  but  it 
is  an  actual  fact  that  a  son  of  William 
Higgins — overalls  is  his  business — has 


paid  marked  attention  to  my  daughter 
Iseult.  When  this  crisis  arrived  we  all 
deemed  it  best  to  call  a  halt.  Accord- 
ingly a  halt  was  called — emphatically." 

"May  I  ask  if  your  daughter  was 
wholly  in  accord?  Did  she  view  young 
Mr.  Higgins  as — an  ineligible  inferior?" 

Mrs.  Wickliff  blushed.  "I  am 
ashamed  to  say,"  she  said,  "that  she  did 
not.  But  the  matter  was  adequately 
handled,  and  the  danger  is  past." 

"You  have  made  the  matter  perfectly 
clear,"  I  told  her,  and  after  thanking 
her  for  her  assistance  I  took  my  leave. 

That  evening  I  catalogued  and  scruti- 
nized the  facts  collected.  They  seemed 
to  me  no  adequate  cause  for  the  result 
produced.  It  appeared  that  overalls 
and  such  like,  and  not  people,  were — 
shall  I  say,  the  casus  belli?  Why  over- 
alls? I  asked  myself.  Why  are  overalls 
less  socially  desirable  than  oil,  or  steam- 
ships— which  was  the  Wickliff  line — or 
varnishes,  which  must  be  eligible  or  the 
Brandishes  would  not  permit  themselves 
to  manufacture  them?  It  was  an  inter- 
esting question,  and  I  determined  at 
some  future  day  to  give  it  my  attention, 
in  fact  to  write  a  monograph  on  the 
subject  of  "Overalls  in  American  So- 
ciety. 

I  am  a  man  of  action  as  well  as 
thought.  That  has  doubtless  been  recog- 
nized. Therefore,  when  I  determined 
that  night  to  put  an  end  to  the  aggra- 
vating condition  at  the  club  I  did  not 
delay,  but  began  taking  active  steps. 
My  first  active  step  was  to  evolve  a 
plan. 

The  point  in  the  affair  that  seemed 
sorest  to  the  touch  was  that  young  Hig- 
gins— Peter  was  his  name — had  aspired 
to  Iseult  WicklifFs  hand.  I  judged  that 
he  continued  to  aspire,  though  discour- 
aged by  her  parents.  Clearly,  the  first 
thing  to  do  was  to  correct  this.  If 
Iseult  bestowed  her  affections  on  a  man 
acceptable  to  her  mother,  and  if  Peter 
Higgins  courted  a  young  woman  from 
his  own  faction  in  the  club,  then  that 
irritant  would  be  removed,  and  peace 
would  be  so  much  nearer.  It  was  my 
plan  to  bring  about  this  desirable  result. 
It  would  require  tact,  diplomacy.  It 
was  indeed  fortunate  that  I  possessed 
these  qualities  to  a  degree. 

I  readily  perceived  that  my  great  pri- 


"  THE  PUBLIC  OFTEN  MISTAKES  THOSE  FAMILIES  FOR  GENUINE  LEADERS  IN  OUR  SOCIETY  " 


mary  difficulty  would  be  to  persuade 
some  suitable  young  man  to  pay  assidu- 
ous, indeed  significant,  attentions  to  Miss 
WicklifF.  I  was  nonplussed  for  a  mo- 
ment, then  there  came  to  my  assistance 
a  flash — with  all  modesty  I  feel  war- 
ranted in  saying  it — a  flash  of  genius. 
I  was  young,  my  social  position  was  not 
uncertain,  and  I  was  positive  Mrs.  Wick- 
lifF would  object  neither  to  railroads, 
government  bonds,  nor  metropolitan  real 
estate  as  a  source  of  income.  Add  to 
this  that  I  had  already  been  considering 
matrimony,  had  indeed  determined  to 
take  a  wife,  and  was  still  of  the  same 
state  of  mind.  Why  should  not  I  be- 
come a  suitor  for  Miss  Iseult's  hand? 
Why  not,  indeed  ?  Despite  the  young 
lady's  name,  to  which  I  could  not  lend 
my  approval,  she  was  generally  satisfac- 
tory. One  looked  at  her  without  dis- 
satisfaction, or  rather  with  enjoyment. 
While  not  brilliant,  she  appeared  intelli- 
gent, though  not  free  from  levity.  That, 
however,  would  be  subject  to  correction. 
Intimacy  with  myself  would,  I  felt, 
mold  her  character.  I  would  flatter  her 
by  seeking  her  assistance  in  my  various 


researches,  until  subtly,  before  she  real- 
ized it  herself,  her  mind  would  take  on 
a  serious  cast;  she  would  come  to  care 
for  more  interesting  and  important  mat- 
ters. In  short,  she  would  become  a  fit 
mate  and  companion  for  a  man  of  my 
character  and  habits. 

I  discovered  on  the  following  day  that 
Miss  Iseult  had  not  been  leaving  her 
home  since  her  mother  discovered  her 
partiality  for  Peter  Higgins.  Mrs. 
WicklifF  had  deemed  it  best  to  have  her 
daughter  under  observation  until  the 
danger  she  feared  was  removed.  I  was 
convinced  that  Miss  Iseult  would  wel- 
come recreation;  therefore  I  called 
again  upon  Mrs.  WicklifF  to  state  my 
position  and  to  receive  her  approval. 
I  need  not  affirm  that  she  did  approve; 
indeed,  she  evinced  enthusiasm.  It  was 
at  her  suggestion  that  I  took  Miss  Iseult 
for  a  drive  in  my  car. 

Miss  Iseult — I  constantly  find  myself 
wishing  the  original  possessor  of  that 
name  had  been  a  trifle  more  reserved  in 
her  manner  and  circumspect  in  her  con- 
duct —  appeared  somewhat  surprised 
when  I  invited  her  to  accompany  me, 


670 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


but,  nevertheless,  she  assented  eagerly, 
saying,  "I'd  cry  with  joy  to  get  out  of 
this  house,  even  with  an  animated  copy 
of  Webster's  Unabridged." 

It  was  an  odd  expression,  but  young 
women  make  use  of  peculiar  diction,  I 
have  observed.  When  we  were  on  the 
road  I  opened  the  conversation  by  ob- 
serving that  Professor  Maultsbetch,  of 
the  University  of  Leipsic,  had  recently 
issued  a  fascinating  book  in  support  of 
his  theory  that  the  aboriginal  Mayans  of 
Central  America  were  actual  descend- 
ants of  prehistoric  Eskimos  inhabiting 
that  region  when,  instead  of  being  trop- 
ical, as  it  is  to-day,  owing  to  a  shifting 
of  the  earth's  axis,  it  was  close  to  the 


"and  be  sure  to  bring  your  book" 


pole.  She  was  aroused  to  immediate 
interest. 

"Did  you  bring  the  book  with  you?" 
she  asked. 

"I  have  it  in  my  pocket,"  said  I, 
delighted  to  have  a  glimpse  of  a  side  of 
her  intellect  of  which  I  had  not  dreamed. 

"The  car  seems  to  run  smoothly," 
said  she.    "Suppose  you  read  it." 


I  opened  the  volume  and  began  to 
read. 

"No,  no,  not  aloud,"  she  said,  quick- 
ly. "I'm  afraid  I  shouldn't  grasp  it. 
But  I  shall  be  glad  to  have  you  go  ahead 
by  yourself.  I  know  you  will  enjoy  that 
more  than  talking  with  me.  ...  I  love 
to  see  men  comfortable." 

It  was  delightfully  considerate  of  her, 
and  my  heart  warmed  toward  her  as  it 
had  not  done  before.  I  may  say  that 
until  that  moment  I  had  not  been  whole- 
heartedly enthusiastic  for  marriage  with 
the  young  woman.  But  her  solicitude 
on  my  behalf  was  not  without  its  effect. 
I  thanked  her  and  reopened  my  book. 

We  drove  until  the  dinner-hour  was 
near,  a  time  sufficient  for  me  to  read 
with  care  chapters  three  to  ten  of  Pro- 
fessor Maultsbetch's  work.  Never,  I 
say,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  have 
I  enjoyed  so  pleasant  a  drive;  never  had 
female  companionship  been  so  delightful. 

I  left  Miss  Iseult  at  her  home  after 
promising  to  call  for  her  again  without 
delay. 

"Thank  you,  Simeon,"  she  said, 
sweetly,  for  that  is  the  word  most  aptly 
describing  her  tone  and  manner.  "Do 
so  .  .  .  and  be  sure  to  bring  your  book." 

I  have  had  comparatively  little  to  do 
with  women,  and  must  confess  that 
there  has  been  no  embarrassing  eager- 
ness on  their  part  to  seek  my  society. 
Indeed,  I  have  had  my  disappointments, 
due,  I  believe,  to  failure  on  my  part  to 
study  the  subject  as  I  should.  There 
must,  thought  I,  be  some  one  who  treats 
instructively  of  the  subject  of  women. 
It  was  an  idea  to  act  upon  with  prompt- 
ness. I  therefore  hastened  to  our  public 
library  and  approached  the  young  wom- 
an in  charge. 

Said  I,  "I  desire  a  book  from  which  I 
can  gain  information  on  the  subject  of 
women." 

I  thought  she  looked  at  me  a  trifle 
peculiarly.  "Would  you  mind,"  she 
asked,  "telling  me  more  particularly 
what  you  want  to  know?" 

"Such  knowledge,"  said  I,  "as  would 
be  helpful  to  a  young  man  desirous  of 
acquiring  the  admiration,  indeed  the 
affection,  of  a  young  lady." 

She  turned  her  back  and  coughed 
alarmingly.  When  the  paroxysm  passed 
she  turned  and  said,  in  a  strangled  voice: 


SIMEON  SMALL— PEACEMAKER 


671 


"I  can  recommend  the  works  of  three 
authors — Jane  Austen,  E.  P.  Roe,  and 
Charlotte  Bronte.  They  have  treated 
extensively  of  the  subject  in  the  way  you 
require. " 

"Indeed,"  said  I;  "I  have  never 
heard  of  them.  Will  you  give  me  one  of 
the  works  of  Jane  Austen?  The  name 
sounds  substantial  and  dependable. 
Doubtless  she  deals  with  the  matter 
thoroughly  and  thoughtfully." 

"  She  does,"  replied  the  young  woman, 
and  presently  she  returned  with  the 
book. 

On  my  arrival  at  home  I  found  it  to  be 
quite  different  from  what  I  had  antici- 
pated. It  was,  in  short,  a  story — fiction. 
However,  inasmuch  as  it  had  been 
recommended  by  the  librarian,  I  deter- 
mined to  peruse  it.  You  will  be  aston- 
ished to  learn  that  it  was  actually 
instructive!  I  gleaned  from  it  an  impor- 
tant fact,  namely,  that  young  women 
are  attracted  by  romance,  and  that  in 
their  eyes  the  most  romantic  of  acts  is 
an  elopement.  It  seems  that  a  young 
lady  prefers  to  elope  with  a  man  she  dis- 
likes rather  than  to  marry  in  due  form 
and  prosaically  a  gentleman  who  has 
won  her  affection.  I  considered  this  a 
curious  thing. 

I  despatched  a  messenger  to  Miss 
Iseult  with  a  note  inviting  her  to  accom- 
pany me  to  the  mid-week  dance  at  the 
Country  Club  that  night.  She  returned 
a  favorable  reply.  As  you  may  have 
assumed,  I  do  not  give  myself  to  the 
pastime  of  dancing,  yet  I  felt  sure  Miss 
Iseult  would  not  lack  for  partners.  This 
would  permit  me  to  withdraw  to  the 
reading-room,  leaving  her  to  her  devices 
until  it  was  the  hour  for  returning  home. 
I  was  not  mistaken  in  my  conjectures. 

During  the  evening  a  rather  delightful 
episode  occurred.  Young  Peter  Higgins 
sought  me  out  in  the  library. 

"Mr.  Small,"  said  he,  shaking  my 
hand  warmly,  "I  have  long  admired  you 
— your  character  and  your  habits — but 
until  to-night  I  feel  I  have  never  appre- 
ciated you  as  I  should." 

I  was  astonished,  but  gratified.  "You 
flatter  me,"  said  I;  "but  why  has  your 
appreciation  increased  to-night?" 

"The  fact,"  said  he,  "that  you  have 
the  courage  to  steel  yourself  against  the 
frivolity — the    delightful    frivolity — of 


the  dance,  and  occupy  this  time  with 
profitable  reading.  It  has  been  a  lesson 
to  me.  I  want  to  thank  you."  He  in- 
sisted on  shaking  my  hand  again. 

"I  am  glad,"  said  I,  modestly,  "if  I 
have  been  helpful." 

"Helpful?"  said  he,  with  a  burst  of 
youthful  enthusiasm.  "You've  been  a 
regular  double  -  jointed,  rip  -  snorting, 
back-action,  self-loading  life-saver." 

I  deplored  the  number  of  compound 
words  he  chose  to  aline  in  a  single  sen- 
tence, but  with  the  sentiment  I  could 
have  no  quarrel.  "You  put  it  strongly," 
said  I. 

"I  can't  express  what  is  in  my  heart," 
said  he,  "without  using  improper  words. 
My  vocabulary,  I  regret  to  say,  has  been 
neglected.  And,"  he  went  on,  with  a 
note  of  admiration  in  his  voice,  "do  you 
actually  intend  to  remain  here  the  rest 
of  the  evening?" 

"Until  the  last  dance  is  completed," 
I  said,  firmly. 

"It  will  be  a  favor,"  said  he,  "if  you 
will  permit  me  to  inform  you  when  that 
moment  comes."  Again  he  shook  hands 
with  me  and  left  me.  I  may  be  excused 
for  a  deep  sense  of  gratification  that 
came  over  me.  One  cannot  but  take 
pleasure  from  a  knowledge  of  deserved 
appreciation — and  from  an  unexpected 
quarter.  It  was  apparent  that  this 
Peter  Higgins  was  a  young  man  of  dis- 
cernment. He  seemed,  rather  to  my 
surprise,  to  bear  me  no  ill  will  for  becom- 
ing what  my  author,  Miss  Jane  Austen, 
referred  to  many  times  as  a  rival. 

Peter  returned  in  an  hour  or  so  with 
the  word  that  the  dance  was  ended.  I 
accompanied  him  in  search  of  Miss 
Iseult  and  found  that  he  had  taken  the 
trouble,  in  my  behalf,  to  obtain  her  cloak 
and  see  to  it  that  she  was  ready  for 
departure.  She  greeted  me  with  obvious 
pleasure. 

On  the  drive  home  I  broached  the  sub- 
ject of  marriage.  Not  directly,  but 
somewhat  obliquely,  in  order  not  to 
frighten  her.  Miss  Austen  speaks  em- 
phatically on  this  point.  It  seems  young 
women  are  frightened  by  sudden  prof- 
fers of  the  hand. 

"Miss  Iseult,"  said  I,  "you  may  have 
been  a  trifle  surprised  at  the  fre- 
quency with  which  I  have  sought  your 
society." 


672 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"That  is  hardly  the  word  to  describe 
my  sentiments,"  she  said,  gravely. 

"Let  me  ask  you,"  said  I,  "to  con- 
sider the  facts  when  you  are  alone. 
Perhaps,  by  this  means,  you  may  make 
some  conjecture  as  to  my  purpose." 
I  thought  that  rather  delicate  and  tact- 
ful. It  would  compel  her  to  think  of  me; 
it  might,  indeed,  lead  her  to  guess  my 
intention,  yet  it  could  by  no  means 
cause  her  alarm. 

"I  shall  not  fail  to  do  as  you  ask,"  she 
said. 

We  spoke  no  further  words  until  we 
arrived  at  her  door,  where  I  said  good 
night  gently,  but  with  restraint.  I 
thought  I  had  gone  far  enough  to  make 
an  excellent  beginning. 

During  the  next  two  weeks  I  was 
much  with  Miss  Iseult,  and  came,  I  ad- 
mit it  without  shame,  to  harbor  a 
genuine  desire  to  possess  her  as  my  wife. 
We  went  to  many  events  together,  and, 
surprisingly  enough,  encountered  young 
Peter  Higgins  frequently.  I  judged  that 
he  had  taken  these  occasions  to  seek  me 
out  and  pass  a  moment  in  my  company. 
His  devotion  to  me  was  no  less  than 
touching.  I  invited  him  to  call  at  my 
house — a  thing  which  it  seemed  he  was 
unable  to  do  because  of  business  engage- 
ments. 

Gradually  I  had  drawn  closer  to  the 
subject  of  marriage.  Miss  Iseult  had 
been  wholly  unable  to  guess  at  my 
reason  for  seeking  her  presence,  but  I 
am  convinced  she  was  not  untouched  by 
a  theory  as  to  my  purpose  before  the 
month  was  out.  While  I  never  men- 
tioned the  subject  directly,  I  did  skirt 
about  it  deftly,  and  she  was  a  young 
woman  of  some  perception. 

At  last  I  deemed  the  time  to  have 
come  for  my  disclosure.  We  were  seated 
on  her  piazza;  the  moon  shone  brightly 
upon  us  — a  condition  much  recom- 
mended by  Miss  Austen. 

"Miss  Iseult,"  said  I,  "I  am  about  to 
astonish  you." 

"Simeon,"  said  she,  "you  astonish 
me  every  little  while.  About  a  dozen 
times  a  day  I  tell  myself  you  can't 
actually  be  true." 

"Very  encouraging,"  thought  I.  Aloud 
I  said,  "The  events  which  have  preceded 
to-night  have  been  but  the  preliminaries 
of  a  courtship." 


She  sat  erect  and  stared  at  me.  "I 
never  should  have  dreamed  it,"  she  ex- 
claimed. 

"It  is  true.  I  have  been  giving  you 
an  opportunity  to  know  me — to  study 
me,  so  that  you  might  arrive  at  a  com- 
prehensive knowledge  of  my  personality 
and  of  my  suitability  to  become  your 
husband.  You  have  had  ample  oppor- 
tunity, so  now  there  can  be  neither  dan- 
ger nor  impropriety  in  asking  the  ques- 
tion I  am  about  to  ask." 

Her  hand  was  over  her  mouth,  her 
head  turned  away;  she  trembled  visibly, 
but  did  not  speak. 

"Miss  Iseult,"  said  I,  "will  you  elope 
with  me?" 

"Elope!"  she  cried,  starting  erect  and 
staring  at  me. 

I  saw  I  had  done  well  by  thus  sud- 
denly injecting  the  element  of  romance. 
It  seemed  I  had  taken  her  heart  by 
storm.  That  is  another  phrase  devel- 
oped by  careful  reading  of  Miss  Austen. 

"Yes,"  said  I;  "we  can  fly  together, 
procure  the  services  of  an  ordained  min- 
ister, be  made  one,  and  thwart  the  op- 
position of  your  hard-hearted  parents." 
I  found  Miss  Austen  invaluable. 

She  was  silent.  I  did  not  interrupt 
her  thoughts.  For  a  long  time  she 
remained  without  word  or  movement. 
"Have  you  made  any  plans?"  she  asked, 
presently. 

"I  have,"  said  I.  "A  servant  will  be 
bribed  to  carry  out  your  baggage  and 
bring  it  to  me.  On  the  appointed  night 
I  shall  have  in  waiting  on  the  corner 
below  a  closed  carriage  containing  your 
bags.  You  will  be  in  readiness,  waiting 
for  my  whistle  under  your  window.  You 
will  leave  your  room,  creep  down  the 
stairs,  emerge  from  the  carriage  door, 
and  together  we  will  fly." 

Again  she  was  silent.  Presently  she 
asked  another  question.  "When  can 
you  be  prepared  to  carry  out  your 
plan  ?" 

"I  have  decided  on  Thursday  night 
as  a  suitable  time." 

"Very  well,  Simeon.  I  shall  be  wait- 
ing for  your  whistle." 

I  was  enchanted.  I  became  ardent. 
"Ought  I  not,  as  your  accepted  suitor, 
to  have  the  privilege  of — kissing  my — 
bride."  This  language  was  difficult  for 
me. 


SIMEON  SMALL— PEACEMAKER 


673 


She  permitted  me  to  kiss  her — once 
— and  I  took  my  leave. 

Next  day  I  informed  Mrs.  Wickliff  of 
the  plan,  and  together  we  laughed  at  the 
manifestly  humorous  features  of  it.  Mrs. 
Wickliff  admired  my  acumen  in  devising 
the  romance,  agreeing  to  do  her  part 
faithfully.  I  need  not  say  I  was  de- 
lighted. By  one  mas- 
terly move  I  had  served 
two  causes:  I  had  pro- 
cured for  myself  a  wife, 
and  I  had  removed  from 
the  midst  of  the 
Country  Club  the  most 
irritating  cause  of  the 
enmity  existing  there. 

Thursday  morning 
Miss  Iseult's  bags 
arrived  at  my  house. 
Thursday  evening,  with 
my  hired  carriage,  I 
repaired  to  the  shadows 
of  a  near-by  corner. 
Then,  using  the  caution 
of  an  aboriginal  Ameri- 
can, I  approached  the 
WicklifF  home,  crept  to 
a  place  under  Iseult's 
window,  and  whistled. 
She  waved  her  hand. 

Presently  she  emerged 
from  the  door  and  we 
fled  across  the  lawn. 
She  was  in  terror  of 
apprehension.  "Where 
— is  the  —  carriage  ?"  she  panted. 

"On  the  next  corner,"  said  I. 

"Let  me  run  ahead,"  she  breathed. 
"You  remain  here — to  guard  my  escape. 
Stop  anybody  that  comes — at  any  cost. 

"They  shall  pass  only  over  my  inani- 
mate body,"  I  assured  her,  and  assumed 
a  heroic  posture  of  defense.  She  dis- 
appeared in  the  shadows. 

I  gave  her  ample  time  to  reach  the 
carriage,  then  followed  at  a  dignified 
pace.  I  arrived  at  the  spot.  The  car- 
riage was  gone!  I  looked  about  me, 
thinking  Iseult  might  have  wished  it 
moved  to  a  place  of  greater  security,  but 
it  was  nowhere  to  be  seen.  I  hastened 
hither  and  thither,  much  perturbed. 
Suddenly  my  feet  encountered  an  obsta- 
cle, and  I  was  hurled  headlong  to  the 
ground.  Scrambling  with  all  possible 
speed  to  my  feet,  I  discovered — with 


amazement — that  I  had  fallen  over  my 
own  baggage! 

I  lighted  a  match.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  I  was  alarmed.  I  was  more 
than  alarmed.  The  match  disclosed 
plainly  my  bags.  To  one  of  them  was 
fastened  an  envelope,  which  I  snatched 
and  opened. 


Dear  Simeon  [I  read  by  the  match's  flick- 
ering light], — At  the  last  moment  my  heart 
rebelled.  I  could  not  complete  my  elope- 
ment with  you — though  I  could  not  bear  to 
deprive  you  of  at  least  a  part  of  it.  Peter 
Higgins  has  been  so  kind  as  to  relieve  you  of 
the  difficulties  remaining.  We  have  gone  to 
Meadsboro,  where  we  will  be  married.  Until 
my  dying  hour,  Simeon,  you  shall  have  my 
gratitude  and  esteem. 

Iseult. 

It  turned  out  that  they  did  not  go  to 
Meadsboro  at  all,  but  quite  in  another 
direction — to  Alameda.  Doubtless  this 
was  due  to  a  sudden  change  of  plan 
after  writing  the  note. 

Nonplussed  and  distressed,  I  hastened 
to  acquaint  Mrs.  WicklifF  with  the  news. 
In  her  surprise  she  spoke  somewhat 
harshly  to  me,  and  presently  called  in 
Colonel  WicklifF,  whose  vocabulary  con- 


HIS  VOCABULARY  CONTAINED  MANY  WORDS  WITH  WHICH  I  HAD  SMALL  ACQUAINTANCE 


tained  many  words  with  which  I  had 
small  acquaintance.  Numbered  among 
them  was  the  peculiar  trisyllable  "nin- 
compoop." 

I  retired  as  hastily  as  I  might  and 
returned  to  my  home,  where  I  spent  the 
remainder  of  the  night  contemplating 
the  situation  with  mixed  feelings.  I  felt 
a  certain  embarrassment,  so  much  so 
that  I  kept  to  the  house  for  a  week. 

Going  once  again  into  society,  I 
learned  that  Peter  and  Iseult  were  on 
their  way  to  Europe,  but,  worst  of  all, 


that  more  than  two  hundred  resigna- 
tions had  poured  in  to  the  board  of 
governors  of  the  club;  that,  indeed, 
there  was  a  serious  schism,  and  that  a 
portion  of  the  membership  had  seceded 
to  form  another  organization.  I  re- 
ceived a  communication  to  that  effect 
from  the  governors.  Their  letter  ended, 
"We  have  already  received  two  hundred 
resignations — but  can  find  leisure  to  act 
on  one  more." 

That  was  incomprehensible  to  me. 
Why  one  more? 


The  Party  of  the  Third  Part 


BY  WALTER   E.  WEYL 


HE  quarrel,"  opined  Sir 
Lucius  O'Trigger,  "is  a 
very  pretty  quarrel  as 
it  stands;  we  should 
only  spoil  it  by  trying 
to  explain  it." 

Something  like  this 
was  once  the  attitude  of  the  swaggering 
youth  of  Britain  and  Ireland,  who  quar- 
reled "genteelly"  and  fought  out  their 
bloody  duels  "in  peace  and  quietness." 
Something  like  this,  also,  after  the  jump 
of  a  century,  was  the  attitude  of  em- 
ployers and  trade  -  unions  all  over  the 
world  toward  industrial  disputes.  Words 
were  wasted  breath;  the  time  to  strike 
or  to  lock  out  your  employees  was  when 
you  were  ready  and  your  opponent  was 
not.  If  you  won,  so  much  the  better; 
if  you  lost — at  any  rate,  it  was  your  own 
business.  Outsiders  were  not  presumed 
to  interfere.  "Faith!"  exclaimed  Sir 
Lucius,  "that  same  interruption  in  af- 
fairs of  this  nature  shows  very  great 
ill-breeding." 

It  was  not  only  in  strikes,  but  in  all 
industrial  matters,  that  we  believed  it 
to  be  an  affair  of  the  parties  themselves. 
We  had  always  been  taught  that  the 
state  should  keep  the  ring,  but  not  in- 
terfere, that  the  wage  relation  was  a 
private  relation,  that  the  enlightened 
interest  of  employer  and  employee,  if 
given  full  play,  would  benefit  all.  It 
was  no  business  of  the  community  to 
meddle  with  the  community's  business. 
"Let  the  state  mind  its  own  business," 
was  an  axiom  of  politics. 

All  this  is  changing.  The  philosophy 
of  laissez-faire,  of  let-alone,  is  gradually 
eaten  away  by  exceptions.  It  is  not  so 
much  controverted  as  ignored.  To-day 
public  opinion  becomes  the  dominant 
factor  in  industry.  The  public  is  learn- 
ing its  rights  and  its  responsibilities. 
It  helps  to  determine  how,  on  what  con- 
ditions, in  what  circumstances,  men 
shall  work.  It  decides  what  shall  be 
the  hours  of  toil  for  women  and  chil- 
dren.   It  declares  who  is  right  and  who 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  785.— 84 


is  wrong  in  great  strikes  which  snap  the 
thread  of  industry.  Not  only  does  it 
make  such  decisions,  but  it  enforces 
them  with  invisible  and  intangible  in- 
struments. 

Everywhere  we  find  signs  of  this 
keener  interest  and  this  broader  au- 
thority of  the  public  in  matters  of  in- 
dustry. We  cannot  read  our  morning 
newspaper,  we  cannot  walk  in  the  streets 
or  ride  in  the  cars,  we  cannot  go  to 
school,  church,  or  theater,  without  seeing 
evidences  of  a  public  intervention,  legal 
or  extra-legal,  obvious  or  subtle.  The 
factory  inspector  we  have  long  had  with 
us,  but  year  by  year  his  role  becomes 
more  important  and  more  fully  recog- 
nized. Year  by  year  the  industrial 
codes  of  the  states  expand  and  grow 
more  explicit  and  minute.  Daily  ap- 
peals are  made  for  public  approbation 
of  industrial  acts.  An  important  elec- 
tric company  advertises  at  great  ex- 
pense that  it  is  saving  the  lives  of  hun- 
dreds of  its  workers.  Other  concerns 
vaunt  their  generosity  to  employees 
rather  than  the  cheapness  of  their 
wares.  "We  were  the  first,"  advertises 
one  automobile  concern,  "to  establish 
profit-sharing  with*  our  employees." 
Public  approval  pays;  the  public  cares. 
The  public  intervenes  increasingly  as  its 
interest  in  industrial  matters  becomes 
increasingly  manifest. 

In  times  of  strike  this  interest  of  the 
public  becomes  especially  clear.  If  half 
a  dozen  workmen  in  a  little  bake-shop 
go  out  on  strike,  the  struggle  is  not  like- 
ly to  be  of  importance  to  the  public. 
Where,  however,  the  number  of  strikers 
is  large,  the  duration  of  the  strike  long, 
the  service  that  is  interrupted  of  vital 
importance  and  requiring  continuity, 
where  the  strike  or  lockout  affects  large 
masses  of  the  population — there  the 
public  interest  becomes  transparently 
obvious.  Our  whole  industrial  society 
is  interdependent;  you  cannot  remove 
one  wheel  without  bringing  the  whole 
machinery  to  a  stop. 


676 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


In  many  ordinary  strikes  on  street 
railways,  in  coal  -  mines,  in  big  manu- 
facturing industries,  this  direct  interest 
of  the  public  is  made  manifest.  The 
public  wearies  of  being  a  mere  innocent 
bystander  while  the  two  parties  fight  out 
their  feud  at  the  pistol's  mouth.  It  ob- 
jects to  being  struck  by  a  brick  hurled 
through  a  car  window.  It  objects  even 
more  strenuously  to  being  deprived  of 
accustomed  means  of  transportation  to 
which  it  has  accommodated  its  daily 
labor  and  its  daily  life. 

All  this,  however,  does  not  measure 
the  full  concern  of  the  public.  How 
overwhelming  that  interest  might  be- 
come would  be  made  clear  in  the  event 
of  a  general  railroad  strike.  Suppose 
that  to-morrow  all  the  trainmen  in  the 
United  States  should  strike.  We  do  not 
like  to  consider  such  contingencies;  as  a 
nation  we  do  not  believe  in  earthquakes 
except  during  the  shock.  Still,  the  case, 
though  extreme,  is  not  impossible. 
Railroad  employees  have  a  legal  right 
to  demand  higher  wages;  railroad  com- 
panies have  a  right  to  refuse. 

At  the  very  outbreak  of  such  a  strike 
provisions  in  the  inland  cities  would  rise 
to  famine  prices.  The  steady  stream 
of  food  would  be  dammed;  the  milk 
supply  would  trickle,  then  disappear; 
the  death-rate  (especially  among  babies) 
would  mount  to  terrifying  figures.  The 
strike,  were  it  to  last  a  fortnight,  would 
bring  havoc  and  desolation.  There 
would  be  blanched  faces  and  desperate 
deeds;  there  would  be  vigilance  com- 
mittees and  mobs  of  unemployed  men 
storming  city  centers  where  the  food 
commandeered  by  municipal  authori- 
ties would  be  stored.  The  machinery 
of  industrial  life  would  break  down.  A 
month  of  even  partial  isolation  might 
mean  a  dissolution  of  social  ties  and  a 
temporary  reversion  to  barbarism.  The 
cities,  in  the  grip  of  a  relentless,  slowly 
closing  fist,  would  sicken,  hunger,  starve. 

What  would  happen?  We  cannot 
foretell  exactly  what  form  public  action 
would  take,  but  we  do  know  that  the 
nation's  paramount  rights  would  be 
upheld,  that  the  stoppage  would  cease, 
that  some  competent  tribunal  would 
decide  upon  the  merits  of  the  con- 
troversy. In  so  desperate  a  situation 
the  legal  right  of  railroads  and  of  men 


to  make  such  bargains  as  they  chose 
would  be  subordinated  to  the  nation's 
right  of  self-defense.  When  social  peace, 
when  the  very  existence  of  the  com- 
munity, is  at  stake,  everything — private 
property,  private  contract,  law,  con- 
stitutions, precedents — give  way.  The 
interest  of  the  public  becomes  dominant, 
unique.  It  is  held  to  justify  any  neces- 
sary action,  legal,  extra-legal,  illegal. 

An  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a 
hundred  belated  investigating  commit- 
tees, and  actually  the  public  moves  be- 
fore such  devastating  strikes  occur.  A 
public  disapproval,  quick  and  vengeful, 
casts  its  shadow  before.  A  sensitive 
mariner  does  not  wait  till  the  iceberg 
strikes  his  vessel;  he  detects  its  chili 
presence  miles  away.  To-day  astute 
railroad  managers  and  equally  astute 
presidents  of  the  great  railroad  brother- 
hoods understand  that  they  may  go 
just  so  far  in  the  way  of  bargaining. 
Strikes  on  individual  railroads  occur, 
but  a  general  railroad  strike,  one  cov- 
ering the  whole  country  or  a  wide  terri- 
tory, is  fast  becoming  unthinkable. 
Where  railroad  conflicts  of  such  magni- 
tude are  in  question  the  two  parties 
may  threaten  a  lockout  or  strike;  they 
may  creep  to  the  very  verge  of  the 
conflict,  but  not  beyond.  At  the  very 
moment  when  enthusiasts  are  clamoring 
for  compulsory  arbitration  in  railroad 
disputes,  we  are  already  approaching 
what  in  practice  amounts  to  such  com- 
pulsory arbitration,  with  the  public  as 
arbitrator. 

In  five  years  sixty  threatened  strikes 
upon  the  railroads  of  the  country  were 
averted  through  the  interposition  of  the 
public.  Again  and  again  the  special 
representatives  of  the  government  were 
asked  to  mediate,  and  in  no  instance 
were  their  efforts  fruitless.  Neither  side 
dares  refuse  arbitration;  neither  side 
dares  violate  the  award.  The  fateful 
issues  involved  in  war  make  for  peace. 
What  is  feared  is  not  the  injury  inflicted 
by  the  opponent,  but  the  certainty  that 
the  public,  suffering  grievously,  will 
cause  both  sides  to  suffer  in  turn.  For 
the  railroads  and  the  brotherhoods,  with 
their  vast  resources,  could  carry  on  for 
months  a  struggle  which  the  public 
could  not  endure  for  weeks.  Neither 
side  dares  face  obloquy  or  sudden  puni- 


THE  PARTY  OF  THE  THIRD  PART 


G77 


tive  action  by  the  public.  Public  opin- 
ion reaches  high  up.  It  cannot  be  shut 
out  of  the  home  of  the  multimillionaire. 
It  also  reaches  down.  The  officers  of 
the  trade-union  enter  into  friendly  social 
relations  with  many  elements  of  the 
population.  Nor  are  trade-union  mem- 
bers themselves  immune.  Public  opin- 
ion is  expressed  more  or  less  certain- 
ly by  newspapers  which  appeal  to  the 
very  men  to  whom  the  union  appeals. 
Where  the  interest  of  the  public  is  as 
obvious  as  in  the  case  of  the  railroad,  a 
strike  or  lockout  is  not  to  be  entered 
upon  lightly. 

There  are  many  ways,  much  less  ob- 
vious, in  which  public  opinion  affects 
strikes  by  throwing  the  weight  of  its 
sympathy  to  the  one  side  or  the  other.  . 
It  does  this  often  crudely,  sizing  up  a 
situation  in  the  mass,  expressing  itself 
perhaps  somewhat  ignorantly  through 
newspapers,  magazines,  and  protest 
meetings.  The  sympathy  of  the  public 
is  quicker  than  its  sober  judgment;  it 
has  little  interest  in  dialectics  or  fine 
distinctions;  it  is  likely  to  introduce 
extraneous  matters  into  decisions;  it  is 
not  always  free  from  prejudice.  None 
the  less  it  acts,  and  acts  decisively,  in 
cases  where  it  might  seem  difficult  to 
exert  any  influence  whatsoever. 

Public  opinion  is  not  an  automatic, 
self-regulating  device  in  which  you  put 
a  just  cause  into  the  slot  and  get  out  a 
victory.  The  side  with  the  approval  of 
the  public  cannot  rest  quietly,  knowing 
that  right  will  prevail.  Public  opinion, 
like  other  gods,  inclines  not  infrequently 
to  the  side  of  the  big  battalions.  It 
helps  those  who  help  themselves.  Time 
and  heroic  endurance  are  necessary  to 
enlist  it,  for  it  dislikes  labor  disturbances 
in  general  and  hesitates  to  believe  that 
conditions  are  evil  unless  workers  strike 
against  them.  Public  opinion  being 
slow  to  awake,  a  strike  must  usually  last 
some  little  time  before  it  is  concentrated 
and  mobilized.  Perhaps  it  is  better  so. 
A  social  group  should  not  rely  too  largely 
upon  outsiders.  Public  opinion  is  a 
good  ally,  but  a  poor  guardian. 

That  public  opinion  is  daily  becoming 
more  potent  in  labor  disputes  is  clearly 
shown  by  the  increasing  endeavor  of 
both  sides  to  secure  its  invaluable  aid. 
Skilful  statements  are  issued  by  each 


party;  the  best  points  of  each  are  eluci- 
dated and  emphasized;  hostile  conten- 
tions are  mercilessly  attacked.  When 
the  Eastern  railroads  were  confronted 
with  a  demand  for  higher  wages  for 
their  trainmen,  they  posted  up  in  their 
stations  carefully  prepared  statements 
bristling  with  statistics  and  arguments. 
There  is  often  a  certain  jockeying  for 
position.  The  employers  insert  paid 
advertisements  in  the  newspapers,  show- 
ing that  their  cause  is  just  or  is  the  cause 
of  the  public,  and  the  strikers  reply  in 
interview  or  signed  manifesto.  Both 
sides  learn  to  know  the  best  lines  of  ap- 
proach to  the  public  mind,  for  to-day, 
as  always,  we  are  ruled  by  phrases. 
Each  group  emphasizes  its  most  popular 
contentions,  each  group  puts  its  best 
foot  foremost. 

All  of  which  is  new — and  old.  There 
was  never  a  time  when  the  public  was 
so  frequently  and  skilfully  approached 
and  never  a  time  when  each  side  to  a 
controversy  did  not  to  some  extent  ap- 
peal to  outsiders.  As  early  as  1721  we 
find  the  master  tailors  of  London  seek- 
ing to  direct  public  opinion  against  the 
malicious  "  Journey-men  Taylors,"  who 
"have  lately  entered  into  a  combina- 
tion to  raise  their  wages,  and  leave  off 
working  an  hour  sooner  than  they  used 
to  do,"  refusing  to  work  and  "choosing 
rather  to  live  in  idleness,"  thus  becom- 
ing "not  only  useless  and  burdensome, 
but  also  very  dangerous  to  the  public k." 
Then,  as  now,  it  was  urged  that  the 
strike  was  against  public  interest,  since 
the  men  struck  in  busy  season  "against 
the  King's  Birthday  .  .  .  which  is  a  great 
disappointment  to  gentlemen." 

Doubtless  our  modern  memorialists, 
like  the  master  tailors  of  1721,  are  prone 
to  exaggerated  statement  and  even  to 
hypocrisy.  Now  as  then  both  sides 
protest  overmuch.  None  the  less  the 
result,  on  the  whole,  is  good.  The  en- 
trance of  the  third  party  means  a  cer- 
tain moralization  of  the  strike  and  of 
the  whole  industrial  relationship.  Our 
tame  consciences,  so  largely  the  reflec- 
tion of  our  neighbor's  opinions,  awake 
in  anticipation  when  what  we  do  is  to 
be  blazoned  forth  in  the  public  prints. 
Public  opinion  may  not  always  be  a  just 
judge,  but  cases  arise  where  any  judge 
is  better  than  none. 


673 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Where,  however,  the  two  parties 
themselves  can  come  to  a  just  settle- 
ment, it  is  better  for  the  third  party 
not  to  interfere.  Mutual  agreement, 
where  possible,  is  better  than  arbitra- 
tion. When  the  parties  in  interest,  re- 
specting each  other  and  fearing  each 
other,  meet  in  great  industrial  parlia- 
ments, and  there  work  out  trade  agree- 
ments, solemn,  binding  treaties — when 
such  arrangements  are  achieved  by  the 
parties  themselves — we  have  a  develop- 
ment of  industrial  democracy  more  valu- 
able and  real  than  the  award  of  any 
arbitrator.  Where  the  contestants  are 
not  too  unequal  in  strength  nor  too  dis- 
organized and  chaotic,  where  the  public 
interest  is  not  immediate  and  over- 
whelming, let  the  issue  be  decided  by 
the  parties  and  reserve  public  opinion 
as  a  final  resort.  Some  knots  should  be 
loosened,  not  cut. 

Sometimes,  too,  public  opinion  itself 
is  weak  and  distraught.  Without  con- 
curring with  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  as- 
serted that  "public  opinion  is  a  great 
compound  of  folly,  weakness,  prejudice, 
wrong  feeling,  right  feeling,  obstinacy, 
and  newspaper  paragraphs/'  we  may 
still  admit  that  it  is  not  all -wise  nor 
all  -  powerful.  How  could  it  be  when 
the  public  consists  of  us  and  our  neigh- 
bors, the  people  in  the  street-cars  and  at 
the  baseball  games?  The  public  is  in 
part  careless,  in  part  ignorant,  in  part 
interested.  It  is  too  often  but  a  sleep- 
ing giant  flinging  out  with  heavy  fist 
against  friend  or  foe,  hating  to  be  dis- 
turbed. Having  an  interest  in  peace, 
it  does  not  always  inquire  whether  the 
peace  is  honorable. 

Moreover,  public  opinion  solidifies 
slowly.  It  is  not  a  whole  thing — not  a 
thing  of  one  piece.  Some  men  instinc- 
tively side  with  the  workers;  others 
with  the  employers.  Subsidiary  inter- 
ests are  involved.  Some  will  make 
money  if  the  strike  continues  or  is  won, 
others  if  the  strike  is  lost.  Beyond  all 
these,  however,  there  is  a  social  group 
cherishing  the  interests  of  society  as  a 
whole  (as  we  all  do  at  times),  who  want 
a  strike  settled  or  averted  only  under 
conditions  honorable  to  both  sides. 

This  basic  public  opinion  is  growing 
in  volume  and  depth.  Attracting  many 
people  of  some  leisure  and  education,  it 


extends  downward  in  the  economic 
scale  as  industrial  and  educational  op- 
portunities widen,  as  wages  rise,  as  our 
high-schools  and  colleges  pour  out  great- 
er numbers  of  educated  graduates,  and 
as  our  new  national  problems  give  that 
education  an  increasingly  social  turn. 
Public  opinion  becomes  democratized. 
To  be  effective,  however,  this  opinion 
must  not  only  swell  in  volume,  but  be 
increasingly  directed  into  proper  chan- 
nels. Uninstructed,  untrained,  acci- 
dental public  opinion  drifts  like  a  huge 
derelict,  and  its  impact  is  perilous. 

Slowly,  however,  this  public  opinion 
is  being  unified  and  guided  into  effective 
channels.  Appeals  are  made  not  only 
to  immediate  interest,  but  to  wide  sym- 
pathies and  a  common  morality.  A  dis- 
tinction is  made  between  strikes  which 
are  necessary,  beneficent,  and  an  educa- 
tion to  the  workers  and  the  community, 
and  those  that  are  wasteful  and  dis- 
integrating. The  public  slowly  learns 
to  uphold  the  right  of  the  weaker.  It 
learns  its  own  right  and  ability  to  secure 
its  own  protection,  to  assure  itself  that 
industries  be  not  permanently  injured, 
that  the  human  side  of  the  labor  prob- 
lem be  not  neglected. 

Though  the  weapons  of  this  public 
opinion  are  impalpable,  they  are  many 
and  powerful.  Political  action  is  one 
weapon;  publicity  is  another.  Business 
is  subject  to  law,  and  reforms,  fought  for 
uncertainly  by  hungry  strikers,  may 
often  be  more  surely  obtained  by  well- 
conceived  laws  secured  at  the  instance 
of  the  whole  community.  Publicity  is 
a  broom  which  sweeps  out  the  dark  cor- 
ners and  corrects,  by  exposing,  evils 
which  the  law  cannot  reach.  Men  who 
will  risk  a  punitive  fine  dare  not  stand 
up  to  a  Congressional  committee  or  a 
newspaper  reporter.  Mediation  and  in- 
vestigation are  feared  by  those  who  have 
no  justice  in  their  cause,  and  are  not 
only  a  preventive  of  strikes,  but  also  a 
guide  to  the  public  in  its  own  deter- 
minations. We  live  to-day  in  a  statis- 
tical age.  Statistics  help  us  to  discover 
what  is  a  living  wage  and  what  wages 
are  actually  paid  in  any  given  industry. 
The  public  learns  to  demand  certain 
minimum  conditions  in  industry  and  to 
judge  by  these  whether  a  threatened 
strike  is  or  is  not  justifiable. 


THE  PARTY  OF  THE  THIRD  PART 


679 


It  is  not  only  in  strikes,  however,  that 
the  public  has  been  an  innocent  by- 
stander. If  workers  become  ill  or  are 
maimed  in  factories,  it  is  to  the  public 
hospitals  that  they  go;  if  they  work  at 
too  early  an  age,  for  too  long  hours  or 
under  evil  conditions  generally,  they 
tend  to  become  public  charges.  In  one 
way  or  another  the  unemployed  also  are 
maintained  at  public  expense. 

This  direct  interest  of  the  public  is 
strongly  reinforced  by  a  sympathy  and 
a  growing  moral  sense  which  result 
in  a  powerful  assertion  of  popular  con- 
trol in  many  industrial  relations.  The 
vitality  of  this  public  sympathy  can  no 
longer  be  ignored.  Though  fluctuating 
and  vague,  it  is  effective.  No  concep- 
tion of  our  modern  life  is  so  unreal  and 
sentimental  as  that  which  excludes  such 
sentiment  from  the  category  of  social 
motives.  The  public,  semi-uninformed 
but  learning,  stretches  across  class  lines, 
grows  slowly  into  self-consciousness,  and 
exerts  its  new  power  wisely  and  un- 
wisely— and  increasingly. 

This  new  social  consciousness  is  part- 
ly reflected  in  what  is  called  "welfare 
work,"  an  industrial  house-cleaning  in 
which  the  employer  wields  the  broom. 
Much  may  be  justly  urged  against  such 
welfare  work.  Being  a  reform  from  the 
top,  it  is  not  nearly  so  valuable  as  are 
democratic  reforms  secured  by  the 
workers  themselves  or  by  the  com- 
munity. At  times  it  is  resorted  to 
merely  for  the  purpose  of  making  more 
democratic  reforms  impossible.  What 
is  given  with  one  hand  is  occasionally 
taken  away  with  the  other. 

There  still  remains,  however,  a  wide 
margin  of  possible  benefit  in  such  in- 
ternal reform  of  industry,  made  by 
employers  for  the  benefit  of  employees. 
It  is  natural  that  the  more  intelligent 
and  public-spirited  employers  should  so 
act.  Such  men  gradually  imbibe  a  more 
social  view  of  industry,  learning  it  not 
only  as  members  of  the  public,  but  as 
parties  to  conflicts  and  controversies 
in  which  the  public  has  intervened. 
Even  employers  who  have  not  yet  at- 
tained to  a  democratic  conception  of 
industry,  and  who  merely  provide  cot- 
tages and  baths  and  midday  lunches  in 
the  spirit  in  which  medieval  magnates 
built  churches — even  such  as  these  be- 


come imbued  with  a  vague  sense  that 
the  public  has  a  just  interest  and  en- 
forceable rights  in  the  whole  industrial 
relation. 

The  development  of  welfare  work  or 
"industrial  betterment "  has  been  rapid 
and  continuous.  Humane  and  far- 
sighted  employers  have  improved  their 
factories  and  shops,  built  "model" 
homes  for  their  employees,  and  fur- 
nished airy  and  cheerful  dining-rooms 
in  which  good  meals  are  provided  at 
cost.  Baths,  night-schools,  kindergar- 
tens, recreation  centers,  have  been  pro- 
vided for  the  workers.  In  some  of  these 
schemes  a  large  measure  of  democratic 
management  is  preserved;  in  certain 
others  the  government,  though  pater- 
nalistic, is  at  least  far-sighted  and  scien- 
tific. A  department  of  health  and 
economics  is  maintained  by  one  large 
employers'  association,  which  not  only 
provides  recreation,  comfort,  and  sani- 
tary conditions  for  its  employees,  but 
also  carefully  studies  the  effect  of  such 
improvements  upon  the  productiveness 
of  the  force.  From  this  point  to  the 
establishment  of  general  standards, 
which  will  soon  be  enforced  by  law  and 
public  opinion,  is  but  a  step. 

What  is  most  significant  about  this 
programme,  however,  is  not  the  actual 
reform  accomplished,  although  that  is 
not  negligible,  but  the  fact  that  many 
benevolent  employers  advertise  their 
benevolence.  Everywhere  we  find  great 
manufacturing  establishments  spending 
huge  sums  of  money  to  inform  the  pub- 
lic that  they  treat  their  employees  hu- 
manely. It  pays  the  employer  to  let  the 
public  know  this.  It  pays  because  the 
public  cares.  Back  of  the  far-sighted- 
ness of  individual  employers  lies  the 
sympathetic  concern  of  a  wide  public. 

In  protective  legislation  for  workmen 
this  influence  of  the  public  stands  out 
even  more  clearly.  Labor  legislation 
has  been  slow  and  difficult  in  the  Uni- 
ted States.  Gradually,  however,  public 
opinion  penetrates  into  the  inmost  fields 
of  industrial  life,  and  year  by  year  laws 
are  passed  for  the  benefit  of  the  worker, 
protecting  life,  limb,  health,  wage,  and 
morality.  Night  work,  Sunday  work, 
the  toil  of  women,  of  children,  and  even 
of  men,  are  regulated  or  forbidden  by 
statute.    Laws  are  passed  to  exclude 


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HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


workers  from  labor  for  which  they  are 
not  fitted,  to  protect  them  from  danger- 
ous machines  and  insanitary  conditions, 
to  compel  frequent  payment  of  wages, 
to  prohibit  the  truck  system,  to  provide 
for  factory  inspection  by  state  officials. 
This  legislation,  though  demanded  by 
the  workers  themselves,  is  approved  and 
secured  by  public  opinion. 

The  chief  beneficiaries  of  this  benevo- 
lent interposition  are  the  weaker  and 
more  exploited  workers — especially  the 
children.  Child  labor  is  no  new  thing 
in  America.  In  the  early  thirties  the 
Massachusetts  mills  were  full  of  young 
children  and  the  Massachusetts  schools 
half  empty.  A  child  of  any  age  might 
work  any  number  of  hours.  Public 
opinion  was  inert.  To-day  almost  every 
state  has  a  child-labor  law,  good,  bad, 
or  indifferent,  and  yearly  the  laws  im- 
prove. The  public  is  slowly  convinced 
that  children — every-day,  ordinary  chil- 
dren— are  a  national  asset.  No  longer 
is  a  private  agreement  between  the  em- 
ployer and  the  child's  careless  parents 
inviolable.  The  public  insists  that  there 
is  a  third  party  to  the  contract,  that  this 
third  party  has  interests  overriding  the 
interests  of  the  two  other  parties. 

Women  also  come  under  the  protec- 
tion of  law  and  public  opinion.  Women 
have  always  been  largely  employed.  In 
some  of  our  great  industries  they  were 
more  important  proportionately  three 
generations  ago  than  they  are  to-day. 
They  are  now,  however,  as  they  have 
always  been,  relatively  defenseless. 
Their  wages  are  low,  their  skill  is  low, 
they  are  easily  replaced.  For  the  most 
part  they  form  a  fluctuating  group  of 
young  persons,  hoping  to  marry,  and 
as  yet  incapable  of  forming  trade-unions 
as  powerful  and  aggressive  as  are  those 
of  the  men.  For  this  very  reason,  be- 
cause of  their  weakness,  the  state  inter- 
venes. Public  opinion  works  also  out- 
side the  law.  There  grows  up  a  subtle 
social  code  which  visits  with  disappro- 
bation the  exploitation  of  girl  workers, 
and  which  applauds  whole-heartedly  the 
efforts  of  individual  employers  to  im- 
prove conditions. 

How  far  public  opinion  is  to.  go  in  this 
reshaping  of  our  industrial  life  no  one 
can  safely  predict.  That  it  will  go  far, 
however,  is  inevitable.    The  force  mak- 


ing for  reform  is  not  spent;  the  ideals, 
already  formed,  are  not  nearly  attained. 

As  public  opinion  advances  it  revolu- 
tionizes all  our  social  ideals.  Business, 
it  is  true,  remains  business,  competitive, 
aggressive,  pushing,  not  a  school  of  the 
virtues,  not  a  moral  gymnasium.  At 
the  same  time,  without  excessive  fussi- 
ness  or  hampering  of  individual  effort, 
there  remains  a  widening  opportunity 
to  improve  and  moralize  the  industrial 
relation  through  public  opinion.  We 
are  shifting  the  center  of  the  industrial 
universe;  more  and  more  that  world 
revolves  around  the  man  who  works 
rather  than  about  product  or  profit. 
Industrial  accidents,  industrial  disease, 
low  wages,  excessive  toil,  industrial 
autocracy,  encounter  an  ever-stronger 
public  condemnation. 

To  accomplish  our  new  industrial  pur- 
poses we  are  gradually  evolving  a  com- 
plex machinery  by  which  the  party  of 
the  third  part  makes  manifest  and 
effective  its  will.  Great  strikes  and 
lockouts  vitally  affecting  the  public  wel- 
fare are  by  one  device  or  another  pre- 
vented from  becoming  too  disastrous. 
Investigation,  mediation,  arbitration, 
legislation,  circumscribe  and  limit  such 
clashes.  Public  opinion  and  public  law 
determine  more  and  more  definitely 
what  is  a  fair  and  reasonable  conduct  of 
industry,  what  is  to  be  forbidden  and 
what  permitted  in  the  public  interest. 
Vast  insurance  and  other  plans  are  de- 
vised, making  for  co-operation  between 
the  two  parties  for  the  maintenance  of 
peace  and  a  nearer  approach  to  justice. 
More  and  more  the  public  sets  its  ap- 
proval upon  great  parliaments  of  in- 
dustry, in  which  unions  and  associations 
of  employers  meet  together  to  form 
treaties  of  peace.  Stability,  continuity, 
security,  and  minimum  standards  of  life 
and  labor  are  gradually  approached. 

We  are  to-day  only  in  the  beginning 
of  this  progress.  There  will  be  much 
warfare,  and  peace  will  never  be  abso- 
lute; many  experiments  will  break  down 
before  success  is  attained.  Progress, 
however,  will  continue.  The  most  hope- 
ful signs  in  our  modern  industrial  rela- 
tions is  the  growing  interest  and  the 
wider  and  more  active  participation  by 
a  public  growing  gradually  in  intelli- 
gence and  social  consciousness. 


Alan  of  Lesley 


BY  BRIAN  HOOKER 


T  may  be  that  Godfrey 
of  Beaujeu  did  well  to 
follow  King  Richard  to 
the  Holy  Land;  but  he 
should  have  left  an- 
other wife  at  home. 
The  Countess  Jocelyn 
was  a  sleek  flame  of  a  woman  eager  after 
fuel,  mistress  of  a  merry  hearth,  but  no 
lamp  to  set  in  lonely  windows;  a  crea- 
ture of  many  colors  and  a  thousand 
moods,  red-haired  above  dark  brows  that 
shadowed  long,  gray  eyes;  childless  as 
yet,  with  the  lips  and  bosom  of  a  child, 
and  a  child's  needfulness  of  deeds  and 
daring  and  to  feel  her  weight  upon  the 
balance  of  the  world.  I  mind  me  of  a 
certain  physician  out  of  Padua  uphold- 
ing that  all  women  were  as  by  nativity 
like  to  birds,  cats,  or  kine:  a  prag- 
matical fellow  otherwise,  and  over-given 
to  finding  the  roots  of  every  matter  in 
the  flesh.  Howbeit,  for  what  truth  may 
harbor  in  his  saying,  the  lady  of  Beaujeu 
bore  assuredly  neither  wing  nor  horn. 

For  the  first  months  of  her  waiting 
she  did  well,  making  a  great  business 
over  her  wardship,  and  playing,  as  it 
were,  at  lady  of  the  castle,  with  guards 
by  day  and  by  night,  and  none  to  enter 
after  sundown;  beacons  kept  ready  to 
southward,  and  every  cotter  under  arms; 
ye  might  deem  Beaujeu  sole  bulwark  of 
the  white  coast,  and  the  French  king's 
sails  like  to  glimmer  every  moment 
across  the  narrow  seas.  Thereafter  for 
a  season  the  place  grew  bright  with 
silken  holiday  and  the  merriment  of 
changing  guests.  Prince  John  abode 
there  for  a  sennight  between  Winchester 
and  Pevensey.  With  his  coming,  my 
lady  lost  fear  of  the  French  king;  and 
with  his  going  her  court  faded  as  her 
camp  had  done,  a  pleasantry  forspent. 
I  marvel  why  she  followed  not  to  Wind- 
sor sooner  than  bide  the  winter's  loneli- 
ness. Haply  she  feared  her  husband, 
knowing  already  what  treason  was  brew- 
ing thereabout.     Yet  she  stayed  fast 


where  she  was;  and  in  the  spring  came 
one  Simon  de  Maulny,  called  The  Lom- 
bard, as  by  Count  Godfrey  conquered 
somewhere  in  a  joust  and  sent  in  lieu  of 
ransom  to  bear  tidings  of  his  conqueror. 
This  Simon  followed  the  French  king, 
albeit  by  no  land  service;  he  bore  upon 
a  field  sable  three  bezants  reversed;  and 
he  tarried  long  at  Beaujeu,  going  by 
times  to  Windsor  and  returning.  Yet 
he,  too,  parted  with  the  falling  of  the 
leaf,  so  that  the  second  winter  closed 
down  upon  stark  emptiness.  The  lady 
drowsed  over  her.  tapestry,  hating  the 
long  hours  and  making  an  evil  season 
for  her  maids.  Neither  did  the  flush  of 
springtide  light  the  shadow  of  her  eyes 
nor  still  the  restless  hurry  of  her  hands. 

It  was  of  a  morning  late  in  Lent  that 
she  sent  for  her  page,  Alan  of  Lesley. 
He  came  leaping  like  a  young  stag;  but 
before  the  doorway  of  her  chamber 
paused  a  moment  with  bowed  head,  and 
at  her  bidding  entered  softly,  as  one 
cometh  within  a  shrine.  The  Lady 
Jocelyn  stood  against  a  window,  looking 
out  along  the  misty  downs  to  southward. 
She  was  all  in  emerald  silk,  with  a  veil 
of  violet  about  her  breast;  and  the  chill 
sunbeams  took  fire  touching  her.  When 
she  turned  at  last  where  he  stood  wait- 
ing, it  was  a  jewel  that  moved  in  the 
golden  casket  of  the  chamber.  After  he 
had  kissed  her  hand,  she  said,  softly, 
"Alan,  wilt  thou  serve  me?" 

He  answered  out  of  swimming  eyes, 
"Lady,  my  heart's  blood  is  all  thine 
own." 

She  laughed,  and  sat  sidelong  upon 
the  bed,  swaying  her  raiment  around  her. 
"Nay,  Sirrah  Galahault,  I  will  not  ask 
so  much."  She  nestled  among  the 
cushions;  never  a  line  of  her  but  was  the 
very  handicraft  of  God.  Then  she  went 
on  quickly:  "See  now,  yestereve  past 
thy  bedtime  came  letters  from  my  lord 
that  is  even  now  midway  returned 
through  France,  bidding  me  come  to 
meet  him.    Take  pen  and  parchment, 


682 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


therefore.  Why  had  I  never  skill  to 
learn  of  writing?"  She  leaned  forward, 
all  alight  with  eagerness,  while  Alan  won- 
dered how  man  of  woman  born  should 
half  deserve  such  welcome;  then  began 
as  by  rote,  full  trippingly: 

"My  fair  and  dear  lord  [so  Alan  wrote] 
our  sojourn  apart  is  my  measure  of  joy 
to  meet  thy  will.  I  come  to-morrow,  under 
such  guard  as  may  be  spared,  by  Hastings 
and  Dieppe,  and  so  landward  toward 
Rouen.  Whither  may  Our  Lady  lead  thee 
soon  to  learn  how  I  have  dared  thy  bidding. 
.  .  .  What  a  devil  aileth  thee,  boy? 
Hast  thou  seen  Mahound  in  a  vision?" 

Alan  answered,  stammering,  "  Me 
seemeth  perilous  beyond  need  to  fare  so 
near  French  land,  whereas  we  might 
keep  ship  all  up  the  river  to  Rouen." 

"And  who  sought  thy  seeming,  popin- 
jay?" She  glared  a  space,  then,  soften- 
ing into  laughter:  "Lord,  now,  what 
a  very  man  of  men!  Thou  art  grown 
beyond  pagehood,  Alan,  so  as  poor 
womankind  must  heed  thine  ordinances. 
.  .  .  See  now,  shall  I  make  thee  my 
squire  upon  this  journey  or  leave  thee 
to  hold  my  castle  here?"  And  while  he 
craved  pardon  out  of  a  bath  of  blushes: 
"Nay,  thou  comest  with  me,  then,  squire 
of  my  guard.  Write  it  so,  and  send  by 
my  lord's  messenger.  He  is  in  the  small 
brew-house  .  .  .  and  hark  ye — no  need 
that  he  should  babble  danger  to  the 
whole  castle.  ..."  She  twisted  a  rope 
of  heavy  hair  between  her  fingers  and 
laid  it  beside  a  tress  of  Alan's  own,  say- 
ing: "Here  is  copper  of  the  mines  and 
flax  of  the  furrow.  We  must  clip  those 
curls,  my  Galahad,  ere  we  set  helm  upon 
them.  Folk  will  call  thee  my  maid  of 
honor  else."  And  so  bidding  him  see  to 
all,  she  sent  him  from  her,  half  proud, 
half  shamefast,  and  worshipful  as  a 
maiden  after  mass. 

It  was  a  true  maid  of  honor  that  he 
stumbled  over  in  the  gallery  just  with- 
out. He  had  gone  swiftly,  chin  aloft; 
and  she,  turning  to  fly,  had  bent  an  ankle 
and  gone  down;  so  that  he  went  his 
length  across  her  and  rose  raging,  while 
she  sat,  a  shadow  among  the  shadows, 
nursing  a  scratched  elbow.  He  said, 
angrily:  "What  has  thou  to  do,  eaves- 
dropping at  my  lady's  door?" 

She  answered  only:  "Beast!  Thou 
hast  broke  mine  arm!"  and  sat  there 


sucking  it  and  staring  up  at  him.  Pres- 
ently he  growled: 

"There  is  no  secret  toward,  albeit 
small  business  of  thine.  We  go  to  meet 
my  lord,  having  but  now  letters  from 
him.  Best  make  ready  thy  mails."  And 
he  would  have  passed,  but  she  sat  in 
his  way,  saying: 

"I  will  tell  thee  a  fable:  The  cat  said 
to  the  bat,  'Take  me  to  the  dog.5"  And 
she  nodded  many  times. 

Alan  said:  "There  is  no  sense  in  thy 
saying,  save  a  bairn's  disworship  of  the 
Count  and  our  sweet  lady.  Let  me 
pass."  And  with  that  she  sprang  up, 
crying: 

"Of  a  truth,  men  are  all  foul  beasts 
together;  and  thou  no  man,  but  a  dream- 
ing fool."  And  she  covered  her  face  and 
ran  swiftly  adown  the  gallery,  shaking 
as  with  laughter,  and  crying,  "The 
Count!  ...  Oh,  fool!  .  .  .  fool!" 

Alan  went  about  his  works  with  a 
very  new,  wise  thought  in  him:  it  was 
this,  that  no  man  hath  time  for  wonder- 
ing over  women's  words.  He  found  the 
messenger — a  black-browed,  sunburnt 
fellow  that  wore  no  cognizance,  and  with 
a  tongue  of  thick  southern  French  that 
Alan  might  hardly  understand.  As  he 
got  to  horse  Alan  added  of  his  own  de- 
vice a  message  to  the  letter:  "Say  this 
also  to  my  lord:  Come  swiftly,  for  we 
go  through  danger." 

The  fellow  thrust  downward  three 
fingers,  and  muttered,  "Art  thou  also  of 
his  fellowship?"  Which  Alan,  taking  for 
some  foreign  jape,  bade  him  shortly  to 
be  off  without  further  mockery  of  his 
betters.  Whereupon  the  man  took  his 
bridle  and  clattered  away,  grinning. 

From  the  first,  Alan  had  little  pleasure 
of  that  journey.  He  had  thought  to  go 
blithely,  lording  it  in  his  new  armor  as 
a  man  over  men,  as  a  knight  serving  his 
lady  well,  and  his  heart  leaped  at  the 
dream  of  foreign  lands.  But  the  Coun- 
tess went  sharp  and  silent,  with  a  fretful 
brow,  and  the  men  gecked  and  whispered 
behind  him.  He  thought  shame  to  take 
heed  thereof,  yet  rode  with  a  hot  cheek; 
nor  might  he  void  the  seeming  that  they 
went  a  fool's  errand,  perilous  without 
need,  whereof  the  charge  lay  upon  his 
shoulders,  but  the  governance  out  of  his 
hands.   They  lay  the  night  in  Hastings, 


Drawn  by  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green  Engraved  by  Nelson  Demarest 


THE    COUNTESS    RIDING    IN    BUSY    CONVERSE    BY    LORD  SIMON 


ALAN  OF  LESLEY 


683 


at  the  abbey  there,  and  next  morn  took 
ship  for  Dieppe  under  scaly  clouds.  But 
in  mid-channel  a  grievous  storm  smote 
them  sidelong  from  the  east,  with  rain, 
coldness,  and  a  gnashing  sea,  wherein 
the  ship  heaved  and  swung  sightless  of 
land  or  sky.  When  the  night  fell  so  upon 
them,  amid  howl  of  blast  and  creak  of 
timber,  rattle  of  black  rain  and  drench 
of  spray,  the  women  shrieking  between 
lurch  and  wallow,  and  the  struggle  of  the 
horses  in  the  belly  of  the  ship,  Alan 
weened  himself  hard  upon  death  if  not 
quick  in  hell  already.  The  sailors  also 
swore  marvelously,  stamping  to  and  fro 
with  lanthorns,  and  treading  upon  him 
where  he  lay;  insomuch  as  God's  ven- 
geance must  momently  be  drawn  upon 
them  though  they  abode  the  storm. 
Nevertheless,  he  dragged  up  a  dizzy 
body  to  his  lady's  service:  though  he 
perished,  it  should  be  at  her  side.  A  wet 
wind  gushed  by  him  into  the  cabin, 
where  a  lamp  smoked  against  the  beams; 
the  air  within  was  very  thick  and  sour; 
and  a  slew  of  the  vessel  cast  him  against 
the  Countess,  that  railed  upon  him  for 
leaving  her  to  die  uncomforted,  yet 
trampling  her  life  out  whenas  he  came. 
She  was  green-sallow,  and  sore  dishev- 
eled. Thereafter  she  fell  to  cursing  the 
day  that  she  was  born,  together  with 
her  husband  and  Simon  of  Lombardy, 
that  had  brought  her  into  such  a  pass. 
Meanwhile  the  maid  of  honor  lay  as  a 
clump  of  clothes  against  the  wall,  nor 
either  moved  nor  spake  while  Alan  bade 
her  arise  and  serve  her  mistress.  Upon 
him,  therefore,  lay  such  work  as  need 
be  done;  so,  night-long  he  wrought  for 
nurse  and  tire-woman  to  a  creature  mad 
with  fear  and  beyond  help  sickly  of  the 
sea,  driving  his  weakness  to  the  task 
as  a  warrior  laboring  against  wounds. 
Truly  to  him  there  was  no  change  in  her 
from  that  bright  beauty  laughing  in  her 
chamber  two  days  agone:  she  was  his 
lady,  almost  as  it  had  been  the  blessed 
Mother  herself;  in  her  trouble  could  be 
neither  fear  nor  foulness,  neither  shame 
nor  jest. 

When  he  staggered  forth  about  sun- 
rise the  storm  was  blown  clear  and  the 
deck  full  of  laughing  knaves  that  should 
have  beert  upon  their  knees  for  wonder 
of  Heaven's  mercy.  There  was  land  to 
southward,  a  hill  and  a  sparkle  of  spires; 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785.-85 


and  a  man  forward  leaning  out  thither, 
of  whom  Alan  asked  where  they  might 
be. 

The  fellow  grunted,  "Blown  west,  a 
twenty  devil  way;  yon  is  Harfleur,  at 
Seine's  mouth."  And  as  he  turned, 
Alan  knew  him  for  the  messenger  two 
days  gone,  and  would  know  what  he  did 
there  instead  of  half-way  across  Anjou. 

The  man  leered  at  him  to  his  face. 
"There  was  no  ship  till  now.  Must  we 
have  wings  to  please  thee,  little  lord- 
ling?" 

Alan  laid  him  flat-long,  without  more 
words.  He  was  up  presently,  with  a  bare 
knife  and  a  bloody  snarl,  while  the  men 
thronged  about;  but  therewith  came  the 
Countess,  and  there  was  naught  more 
to  do.  She  rated  Alan  for  brawling,  even 
before  the  churl  that  had  outfaced  him; 
and,  when  she  learned  where  they  would 
make  land,  brake  out  into  lamentation, 
saying  that  the  very  wind  and  sea  were 
set  against  her  will,  and  all  would  mis- 
happen  to  the  last. 

Alan  said,  "Nay,  dear  lady,  for  surely 
we  are  none  the  farther  from  Rouen." 

But  she  said  nothing  to  that,  and 
presently  called  the  messenger  apart  and 
spoke  passionately  with  him,  pointing 
often  to  the  east.  Meanwhile  the  maid 
of  honor  thrust  a  wan  face  over  Alan's 
shoulder,  where  he  stood  brooding. 

"Didst  hear  her  name  that  devil  in 
the  night?"  she  whispered.  "Simon  the 
Lombard,  that  had  brought  her  to  this 
trouble?  See  now  yonder!  .  .  .  O 
Lord,  the  round  blind  eyes  of  thee! 
Bat!  .  .  .  Bat!"  And  she  went  away 
ere  he  could  make  words  to  answer. 

Harfleur  was  all  one  busy  babble,  and 
the  burden  thereof  the  name  of  the 
French  king.  It  was  Philip  this  and 
Philip  that;  how  he  was  over  the  border 
with  his  knights,  here,  there,  and  yon- 
der, like  the  plague.  He  had  taken 
Neaufle  and  Gisors;  he  was  southward 
at  Evreux,  northward  at  Aumale;  he 
was  embattled  about  Rouen;  he  was  by 
way  down  the  river  to  England  itself. 
All  these  and  a  thousand  tales  of  war  and 
treason  swarmed  over  the  town  like 
wasps;  and  the  sting  thereof  was  the 
sight  of  guildsmen  hurrying  castleward 
from  everywhere,  and  haggard  stragglers 
from  up  Seine,  the  blood  yet  caked  upon 


684 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


their  wounds.  Whatever  truth  might 
be,  it  was  plain  madness  to  adventure 
further  journey;  and  Alan,  taking  that 
ill  news  heavily  to  his  mistress,  found 
her  closeted  with  my  lord's  messenger. 
She  caught  the  words  out  of  his  mouth 
ere  he  had  well  begun: 

"The  king  of  France,  quotha!  I  have 
advised  and  aredd  of  that  matter  these 
three  hours.  Must  we  dally  gossiping 
the  day  long?  Make  ready  the  men,  and 
despatch,  i'  Mary's  name!"  And  the 
messenger  put  in  softly: 

"The  French  king  is  busy  about 
Aumale,  young  sir;  we  are  out  of  his 
danger." 

Alan  began  to  say  how  at  least  they 
should  keep  south  of  the  river,  but  the 
Countess  broke  in  again: 

"Once  and  for  all,  Alan,  thou  art  my 
page  and  not  my  counselor.  We  ride 
forthwith,  as  I  say,  with  or  without  thy 
rede,  and  so  an  end.  Come  faithful  or 
tarry  fearful,  at  thy  pleasure."  And  she 
shook  her  shoulder  at  him. 

Alan  answered,  "I  will  take  that 
name  liefer  than  lead  thee  further  into 
this  coil."  And  so  besought  her  by  all 
the  saints  to  ship  homeward,  sending 
Count  Godfrey  word  thereof;  but  she 
pouted  her  lip  and  patted  her  foot,  and 
presently  turned  tearful  eyes  upon  him 
without  a  word.  And  thereupon  the 
boyhood  of  him  melted  into  the  mold 
of  her  desire.  Nevertheless,  he  went 
about  her  bidding  heavily,  and  scenting 
evil  as  a  hound  scents  blood.  A  boy's 
first  need  is  for  worship,  to  spend  him- 
self therein,  and  of  that  Alan  had  full 
store,  the  Lady  Jocelyn  standing  in  his 
soul  crowned  with  stars  and  hymned  by 
angels,  a  very  saint  of  dreams;  wielding 
also  the  full  glamour  of  that  sweet  where- 
of he  knew  not  yet  enough  to  name  it 
woman.  She  blew  against  him  like  a 
storm  of  song.  Yet  her  service,  wherein 
he  sought  no  better  than  to  die,  was  to 
lead  her  blindfold  into  danger;  and  that 
riddle  needs  answer  from  a  man.  Neither 
had  he  over  her  any  power  at  all,  saving 
that  frailest  of  meshes,  reason;  nor  even 
that  fairly,  seeing  he  could  make  no 
plain  advision  of  his  forebodings.  There 
was  naught  befallen  but  she  knew  as  well 
as  he,  so  her  misadventure  could  spring 
only  from  such  mere  whiteness  of  heart 
as  made  his  fears  to  her  ward  shame- 


ful to  think  upon;  and  to  have  warned 
her  in  stark  words  were  sacrilege.  More- 
over, she  was  verily  his  mistress,  as  for 
that,  owning  her  own  counsel  and  his 
duty — wherein  at  least  he  would  not 
fail  nor  blunder.  They  made  a  late 
start  and  poor  wayfaring,  the  roads  deep 
in  mire  and  the  horses  sore  and  strained 
with  tossing  of  the  sea.  The  men  also 
growled  openly  how  they  were  flung 
forth  useless  into  peril.  Alan  was  fain 
to  put  my  lady's  word  upon  them,  that 
the  cowardly  might  rest  behind,  where- 
after they  swore  somewhat  and  followed 
on.  When  they  drew  clear  of  the  town 
he  sent  one  a  half-mile  to  forward  and 
another  to  left  under  the  hang  of  the 
hills,  keeping  himself  sharp  watch  of  the 
riverside  along  the  opening  reaches  of 
the  stream.  When  the  Countess  asked 
him  laughingly  if  he  feared  birds  or 
fishes,  whereas  the  French  were  fifty 
miles  north-away,  he  answered  that  he 
hoped  this  might  be  true:  "Yet  even 
so,  but  for  the  storm  blowing  us  hither, 
we  should  have  gone  as  to  a  very  tryst 
wTith  them." 

Her  horse  leaped  sidelong,  and  she 
reined  close  to  say,  looking  straight  out 
of  wide  eyes:  "And  if  we  had,  they  war 
not  upon  women.  What  evil  should 
they  do  me?"  and  the  maid  of  honor 
broke  a  hot  silence  by  attainting  Alan 
of  terror  for  his  own  skin,  so  that  he 
turned  joyfully  to  rail  upon  her.  There- 
after the  Countess  drew  them  into  such 
merry  pastime  of  light  words  that  no 
room  was  left  for  troubling;  and  by 
that  measure  of  her  kindliness  him 
seemed  the  more  churlish  to  have  so 
checked  and  questioned  her  fair  pleas- 
ure, mean  servant  of  so  gentle  mis- 
tress. He  took  shame  also  for  having 
cast  some  shade  of  doubt  upon  her,  in 
so  much  as  for  all  her  merriment  she 
rode  ever  slow  and  watchful,  by  times  a 
very  sunbeam  of  joyance  and  again 
hushed  and  chilly  for  a  space,  like  birds 
under  the  shadow  of  a  cloud.  They 
were  benighted  no  farther  along  than 
Tancarville,  where  my  lady  would  hear 
nothing  of  the  castle,  saying  that  she 
trusted  neither  crest  nor  tonsure  of  that 
breed;  so  they  must  needs  lie  foully 
at  an  inn.  Alan  spent  a  bright  hour  at 
her  feet,  she  begging  songs  and  tales  of 
his  north  country,  and  flashing  upon 


ALAN  OF  LESLEY 


685 


him  gemlike  with  a  thousand  smiles — 
the  maid  of  honor  glowering  over  needle- 
work in  a  corner.  Howbeit,  under  all 
was  some  tincture  of  unease;  and  he 
laid  him  down  at  last  across  her  thresh- 
old, very  knightly  and  worshipful,  but 
with  a  troubled  heart. 

Out  of  black  slumber  suddenly  he  was 
at  grapple  with  an  angry  man.  It  was 
hell-dark  and  no  space  to  draw  weapon; 
but  Alan  was  crusted  in  light  armor  like 
a  crab,  and  the  other  soft  and  silken. 
They  rolled,  smote,  and  wrestled,  and 
soon  burst  through  the  gallery  rail  down 
into  the  hall  beneath.  Followed  a  dizzy 
flare  of  torches  and  babble  of  tongues, 
the  women,  strangely  muffled,  peering 
from  above;  and  the  man  upon  the 
floor  was  Simon  of  Lombardy.  He  rose 
first,  a  tall,  greenish  wight,  sour-smiling, 
with  a  slow  break  in  his  speech  between 
word  and  word,  saying:  "I — trod  upon 
Lord  Lesley  sleeping,  and  we — broke 
the  rail.  Never  fear;  I  am — not  the 
French  king."  Therewith  he  handed 
up  Alan,  that  had  sense  to  greet  him 
lightly  and  save  blood,  for  the  bare 
swords  were  crowding  into  the  hall — the 
Frenchmen  seven  to  their  one — and  a 
hair's  turn  would  make  sheer  murder. 
The  messenger  also  stood  there  among 
de  Maulny's  men,  wearing  now  openly 
the  three  bezants  for  cognizance.  They 
jested  the  place  clear,  not  without  sun- 
dry black  mutterings,  whereafter  Lord 
Simon  looked  upward  to  the  Countess: 
"Here  is — fond  welcome,  to  set  thy — 
lapdog  at  my  throat.  What  game  is  to — ■ 
play  now?" 

She  answered  only,  "Tell  me  to- 
morrow whether  I  be  thy  captive  or  thy 
friend,"  and  so  vanished.  After  some 
while,  de  Maulny  said,  lazily: 

"Still  bristling  there?  What  wilt 
thou  have — spaniel?" 

Alan  would  have  smitten  him,  but 
that  seemed  to  be  his  very  desire.  He 
had  the  soft  eyes  of  a  dog,  over  a  thin 
mouth.  When  he  went  forth  Alan  fol- 
lowed without  words,  and  across  his 
threshold  lay  down  until  the  dawn,  yet 
slumbered  less  than  little  during  that 
while. 

They  journeyed  the  next  day  to- 
gether, under  a  filthy  sky  chilly  with 
small  rain.    A  foul  day  for  Alan,  more- 


over, whom  without  cause  the  Countess 
cast  out  of  favor,  riding  in  busy  converse 
by  Lord  Simon,  and  for  him  sparing 
nothing  save  harsh  looks.  Before  a  foe 
he  would  neither  plead  nor  parley; 
wherefore,  being  for  the  time  scornful  of 
women,  he  drew  forward  with  the  men, 
holding  them  together  in  the  van,  so 
as  the  lord  and  lady  rode  between  them 
and  the  Frenchmen  at  an  earshot's  dis- 
tance; and  now  also  he  sent  an  outrider 
on  before.  A  gray  old  man-at-arms 
grunted  at  him: 

"Hast  some  soldier-sense  whatever, 
under  that  yellow  thatch  of  thine?  Pity 
to  waste  on  this  fiend's  errand." 

Alan  hid  his  pleasure  to  ask  sternly 
what  he  meant.  The  fellow  pushed  his 
horse  alongside. 

"See  now,  young  master,  I  speak 
naught  of  my  betters,"  he  grumbled, 
"but  this  a  spewing  babe  might  fathom. 
Think  ye  that  lingworm  yonder  came 
ever  from  my  lord?  He  is  a  Milanese,  a 
Jew  of  Lombardy,  the  fleas  thereof  yet 
hopping  on  his  hide."  He  spat  over  his 
left  shoulder.  "Or  what  avail,  so  please 
you,  some  dozen  of  us  against  fourscore? 
Marry,  to  make  a  countenance!  .  .  . 
Nay,  I  have  done.  We  are  shent.  When 
master  ducketh,  man  shall  drown."  And 
he  fell  silent,  leaving  Alan  between 
shame  and  anger,  picking  the  tangle  of 
his  wits  for  some  clear  thread  of  safety. 
Nevertheless,  he  kept  a  fair  brow  and  a 
busy  tongue,  holding  the  men  in  talk 
lest  they  brood  evil,  and  of  them  and 
whomsoever  they  met  upon  the  way  re- 
quiring knowledge  of  the  land — highway 
and  by-path,  the  set  of  the  river,  and 
the  lie  of  tower  and  town. 

About  dusk  they  came  upon  cross- 
roads, whereon  the  knight  and  the  lady 
turned  leftward  to  the  north.  Alan 
wheeled  his  men  back  suddenly  between 
them  and  the  French,  while  he  rode 
close  to  the  Countess,  craving  her  pardon 
for  speech:  "But  ye  take  a  stray  turn- 
ing. Southward  lies  the  abbey  of 
Jumieges,  where  we  shall  harbor  safely." 

De  Maulny  shrugged  and  smiled, 
while  my  lady  reddened  and  would  know 
how  Alan  dared  command  her — she 
would  ride  at  her  own  pleasure,  her  own 
way. 

He  answered,  sick  and  shaking,  "Over 
some  few  bodies,  if  ye  will;   we  crack 


686 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


one  French  crown  first."  And  the  men 
crowded  together  short-breathing. 

Thereupon  out  of  a  silence  the  Lady 
Jocelyn  began  to  weep  and  to  rail,  saying 
that  she  was  alone  and  afar  and  set 
about  with  cowards  and  traitors  that 
made  mock  of  her  weakness  and  of  her 
womanhood  a  prize  for  murder. 

After  this,  Lord  Simon  said:  "Well, 
what  answer?    Shall  we — ride  on?" 

Then  she  sought  to  whisper  with 
him,  but  he  drew  away.  They  fixed 
at  length  upon  resting  where  they  were, 
among  the  willow  grove  that  sloped  from 
road  to  river;  raising  a  pavilion  for  the 
women,  and  the  men  to  shelter  as  they 
might.  Alan  walked  alone  by  the  black 
water,  bearing  the  world's  weight  upon 
his  neck,  for  that  he  was  henceforth 
outcast  from  heaven,  spurned  and  hated, 
unavailing;  he  had  played  babe  and 
fool,  throwing  open  their  danger  without 
hope  or  help  of  rescue.  Thence  he  fell 
a-dreaming  of  what  miracle  might  save 
them,  his  will  beating  frail  wings  against 
the  truth.  Yet  he  came  back  among  the 
sneering  firelight  some  deal  comforted, 
as  having  forged  and  dared  a  plan. 

He  sang  and  laughed  endless  hours 
about  the  blaze,  watching  his  men  lurk 
away  into  the  shadows  one  by  one,  and 
swallowing  each  time  a  frozen  heart  lest 
one  be  seen.  Them  who  stayed  he  kept 
moving,  that  none  should  note  their 
number;  and  when  the  camp  quieted  he 
lay  down  armorless  among  three  that 
were  left,  listening,  with  tight  hands.  At 
last  he  crawled  without  sound  into  the 
pavilion,  while  an  owl  hooted  across  the 
water.  The  maid  muttered,  "Hush  thee 
— it  is  Alan."    And  he  said,  softly: 

"Come,  and  be  still;  I  have  a  boat 
on  the  river." 

Thereat  his  lady  flung  heavy  arms 
around  him,  sobbing  and  saying:  "Take 
me  away,  oh,  away!  He  is  an  ill  man — 
an  ill  man,  Alan." 

They  stole  forth,  with  small  time  to 
wonder  at  the  strange  turn  of  her  will; 
and  Alan,  stooping  to  rouse  the  sleeping 
men,  wet  his  hands  in  warm  blood.  He 
went  from  one  to  another,  sickening; 
then  hurried  the  women  riverward  ere 
they  should  know.  They  reached  the 
boat  in  a  rush,  while  the  camp  rose  into 
clamor  behind  them,  the  Countess  cling- 
ing and  stumbling  and  crying  loud  with 


fear.  One  of  their  own  men  was  at  the 
oars,  and  they  drove  out  into  the  lapping 
blackness  whither  the  others  on  the  far- 
ther shore  shouted  to  guide  them. 

Now  the  turn  of  tide  upon  the  Seine 
cometh  suddenly  as  a  billow  straight 
from  sea.  So  it  befell  that,  ere  they 
won  quite  across,  a  rush  and  a  roaring 
leaped  out  of  the  night  upon  them.  The 
boat  spun  and  sank;  and  the  men,  wad- 
ing in,  brought  them  to  land  half 
drowned.  Alan  looked  out  across  the 
flood  that  ran  already  fierce  and  full,  to 
where  lights  danced  and  voices  quar- 
reled. With  the  boat  gone,  there  was 
no  more  to  do  than  send  the  women 
landwise  toward  Jumieges.  One  man  to 
guard  them  was  no  worse  than  all,  while 
the  rest  might  for  some  time  defend  the 
river.  The  Countess  was,  by  now  wood 
beyond  reason,  crying  to  be  taken  back, 
and  that  Alan  would  be  her  death,  hav- 
ing already  and  always  been  her  bane. 
The  maid  of  honor  said  to  him,  shiver- 
ing: "What  of  thyself?  Come  with 
us,  or  I  bide  here."  Thereat  he  bade 
her  shortly  to  help,  not  hinder,  and  so 
hurried  them  away.  Their  sobbing  died 
into  the  dark  as  he  turned  back  among 
his  men.  There  was  no  long  waiting; 
neither  of  that  fight  without  hope  along 
the  midnight  river  is  any  need  to  tell. 
They  stove  one  boat,  and  broke  a  rush 
of  swimming  horses;  then  the  foe  spread 
out,  crossing  wide  of  their  front  to  close 
around  them.  There  were  blows  unseen, 
and  a  dizzy  drag  and  struggle  wherefrom 
Alan  swam  up  slowly  into  dull  pain.  He 
was  dangling  by  bound  wrists  from  a 
beam,  in  a  rude  hut  wherein  a  fire  was 
burning;  his  feet  also  fastened  to  a  heavy 
log  upon  the  floor;  and  by  the  hearth 
sat  Simon  of  Lombardy,  smiling  sour  out 
of  soft  dog's  eyes. 

He  yawned,  saying:  "Now  I — have 
thee  in  leash,  my — spaniel.  What  hast 
thou — done  with  her?" 

Alan  said,  while  he  strove  to  stand, 
"She  is  beyond  thy  danger." 

But  the  other  shook  his  head,  smiling 
the  more.  "She  ran  to  be  out  of  my — 
grasp;  yet  not  too  far,  lest  she  outrun 
my — reach.  So  they  all  do  for — spicery 
of  unwillingness:  Oh,  a  very  old  game. 
But  this  is  one  who — loveth  play  and 
shunneth  payment,  a — hide-and-call,  a 
— dabbler  at  the  brink  of  daring.   So  I — 


ALAN  OF 

tease  her  by — forbearance.  But  to  be 
short  with  thee,  good  spaniel,  our  sweet- 
ing is  not  far,  because  thou  hast  no — 
force  to  drive  her.  Therefore  I  ask — 
where  ?" 

Alan  answered,  "Thou  art  a  caitiff,  a 
losel,  a  foul-tongued  villain,  and  in  all 
ways  a  liar,"  and  he  choked  for  want  of 
hotter  words. 

De  Maulny  smiled  the  more.  "Sorry 
day  when — boy  parteth  man  and  wom- 
an; is't  not — so?  Good  now,  show  thy 
— teeth."  He  gazed  awhile,  then  laughed 
aloud,  slapping  his  knee.  "Now,  the 
fiend  snatch  me,  but  this  babe  trusteth 
her!  Lord,  Lord,  what  faith!  Why, 
thou — suckling,  she  came  overseas  to 
me,  to — seek  me,  as  hawk  to — lure." 
He  drew  a  paper  forth.  "See  here  her — 
own  hand,  and  be — wiser."  And  he 
held  it  before  Alan's  face. 

It  was  Alan  that  laughed  then,  loud 
and  harsh  above  his  rage,  so  as  the 
Lombard  started  back  and  stared  chap- 
fallen  as  at  a  miracle.  At  last  he  bab- 
bled, laughing  still:  "Her  own  hand! 
.  .  .  Why,  thou  vile  fool,  I  wrote  that 
letter  for  her,  I  myself,  none  else,  to  her 
own  true  Lord  of  Beaujeu.  .  .  .  God  wot 
how  thou  hast  come  thereby.  .  .  .  Oh, 
thou  liest  throat  and  teeth,  loud  as  I  hear 
thee!  ..."  And  he  fell  again  into 
laughter,  wondering  that  he  could  not 
cease,  and  between  breaths  gasping  out: 
"Fool!  .  .  .  Fool!  .  .  ." 

After  a  time  Lord  Simon  turned  away, 
his  thin  mouth  drooping;  and  when  he 
came  back  blowing  at  a  red  brand  from 
the  fire,  he  said  no  more  than,  "Where?" 

Alan  answered  naught,  while  a  fear- 
some pain  sprang  through  him.  By 
times  thereafter  he  seemed  to  die  for  , 
very  anguish,  marveling  only  how  he 
lived  so  long,  and  at  the  sound  of  his 
own  voice  that  ceased  not  to  curse  and 
to  revile.  Presently  all  dulled  into  a 
dreadful  drowsiness  wherein  he  seemed 
only  as  one  thick  with  sleep  worried  by 
them  who  will  not  forbear  to  rouse  him. 
Then  he  was  'ware  of  torches  in  the 
doorway,  and  a  voice  crying:  "Be  done, 
Simon;  thou  hast  sported  enow.  Set 
light  to  the  thatch,  and  follow,  in  the 
fiend's  name,  ere  we  lose  thy  quest.  He 
hath  earned  martyrdom."  And  at  last 
out  of  sweet  slumber  he  lay  upon  the 
grass  before  a  small,  hairy  man  that 


LESLEY  687 

danced  and  bewailed,  shaking  his  hands 
at  a  red  sky.  It  was  the  cotter,  that  had 
hidden  in  a  thicket,  and,  rushing  to  save 
his  goods  out  of  the  flame,  had  found 
Alan  and  cut  him  free. 

He  was  bitterly  burned,  altogether 
sore  and  broken,  and  still  wet  from  the 
river;  howbeit,  he  made  shift  to  stand 
and  travel.  From  the  peasant,  that 
would  by  no  means  venture  with  him,  he 
got  some  accounting  of  the  way;  and 
from  a  dead  man  of  his  own  following,  a 
dagger  and  long  Norman  bow.  Thus  he 
set  forth  by  field  and  forest  to  Jumieges; 
half  blindly,  with  slip  and  stumble 
through  the  waning  night,  held  from 
wandering  only  by  the  run  of  the  river 
on  his  left,  and  from  pause  only  by 
worship  of  his  lady  to  strength's  end  and 
beyond.  Belike  a  rheum  and  a  fever 
were  as  then  fastening  upon  him;  for 
while  he  went,  the  fire  of  his  burns 
gathered  outward  to  the  skin  of  him, 
whereas  a  chill  aching  flowed  along  his 
bones  and  caught  his  heart.  Moreover, 
he  fell  among  dreams,  wherein  he  rode 
through  blossomy  meadows  endlessly, 
the  Lady  Jocelyn  beside  him  upon  a 
white  palfrey  with  sunlight  in  her  eyes 
and  hair.  Yet  he  went  on  drunken- 
ly,  dragging  miry  feet;  and  across  from 
the  towers  of  Jumieges  tarried  not  for 
bank  nor  water,  but  blundered  straight 
into  the  stream  and,  falling  forward, 
swam. 

Ye  may  well  wonder  what  the  por- 
ter deemed  of  so  scarred  and  mad  a 
wastrel.  Nevertheless,  the  prior  came 
somehow  to  the  wicket;  and  Alan's 
cloud  lifted  to  hear  his  deep  voice  saying: 
"Of  a  surety  she  was  here,  and  bode 
the  night.  What  shouldst  thou  be  to 
her?"  And  again:  "She  rode  off,  I  tell 
thee,  about  prime,  with  a  black-jawed 
serving-fellow  that  brought  horses;  yea, 
and  for  all  my  promise  to  send  her  safe 
to  Rouen  presently.  Nay,  no  knight — 
a  serving-man,  I  say.  Three  bezants 
was  his  badge.    Dost  know  him?" 

Alan  heard  himself  say,  sharply,  "She 
might  not  delay,  seeing  she  went  a  pil- 
grimage." Then  the  abbot  boomed 
with  laughter. 

"A  pilgrimage!  Aye,  to  the  shrine  of 
St.  Felix  of  Belamours!  Saw  I  never  a 
woman  before  now,  sir  drenched  herring  ? 


688 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Her  husband!  Go  to,  go  to!  .  .  .  Nay, 
benedicite,  what  ails  the  boy?  Here, 
come  thou  in,  come  in.  " 

But  by  then  Alan  was  gone  sheer 
brainless,  cursing  and  weeping,  and  con- 
juring them  by  all  saints'  mercy  to  fur- 
nish him  a  horse.  They  would  have 
stayed  him,  perforce,  out  of  mere  char- 
ity; but  he  so  besought  and  lamented, 
driving  down  his  fever  for  the  nonce  to 
plead  for  understanding,  that  at  last  the 
abbot  bade  mount  and  speed  him  in 
God's  name,  and  stood  shaking  a  great 
head  and  watching  while  he  spurred 
away. 

The  sun  shone  hot  and  high,  so  that 
whereas  he  had  shivered  in  the  night 
he  burned  now  dizzily  in  the  noon;  yet 
even  as  fire  had  before  overspread  that 
ice,  so  now  ice  underlay  this  fire.  His 
bones  crawled  therewith,  and  his  heart 
was  a  chill  lump  of  lead,  while  he  rushed 
over  the  sunlit  roads,  the  drum  of  the 
galloping  feet  of  the  horse  keeping  time 
to  the  blood  in  his  brain,  and  the  sway 
of  the  great  body  between  his  knees 
catching  short  his  breath.  By  times  he 
flung  a  question  in  a  strange  voice  to 
some  one  at  the  wayside.  The  quest 
was  easy  following:  at  the  crossways 
they  had  foregathered  with  de  Maulny 
and  his  men,  swinging  to  right  along  the 
main  road  to  Rouen;  and  Alan  won- 
dered afresh  why,  having  met  her  enemy 
willingly,  Lady  Jocelyn  so  bent  him  the 
way  toward  her  escape  and  his  own 
danger.  Then  from  a  grove  between 
road  and  river  creaked  a  neighing  of 
horses  that  made  him  grasp  his  own 
beast's  nostrils  lest  it  reply.  He  rode 
soft  through  the  plowed  meadow  as 
nearly  as  he  dared;  then  staggered  afoot 
among  the  trees,  his  heart  chopping  and 
the  ground  under  him  surging  like  a  sea. 

The  Countess  Jocelyn  sat  upon  a 
fallen  trunk  by  the  waterside,  laughing 
upward  to  Simon  the  Lombard  bending 
over  her.  Alan  leaned  sidelong  against 
a  tree,  gnawing  his  lips.  It  was  a  long 
shot,  with  some  two  yards'  windage,  or 
mayhap  scarce  as  much.  Even  as  he 
raised  his  bow,  suddenly  a  black  mist 
roared  around  him,  and  therewith  a  hor- 
ror at  his  heart  that  was  the  very  clutch 
of  death.  Neither  will  nor  worship 
might  uphold  him  in  that  hour,  but  only 
some  blind  virtue  of  his  lineage  that  in 


him  would  not  fail;  and  while  this  forced 
his  flesh  alive,  the  sight  before  him  shone 
momently  bright  and  dainty,  the  red 
glint  of  my  lady's  hair  against  green 
boughs,  the  moon-gleam  of  de  Maulny's 
armor,  his  destrer  and  her  gray  pal- 
frey cropping  the  moss  together  in 
a  splash  of  sunshine.  His  arm  stif- 
fened while  that  golden  head  hung  fair 
beneath  his  arrow-point — God's  wind 
must  carry  it  to  de  Maulny.  Then, 
while  a  bird  sang  joyously  out  of  the 
green  gloom,  he  loosed;  and  his  soul 
rode  upon  the  shaft  leaping  from  twang 
of  string  across  the  marbled  shadow- 
lights  into  the  blue  throat  of  his  foe. 

Then  the  sight  broke  up  in  shouts  and 
plunge  of  horses.  Alan  was  riding  road- 
ward  with  the  Countess  over  his  saddle- 
bow, and  the  maid  of  honor  spurring  by 
his  side  ere  he  had  well  seen  her  holding 
the  steeds  ready,  or  de  Maulny  twisting 
on  the  leaves,  a  scarlet  snake-tongue 
playing  down  his  gorget  to  draw  a  bar 
sinister  across  his  breast.  That  ride  was 
no  more  than  madness,  with  swing  of 
lash  to  wincing  leap,  the  writhed  weight 
in  his  left  arm,  the  rolling  ribbon  of  road 
before  and  thunder  of  hoofs  behind  that 
gained  slow  up  each  long  slope  and  fell 
away  as  they  clattered  adown  to  the 
dell,  yet  ever  swelling  more  near. 

Suddenly,  above  a  hillcrest  sprang 
battlement  and  spire,  and  the  sweet 
blare  of  a  trumpet  turned  the  sounds 
behind  them  into  stamp  of  steed  and 
sheen  of  armor  before  and  all  about, 
where  steel  clinked  and  bridle  jingled 
and  a  crowding  circle  of  smiles  ques- 
tioned meaninglessly;  and  with  that 
sleep  and  cool  darkness,  and  waves  of 
blessed  rest. 

He  lay  near  a  month's  time  in  that 
fever,  while  old  Rouen  locked  her  heart 
against  siege  and  treachery,  and  the 
French  king  hammered  at  her  walls  in 
vain;  so  that  by  when  he  grew  aware 
of  day  and  night,  and  of  the  maid  of 
honor  attending  upon  him,  there  was  no 
work  undone.  One  day  she  said,  short- 
ly, "  I  have  this  word  for  thee :  there  was 
no  letter,  but  we  followed  thy  bidding." 

Of  this  Alan  took  small  heed,  being 
overweak  for  wonder,  and  his  weariness 
cared  more  for  comfort  of  watching  her 
than  to  puzzle  at  her  words.    He  bore 


ALAN  OF  LESLEY 


689 


cold  scorn  against  Count  Godfrey  that 
had  for  careless  haste  of  loving  drawn 
such  a  wife  through  peril.  Her  he  saw 
still  among  the  angels,  albeit  in  a  cooler 
heaven  pure  of  earth-sweetness — of  what 
seemed  frail  in  her  he  would  not  doubt, 
neither  question  concerning  her  strange- 
ness; and  he  returned  unsummoned  to 
her  service  in  his  own  good  time. 

She  turned  among  soft  silks  where  her 
head  lay  against  her  husband's  knee, 
to  say,  trippingly:  "Lo,  my  Galahault 
alive  and  well  again,  for  all  his  devoirs. 
Thou  must  make  him  esquire,  Godfrey, 
whereas  he  outgroweth  pagehood.  He 
is  overly  man  of  his  hands  to  waste 
longer  among  women." 

And  the  Count  said,  with  a  hand 
among  her  hair:  "Aye,  we  shall  see.  He 
needs  more  soldierhood  and  less  knight- 
errantry." 

He  was  a  huge,  calm  man,  lion-jawed 
and  lion-maned.  While  Alan  stiffened, 
the  Countess  began  to  say,  swiftly: 

"He  blames  thy  urging  me  hither, 
Alan,  upon  mere  rumor  of  his  returning 
— nay,  not  a  word;  thou  art  forgiven. 
It  is  no  part  of  knighthood  to  cloak 
thine  own  misdoing."  And  therewith  a 
whisper  brushed  past  his  ear:  "Be  still, 
bat.  .  .  .  Swallow  it,  and  save  danger." 

Alan  said:  "Under  favor,  my  lord, 
thou  didst  not  well  to  summon.  How 
should  such  love  spare  to  obey  thee?" 

Thereat  the  Count  said,  strangely, 
"What  is  this?"  and  his  eyes  tightened. 

Out  of  a  sick  silence,  the  Lady  Jocelyn 
sprang  suddenly  from  his  side  and  stood 
with  shut  hand  and  tapping  foot  while 
words  rushed  out  of  her.  "Oh,  it  is 
naught.  I  lied,  as  women  must  for 
want  of  weapon.  Now  this  hell-brat 
must  babble  all,  having  not  shamed, 
shent,  and  foiled  enough  already.  .  .  ." 
She  laughed  hard  and  shrill,  tossing  her 
hair:  "No  force,  let  be,  it  is  as  well.  .  .  . 
Why,  thou  great  careless  lurden,  didst 
think  I  came  begging  for  thy  cold  scraps 
of  love,  having  withered  alone  these 
years  with  never  a  message  while  thou 
must  run  off  with  King  Bandog  to  slay 
paynim?  Am  I  a  wife  or  a  nun?  Or 
whether  hast  thou  more  joy  in  a  sepul- 
cher?  I  came  to  meet  Simon  de  Maulny, 
a  man  with  a  man's  want  of  a  woman. 
Him  I  loved,  and  love,  and  mourn,  for 


that  he  sought  me  unwilling.  .  .  .  Aye, 
scowl.  What  care  I?  Leave  and  lose. 
.  .  .  And  but  for  this  boy,  this  baby- 
heart,  this  pink  fool  o'  dreamland,  I  were 
now  safe  away  with  him.  .  .  .  Where  is 
thy  faith  now,  Galahault?  Make  me  a 
saint,  forsooth.  Pray  to  me  o'  nights! 
.  .  .  Gramercy!  .  .  .  Aye,  well  now,  God- 
frey of  Beaujeu — husband,  my  fair  lord, 
how  is  it — knife  or  nunnery?  Come — 
draw,  strike,  do  thy  will,  crown  thy  do- 
ing. ...  I  have  naught  left,  thanks  to 
you  both — no  more  ...  no  more.  .  .  ." 
She  stood  with  spread  arms  a  moment, 
glaring  about,  and  lastly  at  her  hus- 
band as  though  he  should  do  somewhat. 
But  he  did  naught  save  look  upon  her 
gravely,  without  sign  of  wonder;  so 
presently  she  flung  up  fluttering  hands, 
and  toppled  backward,  screaming. 
While  the  maid  ran  to  her,  Count  God- 
frey moved  slowly,  and  was  there.  With 
his  arm  about  her,  she  fell  silent  of  a 
sudden.    The  Count  laughed. 

"It  was  time  that  I  came  home,"  he 
said,  softly.  "Must  we  pull  down  the 
old  house  because  I  left  it  overlong?" 

Belike  in  that  moment  Alan  made  an 
end  of  learning.  He  said,  "I  thank  thee 
no  less,  my  lady,  for  that  I  have  still 
done  thee  some  service." 

At  that  Count  Godfrey  strode  across 
to  him,  eye  to  eye,  saying:  "Alan  of 
Lesley,  to  me  also  hast  thou  done  ser- 
vice, which  to  requite  I  turn  thee  out 
of  mine.  Be  no  man's  man  hencefor- 
ward; thou  hast  won  thy  spurs;  I  will 
see  to  thy  wearing  them."  He  held  forth 
a  great  hand  that  Alan  gripped  with  a 
strange  aching  of  the  throat  and  no 
words;  then  turned  to  lead  the  Lady 
Jocelyn  from  the  chamber.  She  mut- 
tered: "Aye,  aye,  do  homage  to  him  for 
thy  wife  ..."  yet  hid  her  face  against 
his  arm,  no  less;  and  they  were  gone, 
leaving  Alan  very  full  of  wonder. 

But  the  maid  of  honor  came  slowly  to 
kneel  before  him  on  one  knee  and  say, 
"I  give  thee  joy  of  thy  knighthood, 
Lord  Alan."  Then,  while  he  stared  into 
a  mocking  face  that  had  yet  great  eyes 
brimmed  over,  she  fell  a-crying,  "Bat! 
.  .  .  Bat!  ...  Oh,  bat!  .  .  ."  and  so 
ran  out  of  the  room,  staggering  with 
laughter.  And  that  was  the  greatest 
wonder  of  all. 


An  Afternoon  in  Pont- Croix 


BY  HERBERT  ADAMS  GIBBONS 


HE  man's  face  expressed 
bewilderment  and  as- 
tonishment and  amuse- 
ment. He  looked  from 
the  Artist  to  me,  and 
back  again  at  the  Ar- 
tist. He  started  at  the 
end  of  every  sentence  to  say  something, 
but  the  Artist  didn't  give  him  a  chance. 
The  Artist  kept  on  talking,  while  I  kept 
on  trying  to  control  my  sense  of  humor. 
I  wanted  to  shriek.  I  longed  for  the 
ability  to  write  shorthand,  so  that  I 
could  put  it  all  down  for  posterity. 

The  Artist  had  left  a  watch  to  be 
mended,  and  we  were  standing  in  front 
of  the  jeweler's  shop  on  one  of  the  nar- 
row streets  of  Douarnenez.  The  shut- 
ters were  up  in  front  of  the  shop,  and 
the  jeweler  was  in  his  shirt-sleeves, 
looking  as  if  he  had  been  waked  up  by 
bur  knock  from  an  enjoyable  after- 
dejeuner  sleep.  The  Artist  and  I  were 
leaving  by  the  3.12  for  Pont-Croix, 
and  we  didn't  intend  to  come  back 
this  way.  It  was  Thursday,  but  the 
jeweler  had  politely  explained  that 
he  could  not  give  us  the  watch  until  to- 
morrow, although  it  was  all  ready  and 
was  hanging  from  its  little  hook  in  the 
shop  at  whose  open  door  we  stood.  The 
reason  was  that  Thursday  had  been 
chosen  by  the  jeweler  for  his  repos  heb- 
domadaire  —  the  one-day-in-seven  rest 
imposed  by  law. 

"Much  as  I  regret  to  refuse  anything 
to  monsieur,  I  cannot  give  the  watch 
until  to-morrow.  If  I  did,  it  would  be 
breaking  the  law,  and  I  have  no  desire 
to  pay  the  costs  of  a  proce  s-verbal." 

This  was  in  answer  to  our  exclama- 
tion that  we  were  leaving  for  Pont- 
Croix  by  the  3.12,  and  that  we  might 
not  come  back  to  Douarnenez — ever. 

So  the  Artist,  whose  Anglo-Saxon  fig- 
ure and  Anglo-Saxon  clothes  were  not 
more  Anglo-Saxon  than  his  mind,  was 
holding  forth  in  Anglo-Saxon  French 
upon  the  anomalies  and  absurdities  of 


Gallic  law.  He  was  achieving  a  sweet 
revenge  upon  the  Gauls  by  the  way  he 
was  using  their  language.  When  the 
Artist  talks  French,  he  assembles  rapidly 
in  his  mouth  the  many  words  he  knows 
(and  I  must  say  that  he  has  a  large  vo- 
cabulary) and  lets  them  all  out  at  once. 
"I  give  'em  the  words  all  right,"  he  is 
accustomed  to  explain,  "and  they  can 
put  'em  together  any  way  they  want 
to."  When  you  add  disjunction  in  the 
spoken  language  to  a  pronunciation  that 
rivals  mine,  you  arrive  at  a  sweet  medley 
of  sound  and  thought.  I  have  said  at 
the  beginning  that  the  jeweler's  face 
expressed  bewilderment  and  astonish- 
ment and  amusement.  I  have  often  seen 
that  triple  expression  in  many  parts  of 
France,  when  the  Artist  was  "telling 
'em  what  I  think." 

At  last,  French  finesse  found  a  way 
out  of  the  difficulty.  The  railway- 
station  was  beyond  the  limits  of  the  bor- 
ough. The  jeweler  would  meet  us  at  the 
train  and  give  the  Artist  the  watch 
there.  Thus  would  the  infraction  of  the 
one-rest-day-in-seven  law,  and  the  conse- 
quent dreaded  proces-verbal,  be  avoided. 

During  the  whole  hour's  journey  on 
the  narrow-gauge  railway  from  Douar- 
nenez to  Pont-Croix,  the  Artist  and  I 
laughed  over  the  watch,  and  I  tried 
to  get  him  to  repeat  in  French  his 
opinion  of  French  law.  But  he  caught 
me  surreptitiously  putting  down  a  sen- 
tence on  the  edge  of  my  newspaper,  and 
stopped  short. 

Pont-Croix  at  last!  We  could  see  that 
it  was  a  great  country  from  our  window; 
pasture  lands,  cows,  dandelions  and 
buttercups  on  one  side,  sand-dunes  on 
the  other.  When  we  got  out,  we  sniffed 
hay  and  seaweed — one  of  the  rarest  and 
most  delightful  combinations  of  odors  in 
the  world.  The  seashore  has  its  good 
points,  and  so  has  the  country.  But 
when  you  can  enjoy  both  together,  as 
you  do  in  this  part  of  Brittany,  you  are 
as  near  heaven  as  you  can  be  in  France. 


THE  TOWN  FROM  THE  FIELDS 


We  knew  we  were  going  to  like  Pont- 
Croix  before  we  left  the  station.  For  it 
wasn't  an  old  grouch  of  a  fellow  in  a 
dilapidated  blue  uniform  that  punched 
our  tickets,  but  a  lithe,  tall  girl,  with 
blue  eyes  and  long,  dark  lashes,  who 
smiled  a  delightful  " '  merci"  when  she 
gave  us  back  our  tickets,  and  patted  with 
the  next  gesture  the  cheek  of  a  wee  baby 
that  lay  on  her  breast.  A  more  striking 
Madonna  and  Child  one  could  not  see 
at  the  Uffizi. 

Lots  of  travelers  pass  by  Pont-Croix, 
because  it  is  on  the  road  to  Audierne, 
the  starting-place  for  the  much-adver- 
tised trip  to  the  Point  de  Raz.  My 
friends  who  "do"  Brittany  will  cer- 
tainly lift  their  eyebrows  with  astonish- 
ment when  I  confess  that  I  did  not  get 
out  to  the  Land's  End  of  France,  and 
that  I  did  not  see  the  rocks  and  the 
swirling  pools  around  which  has  grown 
the  legend  of  the  punishment  of  the 
King  of  Cornwall's  wicked  daughter. 
For  the  guide-books  give  half  a  dozen 
pages  to  the  Point  de  Raz,  while  they 
will  express  no  interest  in  Pont-Croix, 

Vol.  CXXXI  —  No.  785.-86 


which  they  record  merely  as  a  station 
so  many  kilometers  from  Douarnenez. 

Every  one  knows  the  kind  of  tourist 
who  pricks  the  expanding  bubble  of  the 
story  of  your  trip  by  expressing  astonish- 
ment over  the  fact  that  you  have  failed 
to  visit  the  most  important  place.  I  have 
a  friend  who  left  two  thousand  dollars 
once  with  Cook  for  a  Nile  trip  de  luxe 
as  far  as  Gondokoro.  He  didn't  spend 
more  and  go  farther,  because  he  couldn't 
— with  Cook.  And  without  Cook  he 
was  helpless.  On  his  return  home  an  all- 
the  -Orient  -in  -eighty  -days-  from-New- 
York- to -New- York -for -five -hundred- 
dollars  tourist,  who  had  hurried  by  the 
Nile  Express  twenty-four  hours  beyond 
Cairo,  asked  him  abruptly,  "Did  you 
see  the  Temple  of  Blankety-blank  near 
Blankety-blank  ?" 

The  man  who  had  really  gone  through 
Egypt  and  the  Sudan  felt  as  if  he  had 
been  caught  in  a  crime,  and  had  to  con- 
fess that  on  the  day  he  passed  that  way 
his  ankle  was  swollen,  and  he  could  not 
walk  over  to  the  Temple  of  Blankety- 
blank. 


692 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Well,"  commented  the  three-days- 
from-Cairo-to-Cairo  tourist,  "if  you 
didn't  see  the  Temple  of  Blankety- 
blank  you  might  just  as  well  have  stayed 
at  home!" 

Without  indulging  in  the  same  degree 
of  extravagance,  I  am  going  to  be  just 


OLD  BRETON  HOUSES 


about  as  mean — by  inference,  at  least — 
to  those  for  whom  Pont-Croix  signifies 
merely  a  railway  station. 

There  was  no  sign  of  a  cab.  We  found 
two  salts  who  agreed  to  see  our  bags 
safely  to  the  hotel.  Dinner  was  two 
hours  distant,  and  we  decided  to  stroll 
through  the  town  and  let  the  hotel  go 
until  we  needed  it.  The  Artist  had  been 
to  Pont-Croix  before.  His  enthusiasm 
had  brought  me  here.   So  he  was  anxious 


to  show  me  the  town  before  the  hotel 
could  incapacitate  me. 

"We'll  go  to  the  '  Star  of  the  Sea '  later, 
old  buck,"  he  announced.   "I  know  just 
the  right  way  to  take  this  town.  So 
follow  me  until  you  are  too  thirsty  to 
take   another   step."    With    that  he 
started  down  a  nar- 
row lane  where  droop- 
ing vines  hung  over 
the  walls  on  either 
side,  grazing  our  hats. 
I  ducked  after  him. 

A  distinguished 
member  of  the  French 
Academy,  returning 
recently  from  a  trip  to 
America,  boasted  that 
he  had  made  friends 
of  the  inevitable  re- 
porters on  the  dock  by 
answering  the  inevi- 
table question  asked 
before  one  lands  in 
these  words: 

"New  York  is  some 
burg,  all  right!"  Had 
there  been  a  reporter 
in  Pont-Croix,  I  should 
have  given  the  same 
answer  unhesitating- 
ly and  sincerely,  even 
though  in  the  first 
hundred  yards  of  the 
lane  my  left  foot  slip- 
ped off  a  time-worn 
cobblestone  into  an 
annoying  puddle,  and 
-  6  in  the  second  hundred 

~>~  yards  a  fresh  cigar  left 

my  lips  at  the  persua- 
sion of  an  overhanging 
branch  which  the  Ar- 
tist, my  guide,  had 
brushed  aside.  Pont- 
Croix  expects  of  your 
eyes  the  agility  of  looking  out  for  feet 
and  head  at  the  same  time. 

It  takes  an  obscure,  out-of-the-way 
town  to  give  you  a  correct  and  vivid  im- 
pression of  ancestral  days  and  ancestral 
ways.  For  you  do  not  have  to  struggle 
against  the  alloy  of  studied  effort,  of 
concerted  communal  progress,  due  to  the 
twentieth  century's  insatiate  demands. 
Aside  from  its  two  main  streets,  Pont- 
Croix  is  a  true  Rip  Van  Winkle  type  of 


AN  AFTERNOON  IN  PONT-CROIX 


693 


place.  Strangers  to  lamp-posts  and  elec- 
tric lights,  to  sidewalks  and  sewers,  to 
telegraph  wires  and  mail-boxes,  to 
monuments  and  vespasiennes,  to  sub- 
prefectural  architecture  and  municipal 
horticulture,  streets  and  buildings  alike 
bear  eloquent  witness  to  the  fact  that 
there  was  a  time  when  men  built  as 
they  pleased  and  cared  nothing  for 
neighbors  or  the  common  weal. 

Insalubrity,  ignorance  of  hygiene,  lack 
of  comfort,  absence  of  centrally  directed 
and  altruistic  effort,  perhaps,  in  those 
"good  old  days'';  but  does  not  modern 
society,  influenced  by  German  ideals, 
afflicted  with  the  maladies  of  organiza- 
tiDn  and  conformity,  lose  as  much  as  it 
gains?  In  charm,  certainly.  The  houses 
of  Pont-Croix  are  heaped  one  upon  an- 
other on  the  hillside  in  haphazard  fash- 
ion, the  streets  still  follow  the  cow- 
paths,  and  the  habitations  of  mankind 


are  like  the  creatures  of  God — no  two 
alike.  At  Pont-Croix  men  made  their 
houses  how  and  where  they  chose.  And 
the  houses  have  remained  that  way — a 
monument  to  spontaneity  and  to  indi- 
vidualism, a  refreshing  contrast  to  the 
damnable  and  damning  consigne  of  the 
dispensation  under  which  we  exist.  We 
would  not  want  to  live  in  Pont-Croix; 
we  could  not.  But  is  the  pity  for  Pont- 
Croix  or  for  us? 

Modern  society — our  world — claims 
of  its  members  conformity  to  a  type. 
And  yet  this  conformity  is  contrary  to 
human  nature.  To  compel  men  to  live 
in  exactly  the  same  sort  of  houses  in 
exactly  the  same  sort  of  streets,  and  to 
wear  exactly  the  same  sort  of  clothes, 
is  as  unnatural,  as  illogical,  as  unreason- 
able, as  to  expect  them  to  have  exactly 
the  same  sort  of  faces.  But  we  are  tend- 
ing to  physiognomical  conformity.  Our 


ON  THE  WAY  TO  MARKET 


694 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


grandchildren  may  have  to  wear  labels 
to  distinguish  them  one  from  the  other. 
For  the  face  is  the  outward  sign  of  the 
soul,  and  society  is  beginning  to  demand 
of  our  souls  what  it  demands  of  our 
habitations  and  our  clothes.  We  have  a 
horror  of  originality,  and  our  impulse  is 
to  stifle  it  in  ourselves  as  well  as  in 
others.  How  much  more  peace  of  mind 
there  is  in  being  a  Jabrudder1  than  in 
being  a  protestant!  Only  when  our 
energetic  disapproval  has  failed  to  dis- 
courage a  man's  individuality  of  thought 
and  of  action  do  we  come  to  grant  him 

1  German  words  are  not  in  favor  just  now,  but. 
this  one  is  unique,  although  what  it  describes  is 
unfortunately  not.  The  Jabrudder  is  the  man  who 
always  assents  to  what  is  said.  There  is  the  same 
expression  in  Turkish;  the  members  of  the  first 
parliament  of  Abdul  Hamid,  who  voted  for  every 
measure  without  a  word,  are  known  in  history  as 
the  Eweteffendims. 


A   PONT-CHOIX  BARNYARD 


grudgingly  his  right.  Only  after  we  have 
frowned  upon  him,  looked  at  him 
askance,  and  called  him  a  fool,  do  we 
find  our  pleasure  and  our  profit  in  what 
he  has  accomplished  in  spite  of  us.  But 
even  then  he  cannot  go  without  a  collar 
or  a  shave.  There  are  limits.  Woe  to 
the  most  brilliant  and  most  gifted  if  he 
pushes  the  principle  of  nonconformity 
into  the  realm  of  dress  and  habitation. 

We  came  to  the  market-place.  Un- 
mistakable evidence  pointed  to  the  fact 
that  the  open  space  on  the  left  was  given 
over  to  the  cattle-market.    Up  against 
the  Mairie  was  the  watering-trough. 
But  there  were  no  pens;   they  would 
have  been  against  the  spirit  of  Pont- 
Croix.   Like  masters,  like  animals.  You 
cannot  put  restrictions  on  them.  The 
Breton  fisherman  influences -strongly  the 
Breton  farmer.    Frequently  in  this  part 
of  Brittany  the  farmer 
is  the  fisherman  grown 
rheumatic,  who  drags 
successfully  into  the 
seventies  or  eighties,  by 
daily   dusty  kilometers 
behind  swishing  tails,  the 
cramped  legs  of  the  thir- 
ties and  forties.  Along 
with  the  inheritance  of 
rheumatism  from  the  sea 
is   an  uncompromising 
disregard  of  the  law,  in- 
terpreted  and  imposed 
by  those  of  another  me- 
tier.   It  is  the  same  with 
the  Breton  women.  We 
saw  the  market  the  next 
day,  and  it  was  as  we 
surmised.    Cattle  and 
fowls,  watermelons  and 
eggs,  roses  and  potatoes, 
butter  and  fish,  onions 
and   peaches,  picture 
post-cards   and  kitchen 
utensils,  lace  and  cow- 
hide boots,  all  rubbed 
elbows  according  to 
where  the  venders  chose 
to  sit,  and  the  buyers 
dived  in  and  picked  out 
what  they  wanted,  just 
as  they  would  have  had 
to  do  if  they  were  deal- 
ing with  the  Artist's 
French  words.  The 


AN  OLD  STREET  LEADING  FROM  THE  MARKET-PLACE 

Mairie,  which  stands  for  the  common-  antics  of  officialdom.  Restrictions  on 
wealth,  looked  reproachfully  and  help-  personal  liberty  exist  galore  on  the 
lessly  on.  Its  services  were  not  needed.  books,  however,  and  invitations  to  con- 
Nowhere  does  one  feel  too  strongly  in  formity  are  more  noticeable  in  France 
France  the  majesty  of  the  law  and  the  than  in  Anglo-Saxondom.    The  front  of 


696 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


COTTAGES  AND  TIME-WORN  COBBLESTONES 


the  Mairie  in  Pont-Croix  bore  many — at 
least,  it  would  have  seemed  many,  were 
we  not  familiar  with  France.  The  wall 
of  the  ordinary  Mairie  in  France  is  as 
hidden  from  view  as  the  wall  of  a  million- 
aire's art-gallery. 

And  in  Pont-Croix  I,  at  least,  four  days 
fresh  from  Paris,  missed  the  defense 
d'afficher.  It  has  always  been  a  source 
of  wonderment  to  me  why  the  nine 
thousand  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
Parisians  who  have  never  experienced 
and  who  never  will  experience  the  desire 
to  post  bills  on  walls  have  to  be  warned 
a  thousand  times  a  day  throughout  their 
lives  not  to  do  it.  Is  the  furtive-step- 
ping man,  with  his  ladder  and  brush  and 
bucket  of  flour-paste,  so  much  to  be 
feared  as  all  that?  The  Paris  child  may 
not  be  aware  of  the  date  of  the  passing 
of  the  law  which  makes  him  go  to  school; 
but  who  is  so  ignorant,  or  so  unobserv- 


ant, that  he  cannot  name 
glibly  that  red-letter  day 
in  the  month  of  May, 
1836,  when  the  govern- 
ment issued  the  first  sweep- 
ing edict  against  bill- 
posters? Stop  and  think 
a  minute!  You  may  have 
forgotten  the  great  dates 
of  history,  but  I  wager 
that  if  you  have  ever  wan- 
dered much  around  the 
cities  of  France  you  can 
give  the  date  I  refer  to.  If 
Paris  has  been  your  hab- 
itat, I  am  willing  to  lay 
a  hundred  to  one  on  it. 

Had  we  the  inclination 
— and  the  bills — we  could 
have  posted- them  in  Pont- 
Croix.    Had  there  been 
grass,  we  could  have  walked 
upon  it.    The  Artist  and  I 
became  infected  with  the 
spirit  of  liberty.   Here  was 
a  place  where  one  could 
do  as  he  pleased.    It  was 
very  warm.    We  took  off 
our  accursed  collars,  and 
opened  our  shirt-fronts — 
a  little.    None  stared  at 
us  for  that.    I  laughed  im- 
moderately at  a  joke  the 
Artist  had  been  saving  to 
spring  on  me.  I  felt  no  con- 
straint.  Yielding  to  a  natural  impulse,  I 
was  not  making  a  fool  of  myself.   In  the 
city  (any  city,  anywhere,  dear  reader)  a 
crowd  would  have  gathered  round  and 
remarked   audibly  that   I   was  either 
drunk  or  afFected  by  the  sun.   A  police- 
man would  have  appeared  on  the  run  to 
see  what  the  matter  was;  no,  perhaps 
not  on  the  run,  but  he  would  have  ap- 
peared— in  time. 

A  glimpse  of  an  attractive  interior 
brought  us  to  an  open  door.  In  the  mid- 
dle of  the  room  a  woman  was  applying 
soap  and  rag  to  a  copper  casserole.  Her 
five-year-old  son,  on  his  back,  was  trying 
to  draw  the  cat  from  a  refuge  under  the 
bed.  The  baby  roared  lustily  in  its 
wooden  cradle.  On  the  fire,  good  soup 
was  singing.  The  tall  clock,  without 
which  no  house  is  Breton,  measured 
time  into  half-seconds  by  its  brass  disk 
pendulum.     We  made  bold  to  ask  to 


AN  AFTERNOON  IN  PONT-CROIX 


697 


enter.  Assent  was  immediately  and 
heartily  given.  But  nothing  stopped. 
Woman,  boy,  cat,  baby,  soup,  and  clock 
went  right  on.  I  got  down  to  help  the 
boy  with  the  cat,  while  the  Artist  made 
a  hasty  sketch — of  the  room,  not  of  me. 
Silence  was  broken  by  the  woman 


sunshine  again.  That  interior  did  jus- 
tice to  the  facade. 

Seated  on  a  fallen  tree -trunk  in  a 
corner  of  the  churchyard,  we  analyzed 
our  disappointment  in  the  church,  and 
speculated  on  the  curious  fact  we  had  so 
often   remarked,   that   cathedrals  and 


asking  if  we  should  like  to  see  the  up-  parish  churches  have  frequently  nothing 
stairs.  She  pointed  to  the  ladder,  and 
with  the  same  gesture  reached  to  the 
rafter  above  her  for  another  casserole. 
The  Artist  climbed  the  ladder.  The  cat 
and  the  boy  went  out  of  the  door.  I 
rose  slowly  to  my  feet,  and  asked  the 


in  common  with  their  cities  and  towns. 
Church  architecture,  glorious,  mediocre, 
hideous,  dead  or  full  of  life,  does  not 
seem  to  be  influenced  by  its  milieu,  or 
rather,  to  reflect  its  milieu.  Are  church 
structures  the  creation  of  local  impulse? 


woman  what  she  thought  of  Madame  Are  they  the  expression  of  local  taste, 
Caillaux.  of  local  aspiration?    Do  they  influence 

"Madame  Caillaux?  Je  ne  la  connais     for  good  or  bad  the  successive  genera- 


pas,"  she  answered.  And  the  conversa- 
tion ended  there  until  the  Artist  reap- 
peared, legs  first. 

We  thanked  her 
and  said,  "Bon 
jour,  madame." 

"Bon  jour,  mes- 
sieurs,^ she  an- 
swered, reaching 
for  a  third  casse- 
role. 

As  we  went  out 
of  the  door  the  cat 
and  the  boy  re- 
turned. W7  e  of- 
fered him  coppers. 
He  refused  them, 
and  continued 
after  the  cat.  The 
normal  life  is  the 
simple  life. 

At  the  next 
corner  was  the 
church,  with  an 
interesting  side 
portal  and  tower 
and  a  hopelessly 
commonplace  fa- 
cade. Possibly 
the  side  portal 
and  tower  gained 
from  the  painful 
contrast  afforded 
by  the  rest  of  the 
building.  The 
interior  was  as 
mournful  as  aFeb- 
ruary  morning, 
and  we  hurried  to 
get  out  into  the 


tions  of  which  they  are  the  welcome- 
or  unwelcome — heirlooms?    There  are 
striking  illustrations  to  back  up  a  nega- 


THE  STREETS  STILL  FOLLOW  THE  COW-PATHS 


ON  THE  RIVER-BANK  AT  PONT-CROIX 


tive.  How  do  you  explain  Milan  and 
Florence,  Peterborough  and  Oxford, 
Cologne  and  Niirnberg,  Chartres  and 
Arras,  Athens  and  Ragusa? 

The  angle  of  the  sun  was  getting  less 
perceptible,  and  we  had  not  yet  reached 
that  hotel.  When  the  Artist  proposed 
that  we  go  around  the  block  to  the  left, 
which  would  take  us  back  to  the  railway 
station,  I  began  to  have  my  misgivings 
about  the  "  Star  of  the  Sea."  But  they 
were  unfounded.  The  "  Star  of  the  Sea," 
unlike  the  church,  was  in  the  spirit  of 
the  town.  We  came  to  it  along  a  wide 
road,  having  at  last  abandoned  our  lanes 
and  cobblestones.  It  was  very  near  the 
railway,  at  the  intersection  of  our  road 
with  the  only  other  real  artery  of  Pont- 
Croix,  and  looked  refreshingly  squat  and 
white,  with  the  roof  sticking  down  over 
the  second-story  windows  like  the  brim 
of  a  hat. 

The  tables  on  the  terrace  were  neither 
of  iron  nor  round  nor  painted  olive- 
green.  Nor  were  there  chairs  of  the  kind 
you  pay  two  sous  for  in  the  Tuileries. 
We  flung  ourselves  on  a  bench  against 
the  wall,  and  put  our  elbows  on  a  three- 
legged  wooden  taboret,  with  a  half- 
moon  cut  in  it  for  convenience  in  carry- 
ing, the  like  of  which  is  thought  to  exist 


in  south  Germany,  but  in  reality  is  seen 
only  on  the  stage — until  you  go  to  Pont- 
Croix. 

Over  our  pompiers  we  watched  the 
peasants  and  fishermen  go  in  and  out  of 
the  tap-room.  They  all  took  the  same 
drink,  a  generous  glass  of  something 
white  which  cost  only  one  big  copper. 
They  did  not  tarry  over  their  tipple. 
Drinking  in  Brittany  is  not  a  social  di- 
version; it  is  an  important  part  of  the 
day's  work. 

Across  from  the  "Star  of  the  Sea"  a 
forbidding  wall  extended  down  the 
street  to  the  angle  of  the  church's  side 
portal  and  the  graveyard  gate.  Several 
hundred  feet  back  rose  an  enormous 
building,  which  looked  for  all  the  world 
like  a  barracks.  It  was  being  repaired. 
New  cornices,  new  shutters,  and  the 
freshly  painted  part  of  it  contrasted 
sharply  with  the  end  which  the  work- 
men had  not  yet  touched,  and  showed 
into  what  a  state  of  dilapidation  the 
building  had  fallen.  Madame,  who  had 
graciousrjf  come  out  to  sit  with  us  when 
the  rush  in  the  tap-room  subsided,  ex- 
plained that  it  had  been  a  famous 
church  college,  and  was  one  of  the  first 
to  be  closed  after  the  enactment  of  the 
Briand  law  of  separation  ten  years  ago. 


ASPIRATION 


699 


During  the  whole  of  the  decade  it  had 
been  up  for  sale,  but  who  would  want 
to  buy  such  a  building  at  any  price  in  a 
place  like  Pont-Croix?  There  had  been 
talk  of  turning  it  into  a  fish-canning 
factory.  This  project  had  fallen  through, 
for  the  promoters  had  been  unsuccessful 
in  their  attempt  to  divert  the  local  fisher- 
men from  the  Douarnenez  market. 

"But  who  has  taken  it  at  last?"  we 
asked,  "for  it  looks  as  if  it  is  being  put 
in  shape  again,  and  at  some  big  ex- 
pense." 

"Oh,  the  college  is  going  to  reopen," 
madame  answered.  "You  see,  the 
Church  is  persistent  in  these  parts.  They 
never  give  up,  law  or  no  law.  The  Order 
lost  it  because  they  would  not  register 
as  an  association  under  the  Briand  law. 
If  they  had  bought  it  back,  it  would 
have  been  a  compromise  with  conscience. 
Anyway,  a  big  price  was  asked.  But 
they  have  bided  their  time.  As  there 
has  been  no  demand  for  the  property,  it 
has  come  very  cheap  into  the  hands  of 
a  good  Catholic  layman.  He  is  going 
to  start  a  college,  and  has  asked  the 


Fathers  to  be  the  teachers.  It  will  not 
be  a  Church  college,  bien  entendu.  The 
Fathers  come  back,  not  as  an  order, 
but  as  individuals,  and,  as  individuals, 
they  have  qualified  as  teachers  according 
to  the  law.  But  they  have  not  accepted 
the  law  of  associations.  Pas  de  tout! 
If  a  Frenchman  wants  to  put  his  money 
into  a  college  and  asks  other  Frenchmen 
to  be  the  teachers,  it  is  in  conformity 
to  the  law.  But  our  Fathers  never  will 
conform !" 

The  Artist  took  out  his  watch.  He 
saw  me  look  at  it.    We  both  grinned. 

"Pretty  nearly  time  for  dinner,  isn't 
it?"  he  asked. 

Madame  rose.  "The  gong  will  sound 
in  a  minute,  I  think;  but  go  in,  messieurs. 
I  am  sure  you  are  hungry,  and  you  shall 
be  served  immediately." 

Conformity,  after  all,  has  to  do  with 
outward  form.  As  long  as  we  are  dealing 
with  the  outward,  we  can  afford  to  be 
indifferent  to  prescriptions.  It  is  when 
the  law  imputes  to  itself  the  control  over 
the  realm  of  the  spirit  that  it  denatures 
— or  fails. 


Aspiration 

BY  DANA  BURNET 

YONDER  a  sail  flies  to  the  burning  moon, 
And  here  a  silver  moth,  with  frightened  grace, 
Circles  my  lamp,  and  there  upon  the  dune 
A  lover  looks  into  his  lady's  face. 

I,  too,  have  wings  that  struggle  into  flight, 

Blind  as  the  white  moth  at  the  lantern's  bars, 

I,  too,  drawn  by  that  yearning  for  the  light, 
Have  sent  my  soul  to  beat  against  the  stars! 

The  mariner  will  never  touch  the  moon. 

The  moth  will  die;   and  love  against  love's  eyes 
Will  search  in  vain  for  some  perennial  June  .  .  . 

As  I  will  search  in  vain  for  Paradise. 

And  yet  when  sails  are  furled,  like  wings  at  even, 
And  love  lies  dead  upon  the  sands  it  trod, 

The  old  desires  shall  light  us  into  heav'n, 
Old  failures  shine  upon  the  face  of  God. 


Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785— S7 


The  Side  of  the  Angels 


A  NOVEL 


BY  BASIL  KING 


CHAPTER  XI 

[Y  the  time  his  anger 
had  cooled  down,  Thor 
regretted  the  words 
with  which  he  had  left 
his  father's  presence, 
and  continued  to  regret 
them.  They  were  brag- 
gart and  useless.  Whatever  he  might 
feel  impelled  to  do,  either  for  Leonard 
Willoughby  or  Jasper  Fay,  he  could  do. 
better  without  announcing  his  inten- 
tions beforehand.  He  experienced  a 
sense  of  guilt  when,  on  the  next  day,  and 
for  many  days  afterward,  his  father 
showed  by  his  manner  that  he  had  been 
wounded. 

Lois  Willoughby  showed  that  she, 
too,  had  been  wounded.  The  process  of 
"easing  the  first  one  off,"  besides  af- 
fording him  side-lights  on  a  woman's 
heart,  involved  him  in  an  erratic  course 
of  blowing  hot  and  cold  that  defeated 
his  own  ends.  When  he  blew  cold  the 
chill  was  such  that  he  blew  hotter  than 
ever  to  disperse  it.  He  could  see  for 
himself  that  this  seeming  capriciousness 
made  it  difficult  for  Lois  to  preserve  the 
equal  tenor  of  her  bearing,  though  she 
did  her  best. 

He  had  kept  away  from  her  for  a  week 
or  more,  and  would  have  continued  to 
do  so  longer  had  he  not  been  haunted 
by  the  look  his  imagination  conjured 
up  in  her  eyes.  He  knew  its  trouble,  its 
bewilderment,  its  reflected  heartache. 
"I'm  a  damned  cad,"  he  said  to  himself; 
and  whenever  he  worked  himself  up  to 
that  point  remorse  couldn't  send  him 
quickly  enough  to  pay  her  a  visit  of 
atonement. 

He  knew  she  was  at  home  because 
he  met  one  or  two  of  the  County 
Street  ladies  coming  away  from  the 
house.  With  knowing  looks  they  told 
him  he  should  find  her.    They  did  not, 


however,  tell  him  that  she  had  another 
visitor,  whose  voice  he  recognized  while 
depositing  his  hat  and  overcoat  on  one 
of  the  Regency  chairs  in  the  tapestried 
square  hall. 

"Oh,  don't  go  yet,"  Lois  was  saying. 
"Here's  Dr.  Thor  Masterman.  He'll 
want  to  see  you." 

But  Rosie  insisted  on  taking  her  de- 
parture, making  polite  excuses  for  the 
length  of  her  call. 

She  was  deliciously  pretty;  he  saw 
that  at  once  on  entering.  Wearing  the 
new  winter  suit  for  which  she  had 
pinched  and  saved,  and  a  hat  of  the 
moment's  fashion,  she  easily  dazzled 
Thor,  though  Lois  could  perceive,  in  de- 
tails of  material,  the  "cheapness"  that 
in  American  eyes  is  the  most  damning  of 
all  qualities.  Rosie's  face  was  bright 
with  the  flush  of  social  triumph,  for  the 
County  Street  ladies  had  been  kind  to 
her,  and  she  had  had  tea  with  all  the 
ceremony  of  which  she  read  in  the 
accredited  annals  of  good  society.  If 
she  had  not  been  wondering  whether  or 
not  the  County  Street  ladies  knew  her 
brother  was  in  jail,  she  could  have  sup- 
pressed all  other  causes  for  anxiety  and 
given  herself  freely  to  the  hour's  bliss. 

But  she  would  not  be  persuaded  to 
remain,  taking  her  leave  with  a  full 
command  of  graceful  niceties.  Thor 
could  hardly  believe  she  was  his  fairy 
of  the  hothouse.  She  was  a  princess,  a 
marvel.  "Beats  them  all,"  he  said, 
gleefully,  to  himself,  referring  to  the 
ladies  of  County  Street,  and  almost  in- 
cluding Lois  Willoughby. 

He  did  not  quite  include  her.  He  per- 
ceived that  he  couldn't  do  so  when, 
after  having  bowed  Rosie  to  the  door, 
he  returned  to  take  his  seat  in  the  draw- 
ing-room. There  was  a  distinction 
about  Lois,  he  admitted  to  himself,  that 
neither  prettiness  nor  fine  clothes  nor 
graceful  niceties  could  rival.    He  won- 


THE  SIDE  OF 

dered  if  she  wasn't  even  more  distin- 
guished since  this  new  something  had 
come  into  her  life  —  was  it  joy  or 
grief?  —  which  he  himself  had  brought 
there. 

Her  greeting  to  him  was  of  precisely 
the  same  shade  as  all  her  greetings  during 
the  past  two  months.  It  was  like  some- 
thing rehearsed  and  executed  to  per- 
fection. When  she  had  given  him  his 
tea  and  poured  another  cup  for  herself, 
they  talked  of  Rosie. 

"Do  you  know,"  she  said,  in  a  musing 

tone,  "I  think  the  poor  little  thing  has 

really  enjoyed  being  here  this  after- 
s'' 
noon  r 

"Why  shouldn't  she?" 

"Yes,  but  why  should  she?  Apart 
from  the  very  slight  novelty  of  the  thing 
— which  to  an  American  girl  is  no  real 
novelty,  after  all — I  don't  understand 
what  it  is  she  cares  so  much  about?" 

He  weighed  the  question  seriously. 
"She  finds  a  world  of  certain — what 
shall  I  say? — of  certain  amenities  to 
which  she's  equal — any  one  can  see  that! 
— and  which  she  hasn't  got.  That's 
something  in  itself — to  a  girl  with  imagi- 
nation." 

"I  think  she's  in  love,"  Lois  said, 
suddenly. 

Thor  was  startled.  "Oh  no,  she  isn't. 
She  can't  be.  Who  on  earth  could  she 
be  in  love  with  ?" 

"Oh,  it's  not  with  you.  Don't  be 
alarmed."  Lois  smiled.  It  was  so  like 
Thor  to  be  shy  of  a  pretty  girl.  He  had 
been  so  ever  since  she  could  remember 
him. 

"That's  good,"  he  managed  to  say. 
He  regained  control  of  himself,  though 
he  tingled  all  over.  "It  would  have 
to  be  with  me  or  Dr.  Hilary.  We're 
the  only  two  men,  except  the  Italians, 
who  ever  appear  on  the  place." 

"Oh,  you  don't  know,"  Lois  said, 
pensively.  "Girls  like  that  often  have 
what  they  call,  rather  picturesquely,  a 
fellow." 

"Oh,  don't!"  His  cry  was  instantly 
followed  by  a  nervous  laugh.  He  felt 
obliged  to  explain.  "It's  so  funny  to 
hear  you  talk  like  that.  It  doesn't  go 
with  your  style." 

She  took  this  pleasantly  and  they 
spoke  of  other  things;  but  Thor  was 
eager  to  get  away.   A  real  visit  of  atone- 


THE  ANGELS  701 

ment  had  become  impossible.  That 
must  be  put  off  for  another  day — per- 
haps for  ever.  He  wasn't  sure.  He 
couldn't  tell.  For  the  minute  his  head 
was  in  a  whirl.  He  hardly  knew  what 
he  was  saying,  except  that  his  rejoinders 
to  Lois's  remarks  were  more  or  less  at 
random.  Vital  questions  were  pounding 
through  his  brain  and  demanding  an 
answer.  Who  knew  but  that  with  re- 
gard to  Rosie  she  was  right — and  yet 
wrong?  Women,  with  their  remarkable 
powers  of  divination,  didn't  always  hit 
the  nail  directly  on  the  head.  It  might 
be  the  case  with  Lois  now.  She  might 
be  right  in  her  surmise  that  Rosie  was 
in  love,  and  mistaken  in  those  light  and 
cruel  words:  "Oh,  not  with  you!"  He 
didn't  suppose  it  was  with  him.  And 
yet  .  .  .  and  yet  .  .  .  ! 

He  got  away  at  last,  and  tore  through 
the  winter  twilight  toward  the  old  apple- 
orchard  above  the  pond.  He  knew  what 
he  would  say.  "Rosie,  are  you  in  love 
with  any  one?  If  so,  for  God's  sake, 
tell  me."  What  he  would  do  when  she 
answered  him  was  matter  outside  his 
present  capacity  for  thought. 

It  had  begun  to  snow.  By  the  time 
he  reached  the  house  on  the  hill  his 
shoulders  were  white.  The  necessity 
for  shaking  himself  in  the  little  entry 
gave  the  first  prosaic  chill  to  his  ardor. 

Rosie  had  returned  and  was  preparing 
supper.  The  princess  and  marvel  had 
resolved  herself  again  into  the  fairy  of 
the  hothouse.  Not  that  Thor  minded 
that.  What  disconcerted  him  was  her 
dry  little  manner  of  surprise.  She  had 
not  expected  him.  There  was  nothing 
in  her  mother's  condition  to  demand 
his  call.  She  herself  was  busy.  She 
had  come  from  the  kitchen  to  answer 
the  door.  A  smell  of  cooking  filled  the 
house. 

No  one  of  these  details  could  have 
kept  him  from  carrying  out  his  purpose; 
but  together  they  were  unromantic. 
How  could  he  adjure  her  to  tell  him  for 
God's  sake  whether  or  not  she  was  in 
love  with  any  one  when  he  saw  she  was 
afraid  that  something  was  burning  on 
the  stove?  He  could  only  stammer  out 
excuses  for  having  come.  Inventing  on 
the  spot  new  and  incoherent  directions 
for  the  treatment  of  Mrs.  Fay,  he  took 


702 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


himself  away  again,  not  without  hu- 
miliation. 

Being  in  a  savage  mood  as  he  stalked 
down  the  hill,  he  was  working  himself 
into  a  rage  when  an  unexpected  occur- 
rence gave  him  other  things  to  think  of. 

At  the  foot  of  the  hill,  just  below  the 
slope  of  the  Square,  was  the  terminus 
of  the  electric  tram-line  from  the  city. 
In  summer  it  was  a  pretty  spot,  well 
shaded  by  ornamental  trees,  with  a 
small  Gothic  church  and  its  parsonage 
in  the  center  of  a  trimly  kept  lawn. 
It  was  prettier  still  as  Thor  Masterman 
approached  it,  at  the  close  of  a  winter's 
day,  with  the  great  soft  flakes,  heap- 
ing their  beauty  on  roof  and  shrub  and 
roadway,  the  whole  lit  up  with  plenty  of 
cheerful  electricity,  and  no  eye  to  behold 
it  but  his  own. 

Because  of  this  purity  and  solitude  a 
black  spot  was  the  more  conspicuous; 
and  because  it  was  a  moving  black  spot 
it  caught  the  onlooker's  glance  at  once. 
It  was  a  moving  black  spot,  though  it 
remained  in  one  place — on  the  cement 
seat  that  circled  a  copper-beech-tree 
for  the  convenience  of  villagers  wait- 
ing for  the  cars.  It  was  extraordinary 
that  any  one  should  choose  this  uninvit- 
ing, snow-covered  resting-place,  unless 
he  couldn't  do  otherwise. 

The  doctor  in  Thor  was  instantly 
alert,  but  before  advancing  many  paces 
he  had  made  his  guess.  Patients  were 
beginning  to  take  his  time,  render- 
ing his  afternoons  less  free;  and  so 
what  might  have  been  expected  had 
happened.  Mr.  Willoughby  had  man- 
aged to  come  homeward  by  the  electric 
car,  but  was  unable  to  go  any  farther. 

Nevertheless,  Thor  was  startled  as  he 
crossed  the  roadway  to  hear  a  great 
choking  sob.  The  big  creature  was  hud- 
dled somehow  on  the  seat,  but  with  face 
and  arms  turned  to  the  trunk  of  the 
tree,  against  whose  cold  bark  he  wept. 
He  wept  shamelessly  aloud,  with  broken 
exclamations  of  which  "O  my  God! 
O  my  God!"  was  all  that  Thor  could 
hear  distinctly. 

"It's  delirium  this  time,  for  sure," 
he  said  to  himself,  as  he  laid  his  hand 
on  the  great  snow-heaped  shoulder. 

But  he  changed  his  mind  on  that 
score  as  soon  as  Mr.  Willoughby  was 
able  to  speak  coherently.    "I'm  heart- 


broken, Thor.  Haven't  touched  a  thing 
to-day — scarcely.    But  I'm  all  in." 

More  sobs  followed.  It  was  with  diffi- 
culty that  Thor  could  get  the  lumbering 
body  on  its  feet.  "You  mustn't  stay 
here,  Mr.  Willoughby.  You'll  catch 
cold.    Come  along  home  with  me." 

"I  do'  wan'  to  go  home,  Thor.  Got 
no  home  now.  Ruined — tha's  what  I 
am.  Ruined.  Your  father's  kicked  me 
out.  All  my  money  gone.  No'  a  cent 
left  in  the  world." 

Thor  dragged  him  onward.  "  But  you 
must  come  home  just  the  same,  Mr. 
Willoughby.  You  can't  stay  out  here. 
The  next  car  will  be  along  in  a  minute, 
and  every  one  will  see  you." 

"I  do'  care  who  sees  me,  Thor.  I'm 
ruined.  Father  says  I'll  have  to  go. 
Got  all  the  papers  ready.  '  O  my  God ! 
what  '11  Bessie  say?" 

As  they  stumbled  forward  through  the 
snow  Thor  tried  to  learn  what  had 
happened. 

"Got  all  my  money  and  then  kicked 
me  out,"  was  the  only  explanation. 
"Not  a  cent  in  the  world.  What  '11 
Bessie  say?  Oh,  what  '11  Bessie  say? 
All  her  money.  Hasn't  got  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars  left  out  of  tha'  grea' 
big  estate.  Make  away  with  myself. 
Tha's  what  I'll  do.  O  my  God!  my 
God!" 

On  arriving  in  front  of  the  house 
Thor  saw  lights  in  the  drawing-room. 
Lois  was  probably  still  there.  It  was  no 
more  than  a  half-hour  since  he  had  left 
her,  and  other  callers  might  have  suc- 
ceeded him.  He  tried  to  steer  his  charge 
round  the  corner  toward  the  side  en- 
trance in  Willoughby's  Lane. 

But  Len  grew  querulous.  "I  do' 
want  to  go  in  the  side  door.  Go  in  the 
front  door,  hang  it  all!  Father  can't 
turn  me  out  of  my  own  house,  the 
infernal  hound." 

The  door  opened,  and  Lois  stood  in 
the  oblong  of  light.  "Oh,  what  is  it?" 
she  cried,  peering  outward.  "Is  it  you, 
Thor?   What's  the  matter?" 

"Treat  me  like  a  servant,"  Willough- 
by complained,  as,  with  Thor  supporting 
him,  he  stumbled  up  the  steps.  "I  do' 
want  to  go  in  the  side  door.  Front 
door  good  enough  for  me.  No  con- 
founded kitchen-boy,  if  I  am  ruined. 
Look  here,  Lois,"  he  rambled  on,  when 


THE  SIDE  OF 

he  had  got  into  the  hall  and  Thor  was 
helping  him  to  take  off  his  overcoat — 
"look  here,  Lois;  we  haven't  got  a  cent 
in  the  world.  Tha's  wha'  we  haven't 
got — not  a  cent  in  the  world.  Archie 
Masterman's  got  my  money,  and  your 
money,  and  your  mother's  money,  and 
the  whole  damned  money  of  all  of  us. 
Kicked  me  out  now.  No  good  to  him 
any  more." 

With  some  difficulty  Thor  got  him 
to  his  room,  where  he  undressed  him 
and  put  him  to  bed.  On  his  return  to 
the  hall  he  found  Lois  seated  in  one  of 
the  arm-chairs,  her  face  pale. 

"Oh,  Thor,  is  this  what  you  meant  a 
few  weeks  ago?" 

He  did  his  best  to  explain  the  situa- 
tion to  her  gently.  "I  don't  know  just 
what's  happened,  but  I'm  afraid  there's 
trouble  ahead." 

She  nodded.  "Yes;  I've  been  expect- 
ing it,  and  now  I  suppose  it's  come." 

"I  shouldn't  wonder  if  it  had.  But 
you  must  be  brave,  Lois,  and  not  think 
matters  worse  than  they  are." 

"Oh,  I  sha'n't  do  that,"  she  said,  with 
a  hint  of  haughtiness  at  his  solicitude. 
"Don't  worry  about  me.  I'm  quite 
capable  of  bearing  whatever's  to  be 
borne.    Please  go  on." 

"If  anything  has  happened,"  he  said, 
speaking  from  where  he  stood  in  the 
middle  of  the  floor,  "it's  that  father 
wants  to  dissolve  the  partnership." 

"I've  been  looking  for  that.  So  has 
mamma." 

"And  if  they  do  dissolve  the  partner- 
ship, I'm  afraid — I'm  afraid  there  '11  be 
very  little  money  coming  to  Mr.  Will- 
oughby." 

"Whose  fault  would  that  be?" 

"Frankly,  Lois,  I  don't  know.  It 
might  be  that  of  my  father  or  of 
yours — " 

"And  I  shouldn't  think  you'd  want 
to  find  out." 

He  looked  down  at  her  curiously. 
"Why  do  you  say  that  ?  Shouldn't  you  ?" 

She  seemed  to  shiver.  "Why  should 
I?  If  the  money's  gone,  it's  gone. 
Whether  my  father  has  squandered  it 
or  your  father  has — "  She  rose  and 
crossed  the  hall  to  the  stairs,  where,  with 
a  foot  on  the  lowest  of  the  steps,  she 
leaned  on  the  pilaster  of  the  balustrade. 
"I  don't  want  to  know,"  she  said,  with 


THE  ANGELS  703 

energy.  "If  the  money's  gone,  they've 
shuffled  it  away  between  them;  and  I 
don't  see  that  it  would  help  either  you 
or  me  to  find  out  who's  to  blame." 

It  was  a  minute  at  which  Thor  could 
easily  have  brought  out  the  words 
which  for  so  many  years  he  had  sup- 
posed he  would  one  day  speak  to  her. 
His  pity  was  such  that  it  would  have 
been  a  luxury  to  tell  her  to  throw  all  the 
material  part  of  her  care  on  him.  If  he 
could  have  said  that  much  without 
saying  more  he  would  have  had  no 
hesitation.  But  there  was  still  a 
chance  of  the  miracle  happening  with 
regard  to  Rosie  Fay.  Love  was  love — 
and  sweet.  It  was  first  love,  and,  in  its 
way,  it  was  young  love.  It  was  spring- 
tide love.  The  dew  of  the  morning  was 
on  it,  and  the  freshness  of  sunrise.  It 
was  hard  to  renounce  it,  even  to  go  to 
the  aid  of  one  whose  need  of  him  was  so 
desperate  that  to  hide  it  she  turned  her 
face  away.  Instead  of  the  words  of 
cheer  and  rescue  that  were  almost  gush- 
ing to  his  lips,  he  said,  soberly: 

"Has  your  mother  any  idea  of  what's 
going  on  ?" 

She  began  pacing  restlessly  up  and 
down.  "Oh,  she's  been  worried  for  the 
last  few  weeks.  She  couldn't  help  know- 
ing something.  Papa's  been  dropping 
so  many  hints  that  she's  been  meaning 
to  see  your  father." 

"I  suppose  it  will  be  very  hard  for 
her." 

She  paused,  confronting  him.  "It 
will  be  at  first.  But  she'll  rise  to  it.  She 
does  that  kind  of  thing.  You  don't 
know  mother.  Very  few  people  do.  She 
simply  adores  papa.  It's  pathetic.  All 
this  time  that  he's  been  so — so — she 
won't  recognize  it.  She  won't  admit  for 
a  second — or  let  me  admit  it — that  he's 
anything  but  tired  or  ill.  It's  splendid — 
and  yet  there's  something  about  it  that 
almost  breaks  my  heart.  Mamma  has 
lots  of  pluck,  you  know.  You  mightn't 
think  it — " 

^Oh,  I  know  it." 

"I'm  glad  you  do.  People  in  general 
see  only  one  side  of  her,  but  it's  not  the 
only  side.  She  has  her  weaknesses.  I 
see  that  well  enough.  She's  terribly  a 
woman;  and  she  can't  grow  old.  But 
that's  not  criminal,  is  it?  There's  a 
great  deal   in  her  that's  never  been 


704 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


called  on,  and  perhaps  this  trouble  will 
bring  it  out/' 

He  spoke  admiringly.  "It  will  bring 
out  a  great  deal  in  you." 

She  began  again  to  pace  up  and  down. 
"Oh,  me!  I'm  so  useless.  I've  never 
been  of  any  help  to  any  one.  Do  you 
know,  at  times,  latterly,  I've  envied 
that  little  Rosie  Fay?" 

"Why?" 

"Because  she's  got  duties  and  respon- 
sibilities and  struggles.  She's  got  some- 
thing more  to  do  than  dress  and  play 
tennis  and  make  calls.  There  are  people 
who  depend  on  her — 

"She's  splendid,  isn't  she?" 

She  paused  in  her  restless  pacing. 
"She  might  be.    She  is — very  nearly." 

Though  he  had  taken  the  opportunity 
to  get  further  away  from  the  appeal  of 
her  distress,  he  felt  a  pang  of  humiliation 
in  the  promptness  with  which  she  fol- 
lowed his  lead. 

But  he  couldn't  go  on  with  the  dis- 
cussion. It  was  too  sickening.  Every 
inflection  of  her  voice  implied  that  with 
her  own  need  he  had  no  longer  any- 
thing to  do — that  it  was  all  over — that 
she  recognized  the  fact — that  she  was 
trying  her  utmost  to  let  him  off  easily. 
That  she  should  suspect  the  truth,  or 
connect  the  change  with  Rosie  Fay,  he 
knew  was  out  of  the  question.  It  was 
not  the  way  in  which  her  mind  would 
work.  If  she  accounted  for  the  situa- 
tion at  all  it  would  probably  be  on  the 
ground  that  when  it  came  to  the  point 
he  had  found  that  he  didn't  care  for  her. 
The  promises  he  had  tacitly  made  and 
she  had  tacitly  understood  she  was  ready 
to  give  him  back. 

He  was  quite  alive  to  the  fact  that 
her  generosity  made  his  impotence  the 
more  pitiable.  That  he  should  stand 
tongue-tied  and  helpless  before  the 
woman  whom  he  had  allowed  to  think 
that  she  could  count  on  him  was  galling 
not  only  to  his  manhood,  but  to  all  those 
primary  instincts  that  sent  him  to  the 
aid  of  weakness.  There  was  a  minute  in 
which  it  seemed  to  him  that  if  he  did  not 
on  the  instant  redeem  his  self-respect 
it  would  be  lost  to  him  for  ever.  After 
all,  he  did  care  for  her — in  a  way.  There 
was  no  woman  in  the  world  toward 
whom  he  felt  an  equal  degree  of  rever- 
ence.   More  than  that,  there  was  no 


woman  in  the  world  whom  he  could 
admit  so  naturally  to  share  his  life, 
whose  life  he  himself  could  so  naturally 
share.  If  Rosie  were  to  marry  him,  the 
whole  process  would  be  different.  In 
that  case  there  would  be  no  sharing; 
there  would  be  nothing  but  a  wild,  gipsy 
joy.  His  delight  would  be  to  heap  hap- 
piness upon  her,  content  with  her  ac- 
ceptance and  the  very  little  which  was 
all  he  could  expect  her  to  give  him 
in  return.  With  Lois  Willoughby  it 
would  be  equality,  partnership,  compan- 
ionship, and  a  life  of  mutual  compre- 
hension and  respect.  That  would  be 
much,  of  course;  it  was  what  a  few 
months  ago  he  would  have  thought 
enough;  it  was  plainly  that  with  which 
he  must  manage  to  be  satisfied. 

He  was  about  to  plunge  in — to  plunge 
in  with  one  last  backward  look  to  the 
more  exquisite  joys  he  must  leave  be- 
hind— and  tell  her  that  his  strength  and 
loyalty  were  hers  to  dispose  of  as  she 
would  when  she  herself  unwittingly 
balked  the  impulse. 

It  was  still  to  hold  open  to  him  the 
way  of  escape  that  she  continued  to 
speak  of  Rosie.  "If  she  were  to  marry 
some  nice  fellow,  like  Jim  Breen,  for 
instance — " 

Thor  bounded.   "Like — who?" 

She  was  too  deeply  preoccupied  with 
her  own  emotions  to  notice  his.  "He 
was  attentive  to  her  for  a  long  time 
once." 

He  cried  out,  incredulously:  "Oh  no; 
it  couldn't  be.    She's  too — too  superior." 

"I'm  afraid  the  superiority  is  just  the 
trouble — though  I  don't  know  anything 
about  it,  beyond  the  gossip  one  hears 
in  the  village.  Any  one  who  goes  to  so 
many  of  the  working  people's  houses  as 
I  do  hears  it  all." 

He  was  still  incredulous.  "And 
you've  heard — that?" 

"I've  heard  that  poor  Jim  wanted  to 
marry  her — and  she  wouldn't  look  at 
him.  It's  a  pity,  I  think.  She'd  be  a 
great  deal  happier  in  marrying  a  man 
with  the  same  kind  of  ways  as  herself 
than  she'd  be  with  some  one — I  can  only 
put  it,"  she  added,  with  a  rueful  smile, 
"in  a  way  you  don't  like,  Thor — than 
she'd  be  with  some  one  of  another  sta- 
tion in  life." 

His  heart  pounded  so  that  he  could 


THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS 


705 


hardly  trust  himself  to  speak  with  the 
necessary  coolness.  "Is  there  any  ques- 
tion of — of  any  one  of  another  station  in 
life?" 

"N-no;  only  that  if  she  is  in  love — 
and  of  course  I'm  only  guessing  at  it — 
I  think  it's  very  likely  to  be  with  some 
one  of  that  kind." 

The  statement  which  was  thrown  out 
with  gentle  indifference  affected  him  so 
profoundly  that  had  she  again  declared 
that  it  was  not  with  him  he  could  have 
taken  it  with  equanimity.  With  whom 
else  could  it  be?  It  wasn't  with  An- 
tonio, and  it  wasn't  with  Dr.  Hilary. 
There  was  the  choice.  Were  there  any 
other  rival,  he  couldn't  help  knowing  it. 
He  had  sometimes  suspected — no,  it  was 
hardly  enough  for  suspicion! — he  had 
sometimes  hoped — but  it  had  been  hard- 
ly enough  for  hope! — and  yet  sometimes, 
when  she  gave  him  that  dim,  sidelong 
smile  or  turned  to  him  with  the  earnest, 
wide-open  look  in  her  greenish  eyes,  he 
had  thought  that  possibly — just  pos- 
sibly .  .  . 

He  didn't  know  what  answers  he  made 
to  her  further  remarks.  A  faint  memory 
remained  with  him  of  talking  incohe- 
rently against  reason,  against  sentiment, 
against  time,  as,  with  her  velvety  regard 
resting  upon  him  sadly,  he  swung  on 
his  overcoat  and  hurried  to  take  his 
leave. 

CHAPTER  XII 

HE  hurried  because  inwardly  he  was 
running  away  from  the  figure  he 
had  cut.  Never  had  he  supposed 
that  in  any  one's  time  of  need — to 
say  nothing  of  hers! — he  could  have 
proved  so  worthless.  And  he  hurried 
because  he  knew  a  decision  one  way  or 
the  other  had  become  imperative. 
And  he  hurried  because  his  failure 
convinced  him  that  so  long  as  there 
was  a  possibility  that  Rosie  cared 
for  him  secretly  he  would  never  do 
anything  for  Lois  Willoughby.  What- 
ever his  sentiment  toward  the  woman- 
friend  of  his  youth,  he  was  tied  and 
bound  by  the  stress  of  a  love  of  which 
the  call  was  primitive.  He  might  be 
over-abrupt;  he  might  startle  her;  but 
at  the  worst  he  should  escape  from  this 
unbearable  state  of  inactivity. 

So  he  hurried.    It  had  stopped  snow- 


ing; the  evening  was  now  fair  and  cold. 
As  it  was  nearly  six  o'clock,  his  father 
would  probably  have  come  home.  He 
would  make  him  first  an  offer  of  new 
terms,  and  he  would  see  Rosie  after- 
ward. His  excitement  was  such  that  he 
knew  he  could  neither  eat  nor  sleep  till 
the  questions  in  his  heart  were  answered. 

But  on  reaching  his  own  gate  he  was 
surprised  to  see  Mrs.  Willoughby's  mo- 
tor turn  in  at  the  driveway  and  roll  up 
to  the  door.  It  was  not  that  there  was 
anything  strange  in  her  paying  his 
mother  a  call,  but  to-day  the  circum- 
stances were  unusual.  Anything  might 
happen.  Anything  might  have  hap- 
pened already.  On  reaching  the  door  he 
let  himself  in  with  misgiving. 

He  recognized  the  visitor's  voice  at 
once,  but  there  was  a  note  in  it  he  had 
never  heard  before.  It  was  a  plaintive 
note,  and  rather  childlike: 

"Oh,  Ena,  what's  become  of  my 
money?" 

His  mother's  inflections  were  as  child- 
like as  the  other's,  and  as  full  of  distress. 
"How  do  I  know,  Bessie?  Why  don't 
you  ask  Archie?" 

"I  have  asked  him.  I've  just  come 
from  there.  I  can't  make  out  anything 
he  says.  He's  been  trying  to  tell  me 
that  we've  spent  it — when  I  know  we 
haven't  spent  it." 

There  were  tears  in  Ena's  voice  as  she 
said:  "Well,  I  can't  explain  it,  Bessie. 
/  don't  know  anything  about  business." 

From  where  he  stood,  with  his  hand 
on  the  knob,  as  he  closed  the  door  be- 
hind him,  Thor  could  see  into  the  huge, 
old-fashioned,  gilt-framed  mirror  over 
the  chimney-piece  in  the  drawing-room. 
The  two  women  were  standing,  sepa- 
rated by  a  small  table  which  supported 
an  azalea  in  bloom.  His  stepmother, 
in  a  soft,  trailing  house-gown,  her  hands 
behind  her  back,  seemed  taller  and  slen- 
derer than  ever  in  contrast  to  Mrs. 
Willoughby's  dumpiness,  dwarfed  as  it 
was  by  an  enormous  muff  and  encum- 
bering furs. 

The  latter  drew  herself  up  indig- 
nantly. Her  tone  changed.  "You  do 
know  something  about  business,  Ena. 
You  knew  enough  about  it  to  drag  Len 
and  me  into  what  we  never  would  have 
thought  of  doing,  if  you  and  Archie 
hadn't — " 


706 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"  I  ?  Why,  Bessie,  you  must  be  crazy." 

"I'm  not  crazy;  though  God  knows 
it's  enough  to  make  me  so.  I  remember 
everything  as  if  it  had  happened  this 
afternoon." 

There  was  a  faint  scintillation  in  the 
diamonds  in  Ena's  brooch  and  earrings 
as  she  tossed  her  head.  "If  you  do  that 
you  must  recall  that  I  was  afraid  of  it 
from  the  first." 

Bessie  was  quick  to  detect  the  admis- 
sion. "Why?"  she  demanded.  "If  you 
were  afraid  of  it,  why  were  you  afraid? 
You  weren't  afraid  without  seeing  some- 
thing to  be  afraid  of." 

Mrs.  Masterman  nearly  wept.  "I 
don't  know  anything  about  business  at 
all,  Bessie." 

"Oh,  don't  tell  me  that,"  Bessie  broke 
in,  fiercely.  "You  knew  enough  about 
it  to  see  that  Archie  wanted  our  money 
in  1892." 

"  But  /  hadn't  anything  to  do  with  it." 

"Hadn't  anything  to  do  with  it? 
Then  who  had?  Who  was  it  suggested 
to  me  that  Len  should  go  into  business? 
— one  evening? — in  the  Hotel  de  Mar- 
san? — after  dinner?   Who  was  that?" 

"If  I  said  anything  at  all  it  was  that 
I  hated  business  and  everything  that 
had  to  do  with  it." 

"Oh,  I  can  understand  that  well 
enough,"  Bessie  exclaimed,  scornfully. 
"You  hated  it  because  you  saw  already 
that  your  husband  was  going  to  ruin  us. 
Come  now,  Ena!    Didn't  you?" 

Mrs.  Masterman  protested  tearfully. 
"I  didn't  know  anything  about  it.  I 
only  wished  that  Archie  would  let  you 
and  your  money  alone — and  I  wish  it 
still." 

"Very  well,  then!"  Bessie  cried,  fling- 
ing her  hands  outward  dramatically. 
"  Isn't  that  what  I'm  saying  ?  You  knew 
something.  You  knew  it  and  you  let  us 
go  ahead.  You  not  only  let  us  go  ahead, 
but  you  led  us  on.  You  could  see  al- 
ready that  Archie  was  spinning  his  web 
like  a  spider,  and  that  he'd  catch  us  as 
flies.  Now  didn't  you?  Tell  the  truth, 
Ena.  Wasn't  it  in  your  mind  from  the 
first?  Long  before  it  was  in  his?  I'll 
say  that  for  Archie,  that  I  don't  suppose 
he  really  meant  to  ruin  us,  while  you 
knew  he  would.  That's  the  difference 
between  a  man  and  his  wife.  The  man 
only  drifts,   but  the  wife  sees  years 


ahead  what  he's  drifting  to.  You  saw 
it,  Ena — " 

When  his  stepmother  bowed  her  head 
to  sob  into  her  handkerchief  Thor  ven- 
tured to  enter  the  room.  Neither  of  the 
women  noticed  him. 

"I  must  say,  Ena,"  Bessie  con- 
tinued, "that  seems  to  me  frightful. 
I  don't  know  what  you  can  be  made 
of  that  you've  lived  cheerfully  through 
these  last  eighteen  years  when  you 
knew  what  was  coming.  If  it  had 
been  coming  to  yourself — well,  that 
might  be  borne.  But  to  stand  by  and 
watch  for  it  to  overtake  some  one  else — 
some  one  who'd  always  been  your  friend 
— some  one  you  liked,  for  I  do  believe 
you've  liked  me,  in  your  way  and  my 
way — that,  I  must  say,  is  the  limit — ■ 
cela  passe  les  homes.    Now,  doesn't  it?" 

Mrs.  Masterman  struggled  to  speak, 
but  her  sobs  prevented  her. 

"In  a  way  it's  funny,"  Bessie  con- 
tinued, philosophically,  "how  bad  a 
good  woman  can  be.  You're  a  good 
woman,  Ena,  of  a  kind.  That  is,  you're 
good  in  as  far  as  you're  not  bad;  and  I 
suppose  that  for  a  woman  that's  a  very 
fair  average.  But  I  can  tell  you  that 
there  are  sinners  whom  the  world  has 
scourged  to  the  bone  who  haven't  begun 
to  do  what  you've  been  doing  these  past 
eighteen  years — who  wouldn't  have  had 
the  nerve  for  it.  No,  Ena,"  she  con- 
tinued, with  another  sweeping  gesture. 
"'Pon  my  soul,  I  don't  know  what 
you're  made  of.  I  almost  think  I  admire 
you.  I  couldn't  have  done  it;  I'll  be 
hanged  if  I  could.  There  are  women 
who've  committed  murder  and  who 
haven't  been  as  cool  as  you.  They've 
committed  murder  in  a  frantic  fit  of 
passion  that  went  as  quick  as  it  came, 
and  they've  swung  for  it,  or  done  time 
for  it.  But  they'd  never  have  had  the 
pluck  to  sit  and  smile  and  wait  for  this 
minute  as  you've  waited  for  it — when 
you  saw  it  from  such  a  long  way  off." 

It  was  the  crushed  attitude  in  which 
his  stepmother  sank  weeping  into  a 
chair  that  broke  the  spell  by  which 
Thor  had  been  held  paralyzed;  but  be- 
fore he  could  speak  Bessie  turned  and 
saw  him. 

"Oh,  so  it's  you,  Thor.  Well,  I  wish 
you  could  have  come  a  minute  ago  to 
hear  what  I've  been  saying." 


THE  SIDE  OF 

"I've  heard  it,  Mrs.  Willoughby— " 
"Then  I  am  sure  you  must  agree 
with  me.  Or  rather,  you  would  if  you 
knew  how  things  had  been  managed  in 
Paris  eighteen  years  ago.  I've  been  try- 
ing to  tell  your  dear  stepmother  that 
we've  been  mistaken  in  her.  We  haven't 
done  her  justice.  We've  thought  of  her 
as  just  a  sweet  and  gentle  ladylike  per- 
son, when  all  the  while  she's  been  a  her- 
oine. She's  been  colossal — as  Clytem- 
nestra  was  colossal,  and  Lady  Macbeth. 
She  beats  them  both;  for  I  don't  believe 
either  of  them  could  have  watched  the 
sword  of  Damocles  taking  eighteen  years 
to  fall  on  a  friend  and  not  have  had 
nervous  prostration — while  she's  as  fresh 
as  ever." 

He  laid  his  hand  on  her  arm.  "You'll 
come  away  now,  won't  you,  Mrs.  Will- 
oughby?" he  begged. 

She  adjusted  her  furs  hurriedly.  "All 
right,  Thor.  I'll  come.  I  only  want  to 
say  one  thing  more — " 

"No,  no;  please!" 

"I  will  say  it,"  she  insisted,  as  he  led 
her  from  the  room,  "because  it'll  do 
Ena  good.  It's  just  this,"  she  threw 
back  over  her  shoulder,  "that  I  forgive 
you,  Ena.  You're  so  magnificent  that 
I  can't  nurse  a  grudge  against  you. 
When  a  woman  has  done  what  you've 
done  she  may  be  punished  by  her  own 
conscience — but  not  by  me.  I'm  lost 
in  admiration  for  the  scale  on  which  she 
carries  out  her  crimes." 

By  the  time  they  were  in  the  porch, 
with  the  door  closed  behind  them,  Bes- 
sie's excitement  subsided  suddenly.  Her 
voice  became  plaintive  and  childlike 
again,  as  she  said,  wistfully: 

"Oh,  Thor,  do  you  think  it's  all  gone? 
— that  we  sha'n't  get  any  of  it  back? 
I  know  we  haven't  spent  it.  We  cant 
have  spent  it." 

Since  Thor  was  Thor,  there  was  only 
one  thing  for  him  to  say.  He  needed  no 
time  to  reflect  or  form  resolutions. 
Whatever  the  cost  to  him,  in  whatever 
way,  he  could  say  nothing  else.  "You'll 
get  it  all  back,  Mrs.  Willoughby.  Don't 
worry  about  it  any  more.  Just  leave  it 
to  me." 

But  Bessie  was  not  convinced.  "I 
don't  see  how  that's  going  to  be.  If 
your  father  says  the  money  is  gone  it  is 
gone — whether  we've  spent  it  or  not. 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785— 88 


THE  ANGELS  707 

Trust  him!"  Nevertheless,  she  kissed 
him,  saying:  "But  I  don't  blame  you, 
Thor.  If  there  were  two  like  you  in  the 
world  it  would  be  too  good  a  place  to 
live  in,  and  Len  and  Lois  think  the 
same." 

He  got  her  into  the  motor  and  closed 
the  door  upon  her.  Standing  on  the  door- 
step, he  watched  it  crawl  down  the 
avenue,  like  a  great  black  beetle  on  the 
snow.  As  it  passed  the  gateway  his 
father  appeared,  coming  on  foot  from 
the  electric  car. 

CHAPTER  XIII 

ON  re-entering  the  house,  Thor 
waited  for  his  father  in  the  hall. 
Finding  the  drawing-room  emp- 
ty, and  inferring  that  his  mother  had 
gone  up-stairs,  he  decided  to  say  nothing 
of  the  scene  between  her  and  Mrs. 
Willoughby.  For  the  time  being  his  own 
needs  demanded  right  of  way.  Nothing 
else  could  be  attended  to  till  they  had 
received  consideration. 

With  that  reflection  something  surged 
in  him — surged  and  exulted.  He  was  to 
be  allowed  to  speak  of  his  love  at  last! 
He  was  to  be  forced  to  confess  it!  If 
he  was  never  to  name  it  again,  he  would 
do  so  this  once,  getting  some  outlet  for 
his  passion!  He  both  glowed  and  trem- 
bled. He  both  strained  forward  and 
recoiled.  Already  he  felt  drunk  with  a 
wine  that  roused  the  holier  emotions  as 
ardently  as  it  fired  the  senses.  He  could 
scarcely  take  in  the  purport  of  his 
father's  words  as  the  latter  stamped 
the  snow  from  his  boots  in  the  entry 
and  said: 

"Has  that  poor  woman  been  here? 
Sorry  for  her,  Thor;  sorry  for  her  from 
the  bottom  of  my  heart." 

The  young  man  had  no  response  to 
make.  He  was  in  a  realm  in  which  the 
reference  had  no  meaning.  Archie  con- 
tinued, while  hanging  his  overcoat  and 
hat  in  the  closet  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs: 

"Impossible  to  make  her  understand. 
Women  like  that  can  never  see  why  they 
shouldn't  eat  their  cake  and  have  it,  too. 
Books  open  for  her  inspection.  But 
what's  one  to  do  ?" 

When  he  emerged  from  the  closet 
Thor  saw  that  his  face  was  gray.  He 
looked  mortally  tired  and  sad.    He  had 


708 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


been  sad  for  some  weeks  past — sad  and 
detached — ever  since  the  night  when  he 
had  made  his  ineffectual  bid  for  the  care 
of  Thor's  prospective  money.  He  had 
betrayed  no  hint  of  resentment  toward 
his  son — nothing  but  this  dignified  lassi- 
tude, this  reserved,  high-bred,  speech- 
less expression  of  failure  that  smote 
Thor  to  the  heart.  But  this  evening  he 
looked  worn  as  well,  worn  and  old,  though 
brave  and  patient  and  able  to  com- 
mand a  weary,  flickering  smile. 

"But  I'm  glad  it's  come.  It  will  be 
a  relief  to  have  it  over.  Seen  it  com- 
ing so  long  that  it's  been  like  a  night- 
mare. Rather  have  come  to  grief  my- 
self— assure  you  I  would." 

"Father,  could  I  speak  to  you  for  a 
few  minutes?" 

"About  this?" 

"No,  not  about  this;  about  some- 
thing else — something  rather  impor- 
tant. 

There  was  a  sudden  gleam  in  the 
father's  eyes  which  gave  Thor  a  second 
pang.  He  had  seen  it  once  or  twice 
already  during  these  weeks  of  partial 
estrangement.  It  was  the  gleam  of  hope 
— of  hope  that  Thor  might  have  grown 
repentant.  It  had  the  sparkle  of  fire 
in  it  when,  seated  in  a  business  attitude 
at  the  desk  which  held  the  center  of  the 
library,  he  looked  up  expectantly  at  his 
son.    "Well,  my  boy?" 

Thor  remained  standing.  "It's  about 
that  property  of  Fay's,  father." 

"Oh,  again?"  The  light  in  the  eyes 
went  out  with  the  suddenness  of  an 
electric  lamp. 

"I  only  want  to  say  this,  father," 
Thor  hurried  on,  so  as  to  get  the  inter- 
view over,  "that  if  you  want  to  sell  the 
place,  I'll  take  it.  I'll  take  it  on  your 
own  terms.  You  can  make  them  what 
you  like." 

Archie  leaned  on  the  desk,  passing 
his  hand  over  his  brow.  "I'm  sorry, 
Thor.    I  can't." 

Thor  had  the  curious  reminiscent  sen- 
sation of  being  once  more  a  little  boy, 
with  some  pleasure  forbidden  him. 
"Oh,  father,  why?    I  want  it  awfully." 

"So  I  see.  I  don't  see  why  you  should, 
but—" 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you.  I  want  to  pro- 
tect Fay,  because — " 

Masterman  interrupted  without  look- 


ing up.  "And  that's  just  what  I  don't 
want  to  do.   I  want  to  get  rid  of  the  lot." 

Rid  of  the  lot!  The  expression  was 
alarming.  In  his  father's  mind  the  issue, 
then,  was  personal.  It  was  not  only  per- 
sonal, but  it  was  inclusive.  It  included 
Rosie.  She  was  rated  in — the  lot. 
Clearly  the  minute  had  come  at  which 
to  speak  plainly. 

"If  you  want  to  get  rid  of  them  on 
my  account,  father,  I  may  as  well  tell 

you — 

"No;  it's  got  nothing  to  do  with  you." 
He  was  still  resting  his  forehead  on  his 
hand,  looking  downward  at  the  blotting- 
paper  on  his  desk.    "It's  Claude." 

Thor  started  back.  "Claude?  What's 
he  got  to  do  with  it?" 

"I  hadn't  made  up  my  mind  whether 
to  tell  you  or  not;  but — "  , 

"He  doesn't  even  know  them.  Of 
course  he  knows  who  they  are.  Fay  was 
Grandpa  Thorley's — " 

Masterman  continued  to  speak  wea- 
rily. "He  may  not  know  them  all.  It's 
motive  enough  for  my  action  that  he 
knows — the  girl." 

"Oh  no,  he  doesn't." 

"You'd  better  ask  him." 

"I  have  asked  him." 

"Then  you'd  better  ask  him  again." 

"But,  father,  she  couldn't  know  him 
without  my  seeing  it.  I'm  at  the  house 
nearly  every  day.  The  mother,  you 
now. 

"Apparently  your  eyes  aren't  sharp 
enough.  You  should  take  a  lesson  from 
your  Uncle  Sim." 

"But,  father,  I  don't  understand — " 

"Then  I'll  tell  you.  It  seems  that 
Claude  has  known  this  girl  for  the  past 
four  or  five  months — " 

"Oh  no,  no.  That's  all  wrong.  It 
isn't  three  months  since  I  talked  to 
Claude  about  her.  Claude  didn't  even 
remember  they  had  a  girl.  He'd  forgot- 
ten  it. 

"I  know  what  I'm  talking  about, 
Thor.  Don't  contradict.  Seems  your 
uncle  Sim  has  had  his  eye  on  them  all 
along." 

Thor  smote  his  side  with  his  clenched 
fist.  "There's  some  mistake,  father. 
It  can't  be." 

"I  wish  there  was  a  mistake,  Thor. 
But  there  isn't.  If  I  could  afford  it  I 
should  send  Claude  abroad.    Send  him 


THE  SIDE  OF 

round  the  world.    But  i  can't  just  now, 
with  this  mix-up  in  the  business.  There's 
no  doubt  but  that  the  girl  is  bad — " 
"Father!" 

If  Masterman  had  been  looking  up  he 
would  have  seen  the  convulsion  of  pain 
on  his  son's  face,  and  got  some  inkling 
of  his  state  of  mind. 

"As  bad  as  they  make  'em — "  he 
went  on,  tranquilly. 

"No,  no,  father.  You  mustn't  say 
that." 

"I  can't  help  saying  it,  Thor.  I  know 
how  you  feel  about  Claude.  You  feel 
as  I  do  myself.  But  you  and  I  must 
take  hold  of  him  and  save  him.  We 
must  get  rid  of  this  girl — " 

"But  she's  not  bad,  father — " 

Masterman  raised  himself  and  leaned 
back  in  his  chair.  He  saw  that  Thor 
was  white,  with  curious  black  streaks 
and  shadows  in  his  long,  gaunt  face. 
"Oh,  I  know  how  you  feel,"  he  said, 
again.  "It  does  seem  monstrous  that 
the  thing  should  have  happened  to 
Claude;  but,  after  all,  he's  young,  and 
with  a  little  tact  we  can  pull  him  out. 
I've  said  nothing  to  your  mother,  and 
don't  mean  to.  No  use  alarming  her 
needlessly.  I've  not  said  anything  to 
Claude,  either.  Only  known  the  thing 
for  four  or  five  days.  Don't  want  to 
make  him  restive,  or  drive  him  to  take 
the  bit  between  his  teeth.  High-spirited 
young  fellow,  Claude  is.  Needs  to  be 
dealt  with  tactfully.  Thing  will  be, 
to  cut  away  the  ground  beneath  his  feet 
without  his  knowing  it — by  getting  rid 
of  the  girl." 

"But  I  know  Rosie  Fay,  father,  and 
she's  not — " 

"Now,  my  dear  Thor,  what  is  a  girl 
but  bad  when  she's  willing  to  meet  a 
man  clandestinely  night  after  night — ?" 

"Oh,  but  she  hasn't  done  it." 

"And  I  tell  you  she  has  done  it.  Ever 
since  last  summer.    Night  after  night." 

"Where?"  Thor  demanded,  hoarsely. 

"In  the  woods  above  Duck  Rock. 
Look  here,"  the  father  suggested,  struck 
with  a  good  idea,  "the  next  time  Claude 
says  he  has  an  engagement  to  go  out 
with  Billy  Cheever,  why  don't  you  fol- 
low him — ?" 

There  was  both  outrage  and  author- 
ity in  Thor's  abrupt  cry,  "Father!" 

"Oh,  I  know  how  you  feel.  You'd 


THE  ANGELS  709 

rather  trust  him.  Well,  I  would  myself. 
It's  the  plan  I'm  going  on.  We  mustn't 
be  too  hard  on  him,  must  we?  Sympa- 
thetic steering  is  what  he  wants.  Fortu- 
nately we're  both  men  of  the  world  and 
can  accept  the  situation  with  no  Puri- 
tanical hypocrisies.  He's  not  the  first 
young  fellow  who's  got  into  the  clutches 
of  a  hussy — " 

It  was  to  keep  himself  from  striking 
his  father  down  that  Thor  got  out  of  the 
room.  For  an  instant  he  had  seen  red; 
and  across  the  red  the  word  parricide 
flashed  in  letters  of  fire.  It  might  have 
been  a  vision.    It  was  frightening. 

Outside  it  was  a  night  of  dim,  spirit- 
like radiance.  The  white  of  the  earth 
and  the  violet  of  the  sky  were  both 
spangled  with  lights.  Low  on  the  hori- 
zon the  full  moon  was  a  glorious  golden 
disk. 

The  air  was  sweet  and  cold.  As  he 
struck  down  the  avenue,  of  which  the 
snow  was  broken  only  by  his  own  and 
his  father's  footsteps  and  the  wheels  of 
Bessie's  car,  he  bared  his  head  to  cool 
his  forehead  and  the  hot  masses  of  his 
hair.  He  breathed  hard;  he  was  aching; 
his  distress  was  like  that  of  being  roused 
from  a  weird,  appalling  dream.  He  had 
not  yet  got  control  of  his  faculties.  He 
scarcely  knew  why  he  had  come  out, 
except  that  he  couldn't  stay  within. 

On  nearing  the  street  the  buzzing  of 
an  electric  car  reminded  him  that  Claude 
was  probably  coming  home.  Instinc- 
tively he  turned  his  steps  away  from 
meeting  him,  tramping  up  the  long, 
white,  empty  stretch  of  County  Street. 

At  Willoughby's  Lane  he  turned  up 
the  hill,  not  for  any  particular  purpose, 
but  because  the  tramping  there  would 
be  a  little  harder.  He  needed  exertion. 
It  eased  the  dull  ache  of  confused  in- 
ward pain.  In  the  Willoughby  house 
there  was  no  light  except  in  the  hall 
and  in  Bessie's  bedroom.  Mother  and 
daughter  had  doubtless  taken  refuge  in 
the  latter  spot  to  discuss  the  disastrous 
turn  of  their  fortunes.  Ah,  well!  There 
would  probably  be  nothing  to  keep  him 
from  going  to  their  rescue  now. 

Probably !  He  clung  to  the  faint 
chance  offered  by  the  word.  He  didn't 
know  the  real  circumstances — yet.  Prob- 
ably his  father  had  been  accurate  in  his 
statements,  even  though  wrong  in  what 


710 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


he  had  inferred.  Probably  Claude  and 
Rosie  had  met — night  after  night — se- 
cretly— in  the  woods — in  the  dark. 
Probably!  He  stopped  dead  in  his  walk; 
he  threw  back  his  head  and  groaned  to 
the  violet  sky;  he  pulled  with  both 
hands  at  his  collar  as  though  choking. 
Secretly — in  the  woods — in  the  dark!  It 
was  awful — and  yet  it  was  entrancing. 
If  Rosie  had  only  come  to  meet  him  like 
that! — in  that  mystery! — in  that  seclu- 
sion!— with  that  trust — with  that  sur- 
render of  herself! 

"How  can  I  blame  Claude ?" 

It  was  his  first  formulated  thought. 
He  tramped  on  again.  How  could  he 
blame  Claude?  Poor  Claude!  He  had 
his  difficulties.  No  one  knew  that  bet- 
ter than  Thor.  And  if  Rosie  loved  the 
boy  .  .  . 

Below  the  ridge  of  the  long,  wooded 
hill  there  was  a  road  running  parallel 
to  County  Street.  He  turned  into  that. 
But  he  began  to  perceive  to  what  goal 
he  was  tending.  He  had  taken  this 
direction  aimlessly;  and  yet  it  was  as 
if  his  feet  had  acted  of  their  own  accord, 
without  the  guiding  impulse  of  the  mind. 
From  a  long,  straight  stem  a  banner 
of  smoke  floated  heavy  and  luminous 
against  the  softer  luminosity  of  the  sky. 
He  knew  now  where  he  was  going  and 
what  he  had  to  do. 

But  he  paused  at  the  gate,  when  he 
got  there,  uncertain  as  to  where  at  this 
hour  he  should  find  her.  There  was  a 
faint  light  in  the  mother's  room,  but 
none  elsewhere  in  the  house.  The  moon 
was  by  this  time  high  enough  to  throw  a 
band  of  radiance  across  Thorley's  Pond 
and  strike  pale  gleams  from  the  glass 
of  the  hothouse  roofs. 

It  required  some  gazing  to  detect  in 
Rosie's  greenhouse  the  blurred  glow  of  a 
lamp.  He  remembered  that  there  was 
a  desk  near  this  spot  at  which  she  some- 
times wrote.  She  was  writing  there  now 
— perhaps  to  Claude. 

But  she  was  not  writing  to  Claude; 
she  was  making  out  bills.  As  book- 
keeper to  the  establishment,  as  well  as 
utility  woman  in  general,  it  was  the 
one  hour  in  the  day  when  she  had  leisure 
for  the  task.  She  raised  her  head  to  peer 
down  the  long,  dim  aisle  of  flowers  on 
hearing  him  open  the  door. 


"It's  I,  Rosie,"  he  called  to  her,  as  he 
passed  between  banks  of  carnations. 
"Don't  be  afraid." 

She  was  not  afraid,  but  she  was  ex- 
cited. As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  was  say- 
ing to  herself,  "He's  found  out."  It  was 
what  she  had  been  expecting.  She  had 
long  ago  begun  to  see  that  his  almost 
daily  visits  were  not  on  her  mother's 
account.  He  had  been  coming  less  as 
a  doctor  than  as  a  detective.  Very 
well!  If  his  detecting  had  been  success- 
ful, so  much  the  better.  Since  the  battle 
had  to  be  fought  some  time,  it  couldn't 
begin  too  soon. 

She  remained  seated,  her  right  hand 
holding  the  pen,  her  left  lying  on  the 
open  pages  of  the  ledger.  He  spoke  be- 
fore he  had  fully  emerged  into  the  glow 
of  the  lamp. 

"Oh,  Rosie!  What's  this  about  you 
and  Claude?" 

Her  little  face  grew  hard  and  defiant. 
She  was  not  to  be  deceived  by  this 
wounded,  unhappy  tone.  "Well  — 
what?"  she  asked,  guardedly,  looking  up 
at  him. 

He  stooped.  His  face  was  curiously 
convulsed.  It  frightened  her.  "Do  you 
love  him  ?" 

Instinctively  she  took  an  attitude  of 
defense,  rising  and  pushing  back  her 
chair,  to  shield  herself  behind  it.  "And 
what  if  I  do?" 

"Then,  Rosie,  you  should  have  told 
me. 

Again  the  heartbroken  cry  seemed 
to  her  a  bit  of  trickery  to  get  her  confi- 
dence. "Told  you?  How  could  I  tell 
you?   What  should  I  tell  you  for?" 

"How  long  have  you  loved  him?" 

Her  face  was  set.  The  shifting  opal 
lights  in  her  eyes  were  the  fires  of  her 
will.  She  would  speak.  She  would  hide 
nothing.  Let  the  responsibility  be  on 
Claude.  Her  avowal  was  like  that  of  a 
calamity  or  a  crime.  "I've  loved  him 
ever  since  I  knew  him." 

"And  how  long  is  that?" 

"It  will  be  five  months  the  day  after 
to-morrow." 

"Tell  me,  Rosie.  How  did  it  come 
about?" 

She  was  still  defiant.  She  put  it 
briefly.  "I  was  in  the  wood  above 
Duck  Rock.  He  came  by.  He  spoke 
to  me." 


Drawn  by  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green 

"I  DON'T  WANT  TO  PART  YOU.    I  WANT  TO  BRING  YOU  TOGETHER" 


THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS 


711 


"And  you  loved  him  from  the  first ?" 

She  nodded,  with  the  desperate  little 
air  he  had  long  ago  learned  to  recognize. 

"Oh,  Rosie,  tell  me  this.  Do  you 
love  him — much?" 

She  was  quite  ready  with  her  answer. 
It  was  as  well  the  Mastermans  should 
know.    "I'd  die  for  him." 

"Would  you,  Rosie?  And  what  about 
him?" 

Her  lip  quivered.  "Oh,  men  are  not 
so  ready  to  die  for  love  as  women  are." 

He  leaned  toward  her,  supporting 
himself  with  his  hands  on  the  desk. 
"And  you  are  ready,  Rosie!  You  really 
— would  ?" 

She  thought  he  looked  wild.  He  ter- 
rified her.  She  shrank  back  into  the 
dimness  of  a  mass  of  foliage.  "Oh, 
what  do  you  mean  ?  What  are  you  ask- 
ing me  for?  Why  do  you  come  here? 
Go  away." 

"I'll  go  presently,  Rosie.  You  won't 
be  sorry  I've  come.  I  only  want  you  to 
tell  me  all  about  it.  There  are  reasons 
why  I  want  to  know." 

"Then  why  don't  you  ask  him?"  she 
demanded,  passionately.  "He's  your 
brother." 

"Because  I  want  you  to  tell  me  the 
story  first." 

There  was  such  tenderness  in  his  voice 
that  she  grew  reassured  in  spite  of  her 
alarm.   "What  do  you  want  me  to  say?" 

"I  want  you  to  say  first  of  all  that 
you  know  I'm  your  friend." 

"You  can't  be  my  friend,"  she  said, 
suspiciously,  "unless  you're  Claude's 
friend,  too;  and  Claude  wouldn't  own 
to  a  friend  who  tried  to  part  us." 

"I  don't  want  to  part  you,  Rosie.  I 
want  to  bring  you  together." 

The  assertion  was  too  much  for  cre- 
dence. She  was  thrown  back  on  the 
hypothesis  of  trickery.  "You?" 

"Yes,  Rosie.  Has  Claude  never  told 
you  that  he's  more  to  me  than  any  one 
in  the  world,  except — "  He  paused; 
he  panted;  he  tried  to  keep  it  back,  but 
it  forced  itself  out  in  spite  of  his  efforts — 
"except  you."  Once  having  said  it,  he 
repeated  it:  "Except  you,  Rosie;  ex- 
cept— you." 

Though  he  was  still  leaning  toward 
her  across  the  desk,  his  head  sank.  There 
was  silence  between  them.  It  was  long 
before  Rosie,  the  light  in  her  eyes  con- 


centrated to  two  brilliant,  penetrating 
points,  crept  forward  from  the  shelter- 
ing mass  of  foliage.    She  could  hardly 
speak  above  a  whisper. 
"  Except — who  ?" 

He  lifted  his  head.  She  noticed  sub- 
consciously that  his  face  was  no  longer 
wild,  but  haggard.  He  spoke  gently: 
"Except  you,  Rosie.  You're  most  to 
me  in  the  world." 

As  she  bent  toward  him  her  mouth 
and  eyes  betrayed  her  horror  at  the 
irony  of  this  discovery.  She  would 
rather  never  have  known  it  than  know 
it  now.  It  was  all  she  could  do  to  gasp 
the  one  word,  "Me?" 

"I  shouldn't  have  told  you,"  he  hur- 
ried on,  apologetically,  "but  I  couldn't 
help  it.  Besides,  I  want  you  to  under- 
stand how  utterly  I'm  your  friend.  I 
ask  nothing  more  than  to  be  allowed  to 
help  you  and  Claude  in  every  way — " 

She  cried  out.  The  thing  was  pre- 
posterous. "You're  going  to  do  that — 
now  f 

"I'm  your  big  brother,  Rosie — the  big 
brother  to  both  of  you.  That's  what  I 
shall  be  in  future.  And  what  I've  said 
will  be  a  dead  secret  between  us,  won't 
it?  I  shouldn't  have  told  you,  but  I 
couldn't  help  it.  It  was  stronger  than 
me,  Rosie.  Those  things  sometimes  are. 
But  it's  a  secret  now,  dead  and  buried. 
It's  as  if  it  hadn't  been  said,  isn't 
it?  And  if  I  should  marry  some  one 
else — " 

This  was  too  much.  It  was  like  the 
world  slipping  from  her  at  the  minute 
she  had  it  within  her  grasp.  The  horror 
was  not  only  in  her  eyes  and  mouth,  but 
in  her  voice.  "Are  you  going  to  marry 
some  one  else?" 

"I  might  have  to,  Rosie — for  a  lot 
of  reasons.  It  might  be  my  duty.  And 
now  that  I  can't  marry  you — " 

She  uttered  a  sort  of  wail.  "Oh!" 

"Don't  be  sorry  for  me,  Rosie  dear. 
I  can  stand  it.  I  can  stand  it  better  if 
you're,  not  sorry — " 

"But  I  am"  she  cried,  desperately. 

"Then  I  must  thank  you — only  don't 
*  be.  It  will  make  me  grieve  the  more 
for  saying  what  I  never  should  have 
said.  But  that's  a  secret  between  us,  as 
I  said  before,  isn't  it?  And  if  I  do 
marry — she'll  never  find  it  out,  will  she? 
That  wouldn't  do,  would  it,  Rosie?" 


712 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


His  words  struck  her  as  passing  all 
the  bounds  of  practical  common  sense. 
They  were  so  mad  that  she  felt  herself 
compelled  to  ask  for  more  assurance. 
"Are  you — in  love — with — with  me?" 
If  the  last  syllable  had  been  louder  it 
would  have  been  a  scream. 

"Oh,  Rosie,  forgive  me!  I  shouldn't 
have  told  you.  It  was  weak.  It  was 
wrong.  I  only  did  it  to  show  you 
how  you  could  trust  me.  But  I  should 
have  showed  you  that  some  other  way. 
You'd  already  told  me  how  it  was  be- 
tween you  and  Claude,  and  so  it  was 
treachery  to  him.  But  I  never  dreamed 
of  trying  to  come  between  you.  Believe 
me,  I  didn't.  I  swear  to  you  I  only 
want — " 

She  broke  in,  panting.  She  wouldn't 
have  spoken  crudely  or  abruptly  if  there 
had  been  any  other  way.  But  the 
chance  was  there.  In  another  minute  it 
might  be  too  late.  "Yes;  but  when  I 
said  that  about  Claude — " 

She  didn't  know  how  to  go  on.  He 
encouraged  her.    "Yes,  Rosie?" 

She  wrung  her  hands.  "Oh,  don't 
you  see?  When  I  said  that  about 
Claude — I  didn't — I  didn't  know — " 

He  hastened  to  relieve  her  distress. 
"You  didn't  know  I  cared  for  you?" 

"No!"  The  word  came  out  with  an- 
other long  wail. 

He  looked  at  her  curiously.  "But 
what's  that  got  to  do  with  it?" 

Her  eyes  implored  him  piteously, 
while  she  beat  the  palm  of  one  hand 
against  the  back  of  the  other.  It  was 
terrible  that  he  couldn't  see  what  she 
meant — and  the  moments  slipping  away! 

"It  wouldn't  have  made  you  love 
Claude  any  the  less,  would  it?" 

She  had  to  say  something.  If  she 
didn't  he  would  never  understand.  "Not 
love,  perhaps;  but — " 

The  sudden  coldness  in  his  voice  ter- 
rified her  again — but  differently.  "But 
what,  Rosie?" 

She  cried  out,  as  if  the  words  rent  her. 
"But  CI  aude  has  no — money  " 

"And  I  have.    Is  that  it?" 

It  was  no  use  to  deny  it.    She  nodded* 
dumbly.     Besides,  she  counted  on  his 
possession  of  common  sense,  though  his 
use  of  it  was  slow. 

He  raised  himself  from  his  attitude  of 
leaning  on  the  desk.    It  was  his  turn  to 


take  shelter  amid  the  dark  foliage  be- 
hind him.  He  couldn't  bear  to  let  the 
lamplight  fall  too  fully  on  his  face.  "Is 
it  this,  Rosie,"  he  asked,  with  an  air  of 
bewilderment,  "that  you'd  marry  me 
because  I  have — the  money?" 

It  seemed  to  Rosie  that  the  question 
gave  her  reasonable  cause  for  exaspera- 
tion. She  was  almost  sobbing  as  she 
said:  "Well,  I  can't  marry  Claude 
without  money.  He  can't  marry  me." 
A  ray  was  thrown  into  her  little  soul 
when  she  gasped  in  addition,  "And 
there's  father  and  mother  and  Matt!" 

Thor's  expression  lost  some  of  its  be- 
wilderment because  it  deepened  to  stern- 
ness. "But  Claude  means  to  marry 
you,  doesn't  he?" 

She  cried  out  again,  with  that  strange 
effect  of  the  words  rending  her.  "I 
don't — know" 

He  had  a  moment  of  wild  fear  lest  his 
father  had  been  right,  after  all.  "You 
don't  know?  Then — what's  your  rela- 
tion to  each  other?" 

"I  don't  know  that,  either.  Claude 
won't  tell  me."  She  crossed  her  hands 
on  her  bosom  as  she  said,  desperately, 
"I  sometimes  think  he  doesn't  mean 
anything  at  all." 

The  terror  of  the  instant  passed.  "Oh 
yes,  he  does,  Rosie.    I'll  see  to  that." 

"Do  you  mean  that  you'll  make  him 
marry  me?" 

He  smiled  pitifully.  "There'll  be  no 
making,  Rosie.    You  leave  it  to  me." 

He  turned  from  her  not  merely  be- 
cause the  last  word  had  been  spoken 
but  through  fear  lest  something  might 
be  breaking  within  himself  On  regain- 
ing the  white  roadway  he  thought  he 
saw  Jasper  Fay  in  the  shadow  of  the 
house,  but  he  was  too  deeply  stricken  to 
speak  to  him.  He  went  up  the  hill  and 
farther  from  the  village.  It  was  not  yet 
eight  o'clock,  but  time  had  ceased  to 
have  measurement.  He  went  up  the 
hill  to  be  alone  in  that  solitude  which 
was  all  that  for  the  moment  he  could 
endure.  He  climbed  higher  than  the 
houses  and  the  snow-covered  gardens; 
his  back  was  toward  the  moon  and 
the  glow  above  the  city.  The  pros- 
pect of  reaching  the  summit  gave  some- 
thing for  his  strong  body  to  strain  for- 
ward to. 

The  ridge,  when  he  got  to  it,  was 


THE  SIDE  OF 

treeless,  wind-swept,  and  moon-swept. 
It  was  a  great  white  altar,  victimless 
and  bare.  He  felt  devastated,  weak. 
It  was  a  relief,  bodily  and  mental,  to 
sink  to  his  knees — to  fall — to  lie  at  his 
length.  He  pressed  his  hot  face  into 
the  cool,  consoling  whiteness,  as  a  man 
might  let  himself  weep  on  a  pillow.  His 
arms  were  outstretched  beyond  his  head. 
His  fingers  pierced  beneath  the  snow  till 
they  touched  the  tender,  nestling  mosses. 
All  round  him  there  was  silveriness  and 
silence,  and  overhead  the  moon. 

CHAPTER  XIV 

DESCENDING  the  hill,  Thor  saw 
a  light  in  his  uncle  Sim's  stable, 
and  knew  that  Delia  was  being 
settled  for  the  night.  Uncle  Sim  still 
lived  in  the  ramshackle  house  to  which 
his  father — old  Dr.  Masterman,  as  el- 
derly people  in  the  village  called  him — 
had  taken  his  young  wife,  who  had  been 
Miss  Lucy  Dawes.  In  this  house  both 
Sim  and  Archie  Masterman  were  born. 
It  was  the  plainest  of  dwellings,  painted 
by  wind  and  weather  to  a  dovelike  silver- 
gray.  Here  lived  Uncle  Sim,  cared  for 
in  the  domestic  sense  by  a  lady  some- 
what older  and  more  eccentric  than 
himself,  known  to  the  younger  Master- 
mans  as  Cousin  Amy  Dawes. 

Thor  avoided  the  house  and  Cousin 
Amy  Dawes,  going  directly  to  the  stable. 
By  the  time  he  had  reached  the  door 
Uncle  Sim  was  shutting  it.  In  the  light 
of  a  lantern  standing  in  the  snow  the 
naked  elms  round  about  loomed  weirdly. 
The  greetings  were  brief. 
"Hello,  Uncle  Sim!" 
"Hello,  Thor!" 

Thor  made  an  effort  to  reduce  the 
emotional  tremor  of  his  voice  to  the  re- 
quired minimum.  "Father's  been  tell- 
ing me  about  Claude  and  Rosie  Fay." 

Uncle  Sim  turned  the  key  in  the  lock 
with  a  loud  grating.  "Father  had  to 
do  it,  did  he?  Thought  you  might  have 
caught  on  to  that  by  yourself.  One  of 
the  reasons  I  sent  you  into  the  Fay 
family." 

"  Did  you  know  it  then  ? — already  ?" 
"Didn't  know  it.    Couldn't  help  put- 
ting two  and  two  together." 

"You  see  everything,  Uncle  Sim." 
Uncle  Sim  stooped  to  pick  up  the 


THE  ANGELS  713 

lantern.  "See  everything  that's  under 
my  nose.    Thought  you  could,  too." 

"This  hasn't  been  under  my  nose." 

"Oh,  well!  There  are  noses  and 
noses.  A  donkey  has  one  kind  and  a 
dog  has  another." 

Thor  was  not  a  finished  actor,  but  he 
was  doing  his  best  to  play  a  part.  "Well, 
what  do  you  think  now?" 

"What  do  I  think  now?  I  don't 
think  anything — about  other  people's 
business." 

"I  think  we  ought  to  do  something," 
Thor  declared,  with  energy. 

"All  right.  Every  one  to  his  mind. 
Only  it's  great  fun  to  let  other  people 
settle  their  own  affairs." 

"  Settle  their  own  affairs — and  suffer." 

"Yes,  and  suffer.  Suffering  doesn't 
hurt  any  one." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,  Uncle  Sim, 
that  I  should  sit  still  and  do  nothing 
while  the  people  I  care  for  most  in  the 
world  are  in  all  sorts  of  trouble  that  I 
could  get  them  out  of?" 

"That  little  baggage  Rosie  Fay  isn't 
one  of  the  people  you  care  for  most  in 
the  world,  I  presume?" 

Thor  knew  that  with  Uncle  Sim's 
perspicacity  this  might  be  a  leading 
question,  but  he  made  the  answer  he 
considered  the  most  diplomatic  in  the 
circumstances.  "She  is  if — if  Claude  is 
in  love  with  her.  But — but  why  do 
you  call  her  that,  Uncle  Sim?" 

"Because  she's  a  little  witch.  Most 
determined  little  piece  I  know.  Hard 
working;  lots  of  pluck;  industrious  as 
the  devil.  Whole  soul  set  on  attaining 
her  ends." 

Thor  considered  it  prudent  to  return 
to  the  point  from  which  he  had  been 
diverted.  "Well,  if  the  people  I  care 
for  most  are  in  trouble  that  I  can  get 
them  out  of — " 

"Oh,  if  you  can  get  them  out  of  it — " 

"Well,  I  can." 

"Then  that's  all  right.  Only  the  case 
must  be  rather  rare.  Haven't  often 
seen  the  attempt  made  except  with  one 
result — not  that  of  getting  people  out 
of  trouble,  but  of  getting  oneself  in.  But 
every  one  to  his  taste,  Thor.  Wouldn't 
stop  you  for  the  world.  Only  advise  you 
not  to  be  in  a  hurry." 

"There's  no  question  of  being  in  a 
hurry  when  things  have  to  be  done  now." 


714 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"All  right,  Thor.  You  know  better 
than  I.  I'm  one  of  those  slowpokes 
who  look  on  the  fancy  for  taking  a  hand 
in  other  people's  affairs  as  I  do  on  the 
taste  for  committing  suicide — there's 
always  time.  If  you  don't  do  it  to-day, 
you  can  to-morrow — which  is  a  reason 
for  putting  it  off,  ain't  it?" 

There  was  more  than  impatience  in 
Thor's  protest  as  he  cried,  "But  how 
can  you  put  it  off  when  there's  some  one 
— some  one  who's — who's  unhappy?" 

"I  see.  Comes  back  to  that.  But  I 
don't  mind  some  one's  being  unhappy. 
Don't  care  a  tuppenny  damn.  Do  'em 
good.  I've  seen  more  people  unhappy 
than  I  could  tell  you  about  in  a  year; 
and  nine  out  of  ten  were  made  men  and 
women  by  it  who  before  that  had  been 
only  rags." 

"I'm  afraid  I  can't  accept  that  cheer- 
ful doctrine,  Uncle  Sim — " 

"All  right,  Thor.  Don't  want  you  to. 
Wouldn't  interfere  with  you  any  more 
than  with  any  one  else.  Free  country. 
Got  your  own  row  to  hoe.  If  you  make 
yourself  miserable  in  the  process,  why 
it  '11  do  you  as  much  good  as  it  does 
all  the  rest.  Nothing  like  it.  Wouldn't 
save  you  from  it  for  anything.  But 
-  there's  a  verse  of  an  old  song  that  you 
might  turn  over  in  your  mind — old  song 
written  about  two  or  three  thousand 
years  ago:  'Oh,  tarry  thou  the  Lord's 
leisure — 

Thor  tossed  his  head  impatiently. 
"Oh,  pshaw!" 

"But  it  goes  on:  'And  be  strong.' 
You  can  be  awful  strong  when  you're 
tarrying  the  Lord's  leisure,  Thor,  be- 
cause then  you  know  you're  not  making 
any  damn-fool  mistakes." 

Thor  spoke  up  proudly:  "I'd  rather 
make  mistakes — than  do  nothing." 

"That's  all  right,  Thor;  splendid 
spirit.  Don't  disapprove  of  it  a  mite. 
Go  ahead.  Make  mistakes.  It  '11  be 
live  and  learn.  Not  the  least  afraid. 
I've  often  noticed  that  when  young  fel- 
lows of  your  sort  prefer  their  own  haste 
to  the  Lord's  leisure  there's  a  Lord's 
haste  that  hurries  on  before  'em,  so  as 
to  be  all  ready  to  meet  'em  when  they 
come  a  cropper  in  the  ditch." 

Thor  turned  away  sharply.  "I  guess 
I'll  beat  it,  Uncle  Sim." 

The  old  man,  swinging  his  lantern, 


shambled  along  by  his  nephew's  side, 
as  the  latter  made  for  the  road  again. 
"Oh,  I  ain't  trying  to  hold  you  back, 
Thor.  Now  am  I?  On  the  contrary,  I 
say,  go  ahead.  Rush  in  where  angels 
fear  to  tread;  and  if  you  don't  do  any- 
thing else  you'll  carry  the  angels  along 
with  you.  You  may  make  an  awful 
fool  of  yourself,  Thor — but  you'll  be  on 
the  side  of  the  angels  and  the  angels  '11 
be  on  yours." 

Though  dinner  was  over  by  the  time 
Thor  reached  home,  his  stepmother  sat 
with  him  while  he  ate  it.  It  was  a  new 
departure  for  her.  Thor  could  not  re- 
member that  she  had  ever  done  any- 
thing of  the  sort  before.  She  sat  with 
him  and  served  him,  asking  no  questions 
as  to  why  he  was  late.  She  seemed  to 
divine  a  trouble  on  his  part  beyond  her 
power  to  console,  and  for  which  the  only 
sympathy  she  dared  to  express  was  that 
of  small  kindly  acts.  He  understood 
this  and  was  grateful. 

He  found  her  society  soothing.  This, 
too,  surprised  him.  He  felt  so  battered 
and  sore  that  the  mere  presence  of  one 
who  approached  him  from  an  affection- 
ate impulse  had  the  effect  on  him  of  a 
gentle  hand.  Never  before  in  his  life 
had  he  been  conscious  of  woman's 
genius  for  comforting,  possibly  because 
never  before  in  his  life  had  he  needed 
comfort  to  the  same  degree. 

No  reference  was  made  by  his  step- 
mother or  himself  to  the  scene  with  Mrs. 
Willoughby  in  the  afternoon,  but  it  was 
not  hard  for  him  to  perceive  that  in 
some  strange  way  it  was  stirring  the 
victim  of  it  to  newness  of  life.  It  was 
not  that  she  admitted  the  application  of 
Bessie's  charges  to  herself;  they  only 
startled  her  to  the  knowledge  that  there 
were  heights  and  depths  in  human  ex- 
istence such  as  her  imagination  had 
never  plumbed.  Her  nature  was  mak- 
ing a  feeble  effort  to  expand,  as  the 
petals  of  a  bud  that  has  been  kept  hard 
and  compact  by  a  backward  spring 
may  unfold  to  the  heat  of  summer. 

When  he  had  finished  his  hasty  meal, 
Thor  rose  and  kissed  her,  saying, 
"Thank  you,  mumphy,"  using  the  pet 
name  that  had  not  been  on  his  lips  since 
childhood.  She  drew  his  face  downward 
with  a  sudden  sob,  a  sob  quite  inex- 


THE  SIDE  OF 

plicable  except  on  the  ground  that  her 
poor,  withered,  strangled  little  soul  was 
at  last  trying  to  live. 

Having  gone  up-stairs  to  his  room, 
Thor  shut  the  door  and  bolted  it  in  his 
desire  for  solitude.  He  changed  his 
coat  and  kicked  off  his  boots.  When  he 
had  lighted  a  pipe  he  threw  himself  on 
the  old  sofa  which  had  done  duty  as 
couch  at  the  foot  of  his  bed  ever  since  he 
was  a  boy.  It  was  the  attitude  in  which 
he  had  always  been  best  able  to  "think 
things  out/' 

Now  that  he  had  eaten  a  sufficient 
dinner,  he  felt  physically  less  bruised, 
though  mentally  there  was  more  to  tor- 
ture him.  He  regretted  having  seen 
Uncle  Sim.  He  hated  the  alternative  of 
letting  things  alone.  There  was  a  sense 
in  which  action  would  have  been  an 
anodyne  to  suffering,  and  had  it  not 
been  for  Uncle  Sim  he  would  have  had 
no  scruple  in  making  use  of  it. 

It  was  all  very  well  to  talk  of  letting 
people  settle  their  own  affairs;  but  how 
could  they  settle  them,  in  these  par- 
ticular cases,  without  his  intervention? 
As  far  as  power  went  he  was  like  a  fairy 
prince  who  had  only  to  wave  a  wand 
to  see  the  whole  scene  transfigured.  If 
he  hadn't  asked  Uncle  Sim's  advice  he 
would  be  already  waving  it,  instead  of 
lolling  on  his  back,  with  his  right  foot 
poised  over  his  left  knee  and  dangling 
a  heelless  slipper  in  the  air.  He  felt 
shame  at  the  very  attitude  of  idleness. 

True,  there  were  the  two  distinct  lines 
of  action — that  of  making  a  number  of 
people  happy  now,  and  that  of  holding 
back  that  they  might  fight  their  own 
battles.  By  fighting  their  own  battles 
they  might  emerge  from  the  conflict  the 
stronger  —  after  forty  or  fifty  years! 
Those  who  were  unlikely  to  live  so  long 
— Len  and  Bessie  Willoughby,  for  exam- 
ple— would  probably  go  down  rebelling 
and  protesting  to  their  graves.  But 
Claude  and  Rosie  and  Lois  might  all 
grow  morally  the  stronger.  There  was 
that  possibility.  It  was  plain.  Claude 
and  Rosie  might  marry  on  the  former's 
fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year,  have  chil- 
dren, and  bring  them  up  in  poverty  as 
model  citizens;  but  whatever  the  high 
triumph  of  their  middle  age,  Thor 
shrank  from  the  thought  of  the  interval 

Vol.  CXXXI— No.  785—89 


THE  ANGELS  715 

for  both.  And  Lois,  too,  might  live 
down  grief,  disappointment,  small 
means,  and  loneliness;  might  become 
hardened  and  toughened  and  beaten  to 
endurance,  and  grow  to  be  the  best  and 
bravest  and  kindest  old  maid  in  the 
world.  Uncle  Sim  would  probably  con- 
sider that  in  these  noble  achievements 
the  game  would  be  worth  the  candle; 
but  he,  Thor  Masterman,  didn't.  The 
more  he  developed  the  possibilities  of 
this  future  for  every  one  concerned,  him- 
self included,  the  more  he  loathed  it. 

It  was  past  eleven  before  he  reached 
the  point  of  loathing  at  which  he  was 
convinced  that  action  should  begin;  but 
once  he  reached  it,  he  bounded  to  his 
feet.  He  felt  wonderfully  free  and  vig- 
orous. If  certain  details  could  be  settled 
there  and  then — he  couldn't  wait  till 
the  morrow — he  thought  that,  in  spite 
of  everything,  he  should  sleep. 

He  had  heard  Claude  go  to  his  room, 
which  was  on  the  same  floor  as  his  own, 
an  hour  earlier.  Claude  was  probably 
by  this  time  in  bed  and  asleep,  but  the 
elder  brother  couldn't  hesitate  for  that. 
Within  less  than  a  minute  he  had 
crossed  the  passage,  entered  Claude's 
bedroom,  and  turned  on  the  electric 
light. 

Claude's  profile  sunk  into  the  middle 
of  the  pillow  might  have  been  carved  in 
ivory.  His  dark  wavy  hair  fell  back 
picturesquely  from  temple  and  brow. 
Under  the  coverings  his  slim  form  made 
a  light,  graceful  line. 

The  room  was  at  once  dainty  and 
severe.  A  striped  paper,  brightened  by 
a  design  of  garlands,  knots,  and  flowers 
a  la  Marie  Antoinette,  made  a  back- 
ground for  white  furniture  in  the  style 
of  Louis  XVI.,  modern  and  inexpensive, 
but  carefully  selected  by  Mrs.  Master- 
man.  The  walls  were  further  lightened 
by  colored  reprints  of  old  French  scenes, 
discreetly  amorous,  collected  by  Claude 
himself. 

Thor  stood  for  some  seconds  in  front 
of  the  bed  before  the  brother  opened  his 
eyes.  More  seconds  passed  while  the 
younger  gazed  up  at  the  elder.  "What 
the  dev — !"  Claude  began,  sleepily. 

But  Thor  broke  in  promptly: 
"Claude,  why  didn't  you  ever  tell  me 
you  knew  Rosie  Fay?" 

Claude  closed  his  eyes  again.  The 


716 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


expected  had  happened.  Like  Rosie,  he 
resolved  to  meet  the  moment  cautiously, 
creating  no  more  opposition  than  he 
could  help.  "Why  should  I?"  he  par- 
ried, without  hostility. 

"Because  I  asked  you,  for  one  thing." 

He  opened  his  eyes.  "When  did  you 
ever  ask  me?" 

"At  the  bank;  one  day  when  I  found 
you  there.  It  must  have  been  two 
months  ago." 

Claude  stirred  slightly  under  the  bed- 
clothes.   "Oh,  then." 

"Yes,  then.  Why  didn't  you  tell  me?" 

"I  didn't  see  how  I  could.  What 
good  would  it  have  done,  anyhow?" 

It  was  on  Thor's  tongue  to  say,  "It 
would  have  done  the  good  of  not  telling 
lies,"  but  he  suppressed  that.  One  of 
his  objects  was  to  be  conciliating.  He 
had  other  objects  which  he  believed 
would  be  best  served  by  taking  a  small 
chair  and  sitting  on  it  astride,  close  to 
Claude's  bed.  An  easy,  fraternal  air  was 
maintained  by  the  effect  of  the  pipe  still 
hanging  by  its  curved  stem  from  the 
corner  of  his  mouth.  He  began  to  think 
highly  of  himself  as  a  comedian. 

"I  wish  you  had  told  me,"  he  said, 
quietly,  "because  I  could  have  helped 
you. 

Claude  lay  still.  His  eyes  grew  brill- 
iant.  "Helped  me — how?" 

"Helped  you  in  whatever  it  is  you're 
trying  to  do."  He  added,  with  signifi- 
cance, "You  are  trying  to  do  something, 
aren't  you?" 

Claude  endeavored  to  gain  time  by 
saying,  "Trying  to  do  what?" 

"You're — "  Thor  hesitated,  but 
dashed  in.    "You're  in  love  with  her?" 

It  was  still  to  gain  time  that  Claude 
replied,  "What  do  you  think?" 

Thor's  heart  bounded  with  a  great 
hope.  Perhaps  Claude  was  not  in  love 
with  her.  He  had  not  been  noticeably 
moved  as  yet.  In  that  case  it  might  be 
possible  —  barely  possible  —  that  after 
Rosie  had  outlived  her  disappointment 
there  might  be  a  chance  that  he  .  .  . 
But  he  dared  not  speculate.  Mustering 
everything  that  was  histrionic  within 
him,  he  said,  with  the  art  that  conceals 
art,  "I  think  you  are — decidedly." 

Claude  rolled  partly  over  in  bed. 
"That's  about  it." 

The  confession  was  as  full  as  one 


brother  could  expect  from  another. 
Thor's  heart  sank  again.  He  managed, 
however,  to  keep  on  the  high  plane  of 
art  as  he  brought  out  the  words,  "And 
what  about  her?" 

Again  Claude's  avowal  was  as  ardent 
as  the  actual  conditions  called  for.  "Oh, 
I  guess  she's  all  right." 

"So — what  now?" 

Claude  rolled  back  toward  his  brother, 
raising  his  head  slightly  from  the  pil- 
low.   "Well — what  now?" 

"You're  going  to  be  married,  I  sup- 

pose  r 

Claude  lifted  himself  on  his  elbow. 
"Married  on  fifteen  hundred  a  year?" 
He  went  on,  before  Thor  could  say  any- 
thing, "If  there  was  nothing  else  to 
consider!" 

Thor  felt  stirrings  of  hope  again. 
"Then,  if  you're  not  going  to  be  mar- 
ried, what  do  you  mean?" 

"What  do  I  mean?  What  can  I 
mean: 

"Oh,  come,  Claude!  You're  not  a 
boy  any  longer.  You  know  perfectly 
well  that  a  man  of  honor — with  your 
traditions — can't  trifle  with  a  girl  like 
that — or  break  her  heart — or — or  ruin 
her." 

"I'm  not  doing  any  of  the  three.  She 
knows  I'm  not.  She  knows  I'm  only  in 
the  same  box  she's  in  herself." 

"That  is,  you're  both  in  love,  without 
seeing  how  you're  going  to — " 

Claude  lurched  forward  in  the  bed. 
"Look  here,  Thor;  if  you  want  to  know, 
it's  this.  I've  tried  to  leave  the  girl 
alone — and  I  can't.  I'm  worse  than  a 
damn  fool;  I'm  every  sort  of  a  hound. 
I  can't  marry  her,  and  I  can't  give  her 
up.  When  I  haven't  seen  her  for  a 
week,  I'm  frantic;  and  when  I  do  see  her 
I  swear  to  God  I'll  never  see  her  again. 
So  now  you  know." 

Claude  threw  himself  back  again  on 
the  pillows,  but  Thor  went  on,  quietly: 
"Why  do  you  swear  to  God  you'll  never 
see  her  again?" 

"Because  I'm  killing  her.  That  is,  I 
should  be  killing  her  if  she  wasn't  the 
bravest  little  brick  on  earth.  You 
don't  know  her,  Thor.  You've  seen  her, 
and  you  know  she's  pretty;  but  you 
don't  know  that  she's  as  plucky  as  they 
make  'em — pluckier." 

Thor  answered  wearily:  "I've  rather 


THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS 


717 


guessed  that,  which  is  one  of  the  reasons 
why  I  feel  you  should  be  true  to  her." 

"I  am  true  to  her — truer  than  I  ought 
to  be.  If  I  was  less  true  it  would  be 
better  for  us  both.   She'd  get  over  it — " 

Again  Thor  was  aware  of  an  up-leaping 
hope.    "And  you,  too?" 

"Oh,  I  suppose  so — in  time." 

"Yes,  but  you'd  suffer." 

Claude  gave  another  lurch  forward  in 
the  bed.  "I  couldn't  suffer  worse  than 
I'm  suffering  now,  knowing  I'm  an  in- 
fernal cad — and  not  seeing  how  to  be 
anything  else." 

"But  you  wouldn't  be  an  infernal  cad 
if  you  married  her." 

The  young  man  flung  himself  about 
the  bed  impatiently.  "Oh,  what's  the 
use  of  talking?" 

"If  she  had  money  you  could  marry 
her  all  right." 

"Ah,  go  to  the  devil,  Thor!"  The  tone 
was  one  of  utter  exasperation. 

Thor  persisted.  "If  she  had,  let  us 
say,  four  or  five  thousand  dollars  a  year 
of  her  own — " 

Claude  stretched  his  person  half-way 
out  of  bed.    "I  said — go  to  the  devil!" 

'JWell,  she  has." 

"Has  what?" 

"Four  or  five  thousand  dollars  a  year 
of  her  own.  That  is,  she  will  have  it, 
if  you  and  she  get  married." 

"Say,  Thor,  have  you  got  the  jim- 
jams: 

"I'm  speaking  quite  seriously,  Claude. 
I've  always  intended  to  do  something 
to  help  you  out  when  I  got  hold  of 
Grandpa  Thorley's  money;  and,  if  you 
like,  I'll  do  it  that  way." 

"Do  it  what  way?" 

"The  way  I  say.    If  you  and  Rosie 
get  married,  she  shall  have  five  thousand 
a  year  of  her  own." 
r  rom  you  r 

Thor  nodded. 

The  younger  brother  looked  at  the 
elder  curiously.  It  was  a  long  minute 
before  he  spoke.  "If  it's  to  help  me 
out,  why  don't  /  have  it?  I'm  your 
brother.   I  should  think  I'd  be  the  one." 

"Because  I'd  rather  do  it  that  way. 
It  would  be  a  means  of  evening  things 
up.  It  would  make  her  more  like  your 
equal.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that 
father  and  mother  will  kick  like  blazes; 
but  if  Rosie  has  money — " 


"If  Rosie  has  money  they  11  know 
she  gets  it  from  somewhere.  They  won't 
think  it  comes  down  to  her  out  of 
heaven." 

"They  can  think  what  they  like. 
They  needn't  know  that  I  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  it.  They  know  you 
haven't  got  five  thousand  a  year,  and  if 
she  has — why,  there'll  be  the  solid  cash 
to  convince  them.  The  whole  thing 
will  be  a  pill  for  them;  but  if  it's 
gilded — " 

Claude's  knees  were  drawn  up  in  the 
bed,  his  hands  clasped  about  them. 
Thor  noticed  the  strangeness  of  his  ex- 
pression, but  he  was  unprepared  for  his 
words  when  they  came  out.  "Say, 
Thor,  you're  not  in  love  with  her  your- 
self, are  you?" 

Owing  to  what  he  believed  to  be  the 
perfection  of  his  acting,  it  was  the  ques- 
tion Thor  had  least  expected  to  be  called 
on  to  answer.  He  knew  he  was  turning 
white  or  green,  and  that  his  smile  when 
he  forced  it  was  nothing  but  a  ghastly 
movement  of  the  mouth.  It  was  his 
turn  to  gain  time,  but  he  could  think 
of  nothing  more  forcible  than,  "What 
makes  you  ask  me  that?" 

"Because  it  looks  so  funny  —  so 
damned  funny." 

"There's  nothing  funny  in  my  trying 
to  give  a  lift  to  my  own  brother,  is 
there?" 

"N-no;  perhaps  not.  But,  see  here, 
Thor — "  He  leaned  forward.  "You're 
not  in  love  with  her,  are  you?" 

Thor  knew  the  supreme  moment  of 
his  life  had  come,  that  he  should  never 
reach  another  like  it.  It  was  within  his 
power  to  seize  the  cup  and  drain  it — or 
thrust  it  aside.  Of  all  temptations  he 
had  ever  had  to  meet  none  had  been 
so  strong  as  this.  It  was  the  stronger 
for  his  knowing  that  if  it  was  conquered 
now  it  would  probably  never  return. 
He  would  have  put  himself  beyond  reach 
of  its  returning.  That  in  itself  appalled 
him.  There  was  some  joy  in  feeling  the 
temptation  there,  as  a  thing  to  be  dal- 
lied with.  He  dallied  with  it  now.  He 
dallied  with  it  to  the  extent  of  saying, 
with  a  smile  he  tried  to  temper  to 
playfulness: 

"Well,  what  if  I  was  in  love  with  her?" 

Something  about  Claude  leaped  into 
flame.    "Then  I  wouldn't  touch  a  cent 


718 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  your  money.  I  wouldn't  let  her 
touch  it.  I  wouldn't  let  her  look  at  it. 
I'd  marry  her  on  my  own — I'll  be  hanged 
if  I  wouldn't.  I'd  marry  her  to-morrow. 
I'd  get  out  of  bed  and  marry  her  to- 
night.   I'd — " 

Thor  forced  his  smile  to  a  tenderer 
playfulness,  sitting  calmly  astride  of  his 
chair,  his  left  arm  along  the  back,  his 
right  hand  holding  his  pipe  by  the  bowl. 
"So  you  wouldn't  let  me  have  her?" 

Claude  lashed  across  the  bed.  "I'd 
see  you  hanged  first.  I'd  seeyou  damned. 
I'd  see  you  damned  to  hell.  She's  mine, 
I  tell  you.  I'm  not  going  to  give  her 
up  to  any  one — and  to  you  least  of  all. 
Do  you  get  that?   Now  you  know." 

"Ail  right,  Claude.    Now  I  know." 

"Yes,  but  I  don't  know."  Claude 
wriggled  to  the  side  of  the  bed,  drawing 
as  near  to  his  brother  as  he  could  without 
getting  out.  "I  don't  know.  I've  asked 
you  a  question,  and  you  haven't  an- 
swered it.  And,  by  God!  you've  got 
to  answer  it.  Sooner  than  let  any  one 
else  get  her,  I'll  marry  her  and  starve. 
Now  speak." 

Thor  got  up  heavily.  He  had  the 
feeling  with  which  the  ancients  sub- 
mitted when  they  stood  soberly  and 
affirmed  that  it  was  useless  to  struggle 
against  Fate.  Fate  was  upon  him.  He 
saw  it  now.  He  had  tried  to  elude  her, 
but  she  had  got  him  where  he  couldn't 
move.  She  asserted  herself  again  when 
Claude,  hanging  half  out  of  bed,  his 
mouth  feverish,  his  eyes  burning,  in- 
sisted, imperiously,  "Say,  you — speak/" 

Thor  spoke.  He  spoke  from  the  mid- 
dle of  the  floor,  his  pipe  still  in  his  hand. 
He  spoke  without  premeditation,  as 
though  but  uttering  the  words  that 
Destiny  had  put  into  his  mouth  from  all 
eternity. 

"It's  all  right,  Claude.  Calm  down. 
I'm — I'm  going  to  be  married  to  Lois 
Willoughby." 

But  Claude  was  not  yet  convinced. 
"When?" 

"Just  as  soon  as  we  can  fix  things  up 
after  the  tenth  of  next  month — after  I 
get  the  money." 

"How  long  has  that  been  settled?" 
Claude  demanded,  with  lingering  suspi- 
cion. 


"It's  been  settled  for  years,  as  far  as 
I'm  concerned.  I  can  hardly  remember 
the  time  when  I  didn't  intend — just 
what  I'm  going  to  do."  Claude  let 
himself  drop  back  again  among  the  pil- 
lows. "So  now  it's  all  right,  isn't  it?" 
Thor  continued,  making  a  move  toward 
the  door.  "It  '11  be  Lois  and  I — and  you 
and  Rosie,  And  the  money  will  go  to 
Rosie.  I  insist  on  that.  It  '11  even 
things  up.  Five  thousand  a  year.  Per- 
haps more.   We'll  see." 

He  looked  back  from  the  door,  but 
Claude,  after  his  excitement,  was  lying 
white  and  silent,  his  eyes  closed,  his 
profile  upturned.  Thor  was  swept  by 
compunction.  It  had  always  been  part 
of  the  family  tradition  to  respect 
Claude's  high-strung  nerves.  Nothing 
did  him  more  harm  than  to  be  thwarted 
or  stirred  up.  With  a  murmured 
good-night  Thor  turned  out  the  light, 
opening  and  closing  the  door  softly. 

But  in  the  passage  he  heard  the  pad 
of  bare  feet  behind  him.  Claude  stood 
there  in  his  pajamas. 

"Say,  Thor,"  he  whispered,  hoarsely, 
"you're  top-hole — 'pon  my  soul  you 
are."  He  caught  his  brother's  hand, 
pulling  it  rather  than  shaking  it,  like 
a  boy  tugging  at  a  bell-rope.  "You're 
a  top-hole  brother,  Thor,"  he  repeated, 
nervously,  "and  I'm  a  beast.  I  know 
you  don't  care  anything  about  Rosie. 
Of  course  you  don't.  But  I've  got  the 
jumps.  I've  been  through  such  a  lot 
during  the  months  I've  been  meeting 
her  that  I'm  on  springs.  But  with  you 
to  back  me  up — " 

"I'll  back  you  up  all  right,  Claude. 
Just  wade  in  and  get  married — and  I 
guess  our  team  will  hold  its  own  against 
all  comers.  Lois  will  be  with  us.  She's 
fond  of  Rosie — " 

With  another  tug  at  his  brother's 
arm,  and  more  inarticulate  thanks, 
Claude  darted  back  to  his  room 
again. 

Thor  closed  his  own  door  and  locked 
it  behind  him.  He  was  too  far  spent  for 
more  emotion.  He  had  hardly  the  en- 
ergy to  throw  off  his  clothes  and  turn 
out  the  light.  Within  five  minutes  of 
his  final  assurance  to  Claude  he  was 
sleeping  profoundly. 


[to  be  continued.] 


o 


as 


The  Company  Dinner 

BY  MARGARET  CAMERON  AND  JESSIE  LEACH  RECTOR 


'ELL,  I'm  at  peace  with 
the  world!"  Geoffrey 
Adams  dropped  the 
match  with  which  he 
had  lighted  his  after- 
dinner  cigar,  pulled  his 
coffee-cup  nearer,  and 
squinted  a  little  as  he  looked  through 
the  first  clinging,  aromatic  tendrils  of 
smoke  at  his  pretty  wife,  smiling  across 
a  beautifully  appointed  table,  upon 
which  gaily  petticoated  candles  shed 
their  mellow  beams.  "  I  wonder  whether 
peacefulness — one  way  or  another — is 
always  a  matter  of  being  fed  up?" 

"Apropos  of  food,"  said  Suzanne, 
"do  you  realize,  Geof,  that  we've  simply 
got  to  give  some  dinners?" 

"Dinners!"  he  ejaculated,  amazed. 
"I  begin  to  feel  like  an  object  of 
charity.  All  our  friends  must  have 
demonstrated  to  their  complete  satis- 
faction that  it's  more  blessed  to  give 
than  to  receive!" 

"The  light  and  inconsequential  way 
in  which  the  woman  speaks  of  giving 
dinners!"  he  murmured.  "One  of  Enga's 
dinners?" 

"Isn't  that  just  like  a  man?"  she  re- 
torted. "You  arrive  at  peace  with  the 
world  by  eating  one  of  Enga's  dinners, 
and  then  call  it  names!" 

"You  malign  me.  Enga's  chicken 
casserole  by  any  other  name  would 
taste  as  good.  But  don't  forget  that 
chicken,  plus  a  salad  and  a  sweet, 
doesn't  constitute  a  dinner.  A  dinner, 
my  Suzanne,  is  a  fine  flower  of  civili- 
zation." 

"A  dinner,"  sententiously  observed 
his  wife,  "is  one  of  three  things.  It's 
either  just  food,  or  a  stepping-stone,  or 
a  canceled  debt.  It's  the  latter  variety 
of  which  I  speak." 

"Any  food  would  be  a  perfect  dinner 
for  me  if  salted  by  your  presence,"  he 
told  her,  "but  even  you  can't  convert 
our  daily  bread  into  a  function  for  the 
formal." 


"You  seem  to  be  putting  social  amen- 
ities on  a  very  material  basis.  Why 
not  allow  the  spirit  to  have  some  play?" 
she  suggested,  and  he  laughingly  re- 
turned: 

"The  spirit's  willing  enough.  It's 
the  food  that's  weak.  If  you  said 
spirits,  now!  They've  saved  many  an 
otherwise  shaky  situation.  But  with 
the  advent  of  our  new  national  drink, 
I  suppose  bottled  conviviality  should 
remain  in  obscurity,  gathering  cobwebs 
unto  itself." 

"Should  it,  indeed!"  sniffed  Suzanne. 
"What  has  that  to  do  with  the  fine 
flower  of  civilization,  I'd  like  to  know?" 
Whereat  they  both  laughed.  "Joking 
aside,  Geof,  we've  got  to  do  the  civilized 
thing.  We  can't  go  on  honeymooning 
for  ever.  We  must  contribute  our  share, 
and  that  spells  dinners.  And  why  not? 
We  have  everything  but  the  food." 

"Granting  that  your  setting  of  choice 
wedding-gifts  is  perfect,"  he  rejoined, 
"for  dinner-giving  food's  really  a  bit 
important,  isn't  it?" 

"Y-yes,  I  suppose  it  is.  And  Enga 
certainly  does  not — "  She  stopped 
thoughtfully,  and  after  a  moment  he 
said,  with  a  resigned  shrug. 

"Oh,  well,  all  right.  I  see  where  I 
travel  the  suburbanite's  well-beaten 
road  to  the  agencies  in  search  of  a 
cook." 

"Not  much  you  don't!"  she  replied. 
"I  bear  the  ills  I  have!  Enga  may  be 
stupid,  but  she's  willing  and  clean — 
and  she  stays.  And  the  greatest  of 
these  is  she  stays!  Geof,  I  have  an 
inspiration!  Couldn't  we  achieve  a 
company  dinner  on  the  instalment 
plan  ?" 

"I'm  game  for  anything  you  suggest, 
but  I  haven't  the  remotest  notion  what 
you're  talking  about." 

"Listen,  then!  The  cook-book  and 
I  have  taught  Enga  to  do  two  or  three 
things  really  well.  Why  not  one  en- 
tire menu?    One  perfect  dinner  served 


720 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


at  intervals  to  different  people  ought 
to  get  us  through  the  social  clearing- 
house with  flying  colors." 

"  Suzanne,  you're  the  eighth  wonder 
of  the  world!"  he  declared,  and  Suzanne 
blushed.  But,  while  admiration  was 
sweet,  her  purpose  was  fixed,  and  she 
persisted. 

"You  say  you're  game,  but  are  you? 
Do  you  fully  realize  what  training  Enga 
is  going  to  mean?" 

"Mean?  Look  here,"  he  demanded, 
in  some  dismay,  "have  we  got  to  eat 
that  company  dinner  every  day  until 
she  learns  how  to  cook  it?" 

"No,  my  child.  On  our  limited  in- 
come that  wouldn't  permit  us  to  have 
even  grape  juice  when  the  great  occasion 
arrives.  But  day  by  day  and  course 
by  course  I'll  train  our  minion's  fum- 
bling fingers  in  the  way  they  should  go, 
and  you — poor  dear! — will  manfully 
swallow  the  result!" 

"All  right.  I'm  game!  But  what 
do  you  know  about  the  gentle  art  of 
cooking,  anyway?" 

"My  dear,"  lightly  said  Suzanne, 
"any  woman  of  intelligence  ought  to 
cook  well.  So  many  who  haven't  any 
do  it  perfectly." 

It  was  perhaps  three  months  after 
this  that  Marian  Fisher  first  heard  that 
to  be  invited  to  one  of  the  Adamses'  in- 
timate little  dinners  was  to  enjoy  the 
rarest  pleasure  their  small  suburban 
community  afforded.  The  worth-while 
people  one  met,  the  good  talk  one  heard, 
and  last,  but  by  no  means  least,  the 
good  food,  made  these  occasions  mem- 
orable to  those  privileged  to  share  in 
them. 

Suzanne  was  the  daughter  of  an  em- 
inent man  whose  entire  fortune  had 
been  swept  away  in  one  of  those  finan- 
cial cataclysms  that  occur  from  time 
to  time,  and  at  his  death  she  had  been 
left  quite  penniless,  but  with  a  large 
circle  of  acquaintances  who  met  with 
disapproval  her  announcement  that  she 
was  going  to  marry  Geoffrey  Adams. 
For  a  girl  accustomed  to  every  ease  of 
circumstance,  Geof  with  his  large  fund 
of  hope  and  ambition  and  his  modest 
salary  did  not  seem  to  offer  a  brilliant 
marriage.  But  Suzanne  met  their  ob- 
jections lightly,  assuring  the  doubting 
ones  that  she  would  do  wonders  with 


Geof's  salary;  in  proof  whereof  she  set 
about  canvassing  New  York  from  Wash- 
ington Heights  to  Greenwich  Village  in 
pursuit  of  an  apartment  that  met  her 
requirements.  After  many  weary  days 
she  said: 

"Geof,  I  can't  stand  it!  The  ones 
with  large  rooms  and  open  fireplaces 
have  zinc  bath-tubs  and  inclosed  plumb- 
ing. Those  with  'all  the  modern  im- 
provements' have  imitation  bay-trees 
and  near-marble  pillars  in  the  entrance- 
hall,  and  six  cubby-holes  occupying  the 
space  of  one  room.  They  all  have 
hideous  hardwood  mantels — generally 
with  colored  tiles — which  the  landlords 
refuse  to  paint.  At  best,  that  would 
only  convert  them  into  whited  sepul- 
chers,  for  the  things  don't  even  cover 
a  hole  in  the  wall!  I  want  something 
real!  Let's  look  at  that  place  in  the 
country  that  Betty  Benson  told  us 
about.    She  says  it's  nice." 

So  they  went  to  the  country,  and 
Suzanne  found  an  old  red  brick  house 
which  she  insisted  had  been  waiting 
for  her;  but  now  Geoffrey  turned  scoffer. 

"Looks  to  me  as  though  it  had  got 
tired  waiting  and  decided  to  sit  down," 
he  caviled,  but  she  buoyantly  returned: 

"Never  you  mind!  Putting  what 
we'll  save  in  rent  on  the  inside  of  that 
house  will  be  like  feeding  the  hungry. 
It  will  cast  off  its  air  of  dejection  and 
feel  like  a  home.  And  think  how  near 
it  is  to  the  Post-road!  Don't  forget 
we  have  friends  with  motors,  even  if 
we  do  walk  ourselves — and  not  always 
by  preference!" 

"All  right.  Just  as  you  say,"  he 
agreed.    "But  I'm  from  Missouri!" 

"Tres-bien!"  was  her  gay  retort. 
"You  may  incorporate  the  whole  map 
if  you  want  to.    I'd  love  to  'show'  you!" 

When,  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks, 
he  saw  the  result  of  her  labors,  he  ex- 
claimed: "My  dear,  we'll  have  to 
frame  our  lease  and  hang  it  on  the  wall, 
for  nobody,  seeing  this  house,  can  ever 
be  convinced  that  we're  not  living  be- 
yond our  income!  How  in  the  name 
of  marvels  did  you  do  it?" 

"White  paint  and  chintz — and  in- 
telligence," he  was  told,  briefly. 

Six  months  of  gracious  living  in  these 
surroundings  had  made  the  Adamses 
feel  that  theirs  was  indeed  an  enviable 


Drawn  by  Edward  L.  Chase  Engraved  by  C.  E.  Hart 

AS    THOUGH    THE    OLD    HOUSE    LISTENED    WITH  HER 


THE  COMPANY  DINNER 


721 


lot.  Geof  said  sometimes,  "Really, 
Suzanne,  this  is  too  good.  It  tends  to 
dull  ambition. "  But  when  he  heard 
that  Rhodes  Carleton,  one  of  the  larg- 
est manufacturers  in  the  United  States, 
was  looking  for  an  Eastern  sales-man- 
ager, he  knew  that  for  him  ambition 
might  hibernate  awhile  but  it  was 
very  much  alive. 

"Far  be  it  from  me  to  count  the 
chickens  before  the  eggs  are  laid,"  he 
said,  "but  from  Mr.  Carleton's  atti- 
tude to-day,  I  think  I  have  at  least  as 
good  a  chance  as  anybody  of  getting 
the  job.  Phil  Benson — he's  Carleton's 
nephew,  you  know — says  that  it  rests 
between  Jim  Fisher  and  me." 

"How  about  offering  Mr.  Carleton 
the  dinner?"  she  asked,  laughing.  "It 
might  serve  as  an  incubator,  in  case 
the  eggs  are  laid." 

"Is  there  anybody  left  worthy  to  be 
asked  to  meet  such  a  shining  light?" 
he  questioned.  "You  insist  we  can't 
repeat  on  this  thing — though  I  don't 
see  why  not,  when  the  dinner's  so  good." 

"Well,  perhaps  you're  right,"  she 
considered.  "With  a  change  or  two  in 
the  things  I  make  myself,  perhaps  I 
could  offer  that  dinner  twice — or  even 
thrice — to  a  man." 

"Now,  why  a  man?  Why  not  a 
woman  ?" 

"Dear  male  creature,  a  woman  sees 
far  beyond  the  trimmings,"  she  told 
him.  "A  few  yards  of  lace  on  last  year's 
frock  and  a  woman's  best  smile  will 
convince  almost  any  man  that  the 
gown's  what  she  wants  him  to  think  it. 
So  with  a  dinner,  too." 

"And  you  think  a  woman  would  drop 
on  it,  eh?  But  we  can't  have  only 
men  at  this  show — and  pick  your  guests 
with  care,  dear.  Carleton's  not  the 
average  business  slave.  He's  a  de- 
scendant as  well  as  an  ancestor." 

"Then  we'll  ask  the  most  interesting 
people  we  know,  and  I'll  chance  any- 
body's thinking  it  was  necessity  and 
not  choice  that  governed  the  menu  for 
this  particular  occasion.  We'll  have 
the  Bensons,  of  course,  as  Mr.  Carleton's 
their  guest,  but  I'm  glad  we  don't  know 
their  friends  the  Fishers.  I  hope  I 
could  be  just  as  cordial,  even  if  he  is 
your  rival,  but  I'd  rather  not  be  put 
to  the  test." 


"You  have  a  flair  for  knowing  the 
right  people,  haven't  you?"  he  re- 
sponded. "Let's  see,  that  must  be 
about  the  fourth  extra  sense  I've  dis- 
covered in  you.  How  many  more  have 
you  concealed  about  your  little  person?" 

Suzanne  did  not  need  her  prettiest 
smile  to  convince  either  man  or  woman 
that  her  frock  for  the  Carleton  dinner 
was  radiantly  new,  and  at  the  end  of 
the  evening  her  being  was  flooded  with 
the  glow  of  satisfaction  that  comes  to 
every  hostess  when  she  has  said  good- 
night to  her  last  guest,  a  successful 
entertainment  achieved.  Her  complete 
satisfaction  might  have  been  dampened 
a  bit,  however,  could  she  have  over- 
heard the  conversation  between  Carleton 
and  the  Bensons  on  the  way  back  to 
town.  Betty  was  all  enthusiasm,  and 
said: 

"Don't  you  think  Suzanne's  a  won- 
der, Uncle  Rhodes,  to  live  in  the  suburbs, 
and  entertain  so  well,  and  have  such  a 
house  to  do  it  in?" 

Carleton  paused  to  bite  the  end  off  a 
cigar  before  answering,  rather  dryly: 
"Very  nice.  But  tell  me  something 
about  Mrs.  Adams.  Hers  seems  to  be 
rather  a  lavish  hand." 

"She  does  do  things  with  ease,  but 
she  has  the  habit."  Betty's  tone  was 
warmly  admiring.  "All  her  life  she's 
been  in  the  midst  of  things,  and  I  think 
she's  wonderful  to  keep  it  up!  Every- 
one felt  she  was  taking  a  risk  when  she 
married  Geof,  on  his  rather  meager 
salary,  but  they  evidently  manage." 

"Didn't  you  tell  me  she  was  Peter 
Sanford's  daughter?  She  may  have 
saved  something  from  the  wreck.  Or 
possibly  she  had  money  of  her  own?" 
Carleton  suggested;  but  his  nephew  re- 
plied: 

"No,  she  hasn't.  Geof  told  me  at 
the  time  they  were  married  that  he 
wanted  to  take  out  some  life-insurance, 
because  they  had  nothing  but  his  salary. 
I  don't  know  whether  he's  done  it  yet." 

"Judging  from  their  scale  of  living, 
I  should  say  not,"  was  the  elder  man's 
comment.  "You  can't  pad  the  present 
and  prepare  for  the  future  on  the  same 
dollar.  At  least,  I've  never  been  able 
to.  And  I've  never  heard  of  any  finan- 
cial Burbank  who's  made  luxury  yield 
a  profit." 


722 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Really,  Uncle  Rhodes,  isn't  it 
rather  unfair  to  expect  a  girl  like 
Suzanne  to  drop  entirely  out  of  her  old 
life?"  Betty  defended. 

"My  dear,  dropping's  not  a  pleasant 
sensation,  but  it  would  seem  to  me  that 
those  young  people  are  trying  for  an 
altitude  record  in  a  hot-air  balloon  with 
no  parachute.  When  the  fall  comes, 
though,  I'd  like  to  hire  their  cook,"  he 
added. 

"You'll  have  to  be  right  on  the  spot 
then,"  said  Betty.  "Enga's  the  envy 
of  every  friend  they  have.  She's  the 
one  cook  who  never  chills  those  things 
she  should  not  have  chilled,  nor  leaves 
unheated  those  things  she  should  have 
heated.  There's  nothing  lukewarm  in 
that  house,  either  in  food  or  spirits." 

"Then  they  do  this  sort  of  thing 
often?"  Carleton  probed. 

"Well,  they  haven't  been  married 
very  long,  you  know,  but  all  winter 
they've  been  giving  small  dinners — 
and  with  such  success!"  Betty  began 
enthusiastically,  but  her  husband,  com- 
bating a  chill  in  his  uncle's  tone,  inter- 
posed : 

"They've  been  entertained  a  lot,  nat- 
urally, and  Suzanne's  strong  for  reci- 
procity. She  always  plays  the  game 
and  asks  few  favors." 

"The  right  to  play  that  game's  a 
privilege,"  succinctly  returned  the  other 
man,  "and  one  to  be  earned.  And  it 
comes  high." 

"Look  here,  Uncle  Rhodes,  this  isn't 
going  to  queer  Geof's  chances  with  you, 
is  it?"  his  nephew  asked,  anxiously, 
and  the  manufacturer  replied: 

"I'm  sorry.  He  does  seem  in  many 
ways  to  be  the  man  I  want.  Socially 
they're  both  delightful,  of  course,  but 
extravagance  is  a  nasty  cutworm  that 
I  prefer  to  avoid.  When  you've  got 
your  plant  nicely  started,  you  discover 
one  day  that  it  has  no  roots.  Now, 
Fisher's  personally  less  agreeable  to  me, 
and  he  lacks  Adams's  imagination  and 
length  of  vision.    But  he's  safe." 

"Well,  you'd  have  to  hunt  to  find 
anybody  more  extravagant  than  Marian 
Fisher,"  Betty  mentioned. 

"She  can  afford  to  be,"  he  returned. 
"She  has  a  very  tidy  little  fortune  of 
her  own." 

The  next  afternoon  Suzanne  went  to 


town  to  a  matinee.  All  day  the  mem- 
ory of  her  successful  dinner  lingered 
pleasantly  with  her,  and  when  she  failed 
to  find  Geof  on  the  train  he  usually 
took  going  home  it  seemed  one  more 
argument  that  he  must  bring  good  news 
when  he  came.  As  she  walked  up  the 
flagged  path,  with  its  brown  earth  bor- 
ders that  her  imagination  filled  with 
nodding  old-fashioned  flowers,  she  was 
her  most  buoyant  self.  It  was  nice  to 
help  Geof,  and  she  felt  sure  she  had. 
When  she  let  fall  the  knocker  of  the 
old  battened  door — "  Fancy  an  electric 
bell  on  that  door,"  she  had  said  to  Geof 
— the  sound  reverberated  through  the 
house,  and  she  listened  for  Enga's 
heavy  step.  But  she  heard  "nothing. 
As  she  stood  waiting,  it  was  as  though 
the  old  house  listened  with  her,  and 
the  first  little  premonition  of  things 
not  being  as  usual  made  her  search 
hurriedly  for  her  key  and  open  the 
door.  Silence  and  the  chill  heralding 
untended  fires  met  her,  and  her  first 
thought  was  that  Enga  might  be  ill. 
Hastening  to  the  kitchen,  she  found 
it  empty,  and  conspicuously  propped 
against  the  bread-box  was  a  note,  which 
she  seized. 

dere  mis  Adams  [she  read], 
very  moch  soro  it  mak  me  but  I  go  by 
mis  Fischer  she  say  she  Pay  me  many 
Dolars  and  no  clos  I  wash.  I  lik  you  and 
mr.  Adams  moch  but  Soon  I  get  marid 
and  I  need  more  mony 

your  obedant 

Enga 

Dazed  and  indignant,  she  stood  with 
this  in  her  hand  for  a  moment,  and  then 
the  thought  that  in  half  an  hour  Geoffrey 
might  arrive  made  her  rush  with  first- 
aid  appliances  to  each  dying  fire.  As 
she  worked,  she  remembered  that  this 
was  the  night  appointed  for  the  forma- 
tion of  the  new  golf  club,  a  project  in 
which  she  and  her  husband  had  been 
prime  movers,  and  that  if  she  took  time 
now  to  cook  a  dinner  they  would  in- 
evitably be  late  at  the  meeting.  She 
was  hastily  preparing  such  an  im- 
promptu repast  as  the  contents  of  the 
refrigerator  made  possible  when  she 
heard  Geof's  key  in  the  door  and  ran 
to  meet  him,  forgetting  Enga's  defection 
in  her  eagerness  to  hear  the  good  news 


THE  COMPANY  DINNER 


723 


she  was  so  confident  he  was  bringing. 
One  glance  at  his  face,  however,  told 
her  something  was  wrong,  and  she 
gasped: 

"Oh,  Geof!  What  is  it?  What's 
happened  ?" 

"Nothing/'  he  replied,  with  a  short 
laugh.  "That's  it!  Nothing  at  all. 
And  it's  been  made  quite  clear  to  me 
that  nothing's  going  to  happen." 

"You  mean — Mr.  Carleton?  But — 
but  why?" 

"Give  it  up."  Seeing  her  dismay,  he 
tried  to  speak  gaily.  "Suzanne,  that 
was  a  castle  of  cards  we  were  building. 
There's  nothing  doing." 

Somehow  this  additional  failure  of 
their  hopes  made  the  domestic  misfor- 
tune seem  doubly  poignant,  and  she 
wanted  to  sit  down  in  the  midst  of  her 
desolated  house  and  weep,  but,  being 
Suzanne,  she  did  not.  Instead,  she 
demanded,  with  a  show  of  spirit: 

"Is  Jim  Fisher  going  to  get  it?" 

"I  suppose  so.  Anyhow,  it's  evident 
I'm  not." 

"This  must  be  the  Fishers'  day," 
she  said,  dully.  "They've  got  Enga, 
too." 

"fEnga!" 

"Yes — she's  gone.  Mrs.  Fisher  of- 
fered her  more  money,  and  of  course 
we  weren't  paying  her  very  much.  When 
I  got  home,  I  found  the  house  empty 
and  cold,  and  no  dinner — and  you  must 
run  along  and  get  ready,  dear.  You 
know  we've  got  to  go  to  that  meeting 
to-night,  and  we  mustn't  be  late,"  she 
added,  hastily,  realizing  that  she  had 
tears,  but  that  to  shed  them  now  would 
be  a  craven's  part. 

As  they  ate  their  improvised  dinner, 
they  tried  to  talk,  but  when  they  found 
banalities  the  only  conversation  they 
could  muster  they  grew  silent,  and  it 
was  not  until  they  returned  from  the 
meeting  of  the  golf  club,  where  they 
lost  some  of  their  own  dejection  in 
arousing  other  people's  enthusiasm  to 
the  point  of  successful  organization, 
that  they  could  broach  the  subject  lying 
at  the  back  of  their  minds.  As  they 
turned  in  at  their  gate  Suzanne  said, 
plaintively: 

"Geof,  I'm  hungry.  How  does  creamed 
chicken  in  the  chafing-dish  sound  to 
you  r 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785.— 90 


"Sounds  like  the  relief  of  Lucknow!" 
he  returned.  "The  famine  raging  in  my 
interior  is  'something  fierce.'" 

So  Suzanne  covered  her  gown  with 
a  big  Dutch  apron  and  set  about  get- 
ting supper  while  her  husband  replen- 
ished the  fires.    Presently  she  said: 

"Look  here,  Geof  o'  my  heart,  what 
are  we  glooming  about,  anyway?  Every- 
thing's just  as  it  was  ten  days  ago,  be- 
fore we  heard  of  Mr.  Rhodes  Carleton 
and  his  old  position.  Come  on,  let's 
forget  him!  We  were  perfectly  happy 
before  he  came,  and  his  advent  hasn't 
changed  a  thing  except  our  attitude 
toward  what  we  have.  Sweden's  still 
on  the  map,  and  Ellis  Island's  within 
call." 

"You're  a  brick,  Suzanne!  I  know 
you're  just  as  much  disappointed  as  I 
am. 

"I  am  not!  I  was,  but  that  was 
fully  two  minutes  ago.  I've  forgotten 
it!  Why  don't  we  light  all  the  candles 
and  have  a  party,  just  by  ourselves? 
We  wasted  a  perfectly  good  one  last 
night  on  your  unappreciative  old  cur- 
mudgeon!" 

"Our  baked  meats  furnished  forth 
a  funeral,  all  right!"  He  laughed,  but 
it  was  rather  ruefully.  "Suzanne,  does 
nothing  ever  get  you  down?" 

"Oh  yes,  it's  easy  enough  to  get  me 
down,"  she  blithely  admitted,  "but  I 
don't  stay  put!  I'm  a  reversion  to 
type.  You  know,  a  New  England 
grandmother  has  set  her  hand  and  seal 
on  me,  and  when  I  see  food  to  prepare 
my  spirits  soar!    Lights!    Lights,  ho!" 

While  he  was  attending  to  the  candles 
Adams  chuckled  a  little,  and  after  a 
moment  he  began: 

"I  wonder  what  the  Fishers — " 

"Don't  speak  that  name  in  my  pres- 
ence!" she  interrupted,  humorously 
brusque.  "No  woman  who'll  snare  an- 
other woman's  cook  out  of  her  kitchen 
is  to  be  mentioned  in  my  house." 

"Aye,  aye,  sir,"  he  said,  saluting. 
"But,  just  the  same,  it  would  be  inter- 
esting to  know  what  the  kidnapper's 
doing  with  the  dear  departed,  now  she's 
got  her." 

"Teaching  her  to  cook,  probably. 
That's  what  I  did."  Suzanne  laughed 
a  little  in  spite  of  herself.  "Oh,  Geof, 
do  you  suppose  Enga  confessed  that 


724 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


broiling  a  chop  is  her  only  accomplish- 
ment, save  for  the  substantiate  of  the 
one  perfect  dinner?'' 

"If  she  didn't,  it's  likely  to  burst 
upon  them  convincingly  some  time," 
he  grinned.  "Anyway,  it's  rather  a 
joke  on  us,  you  know,  our  one  and  only 
dinner  breaking  loose  from  its  moorings 
this  way.  Do  you  think  they'll  eat  it 
every  night?" 

"Well,  they  can  afford  to.  We 
couldn't.  But  if  they  do — Geof,  re- 
member what  that  dinner,  bereft  of  its 
trimmings,  did  to  us  while  Enga  was 
learning  to  cook  it!" 

Her  preparations  were  almost  com- 
plete when  the  knocker  sounded  and 
she  looked  at  her  husband  with  startled 
eyes. 

"Who  on  earth  can  that  be,  at  this 
hour?"  he  exclaimed,  and  went  at  once 
to  find  out.  Through  the  open  door 
Suzanne  heard  Betty  Benson's  gay  ac- 
cents, and,  forgetting  her  enveloping 
apron,  ran  out  to  greet  her,  calling: 

"Betty,  how  splendid!  Where  have 
you  two  been  so  late?"  Then,  seeing 
the  tall  form  of  Rhodes  Carleton  be- 
side Geof  and  Phil  Benson,  she  added, 
with  a  degree  of  formality  in  her  still 
cordial  tone:  "Oh,  how  nice  of  you  all 
to  stop!" 

"That's  very  kina  of  you.  I  feel 
that  it's  rather  an  imposition,"  was 
Carleton's  reserved  response,  but  Betty's 
vivacious  voice  broke  in  hastily: 

"I  just  had  to  stop  when  I  saw  the 
light.  Uncle  Rhodes  was  very  reluctant, 
but  I  told  him  it  might  be  his  only  op- 
portunity to  make  a  dinner  call,  as  he 
insists  he  must  go  home  in  two  or  three 
days,  and  he  still  has  a  lot  to  do." 

"Humph!  You  might  understand 
better  Betty's  sudden  enthusiasm  for 
midnight  dinner  calls,"  chuckled  Ben- 
son, "if  you'd  heard  her  crow,  ' Oh, 
there's  a  light  in  the  Adamses'  dining- 
room!'    She  hoped  it  augured  food." 

"I  knew  it  did!"  his  wife  corrected, 
and  then,  as  she  glimpsed  the  table 
with  its  lighted  candles  and  generally 
festive  air  of  hospitality,  she  cried  in 
dismay:  "Oh,  Suzanne,  are  you  ex- 
pecting guests?" 

"Not  a  soul,"  was  the  reply.  "We 
were  having  a  little  party  all  by  our- 
selves.   You're  just  in  time." 


"There!  What  did  I  tell  you?" 
triumphed  her  friend,  glancing  back 
over  her  shoulder  at  the  men  of  her 
party  divesting  themselves  of  motor- 
coats  in  the  hall.  "Hurry,  you  people! 
Next  time,  perhaps  you'll  not  hesitate 
to  follow  my  impulse.  I  was  never  so 
hungry  in  my  life." 

"Motoring  does  put  an  edge  on  one's 
appetite,"  said  Geof,  trying  to  throw 
off  a  consciousness  of  constraint;  and 
Suzanne,  with  the  hostess's  natural  de- 
sire to  make  things  move  easily,  began 
talking  rather  at  random  as  she  made 
excursions  to  and  from  the  kitchen, 
arranging  additions  to  her  feast. 

"We're  hungry,  too,"  she  said.  "We 
had  only  an  impromptu  dinner  to- 
night, for  we've  lost  our  cook." 

Carleton  looked  up  with  the  first 
glimmer  of  real  interest  he  had  shown, 
exclaiming:  "You've  lost  that  wonderful 
cook,  Mrs.  Adams,  and  are  able  to  talk 
calmly  about  it?"  while  the  Bensons 
demanded  with  one  voice  what  had 
happened  to  the  incomparable  Enga. 

"She's  been  corrupted  with  gold — 
snared  under  our  very  roof,"  lightly 
returned  Suzanne.  "When  I  went  to 
town  this  morning  I  left  her  tending 
our  hearthfire,  and  I  returned  to  find 
it  cold.    Just  at  dinner-time,  too!" 

"That's  what  you  get  for  feeding 
your  friends  not  wisely  but  too  well," 
observed  Benson.  "Anyhow,  tempta- 
tion's removed  from  our  path,  Betty. 
Somebody  else  got  her  first." 

"At  least,  I  wasn't  betrayed  by  the 
tooth  of  a  taster!"  Suzanne  declared, 
laughing.  "Our  friends  have  threatened 
to  lure  her  away,  but  as  it  turns  out 
we  go  mourning  because  of  the  oppres- 
sion of  our  enemy." 

"You're  going  St.  Paul  one  better," 
suggested  Carleton,  with  a  humorous 
gleam.  "When  your  enemy  hungers, 
you  hand  over  the  cook!" 

"Anyway,  Suzanne,  you  can't  be  as 
hungry  as  we  are,"  Betty  insisted,  "for 
even  if  your  dinner  was  impromptu,  it 
was  real  food.  We've  dined  on  profuse 
apologies." 

"Really,  Betty,  you're  incorrigible!" 
her  husband  reproached.  "You  can't  eat 
people's  food  and  then  talk  about  it!" 

"Now,  Phil!  It  isn't  food,  but  salt, 
that  forms  the  sacred  bond,"  she  parried, 


Drawn  by  Edward  L.  Chase  Engraved  by  Frank  E.  Pettit 

"WHAT    DID    YOU    HAVE    TO    EAT?"    BREATHLESSLY  DEMANDED  SUZANNE 


THE  COMPANY  DINNER 


725 


"and  this  was  food  sans  salt — and  sans 
everything  else  that  goes  to  make 
flavor!  And  coming  on  the  heels  of  that 
perfect  dinner  last  night —  By  the 
way,  Suzanne,"  she  broke  off,  as  Phil 
frowned  heavily  at  her,  "what's  be- 
come of  Enga?  Do  you  know  who  got 
her?" 

"Mrs.  Fisher's  the  happy  possessor 
of  my  lost  treasure."  I 

"Mrs.  Fisher!  Mrs.  Jim  Fisher? 
But  that's  where  we've  been  dining!" 

"What!"  Suzanne  and  Geoffrey 
stared  blankly  at  each  other. 

"Betty!"  sharply  warned  Benson. 

"But  it  is!  We've  just  come  from 
there!"  his  wife  persisted. 

"What  did  you  have  to  eat?"  breath- 
lessly demanded  Suzanne.  "Any  of 
the  things  you  had  here  last  night?" 

"Mercy,  no!"  Betty  replied.  "Noth- 
ing remotely  like  them." 

"Suzanne,"  said  Geoffrey,  "evidently 
that  dinner's  still  dragging  its  anchor!" 

Suzanne  giggled.  Then,  as  the  full 
import  of  the  situation  dawned  upon 
them,  she  and  her  husband  broke  into 
peal  upon  peal  of  laughter,  and  the 
others,  catching  the  mirthful  infection, 
laughed  with  them  without  knowing 
why,  until  Betty  seized  her  hostess's  arm 
and  shook  her,  demanding: 

"What's  it  all  about?" 

"Oh — I'm  sorry!"  Her  friend  strove 
for  self-control  with  caught  breath.  "I 
can't  tell  you — but  it  is  so  funny!" 

"Why  can't  you  tell  it?"  Geoffrey 
demurred,  wiping  away  his  own  tears 
of  laughter.  "The  murder's  out.  Any- 
way, we've  got  the  story  left,  and  if  we 
don't  tell  it,  somebody  else  will — and 
that  would  be  flat  plagiarism!  You 
invented  it!   It's  yours!   Go  to  it!" 


So  pretty  Mrs.  Adams,  with  an  apolo- 
getic word  to  Carleton  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  details  so  intimately  personal, 
explained  the  origin  of  the  company 
dinner,  touching  lightly  and  humorous- 
ly upon  the  limited  income  which  had 
made  it  necessary. 

"Of  course,  I  never  could  have  done 
it  if  Geof  hadn't  been  the  stuff  heroes 
are  made  of,"  she  concluded.  "He'-s 
been  the  martyr  to  a  menu." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know!"  he  returned. 
"We  both  ate  it,  didn't  we?  And  I 
didn't  have  to  cook  it  first.  Anyhow, 
never  again  can  anybody  put  over  on 
me  that  quail-a-day-for- thirty-days 
stunt  as  any  particular  achievement! 
It's  a  cinch — if  Suzanne  seasons  the 
quail!" 

"I  don't  think  you've  suffered  much," 
dryly  commented  Carleton.  "I'd  like 
an  opportunity  to  dine  on  that  delicious 
hors-d'ceuvre  for  thirty  days  myself." 

"We  were  spared  that,"  laughed 
Suzanne.  il 'Hors-d 'ceuvres  and  salads 
and  sweets  and  sauces  are*  still  dark 
mysteries  to  poor  Enga." 

"Evidently!"  feelingly  contributed 
Betty. 

"Yes,"  Adams  cast  an  amused  glance 
at  his  wife,  "they  were  the  products 
of  intelligence." 

"Well,  if  you  ask  me,  the  whole  thing 
was  the  result  of  genius."  Carleton 
spoke  slowly.  "If  you  were  a  man, 
Mrs.  Adams,  I  should  offer  you  my 
own  job  and  sit  at  your  feet.  As  it  is, 
I'm  perfectly  confident  that  with  larger 
means  and  increased  opportunity  you'll 
treble  the  efficiency  of  my  Eastern  sales- 
manager —  that  is,  if  you'll  help  me 
persuade  your  husband  to  accept  the 
position.    Will  you?" 


American  Historical  Liars 


BY  ALBERT  BUSHNELL  HART 


Professor  of  Government,  Harvard  University 


H,  don't  read  history 
that  I  know  must  be 
false/'  said  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  to  his  son.  The 
quip  applies  to  the  delv- 
er  in  American  history 
who  shrinks  not  from 
bringing  to  light  quantities  of  literary 
iron  pyrites  which  have  for  years  passed 
as  twenty-four-carat  nuggets.  Yet  liars 
in  history  are  not  without  uses.  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  hints  at  a  moral  pur- 
pose in  his  colloquy  between  two  of 
the  characters  in  Treasure  Island,  just 
outside  the  author's  ink-bottle: 

"If  you  go  to  that,"  replied  Silver,  "where 
would  a  story  begin,  if  there  wasn't  no 
villains?" 

"Well,  that's  pretty  much  my  thought," 
said  Captain  Smollett.  "The  author  has  to 
get  a  story;  that's  what  he  wants;  and  to 
get  a  story,  and  to  have  a  man  like  the  doc- 
tor (say)  given  a  proper  chance,  he  has  to 
put  in  men  like  you  and  Hands.  But  he's 
on  the  right  side;  and  mind  your  eye!" 

This  conception  that  Evil  and  the 
Evil  One  exist  in  order  to  bring  into  re- 
lief Good  and  the  Good  One,  was  clearly 
brought  out  in  Puritan  theology.  Jona- 
than Edwards  assured  his  hearers  that 
their  joys  of  heaven  would  be  height- 
ened by  the  opportunity  to  look  down 
into  the  place  which  would  be  inhabited 
by  most  of  their  neighbors.  Truthful 
historians  are  likewise  edified  by  the 
pillorying  of  the  pretenders.  What 
would  become  of  the  various  Sons  and 
Daughters  of  patriotic  societies  if  there 
were  no  unhappy  individuals  in  the 
United  States  who  are  descended  from 
Hessians,  and  who,  therefore,  cannot  be 
any  sort  of  Sons  or  Daughters? 

Very  untrustworthy  statements  are  of- 
ten made  by  truthful  people.  A  striking 
example  was  a  speech  of  the  late  Abram 


S.  Hewitt,  at  a  dinner  of  the  New  York 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  February  7, 
1901.  Mr.  Hewitt  was  a  business  man 
of  high  standards  and  great  success;  he 
was  a  fearless  and  efficient  member  of 
Congress,  and  Mayor  of  New  York;  he 
had  a  host  of  friends;  he  possessed  a 
reputation  for  keenness  of  mind.  When, 
therefore,  he  paid  a  special  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  Queen  Victoria  (who  had 
recently  passed  away),  his  hearers  ac- 
cepted his  statement  as  a  valuable  first- 
hand contribution  to  American  diplo- 
matic history.  Without  quoting  his 
exact  language,  his  revelation  may  be 
summed  up  as  follows: 

(1)  In  1862  he  was  sent  by  the  govern- 
ment on  a  confidential  mission  to  Eng- 
land and  France.  (2)  Minister  Dayton, 
in  Paris,  sent  him  as  a  special  messenger 
to  report  to  Mr.  Adams  in  London  that 
Napoleon  III.  was  trying  to  bring  the 
British  government  to  recognize  the 
Confederacy.  (3)  Hewitt  reported  to 
Adams  the  next  morning,  who  at  once 
went  to  call  on  Lord  John  Russell,  and 
on  his  return  told  Hewitt  that  he  could 
get  no  satisfaction  and  had  demanded 
an  audience  with  the  Queen.  (4)  Adams 
in  due  time  went  to  Windsor,  saw  the 
Queen  in  the  presence  of  Prince  Albert, 
and  the  Queen  replied,  "Mr.  Adams, 
give  yourself  no  uneasiness;  my  govern- 
ment will  not  recognize  the  Confed- 
eracy." 

Adams  did  not  live  to  see  this  remark 
in  print  or  he  would  have  contradicted 
it,  for  he  was  not  a  man  to  subscribe  to 
Wotton's  dictum,  "An  ambassador  is 
an  honest  man  sent  to  lie  abroad  for  the 
commonwealth."  His  son  and  biogra- 
pher, the  late  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
Jr.,  had  a  flair  for  unbottomed  history, 
and  he  examined  his  father's  diary  and 
other  documentary  evidence,  with  the 
following  surprising  results.  (1)  No 
such  incident  could  have  occurred  at 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  LIARS 


727 


any  time  in  1862,  because  Hewitt  speaks 
of  the  presence  of  the  Prince  Consort  at 
the  interview  in  Windsor,  and  the  Prince 
Consort  died  December  14,  1861.  (2) 
Hewitt  may  have  been,  and  probably 
was,  sent  as  a  messenger  to  carry 
despatches  to  Adams,  although  Adams's 
careful  diary  nowhere  mentions  such  an 
errand.  (3)  Adams  never  had,  nor 
could  have  had,  such  an  interview  with 
the  Queen.  First,  because  no  foreign 
ministers  interviewed  the  Queen;  second, 
because  his  diary  could  not  possibly  have 
left  out  so  important  an  incident;  third, 
because  it  does  not  appear  that  he  ever 
saw  the  Queen  between  the  time  of  the 
death  of  the  Prince  Consort  and  April, 
1864.  Adams  was  never  at  Windsor 
Castle  in  any  formal  capacity  during  his 
seven  years  of  service,  except  at  the 
marriage  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  (4) 
After  the  death  of  the  Prince  Consort, 
for  many  months  the  Queen  hardly  com- 
municated with  anybody  except  her 
personal  household  and  her  ministers. 
(5)  It  is  incredible  that  any  such  inci- 
dent should  have  occurred,  and  any  such 
language  been  used  to  Adams,  without 
his  immediately  reporting  it  to  his  own 
government,  and  no  such  report  exists. 
The  only  explanation  is  that  Mr. 
Hewitt,  with  no  intention  except  to  pay 
a  tribute  to  a  great  lady,  had  confused 
his  experiences  and  thought  he  remem- 
bered an  incident  which  never  occurred. 

We  expect  from  writers  of  personal 
memoirs  and  autobiographies  that  they 
shall  refresh  their  memories  from  diaries 
and  letters  and  other  data.  Yet  in  the 
whole  list  of  American  historical  liars 
none  are  more  distinguished  than  some 
of  these  autobiographists.  A  shelf  of 
literature  might  be  filled  with  so-called 
memoirs  which  are  full  of  what  a  genial 
journalist  has  called  "habitual  facti- 
cides."  The  critics  have  ventured  to  lay 
profane  hands  even  upon  an  oldest  in- 
habitant of  these  United  States — Cap- 
tain John  Smith. 

Smith  was  no  callow  youth  when  he 
first  came  out  to  Virginia.  He  was 
twenty-eight  years  old,  and  if  we  will 
take  his  word  for  it,  as  stated  in  his 
True  Travels,  he  had  already  enjoyed  at 
least  fifty  years'  worth  of  experience. 
He  tells  us  of  Orleans,  of  Paris,  of  Rouen, 


of  the  Low  Countries,  of  Brittany,  of 
Marseilles,  of  the  Greek  Islands,  of  Vi- 
enna, of  Hungary,  of  Alba  Regalis  on 
the  Turkish  frontier,  of  Transylvania. 
He  slew  in  succession  three  Turkish 
princes,  Lord  Tubashaw,  Grualgo,  and 
Bonny  Mulgro;  and  was  rewarded  by 
receiving  a  coat  of  arms  with  three 
Turks'  heads.  The  valiant  Englishman 
was  captured  by  Turks,  became  the  slave 
of  the  Bashaw's  mistress,  Charatza  Tra- 
gabigzanda,  and  was  transferred  to  her 
brother,  who  so  abused  him  that  he 
killed  his  master,  put  on  the  dead  man's 
clothes,  and  escaped  to  Russia. 

These  astonishing  adventures  do  not 
inspire  confidence;  the  more  so  that  a 
heartless  critic  has  calculated  that,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  story,  John  Smith, 
within  a  period  of  less  than  thirty 
months,  sojourned  some  time  in  France, 
spent  three  or  four  years  in  the  Low 
Countries,  was  shipwrecked  in  Scotland, 
returned  to  England,  went  to  Italy,  was 
long  engaged  in  the  wars  on  the  Danube, 
and  then  found  time  for  his  captivity 
among  the  Turks. 

However  hazy  Smith's  early  career, 
it  is  undeniable  that  he  came  to  Vir- 
ginia in  1607,  showed  himself  a  man  of 
resources  and  courage,  got  provisions 
by  purchase  or  force  from  the  Indians 
when  otherwise  the  colonists  would  have 
starved,  and  was  the  most  interesting 
figure  in  the  first  Virginia  colony.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  convict  John  Smith 
of  these  charges  of  peaceful  service  to 
the  infant  commonwealth;  he  admits 
them;  and,  besides,  they  are  confirmed 
by  other  writers. 

To  the  student  of  lies  the  interesting 
question  about  John  Smith  is  whether 
his  life  was  or  was  not  saved  by  Poca- 
hontas. Upon  that  point  he  had  the 
best  of  opportunities  to  tell  a  thrilling 
tale  in  his  book  The  True  Relation,  writ- 
ten in  Virginia  and  published  in  England 
in  1608.  Among  his  thrilling  experiences 
he  there  describes  a  little  excursion  to 
the  Chickahominy,  where  he  falls  in 
with  hostile  Indians,  becomes  the  target 
for  twenty  or  thirty  arrows,  and  is  cap- 
tured by  two  hundred  men  only  because 
he  gets  mired  in  a  swamp.  Being 
brought  before  their  Indian  king,  al- 
though Smith  knows  not  a  word  of  his 
language,  he  says,  "I  presented  him 


728 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


with  a  compasse  diall,  describing  by  my 
best  meanes  the  use  thereof,  whereat  he 
so  amazedly  admired,  as  he  suffered  me 
to  proceed  in  a  discourse  of  the  roundnes 
of  the  earth,  the  course  of  the  sunne, 
moone,  starres  and  plannets."  Eventu- 
ally he  is  brought  before  "their  em- 
perour,"  the  great  Opechan  Conough, 
commonly  called  Powhatan.  Efforts  are 
made  to  kill  him  by  Indians  whose  rela- 
tives he  has  slain,  but  the  guards  save 
him.  In  due  course  of  time,  after  "de- 
scribing to  him  the  territories  of  Europe 
which  was  subject  to  our  great  King 
whose  subject  I  was,  the  innumerable 
multitude  of  his  ships,  I  have  him  to 
understand  the  noyes  of  Trumpets  and 
terrible  manner  of  fighting."  Smith  is 
then  sent  home  with  four  men,  one  car- 
rying his  "Gonne  and  Knapsacke," 
while  the  other  two  were  "loded  with 
bread." 

Elsewhere  in  the  book  he  mentions 
the  Princess  Pocahontas,  daughter  of 
Powhatan.  This  lady  was  only  a  girl — 
perhaps  twelve  years  old — and  another 
contemporary,  Strachey,  tells  curious 
tales  of  the  maiden's  fondness  for  turn- 
ing cart-wheels  through  the  streets  of 
Jamestown.  About  the  time  Pocahon- 
tas married  John  Rolfe  and  went  to 
England  (1616),  Smith  published  a  little 
book  in  which  he  says: 

After  some  six  weeks  [elsewhere  he  makes 
it  four  weeks]  fatting  amongst  these  salvage 
countries,  at  the  minute  of  my  execution, 
she  hazarded  the  beating  out  of  her  own 
braines  to  save  mine. 

Then  in  1624  Smith  published  another 
book,  the  General  Historie,  in  which  his 
memory  seems  suddenly  to  have  unli in- 
hered, for  he  rewrites  his  narrative,  adds 
a  hundred  to  his  earlier  enumeration  of 
two  hundred  adversaries;  additionally 
remembers  that  the  Indians  brought  out 
a  bag  of  gunpowder  which  they  proposed 
to  plant  next  spring;  and  is  brought 
before  Powhatan.  With  many  new  de- 
tails he  describes  that  potentate,  and 
at  last  comes  to  the  most  exciting  scene 
in  the  drama.  You  can  see  it  all!  The 
dusky  Emperor,  R.  C;  Princess  Poca- 
hontas, L.  C. ;  the  hero  before  the  foot- 
lights, bound  but  undaunted,  his  eyes 
flashing  defiance. 

A  long  consultation  was  held,  but  the  con- 
clusion was  two  great  stones  were  brought 


before  Powhatan;  then  as  many  as  could  layd 
hands  on  him,  dragged  him  to  them,  and 
thereon  laid  his  head,  and  being  ready  with 
their  clubs,  to  beate  out  his  braines.  Poca- 
hontas, the  King's  dearest  daughter,  when 
no  entreaty  could  prevaille,  got  his  head  in 
her  armes,  and  laid  her  owne  upon  his  to 
save  him  from  death;  whereat  the  Emperour 
was  contented  he  should  live. 

No  sympathetic  person  would  ask  why 
the  eye-witness  and  the  chief  person  in 
this  wondrous  episode  should  have  neg- 
lected for  eight  years  to  put  it  into  his 
publications;  or  why  it  should  have 
taken  him  sixteen  years  more  to  recall 
the  affecting  details.  Professor  Edward 
Channing  impales  John  Smith  on  the 
barbed  sentence,  "The  utter  unreliabil- 
ity of  Smith's  account,  entirely  apart 
from  the  Pocahontas  story."  But  why 
not  be  more  trustful?  Who  knew  more 
about  his  own  adventures  than  John 
Smith?  Why  brand  as  a  falsehood  a 
tale  which  has  entertained  millions  of 
young  Americans?  The  proof  is  some- 
what inferential.  It  seems  certain  that 
Smith  was  a  captive;  and  if  he  was  con- 
demned to  be  brained  instead  of  boiled, 
what  more  natural  than  that  Pocahontas 
should  have  interposed  her  tender  per- 
son between  the  uplifted  club  and  the 
former  favorite  of  Charatza  Tragabig- 
zanda?  John  Smith  is  a  fact,  Pocahon- 
tas is  a  fact,  and  we  believe  some  of  the 
things  that  John  Smith  tells  us  about 
Pocahontas.  Why  make  distinctions? 
Perhaps  he  was  only  overcome  by  the 
familiar  journalistic  desire  to  sell  his 
books;  and  he  may  have  been  the  inven- 
tor of  the  process  of  saving  something 
especially  dreadful  for  the  8  p.m.  edi- 
tion, which  is  sold  on  the  streets  at 
four-thirty. 

Ordinarily  we  look  with  confidence  to 
the  records  of  Congress,  colonies  and 
states,  towns,  counties,  and  cities,  as  giv- 
ing an  unvarnished  account  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  public  bodies.  This  confi- 
dence is  somewhat  diminished  by  the 
enormous  bulk  of  the  Congressional 
Record.  When  a  speech  three  hundred 
and  sixty-eight  pages  long  by  Senator 
La  Follette  is  printed  in  that  venerable 
depository  of  unread  literature,  we  sus- 
pect that  it  contains  a  good  many 
"leaves  to  print."  Nevertheless  we  are 
in  the  habit  of  thinking  that  our  fore- 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  LIARS 


729 


fathers  were  beyond  such  trifling  with 
the  right  of  free  speech.  When,  in  1829, 
the  Rev.  Richard  Peters  published  a 
General  History  of  Connecticut,  and  in- 
cluded what  he  called  "Laws  made  by 
this  independent  Dominion,  and  de- 
nominated Blue  Laws  by  the  neighboring 
colonies,"  the  presumption  was  that  he 
had  correctly  quoted  from  his  originals. 
But  at  that  point  a  difficulty  arises,  be- 
cause nobody  else  has  ever  seen  such 
remarkable  edicts  as  the  following: 

No  one  to  cross  a  river,  but  with  an  au- 
thorized ferryman. 

No  one  shall  run  on  the  Sabbath  day,  or 
walk  in  his  garden  or  elsewhere,  except  rev- 
erently to  and  from  meeting. 

No  one  shall  travel,  cook  victuals,  make 
beds,  sweep  house,  cut  hair,  or  shave  on  the 
Sabbath  or  fasting  day. 

No  one  shall  read  Common  Prayer,  keep 
Christmas  or  Saints-days,  make  minced  pies, 
dance,  play  cards,  or  play  on  any  instrument 
of  music,  except  the  drum,  trumpet,  and 
jews'-harp. 

Married  persons  must  live  together,  or  be 
imprisoned. 

Every  male  shall  have  his  hair  cut  round 
according  to  a  cap. 

Peters  rather  covers  up  his  tracks  by 
stating  that  these  laws  were  "never 
suffered  to  be  printed";  but  several  sets 
of  laws  by  which  the  community  was 
governed  were  printed,  and  do  not  at  all 
correspond  with  the  Reverend  Richard's 
version.  The  code  of  1650  does  not  even 
contain  a  law  on  Sabbath-breaking;  but 
the  court  records  of  the  time  suggest 
that  the  good  people  of  Connecticut 
lacked  sympathy  with  young  life.  For 
example,  in  1660,  it  is  recorded  that: 
"Jacob  came  in,  and  tooke  up  or  tooke 
away  her  gloves.  Sarah  desired  him  to 
give  her  the  gloves,  to  which  he  answered 
he  would  do  so  if  she  would  give  him  a 
kysse,  ypon  which  they  sat  down  to- 
gether, his  arme  being  about  her  waiste, 
and  her  arme  upon  his  shoulder  or  about 
his  necke,  and  he  kyssed  her  and  she 
kyssed  him,  or  they  kyssed  one  another." 
In  the  end,  as  a  penalty  for  their  "wan- 
ton, uncivil,  immodest  and  lascivious 
manner,  as  hath  been  proved,"  each  of 
the  two  parties  was  fined  twenty  shil- 
lings. On  another  occasion,  "  John  Fen- 
ner,  accused  for  being  drunke  with 
strong  waters,  was  acquitted,  itt  ap- 


pearing to  be  of  infirmity,  and  occa- 
sioned by  the  extremity  of  the  cold." 

Another  instance  of  imagination  play- 
ing its  will  with  archives  is  the  following 
letter  accredited  to  the  Rev.  Cot- 
ton Mather,  and  said  to  have  been  un- 
earthed by  "Mr.  Judkins,  librarian  of 
the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society." 
What  could  be  more  illuminating  on 
colonial  commerce,  colonial  morals,  and 
the  colonial  fondness  for  Quakers  than 
this  ? 

Boston,  September  ye  15th,  1682. 
To  Ye  Aged  and  Beloved  John  Higginson. 

There  bee  now  at  sea  a  shippe  (for  our 
friend  Mr.  Esaias  Holcroft  of  London  did 
advise  me  by  the  last  packet  that  it  wolde 
sail  some  time  in  August)  called  ye  Welcome, 
R.  Greenaway  master,  which  has  aboard  an 
hundred  or  more  of  ye  heretics  and  malig- 
nants  called  Quakers,  with  W.  Penne,  who  is 
ye  Chief  Scampe  at  ye  hedde  of  them.  Ye 
General  Court  has  accordinggely  given  secret 
orders  to  Master  Malachi  Huxett  of  ye  brig 
Porposse  to  waylaye  ye  said  Welcome  slylie 
as  near  ye  coast  of  Codde  as  may  be  and 
make  captive  ye  said  Penne  and  his  ungodlie 
crew  so  that  ye  Lord  may  be  glorified  and 
not  mocked  on  the  soil  of  this  new  countrie 
with  ye  heathen  worshippe  of  these  people. 
Much  spoyle  can  be  made  by  selling  ye  whole 
lotte  to  Barbadoes,  where  slaves  fetch  goode 
prices  in  rumme  and  sugar  and  we  shall  not 
only  do  ye  Lord  great  service  by  punishing  ye 
wicked,  but  we  shall  make  great  gayne  for 
his  ministers  and  people.  Master  Huxett 
feels  hopeful  and  I  will  set  down  the  news  he 
brings  when  his  shippe  comes  back. 

Yours  in  ye  bowells  of  Christ, 

Cotton  Mather. 

Perhaps  the  document  would  be  of 
more  service  to  historical  writers  but  for 
the  fact  that  it  was  not  written  "Sep- 
tember ye  15th,  1682,"  but  first  saw 
light  in  the  Easton  Argus,  published  at 
Easton,  Pennsylvania,  April  28,  1870. 
It  was  not  written  by  the  Rev.  Cotton 
Mather,  but  by  Mr.  James  S.  Shunk, 
editor  of  the  aforesaid  Argus.  Mr.  Jud- 
kins was  never  librarian  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society  or  of  any 
other  historical  Massachusetts  society. 

A  favorite  type  of  falsified  historical 
material  is  the  artificial  supply  of 
speeches  and  letters  of  public  men. 
Henry  M.  Field  in  his  Our  Western  Ar- 
chipelago prints  the  following  extract 


730 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


purporting  to  be  taken  from  a  speech  of 
Daniel  Webster,  made  in  1844: 

What  do  we  want  with  the  vast,  worthless 
area,  this  region  of  savage  and  wild  beasts, 
of  deserts,  of  shifting  sands  and  whirlwinds 
of  dust,  of  cactus  and  prairie-dogs?  To  what 
use  could  we  ever  hope  to  put  these  great 
deserts,  or  these  endless  mountain  ranges, 
impenetrable,  and  covered  to  their  base  with 
eternal  snow?  What  use  can  we  have  for 
such  a  country?  Mr.  President,  I  will  never 
vote  one  cent  from  the  public  treasure  to 
place  the  Pacific  coast  one  inch  nearer  to 
Boston  than  it  is  now. 

The  difficulty  with  this  unpatriotic 
utterance  is  that  there  is  not  the  slight- 
est proof  that  Webster  ever  made  it. 
Field  got  it  from  George  L.  Chase,  of 
Hartford,  in  November,  1896;  and  third 
parties  think  that  Mr.  Chase  is  reported 
to  have  said  that  he  read  the  speech  in 
an  article  which  he  saw  on  a  trip  to  the 
Pacific  coast!  There  the  authority  ends, 
its  only  basis  being  the  well-known 
apathy  of  Webster  on  the  subject  of 
Oregon. 

In  Curtis's  Industrial  Development  of 
Nations  appear  the  two  following  phrases 
purporting  to  be  quotations  from  the 
words  of  Abraham  Lincoln: 

I  do  not  know  much  about  the  tariff,  but 
I  know  this  much,  when  we  buy  manufac- 
tured goods  abroad,  we  get  the  goods  and  the 
manufacturer  gets  the  money.  When  we 
buy  the  manufactured  goods  at  home,  we  get 
both  the  goods  and  the  money. 

When  an  American  paid  $20  for  steel  rails 
to  an  English  manufacturer,  America  had  the 
steel  and  England  the  $20.  But  when  he 
paid  $20  for  the  steel  to  an  American  manu- 
facturer, America  had  both  the  steel  and  the 
#20. 

A  recent  effort  to  place  these  ex- 
tracts has  had  no  result.  Careful  search 
in  the  two  editions  of  Lincoln's  Works, 
in  his  speeches  in  Congress,  in  his  Presi- 
dential Messages,  in  the  elaborate  bi- 
ographies, and  in  the  Republican  cam- 
paign text-books,  fails  to  bring  either  of 
the  extracts  to  the  light.  In  certain 
notes  written  in  1846-7  Lincoln,  who 
was  then  a  Whig,  argues  that  protection 
leads  in  the  end  to  cheaper  prices. 

These  reflections  [says  Lincoln]  show  that 
to  reason  and  act  correctly  on  this  subject 
we  must  not  look  merely  to  buying  cheap, 
nor  yet  to  buying  cheap  and  selling  dear, 
but  also  to  having  constant  employment,  so 


that  we  may  have  the  largest  amount  of 
something  to  sell. 

In  an  address  at  Pittsburg  in  1861 
on  his  way  to  Washington,  he  takes  up 
the  railroad-iron  question  as  follows: 

For  instance,  labor  being  the  true  standard 
of  value,  is  it  not  plain  that  if  equal  labor 
get  a  bar  of  railroad  iron  out  of  a  mine  in 
England,  and  another  out  of  a  mine  in  Penn- 
sylvania, each  can  be  laid  down  in  a  track  at 
home  cheaper  than  they  could  exchange 
countries,  at  least  by  the  carriage? 

But  beyond  the  impossibility  of  veri- 
fying the  two  extracts,  there  is  the  ad- 
ditional difficulty  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
died  April  15,  1865,  and  according  to 
Swank  (who  is  an  authority  upon  the 
subject)  the  first  steel  rail  was  rolled  in 
the  United  States  May  24,  1865. 

From  the  days  of  Herodotus  down  to 
the  latest  explorer  returned  from  the 
wilds  of  South  America,  mankind  has 
been  prone  to  query  accounts  published 
by  the  wanderer,  and  then  has  discov- 
ered that  he  spoke  but  the  simple  truth, 
for  Shakespeare  says: 

Travelers  ne'er  did  lie, 

Though  fools  at  home  condemn  'em. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  these 
early  traveling  liars,  John  Josselyn,  came 
in  1638  and  1663  to  New  England,  and 
has  left  written  accounts  of  his  two 
voyages.  It  is  delightful  to  find  in  his 
work  an  early  example  of  the  favorite 
sea-serpent  myth. 

At  this  time  we  had  some  neighboring 
Gentlemen  in  our  house,  who  came  to  wel- 
come me  into  the  Countrey;  where  amongst 
variety  of  discourse  they  told  me  of  ...  a 
Sea-Serpent  or  Snake,  that  lay  quoiled  up 
like  a  Cable  upon  a  Rock  at  Cape- Ann;  a 
Boat  passing  by  with  English  aboard,  and 
two  Indians,  they  would  have  shot  the  Ser- 
pent, but  the  Indians  disswaded  them,  say- 
ing, that  if  he  were  not  kilPd  out-right,  they 
would  be  all  in  danger  of  their  lives. 

Josselyn  was  much  interested  in  natu- 
ral history,  and  appears  to  be  the  only 
observer  of  his  time  who  made  the 
acquaintance  of  "the  pilhannaw  bird" 
which  would  be  a  fortune  in  these  days 
of  the  high  price  of  eggs. 

The  Pilhannaw  or  Mechquan,  much  like 
the  description  of  the  Indian  Ruck,  a  mon- 
strous great  Bird,  a  kind  of  Hawk,  some  say 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  LIARS 


731 


an  Eagle,  four  times  as  big  as  a  Goshawk, 
white  Mail'd,  having  two  or  three  purple 
Feathers  in  her  head  as  long  as  Geeses 
Feathers  they  make  Pens  of,  the  Quills  of 
these  Feathers  are  purple,  as  big  as  Swans 
Quills  and  transparent;  her  Head  is  as  big 
as  a  Childs  of  a  year  old,  a  very  Princely 
Bird;  when  she  soars  abroad,  all  sorts  ol 
feathered  Creatures  hide  themselves,  yet  she 
never  preys  upon  any  of  them,  but  upon 
Fawns  and  Jaccals:  She  Ayries  in  the  Woods 
upon  the  high  Hills  of  Ossapy,  and  is  very 
rarely  or  seldome  seen. 

The  earliest  traveler  in  our  Far  West, 
Father  Hennepin,  has  for  more  than  two 
centuries  drawn  upon  himself  the  sus- 
picions of  historical  critics.  Even  in  his 
own  time  some  people  who  had  good 
opportunities  for  a  judgment  thought 
him  a  liar.    Thus,  La  Salle  wrote: 

It  is  necessary  to  know  him  somewhat, 
for  he  will  not  fail  to  exaggerate  everything; 
it  is  his  character. 

And  Father  Charlevoix  says: 

As  for  the  substance  of  matters,  Father 
Hennepin  thought  he  might  take  a  traveler's 
license,  hence  he  is  much  decried  in  Canada, 
those  who  accompanied  him  having  often 
protested  that  he  was  anything  but  veritable 
in  his  history. 

If  Father  Hennepin  had  confined  him- 
self either  to  his  first  book,  La  Descrip- 
tion de  la  Louisiane,  published  in  1683, 
or  to  his  Nouvelle  Decouverte,  which  was 
published  in  1697,  he  would  have  had 
larger  likelihood  of  being  believed;  for, 
like  John  Smith,  he  seems  to  have  had  a 
faculty  for  forgetting  in  his  second  vol- 
ume what  he  put  into  the  first  one.  For 
example,  in  the  Decouverte,  Hennepin  re- 
members that  he  went  down  the  Missis- 
sippi to  its  mouth;  whereas  in  the  earlier 
Louisiane  he  had  only  gone  up  the  river 
to  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony.  The  sharp- 
ness of  his  later  memory  is  shown  by 
this  statement  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  Mississippi  River:  "From  the 
mouth  of  the  river  of  the  Illinois  this 
river  ...  is  almost  a  league  wide.  It 
is  very  deep  and  has  no  sand-banks, 
nothing  interferes  with  navigation,  and 
even  the  largest  ships  might  sail  into 
it  without  difficulty."  He  must  also 
have  visited  Niagara  Falls,  where  he  no- 
ticed "that  the  water  plunges  down  more 
than  600  feet,  falling  as  into  an  abyss, 
which  we  could  not  behold  without  a 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  785.— 91 


shudder."  The  late  John  Gilmary  Shea, 
in  his  edition  of  Hennepin,  accounts  for 
these  discrepancies  on  the  theory  that 
the  book  was  set  up  by  two  successive 
printers  and  that  somebody  put  in  the 
Mississippi  narrative  "as  an  after- 
thought." As  for  the  Falls,  doubtless 
Hennepin's  experience  was  the  same  as 
that  of  Mark  Twain,  who,  when  he  went 
to  Niagara,  found  the  hack  fares  so 
much  higher  than  the  Falls  that  he  never 
noticed  the  latter! 

From  two  professions,  divinity  and 
authorship,  is  expected  not  only  the 
truth,  but  originality.  From  fifty-two 
to  a  hundred  and  four  times  a  year  a 
minister  is  expected  to  say  something 
profound,  which  must  come  solely  from 
within  his  own  mind.  Even  to  use  an 
old  sermon  too  frequently  takes  the  life 
out  of  his  discourses;  and  the  plagiarist 
is  almost  certain  to  reveal  himself  by  an 
unnatural  ease  and  glibness. 

The  same  stern  ethics  control  the  au- 
thor of  historical  works;  he  must  con- 
stantly be  producing  something  impor- 
tant, and  must  state  it  as  it  has  never 
been  stated  before.  Men  with  a  quick 
memory  for  phrases  often  find  them- 
selves using  borrowed  epigrams  which 
they  undoubtedly  believe  to  be  their 
own;  but  when  an  author  in  line  after 
line,  and  paragraph  after  paragraph, 
closely  agrees  with  a  previous  writer,  he 
is  unfeelingly  set  down  as  a  liar,  al- 
though the  copied  material  may  be  near- 
er the  truth  than  anything  he  could 
himself  produce. 

In  American  history  there  are  several 
instances  of  remarkable  lifting  of  ma- 
terial by  one  author  or  another.  Hen- 
nepin has  already  been  marked  as  a 
transgressor  of  that  sort.  Another  in- 
stance is  one  of  the  respectable  writers 
of  the  history  of  the  Revolution,  the 
Rev.  William  Gordon,  who  received 
honorary  degrees  from  Harvard,  Yale, 
and  Princeton.  In  1788  he  published  a 
history  of  the  Revolution  in  four  vol- 
umes, and  such  scholars  as  George  Ban- 
croft, Edward  Channing,  and  Justin 
Winsor  accepted  him  as  solid  and  valu- 
able. The  late  Professor  Moses  Coit 
Tyler  of  Cornell  says  it  is  not  possible 

to  resist  the  impression  that  he  is  an  honest 
man,  and  meant  to  be  a  truthful  and  a  fair 


732 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


historian.  ...  In  a  thousand  casual  hints 
and  glances  of  meaning,  one  perceives  the 
immense  advantage  he  derived  from  his 
intimate  communication  with  the  great 
civilians  and  soldiers  who  conducted  the 
Revolution. 

Notwithstanding  this  passport  to  ve- 
racity, Gordon  was  a  transferrer.  To  be 
sure,  in  his  preface  he  says  that 

Dodsley's  Annual  Register  .  .  .  and  other 
publications  have  been  of  service  to  the 
compiler  of  the  present  work,  who  has  fre- 
quently quoted  from  them,  without  varying 
the  language  except  for  method  and  con- 
ciseness. 

That  statement,  like  many  other  as- 
sertions, is  true  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  yet 
false  in  substance.  Professor  Orin  G. 
Libby  has  been  so  unkind  as  to  follow 
out  this  hint,  and,  by  careful  compari- 
son, page  by  page,  has  established  the 
fact  that  two-thirds  of  all  the  material 
with  reference  to  European  events  and 
conditions  has  been  lifted  out  of  the 
English  Annual  Register,  which  was 
edited  by  Edmund  Burke.  A  very  con- 
siderable proportion  of  the  portions  of 
the  work  dealing  with  American  events 
has  also  been  appropriated.  It  is  Pro- 
fessor Libby's  opinion  that  not  more 
than  a  tenth  of  the  whole  work  can  be 
considered  original.  Gordon's  methods 
are  illustrated  by  a  single  pair  of  paral- 
lels: 


The  proclamation 
for  dissolving  the  Par- 
liament operated  like 
a  thunderclap  with 
respect  to  suddenness 
and  surprise  on  those 
not  in  the  secret. 


When  the  procla- 
mation for  the  dis- 
solving of  it  appeared, 
it  wrought  like  a 
thunderclap,  with  re- 
spect to  suddenness 
and  surprise  on  those 
who  were  unac- 
quainted with  the  de- 
sign. 


Even  where  Gordon  had,  or  could 
have  had,  original  documents,  such  as 
the  votes  of  Boston  town  meetings,  he 
copied  them  from  the  Annual  Register, 
and  sometimes  copied  them  wrong.  On 
the  Southern  war  he  has  copied  exten- 
sively from  Ramsay's  History,  the  manu- 
script of  which  was  sent  him  for  that 
purpose;  but  he  rarely  makes  acknowl- 
edgment of  his  source. 

Gordon  had  many  unfriendly  critics, 


such  as  John  Adams,  who  said  of  him, 
"He  is  an  eternal  talker,  and  somewhat 
vain,  and  not  accurate  or  judicious." 
And  Alexander  Hamilton  called  him  an 
"old  Jesuit."  An  example  of  Gordon's 
method  is  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  a 
few  days  after  the  battle  of  Lexington 
and  Concord,  accepting  the  usual  state- 
ment that  a  British  officer  called  to  the 
Americans,  "You  damned  rebels,  lay 
down  your  arms!"  And  another  ex- 
claimed, "Disperse,  ye  rebels!"  In  his 
history  this  is  softened  down  to  the 
phrase  used  by the  Annual  Register,  "Dis- 
perse, ye  rebels!  Throw  down  your  arms 
and  disperse!"  The  theory  of  John 
Adams  and  others  was  that  Gordon  was 
paid  by  somebody  in  England  to  alter 
his  history  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
Americans. 

The  way  of  the  biographer,  and  par- 
ticularly of  the  sentimental  biographer, 
is  filled  with  temptations  to  deviate  from 
the  straight  and  narrow  path  of  truth. 
The  biographer  has  special  opportuni- 
ties to  be  untruthful  by  omitting  truths, 
as  in  the  instance  of  the  Russian  school- 
book  which  relates  that  Czar  Ivan  died 
in  the  presence  of  five  or  six  of  the  nobles 
of  the  court,  whose  names  are  given  as 
authority — simply  omitting  the  trifling 
explanation  that  these  witnesses  were 
the  Czar's  assassins!  Out  of  the  multi- 
tude of  particular  instances  of  unfaithful 
biographies  two  may  be  selected  for  our 
special  admiration. 

First,  and  still  unapproachable,  as  a 
biographer  who  creates  the  subject  of  his 
book,  comes  Parson  Weems— that  be- 
loved, graceless,  national  favorite — who 
was  an  estimable  clergyman  and  one  of 
the  first  and  probably  the  most  success- 
ful of  book-agents  in  American  history; 
he  is  also  eminent  because  he  has  impei- 
ishably  entwined  his  name  with  that  of 
the  Father  of  his  Country.  Mason  Locke 
Weems,  as  the  nineteenth  child  of  David 
Weems,  had  eighteen  opportunities  to  be 
gulled  by  his  brothers  and  sisters.  He 
was  ordained  a  clergyman,  became  rec- 
tor of  All  Hallows  parish,  combined 
with  it  a  girls'  school,  preached  occasion- 
ally to  negroes,  and  somehow  drew  upon 
himself  the  dislike  of  his  parish.  He 
probably  held  services  occasionally  in 
Pohick  Church,  in  which,  years  before, 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  LIARS 


733 


George  Washington  had  worshiped;  and 
upon  this  slender  connection  he  based 
the  title  which  he  later  assumed  of  "for- 
merly rector  of  Mount  Vernon  parish. " 

Bishop  Meade  says  of  him  that  when 
he  prayed,  "neither  young  nor  old, 
grave  nor  gay,  could  keep  their  risible 
faculties  from  violent  agitation."  The 
good  bishop  relates,  further,  that  Weems 
was  once  found  on  a  court  day  selling 
books  in  front  of  a  tavern,  among  them 
Paine's  Age  of  Reason.  When  reproved, 
he  produced  a  reply  to  Paine  by  Bishop 
Llandaff,  saying,  "Behold  the  antidote; 
the  bane  and  the  antidote  are  both  be- 
fore you."  After  1792  he  wandered 
about  the  country  with  a  fiddle,  selling 
books  of  all  kinds,  and  particularly  his 
own  books,  some  of  his  "  best-sellers. " 

Then,  in  1800,  he  made  the  great  hit  of 
his  life  in  his  Life  of  George  Washington. 
This  immortal  work  was  originally  a 
brief  account  of  Washington's  service 
in  the  French  and  Indian  and  Revolu- 
tionary wars,  couched  in  the  impassioned 
language  of  the  time,  as,  for  example, 
the  account  of  the  aftermath  of  the  bat- 
tle of  Lexington: 

Never,  before,  had  the  bosoms  of  the 
swains  experienced  such  a  tumult  of  heroic 
passions.  They  flew  to  their  houses,  snatched 
up  their  arms,  and,  in  spite  of  their  screaming 
wives  and  children,  flew  to  the  glorious  field 
where  liberty,  heaven-born  goddess,  was  to 
be  bought  for  blood.  .  .  .  Fast  as  they  came 
up  their  ready  musquets  began  to  pour  the 
long  red  streams  of  fiery  vengeance.  The 
enemy  fell  back  appalled;  while  the  gathering 
thousands  hung  upon  their  flight.  Every 
step  of  their  retreat  was  stained  with  trickling 
crimson;  every  hedge  or  fence  which  they 
passed  took  large  toll  of  hostile  carcasses. 

In  later  editions  Weems  adds  what  we 
should  now  call  an  appreciation  of  Wash- 
ington, in  which  are  many  anecdotes 
which  are  either  true,  or  ought  to  be 
true,  about  the  Father  of  his  Country, 
combined  with  amazing  quantities  of 
good  advice.  Weems  lived  in  a  period 
when  it  was  thought  a  moral  duty  to 
look  upon  the  patriots  of  the  Revolution 
and  the  fathers  of  the  Constitution  as 
demigods;  it  did  not  expect  its  histori- 
ans to  search  for  elaborate  details  and 
infinitesimal  finish  of  statement.  They 
wanted  a  good  round  mouthful  of  biog- 


raphy just  as  they  wanted  a  boiling-hot 
sermon  on  perdition. 

Weems's  Life  of  Marion  was  confess- 
edly an  "Historical  Romance,"  and  his 
Life  of  Washington  is  not  much  more 
authentic.  Doubtless  the  lively  parson 
had  no  thought  of  deceiving  his  readers 
by  inventing  long  dialogues  and  telling 
speeches;  and  perhaps  his  shade  is  to- 
day surprised  and  gratified  to  know  that 
the  story  of  the  hatchet  is  an  American 
classic  which  has  crystallized  the  impres- 
sion of  Washington  in  the  minds  of 
millions  of  Americans.  The  text  of  this 
immortal  invention  is  perfectly  well 
known  to  every  virtuous  American  boy 
and  girl: 

The  following  anecdote  is  a  case  in  point. 
It  is  too  valuable  to  be  lost,  and  too  true  to 
be  doubted,  for  it  was  communicated  to  me 
by  the  same  excellent  lady  to  whom  I  am 
indebted  for  the  last. 

"When  George,"  said  she,  "was  about  six 
years  old,  he  was  made  the  wealthy  master 
of  a  hatchet!  of  which,  like  most  little  boys, 
he  was  immoderately  fond;  and  was  con- 
stantly going  about  chopping  everything 
that  came  in  his  way.  One  day  in  the  gar- 
den, where  he  often  amused  himself  hacking 
his  mother's  pea-sticks,  he  unluckily  tried  the 
edge  of  his  hatchet  on  the  body  of  a  beautiful 
young  English  cherry-tree,  which  he  barked 
so  terribly,  that  I  don't  believe  the  tree  ever 
got  the  better  of  it.  The  next  morning  the 
old  gentleman,  finding  out  what  had  befallen 
his  tree,  which,  by  the  way,  was  a  great 
favorite,  came  into  the  house;  and  with 
much  warmth  asked  for  the  mischievous 
author,  declaring  at  the  same  time  that  he 
would  not  have  taken  five  guineas  for  his 
tree.  Nobody  could  tell  him  anything  about 
it.  Presently  George  and  his  hatchet  made 
their  appearance.  "George"  said  his  father, 
"do  you  know  who  killed  that  beautiful 
little  cherry-tree  yonder  in  the  garden?" 
This  was  a  tough  question;  and  George  stag- 
gered under  it  for  a  moment,  but  quickly 
recovered  himself,  and,  looking  at  his  father, 
with  the  sweet  face  of  youth  brightened  with 
the  inexpressible  charm  of  all-conquering 
truth,  he  bravely  cried  out:  "I  can't  tell 
a  lie,  pa;  you  know  I  can't  tell  a  lie.  I  did 
cut  it  with  my  hatchet."  "Run  to  my  arms, 
you  dearest  boy,"  cried  his  father,  in  trans- 
ports, "run  to  my  arms;  glad  am  I,  George, 
that  you  killed  my  tree;  for  you  have  paid 
me  for  it  a  thousand  fold.  Such  an  act  of 
heroism  in  my  son  is  worth  more  than  a 
thousand  trees,  though  blossomed  with  silver, 
and  their  fruits  of  purest  gold." 

It  was  in  this  way  by  interesting  at  once 


734 


HARPERS  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


both  his  heart  and  head,  that  Mr.  Washington 
conducted  George  with  great  ease  and 
pleasure  along  the  happy  paths  of  virtue. 

This  story  was  first  printed  by  Weems 
in  1806.  The  "aged  lady,  who  was  a 
distant  relative,  and,  when  a  girl,  spent 
much  of  her  time  in  the  family,"  was 
probably  also  a  creation.  As  for  the 
tale,  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  a  grandson 
of  Weems  says  that  one  of  Weems's 
children,  not  long  after  Washington's 
death,  cut  down  a  "  Pride  of  China," 
candidly  confessed  his  fault,  and  was  re- 
warded with  a  sound  whipping!  If  this 
anecdote  be  true,  Weems  was  doing  his 
best  to  make  out  that  the  father  of 
George  Washington  was  a  wiser  and 
kindlier  man  than  Weems  himself. 

The  other  well-known  tale  of  the  cab- 
bage-seed which  grew  up  to  form  the 
words  " george  Washington"  is  the 
more  artistic;  but  unfortunately  the 
same  story  had  previously  been  related 
by  James  Beattie  as  an  instance  of  his 
lofty  method  of  dealing  with  his  own 
son,  James  Hay  Beattie.  The  coin- 
cidence is  too  apt,  and  though  Wash- 
ington could  not  tell  a  lie,  there  seems 
reason  to  believe  that  his  biographer 
could. 

It  is  odd  that  a  book  laid  down 
upon  the  same  lines  in  our  own  day 
should  have  had  a  somewhat  similar 
success.  In  1900  the  late  A.  C.  Buell 
published  a  life  of  Paul  Jones  in  two 
volumes,  which  was  widely  read,  and  is 
said  to  have  been  for  some  years  used 
as  an  authority  in  Annapolis  Academy. 
As  a  naval  historian  Buell  was  an  Odys- 
seus who  steered  safely  between  the 
Scylla  of  the  Nation  and  the  Charybdis 
of  the  American  Historical  Review.  Both 
these  grave  periodicals  discussed  Buell's 
book  just  as  though  it  were  serious. 
They  did  not  appear  to  view  it  as  a  prac- 
tical joke  intended  to  teach  Americans 
•to  distrust  appearances,  to  think  about 
the  books  that  they  read,  and  to  con- 
sider what  were  their  grounds  for  admir- 
ing the  heroes  of  the  Revolution.  The 
story  of  the  cabbage-seed  with  all  its 
quaint  and  awkward  language  has  a 
moral  purpose,  whereas  Buell's  John 
Paul  Jones  is  a  work  of  the  imagination, 
which,  if  it  were  true,  would  not  much 
heighten  our  respect  for  the  Admiral. 

Several  different  people  have  tracked 


Buell  to  his  lair.  Mrs.  Reginald  de 
Koven,  who  has  since  written  a  life  of 
Jones,  posted  the  book  in  the  New  York 
Times  of  June  10,  1906.  Junius  Davis, 
of  Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  wrote 
some  extremely  pertinent  "Facts  about 
John  Paul  Jones"  in  the  South  Atlantic 
Quarterly;  and  Charles  0.  Paullin  has 
scarified  Mr.  Buell  in  the  Proceedings  of 
the  United  States  Naval  Institute.  Ap- 
parently what  Richard  Grant  White 
would  have  called  the  "slantindicular" 
character  of  the  book  clung  to  the  author 
after  it  was  published.  Paullin  tried  to 
probe  Buell  during  his  lifetime,  and  got 
from  him  no  more  satisfaction  than  the 
statement  that 

When  compiling  the  matter  for  my  his- 
tory I  never  had  any  idea  of  being  made  a 
defendant  in  the  premises,  or-  being  called 
upon  to  prove  anything  by  proffer  of  original 
documents.  ...  As  a  result  I  was  careless 
about  preserving  documentary  evidence.  For 
this  reason,  about  all  I  can  do  now  is  to  say 
that  those  who  take  sufficient  interest  in  my 
statements  to  read  them  must  accept  them 
as  authority,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  with- 
out "going  behind  the  returns." 

Buell  might  fairly  be  included  in  the 
list  of  record-makers — that  is,  makers 
of  documentary  records — for  throughout 
the  work  he  has  not  hesitated  to  intro- 
duce documents  which  never  had  any 
existence  outside  his  own  teeming  brain. 
He  mentions  the  "Robert  Morris  pa- 
pers" and  "Gouverneur  Morris  papers" 
as  being  in  the  New  York  Historical 
Society,  although  in  1900  no  such  collec- 
tions had  ever  been  in  the  custody  of 
the  Society.  He  refers  to  a  printed 
French  collection  of  John  Paul  Jones's 
papers  which  cannot  be  found  in  any 
library.  Fie  refers  to  a  Memoire  of  Jones 
by  one  Adrien  de  Cappelle,  which  also 
is  not  in  any  catalogue.  He  refers  to 
the  printed  Memorial  Papers  of  Joseph 
Hewes,  but  there  is  no  such  book;  and  to 
Hewes's  manuscripts,  but  he  never  used 
the  actual  Hewes  manuscripts,  and  the 
Hewes  letters  which  he  prints  are  flat 
forgeries.  In  fact,  the  man  ought  to  be 
considered  not  a  writer,  but  an  inventor 
of  books.  He  makes  one  think  of  Mark 
Twain's  praise  of  the  duck-billed  platy- 
pus, so  gay  and  so  versatile:  "If  he 
wanted  eggs,"  said  Mark  Twain,  "he 
laid  them." 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  LIARS 


735 


Buell's  inventions  as  to  John  Paul 
Jones's  connection  with  the  founding  of 
the  American  navy  are  too  long  and  too 
involved  for  treatment  here;  nor  is  there 
space  to  deal  with  those  fabrications  as 
to  John  Paul  Jones's  life  in  Paris,  which 
appear  to  have  led  to  the  discovery  and 
transfer  of  a  human  body  to  this  coun- 
try. It  would  be  unfair,  however,  to  so 
accomplished  a  liar  as  Buell  not  to  ad- 
mire the  pattern  of  his  embroidery  in 
the  matter  of  Jones's  estate.  The  bi- 
ographer attacks  the  problem  with  the 
same  calm,  matter-of-fact  assurance 
with  which  one  might  say,  "Vincent 
Astor  inherited  a  fortune  from  his 
father." 

Old  William  Jones  had  died  in  1760,  and 
by  the  terms  of  his  will  had  made  John  Paul 
the  residuary  legatee  of  his  brother  in  case 
the  latter  should  die  without  issue;  provided 
that  John  Paul  would  assume,  as  his  brother 
had  done,  the  patronymic  of  Jones.  On  his 
visit  to  Rappahannock  in  1769,  Captain 
John  Paul  legally  qualified  under  the  pro- 
visions of  the  will  of  William  Jones  by  record- 
ing his  assent  to  its  requirements  in  due  form. 

Buell  even  finds  in  what  he  calls  "a 
quaint  old  Colonial  record,"  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  property  thus  acquired. 

About  3,000  acres  of  prime  land,  border- 
ing for  twelve  furlongs  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  Rappahannock,  running  back  southward 
three  miles,  1,000  acres  cleared  and  under 
plough  or  grass,  2,000  acres  strong,  first- 
growth  timber,  grist-mill  with  flour-cloth  and 
fans,  turned  by  water  power;  mansion,  over- 
seer's house,  negro  quarters,  stables,  tobacco- 
houses,  threshing-floor,  river  wharf,  one 
sloop  of  20  tons,  thirty  negroes  of  all  ages 
(18  adults),  20  horses  and  colts,  80  neat- 
cattle  and  calves,  sundry  sheep  and  swine, 
and  all  necessary  means  of  tilling  the  soil. 

This  is  a  delightful  picture  to  which 
might  with  equal  safety  be  added  the 
future  Admiral,  smoking  a  long  pipe  upon 
the  veranda,  while  slaves  converge  from 
difFerent  directions  with  supplies  of 
drinkables.  There  are,  however,  a  few 
slight  inaccuracies  in  this  account,  which 
have  been  unearthed  by  the  diligence  of 
Junius  Davis.  (1)  Old  William  Jones 
never  left  John  Paul  a  penny  under  any 
circumstances,  and  never  required  him 
to   adopt   the   patronymic   of  Jones. 


(2)  John  Paul  therefore  never  legally 
qualified  as  his  heir.  (3)  He  never  in- 
herited anything  from  his  brother  Will- 
iam Paul,  who  left  all  his  property  to  his 
"  beloved  sister,  Mary  Young  and  her 
two  eldest  children."  (4)  Instead  of 
3,000  acres  of  land,  William  Jones  ap- 
pears at  one  time  to  have  owned  397 
acres  which  was  sold  in  his  lifetime. 
(5)  John  Paul  did  not  inherit  a  mansion, 
overseer's  house,  negro  quarters,  and 
negroes,  because  he  did  not  inherit  a 
square  foot  or  a  round  dollar. 

Buell  quotes  from  an  ethereal  manu- 
script letter  from  Paul  Jones  to  the  effect 
that  in  three  years  he  had  drawn  2,000 
guineas  from  his  estate.  "Of  this  sum 
900  guineas  remain  on  balance  in  my 
favor  in  the  Bank  of  North  America  or 
in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Ross."  But  on  May 
4,  1777,  a  genuine  letter  from  Jones 
speaks  of  an  "unprofitable  suspense  of 
20  months  (having  subsisted  on  50 
-pounds  only)";  and  nothing  in  Jones's 
whole  career  shows  such  marvelous  fore- 
sight as  his  deposit  in  the  Bank  of  North 
America  in  1776,  inasmuch  as  that  bank 
was  not  in  existence  till  1781! 

No  man  ever  had  so  complaisant  a 
biographer!  John  Paul  Jones  lived  an 
adventurous  life  as  merchant-captain; 
as  captor  of  the  Serapis;  as  a  terror  to 
the  English  Channel;  as  Russian  ad- 
miral— more  came  to  him  than  to  most 
Americans  of  his  time,  in  money,  in 
excitement,  and  in  glory.  To  these  ad- 
vantages his  biographer  has  liberally 
added  an  estate,  without  expense,  either 
to  John  Paul  Jones  or  to  Buell;  and  a 
bank  account  before  there  were  any 
banks. 

Throughout  this  catalogue  of  gifted 
writers  who  transferred  to  history  and 
biography  talents  that  belong  in  the  field 
of  the  serial  novels,  only  one  general 
comment  may  be  applied :  Whether  they 
are  forging  documents,  capturing  the 
choice  pages  of  previous  writers,  or  sim- 
ply letting  their  fancy  play  upon  a 
historical  problem,  they  are  all  subject 
to  Joe  Gargery's  remark:  "Lies  is  lies. 
Howsoever  they  come,  they  didn't  ought 
to  come,  and  they  come  from  the  father 
of  lies,  and  work  round  to  the  same." 


Horatio 


BY  KATE  LANGLEY  BOSHER 


IHOEVER  said  all  men 
may  not  be  alike  but 
all  husbands  are,  knew 
a  good  deal  about  hus- 
bands. Horatio  is  a 
husband.  Mine.  One 
of  his  peculiarities  is  to 
ask  me,  if  I  do  anything  a  little  unusual, 
what  on  earth  I  did  it  for,  in  a  tone  I 
have  noticed  in  other  husbands;  and 
when  he  uses  that  tone  I  never  tell  him. 
A  woman  doesn't  always  know  why  she 
does  things,  does  not  always  have  time 
to  think  in  advance.  She  only  knows 
she  must  do  them,  and  thinks  afterward. 

Certainly  that  was  the  way  I  let  two 
strange  men  come  into  our  house  a  few 
weeks  ago  and  forgot  to  ask  them  their 
names  until  they  were  in  our  best  guest- 
room and  were  making  themselves  com- 
fortable for  a  stay  of  some  days.  They 
told  me  they  were  delegates  to  the  State 
Educational  Convention  then  meeting 
in  the  city,  and  I  believed  them. 

The  papers  had  been  full  of  the  com- 
ing convention,  and  I  had  read  of  it  with 
interest,  but  I  had  given  no  time  or 
attention  to  the  programme,  to  the 
speakers,  or  to  the  exact  date  of  its 
opening,  and  when  I  saw  the  two  men 
at  our  front  door  as  I  came  up  the  steps, 
I  thought  they  were  visitors.  The  door 
was  open  and  Slocum  was  standing  in- 
side, and  not  until  he  coughed  did  I 
remember  I  must  speak. 

"Did  you  wish" — I  looked  at  first  one 
and  then  the  other — "did  you  wish  to 
see  me?   I  am  Mrs.  Tilghman." 

"I  beg  your  pardon."  The  taller  of 
the  two  men  smiled,  a  half-shy  smile, 
and,  hat  in  hand,  drew  back.  "I'm 
afraid  we've  made  a  mistake,  but  we 
were  sent  here — that  is,  we  thought  we 
were.  We  are  looking  for  a  room  in 
which  we  can  stay  during  the  conven- 
tion. We  are  delegates  from  Fenwick 
County,  and  we  can't  find  a  room  any- 
where. Everything  is  taken.  We  had 
engaged  a  room  on  Cherry  Street,  but — " 


he  hesitated — "one  of  our  lady  teachers 
decided  to  come  with  us  at  the  last 
moment,  and  we  gave  it  to  her.  You — 
you  don't  rent  rooms,  I  suppose?" 

Slocum's  cough  behind  me  had  its 
usual  effect,  and  as  I  turned  toward  him 
I  did  what  I  had  no  idea  of  doing  before 
he  coughed.  Slocum's  sense  of  dignity, 
of  Horatio's  superiority  over  all  other 
men,  and  of  Horatio's  home  as  a  sacred 
inclosure  from  which  all  should  be  de- 
barred who  cannot  present  proper  cre- 
dentials, will  make  a  Socialist  of  me  some 
day.  He  is  a  perfect  butler  and  an 
equally  perfect  snob,  and  when  he  heard 
Horatio's  wife  asked  if  she  rented  rooms 
his  powers  of  restraint  were  strained. 
He  coughed,  and  at  the  cough  I  came 
inside  the  door. 

"I  think  it's  raining —  Won't  you 
come  in?"  I  waved  Slocum  aside,  and, 
motioning  to  the  two  young  men,  I  went 
toward  the  library.  As  the  light  fell  on 
them  I  noticed  one  was  tall  and  slender, 
with  a  fine  face  of  clear-cut  features,  and 
eyes  that  were  deep-set  and  of  a  blueness 
that  was  singularly  striking.  They  were 
very  unusual  eyes.  The  other  man  was 
shorter  and  heavier,  with  black  hair  and 
eyelashes  and  a  close-clipped  black  mus- 
tache, and  as  they  took  their  seats  I  saw 
that  the  younger  and  taller  one  had  on 
no  overcoat. 

"I  am  sorry  I  haven't  any  rooms  to 
rent,"  I  said.  Slocum  was  beyond  hear- 
ing. "We  don't  rent  rooms.  Did  you 
say  some  one  sent  you  here?" 

"We  thought  this  was  the  house." 
The  tall,  blond  boy  laughed  and  looked 
at  me  with  something  of  merriment  in 
his  eyes.  "We've  been  sent  to  so  many 
places  to-day  that  we've  gotten  mixed 
as  to  directions.  Some  one  around  the 
corner  told  us  some  one  around  here 
would  take  us  in,  she  thought.  There 
are  so  many  more  delegates  than  were 
expected  that  the  committee  ran  out  of 
rooms  before  we  got  here.  The  ladies, 
of  course,  had  to  be  placed  first.  We 


HORATIO 


737 


ought  to  have  known  this  wasn't  the 
house,  but  we  hoped  it  was."  He 
laughed  again,  and  the  well-shaped  lips 
curved  into  a  whimsical  smile.  "  We've 
walked  all  over  town,  and  this  was  so 
much  the — " 

"But  the  hotels.  Have  you  tried 
them?  Are  they  full,  too?"  My  voice 
was  anxious.  It  seemed  unreasonable 
that  in  a  city  the  size  of  ours  accommo- 
dations could  not  be  secured. 

"The  hotels  are  too  expensive.  We 
can't  afford  their  prices."  The  dark- 
haired  man  got  up.  "We  are  sorry  to 
have  troubled  you,  and  we  thank  you 
for  your  courtesy.    Good  night." 

Bowing,  he  turned  toward  the  door, 
followed  by  his  friend,  who  had  bowed 
also,  and,  getting  up,  I,  too,  went  into  the 
hall.  A  rush  of  cold  air  as  Slocum  held 
the  door  open  made  me  shiver,  and 
looking  at  him  I  saw  the  young  man  with 
the  beautiful  eyes  and  merry  mouth 
shiver  also,  and  I  spoke  quickly. 

"Oh,  do  come  back!"  They  had 
reached  the  porch  and  were  going  down 
the  steps.  "I  think  we  can  let  you  have 
a  room.  You  must  come  back,  indeed 
you  must!" 

In  the  light  which  streamed  out  from 
the  hall  I  saw  the  younger  man  hesitate, 
but  his  companion  turned  at  once. 
"Thank  you,"  he  said;  "we  will  be  very 
glad  to  come.  You  are  very  good  to 
let  us.  You  go  in,  Donald.  I'll  go 
round  and  get  the  bags  and  bring  them 
up."  He  turned  to  me.  "I  have  an 
engagement  at  seven-thirty,  and  I  am 
to  speak  between  nine  and  ten,  so  there 
is  little  time  left  to  look  for  lodgings." 
He  took  the  number  of  our  house,  writ- 
ing it  in  a  note-book,  then,  lifting  his 
hat,  turned  and  walked  rapidly  down 
the  street. 

Inside  the  hall,  Slocum  was  standing 
erect  and  rigid.  Amazement  was  the 
emotion  that  filled  him,  but  expression 
of  emotion  not  being  permitted,  his 
disapproval  and  despair  could  only  be 
emitted  by  wave  vibrations,  and,  con- 
scious of  them,  I  turned  to  the  boy  by 
my  side. 

"I  will  show  you  your  room,"  I  said, 
and  led  the  way  up-stairs.  As  I  reached 
the  top  I  hesitated.  To  which  room 
should  I  take  him?  A  cough  fiom  Slo- 
cum decided  me.    I  opened  the  door 


to  the  right,  touched  a  button  and 
flooded  the  place  with  light.  It  is  a  very 
pretty  room,  all  rose  and  white,  with  a 
bath  adjoining,  and  as  its  occupant 
looked  around  I  heard  him  draw  in  his 
breath  slightly. 

"You  are  very  kind,"  he  said,  shyly. 
"I  thank  you  very  much.  I  wouldn't 
be  so  tired  if  I  were  not  just  out  of  a 
seven  weeks'  spell  of  fever.  It  leaves  one 
a  bit  rocky."  He  was  seemingly  twen- 
ty seven  or  eight,  and  in  his  face  was  a 
certain  fineness  that  gave  it  distinction, 
also  something  that  showed  a  fight  which 
had  been  won;  but  perennial  youth  was 
there  also.  I  was  quite  certain  he  would 
be  nice  to  know. 

"If  there's  anything  you  want,  just 
ring  for  Slocum."  With  my  hand  on  the 
door-knob,  I  hesitated.  "Will  you.  wait 
here  for  your  friend?" 

"If  I  may,  please — if  you  do  not 
mind."  He  looked  at  me  with  sudden 
anxiety.  "I  got  up  at  five  o'clock,  and 
since  I  reached  the  city  I  haven't  sat 
down  except  at  lunch  for  a  few  minutes. 
We  had  no  idea  it  would  be  so  hard  to 
get  a  room,  and  if  you  had  not  been 
merciful — "  He  steadied  himself,  put- 
ting his  hands  on  the  back  of  a  chair, 
and  through  the  smile  on  his  face  I  saw 
it  whiten.  "  If  you  hadn't  taken  us  in — " 

"I'm  so  glad  I  had  no  guests  and  could 
take  you."  I  backed  out  quickly. 
"Good  night,  and  don't  hesitate  to  ring 
for  what  you  want." 

Half  an  hour  later  Horatio  in  dinner 
garments  stood  before  the  library  fire 
and  looked  down  at  me.  Horatio  is 
hardly  handsome,  but  he  is  very  well 
made.  About  him  is  the  security  of 
success,  of  the  well-being  that  embodies 
wise  living  and  evidences  a  past  that 
was  plentiful  in  things  desirable  and 
justifies  the  hope  of  a  satisfactory  future. 
In  the  nine  years  of  our  life  together  I 
had  never  been  sorry  for  a  moment  that 
I  had  married  him.  Yet  all  husbands 
are  difficult  at  times,  and  I  had  an  idea 
that  this  was  going  to  be  one  of  the 
times. 

"Horatio,"  I  said,  "did  you  know  we 
were  entertaining  two  of  the  delegates 
to  the  Education  Convention  now  going 
on  r 

"We  are  doing  what?"  Horatio 
stopped  the  cigarette  on  its  way  to  his 


738 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


mouth.  "We  are  entertaining  a  half- 
dozen  at  the  hotel,  I  suppose.  I  sent  a 
check  for  that  purpose,  or  any  other  the 
committee  preferred.  It's  a  blamed  nui- 
sance, this  continual  calling  for  contri- 
butions to  take  care  of  and  make  a  frolic 
for  a  lot  of  people  who  want  to  come  to 
town  for  a  few  days.  If  they  ask  you 
for  anything,  tell  them  I've  already  con- 
tributed." 

"Oh,  I  contributed  too,  but  I'm  not 
talking  about  money.  Everybody  gives 
money  for  the  convention  things.  The 
delegates  pay  their  own  expenses,  but 
there  aren't  enough  rooms  for  the  peo- 
ple who  have  come,  and  they  can't 
afford  to  go  to  hotels — that  is,  the  coun- 
try ones  can't.  They  are  teachers  most- 
ly, and  the  salaries  given  the  teachers  in 
the  public  schools  are  a  disgrace  to  the 
state.  You've  said  so  a  dozen  times. 
It  has  turned  so  cold,  and  one  of  them — 
the  younger  one— had  no  overcoat,  and 
he's  just  out  of  a  seven  weeks'  spell  of 
fever,  and  was  so  tired  I  couldn't  turn 
him  away — I  couldn't.  They  are  up- 
stairs now." 

"They  are  what?" 

I  always  dislike  that  tone  of  voice  in 
Horatio.  It  has  that  what-under-the- 
heavens-next  sound,  but  I  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  it.  I  am  doubtless  at  times  a  trial 
to  Horatio.  He  was  brought  up  accord- 
ing to  custom  and  convention,  and  I 
wasn't  brought  up  at  all.  His  family 
still  exercises  influence  over  him.  "They 
are  whatl"  he  repeated. 

"Up-stairs."  I  leaned  back  in  my 
chair  and  put  my  feet  on  the  footstool, 
regarding  them  closely.  "If you  will 
sit  down  I  will  tell  you  about  it." 

He  did  not  sit  down,  and  it  took  a  very 
short  while  to  tell  what  I  had  done.  It 
sounded  very  unwise,  but  I  wasn't  sorry 
I  had  done  it.  That  tired  boy  up-stairs 
kept  me  from  being  sorry,  and  Horatio's 
expression  of  half-incomprehension  and 
half-indignation  failed  to  affect  me. 

"You  mean  you  invited  two  perfectly 
strange  men  to  come  into  your  house  and 
take  possession  of  it?  Gave  them  your 
best  guest-room,  gave  them — "  Hora- 
tio's voice  was  as  amazed  as  Slocum's 
attitude  had  been.  Men  of  all  classes 
have  much  in  common.  "What  are 
their  names?" 

"I  did  not  ask  their  names.    I  didn't 


care  who  they  were.  I  knew  they  were 
all  right  by — oh,  by  the  way  one  tells 
what  people  are.  I  let  them  have  a 
room  because  they  couldn't  get  one  any- 
where else  except  at  the  hotels,  and  they 
can't  afford  to  go  to  a  hotel." 

"And  so  you  took  them  in — strange 
men  ?  How  do  you  know  they  are  dele- 
gates to  this  convention?  They  may  be 
cutthroats,  convicts,  gentlemen  crooks, 
or  deadbeats  who  work  on  women's 
sympathies,  for  all  you  know.  They 
can't  stay  here — that's  all  there's  to  it. 
I  don't  understand  how  you  could  do 
such  a  fool — such  a  dangerous  thing!" 
Horatio  threw  his  cigarette  in  the  fire, 
and,  hands  in  pockets,  began  to  walk 
up  and  down  the  room.  Horatio's  weak- 
ness is  strong  language  when  he  is  ex- 
cited or  exasperated,  and  he  would  have 
felt  better  in  five  minutes  could  he  have 
used  emphasis  not  permitted  in  the  pres- 
ence of  ladies.  I  knew  it  would  soon  be 
over,  and  I  waited.  He  is  really  a  dear, 
and  not  half  as  bad  as  he  sounds. 

"Where  are  they?"  He  turned  to  me. 
"I  shall  tell  them  they  will  have  to  make 
other  arrangements.  If  they're  dele- 
gates—  But  how  can  one  tell  what  they 
are?  They  may  be — may  be — "  his 
voice  trailed  uncertainly.  "I  thought 
you  knew  better  than  to  take  such  a  risk 
as  this.  Do  you  think  I'll  let  you  stay 
in  the  house  while  I  am  away  with  only 
the  servants  and  two  strange  men  privi- 
leged to  come  and  go?  They  are  in  the 
rose-room,  you  say?  I'll  go  up  and  tell 
them — tell  them — " 

"That  your  wife  is  a  very  foolish  per- 
son who  does  very  foolish  things."  I 
did  not  turn  around,  but,  elbows  on  the 
aims  of  my  chair,  I  interlocked  my  fin- 
gers and  looked  into  the  fire.  "Tell 
them  that  she  has  read  of  something 
called  a  Golden  Rule,  and  of  a  man  who 
fell  among  thieves  and  needed  a  neigh- 
bor, and  that  she  has  a  husband  who 
may  sometime  want  some  one  to  believe 
in  him  should  he  be  in  a  strange —  They 
are  up-stairs.  I'll  wait  for  you  in  the 
dining-room.  I  think  Slocum  said  din- 
ner was  served." 

For  a  moment  he  hesitated,  then  went 
out  of  the  room  and  up  the  stairs.  I 
wasn't  uneasy.  Horatio  could  bark 
well,  but  he  bit  nothing. 

For  five  minutes  I  watched  the  hands 


HORATIO 


730 


of  the  clock  in  the  corner  of  the  hall; 
then,  concluding  I  might  as  well  begin 
my  dinner,  I  sat  down  at  the  table  and 
ordered  the  soup,  now  cold,  to  be  re- 
moved. As  the  roast  came  in,  Horatio 
came  also,  but,  not  heeding  it,  he  walked 
over  to  the  sideboard  and,  putting  a 
couple  of  small  glasses  and  a  couple  of 
bottles  on  a  tray,  ordered  Slocum  to  take 
it  up-stairs.  He  did  not  look  toward 
me,  but  at  the  door  he  hesitated.  "I'll 
be  down  in  a  minute.  That  young  fel- 
low needs  a  drink,  needs  it  badly.  He's 
pretty  well  played  out.  By  the  way, 
where's  that  extra  latch-key  we  keep  in 
the  hall?    I  can't  find  it." 

"I'll  get  it."  I  found  the  key  and 
handed  it  to  him.  "Is  theie  anything 
else?" 

"No,  thank  you — oh,  yes.    Do  you 


know  where  that  heavy  overcoat  of  mine 
is?  The  young  fellow,  the  one  who's 
been  sick,  left  his  overcoat  on  the  train. 
He's  taking  big  chances  to  go  out  to- 
night, but  he  will  go.  A  girl,  I  suppose. 
Tell  Slocum  to  get  a  couple  of  umbrellas. 
Neither  one  thought  to  bring  any." 

I  got  the  overcoat  and  Slocum  carried 
it,  with  the  umbrellas,  to  the  room 
above.  In  the  dining-room  I  again  sat 
down  and  waited.  To  myself  I  smiled 
a  little,  for  I  knew  I  must  not  smile 
when  Horatio  came  in. 

As  he  took  his  seat  at  the  table  I  held 
out  a  paper  I  had  supposedly  been  read- 
ing, and  pointed  to  a  headline  that  was 
interesting.  Through  dinner  we  talked 
of  everything  but  our  unexpected  guests. 

There  was  a  theater  engagement,  and 
not  until  our  return  did  we  mention 


"we  ought  to  have  known  this  wasn't  the  house,  but  we  hoped  it  was  " 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785.-92 


740 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


them.  Long  ago  I  had  learned  not  to 
hurry  Horatio.  He  is  a  dear  man,  but 
he  needs  time. 

"Don't  wait  for  me;  I'll  smoke 
awhile.  Isn't  that  something  new  you 
have  on?"  He  held  me  off.  "It's  very 
lovely."  Stooping,  he  kissed  me.  "I'll 
be  up  presently." 

It  was  his  way — and  I  loved  his  way — 
of  telling  me  he  took  it  back,  what  he 
had  said  earlier  in  the  evening.  But 
what  had  they  said  to  him  or  he  to  them  ? 
Certainly  his  surrender  had  been  promp- 
ter than  mine.  I  had  merely  given 
shelter,  and  he  had  given  night-key  and 
overcoat  and  umbrellas,  and  he  was 
waiting  now  for  them  to  come  in.  Ac- 
cording to  Horatio's  code,  a  guest  must 
be  bidden  good  night,  and  he  would 
not  come  up-stairs  until  these  unknown 
guests  were  in. 

Putting  on  kimono  and  slippers,  I 
drew  the  couch  before  the  fire  in  the 
sitting-room  adjoining  our  bedroom,  and 
curled  up  on  it.  Half  an  hour  later 
Horatio  came  in.  "Well,"  I  laughed, 
and  held  out  my  hand.  "Have  you 
something  very  nice  to  tell  me?  You 
don't  look  it.    Is  anything  the  matter  ?" 

He  did  not  answer,  but,  putting  on  his 
smoking-jacket  and  lighting  a  cigar,  he 
sat  down  beside  me.  For  a  moment  he 
smoked  in  silence,  my  hand  in  his,  then 
he  turned  toward  me.  "How  long  has 
it  been  since  you  heard  from  Noel 
Lanier?    Where  is  she  now?" 

"Noel  Lanier!"  I  sat  up.  Horatio 
has  at  times  an  amazing  habit  of  asking 
unexpected  questions,  but  what  con- 
nection there  could  be  between  Noel 
Lanier,  the  dear  little  nurse  that  had 
saved  my  life  a  couple  of  years  ago,  and 
these  two  strange  men  with  whom  he 
had  just  been  talking  was  beyond  my 
guessing.  "Noel  Lanier,"  I  repeated. 
"I  haven't  heard  from  her  for  weeks. 
After  she  came  back  from  France  with 
her  rich  patient  she  went  to  the  moun- 
tains. She  didn't  give  her  address  in  her 
last  letter.  She  said  she  would  write 
again." 

"  Did  she  tell  you  of  her  engagement  ?" 

"Engagement!"  My  voice  was  in- 
credulous. "She  isn't — surely  she  isn't 
engaged!  She's  got  no  business  being 
engaged.  She  oughtn't  to  belong  to  just 
one  man!" 


"The  one  man  doesn't  agree  with 
you."  Horatio  threw  his  cigar  in  the 
fire.  "As  his  hostess  it  would  hardly  be 
tactful  for  you  to — " 

"What  on  earth — "  I  leaned  forward 
eagerly.  "You  are  so  slow  and  mys- 
terious, Horatio!  What  are  you  talking 
about  ?  Who  told  you  she  was  engaged  ? 
When  did  it  happen,  and  who  is  the 
man?  Why  don't  you  tell  me  all  you 
know?" 

"I  will  as  soon  as  you  give  me  a 
chance,  though  there's  little  to  tell. 
Macon,  the  older  of  your  guests,  while 
waiting  for  his  friend  to  come  in,  told  me 
the  latter  had  gone  to  see  a  Miss  Lanier, 
who  had  come  down  from  Fenwick  yes- 
terday. I  asked  her  full  name,  and  was 
told  of  Donald  Grey's  engagement  to 
her.  They  were  to  be  married  this  win- 
ter, but  that  dream  is  off.-  Practically 
everything  he  had  saved  has  been  spent 
during  his  illness." 

"But  where  is  she,  and  why  didn't  she 
come  to  us?    Where  is  she  staying?" 

Horatio  put  a  piece  of  paper  on  the 
table.  "Macon  gave  me  her  address. 
Of  course  you  will  see  her,  but  I  doubt 
if  you  ought  to.  You'll  probably  tell 
her  to  marry  the  chap,  money  or  no 
money." 

"I  certainly  will  if  he's  as  all  right  as 
he  looks.  Life  isn't  long  enough  to  live 
apart  from  those  we  love.  They're 
young  and  brave  and — " 

"Ignorant  and  inexperienced,  and 
they  wouldn't  know  what  they  were  up 
against.  A  man  has  no  right  to  ask  a 
woman  to  marry  him  when  he  can't  take 
care  of  her  properly.  Noel's  head  is 
clear  and  level,  and  she's  not  apt  to  lose 
it,  still—" 

"Still—"  I  got^up.  "I'd  hate  a  girl 
whose  head  didn't  give  her  heart  a 
chance.  To  marry  with  much  love  and 
little  money  is  not  so  reckless  and  im- 
prudent as  to  marry  with  much  money 
and  little  love.  If  Noel  will  come  I  will 
bring  her  here  to-morrow." 

But  she  would  not  come.  I  found  her 
staying  in  a  shabby  little  house  on  a  shab- 
by little  street  at  which  she  could  board 
inexpensively,  and  nothing  I  could  say 
would  make  her  leave.  When  she  saw, 
however,  that  I  was  hurt  and  a  bit  in- 
dignant, she  spoke  frankly. 


IT  TOOK  A  VERY  SHORT  WHILE  TO  TELL  WHAT  I  HAD  DONE 


"I  wanted  to  come.  You  know  I 
wanted  to  come;  but  you  have  so  many 
guests,  and  I  wasn't  prepared  to  be  a 
guest.  I  haven't  been  shopping  for  some 
time,  haven't  a  thing  new,  and — " 

"Did  you  think  clothes  w7ould  have 
made  any  difference  to  us?  I  shouldn't 
have  thought  that  of  you." 

"Not  to  you,  but  it  makes  a  terrible 
difference  to  me  when  I'm  in  other  peo- 
ple's houses.  When  the  new  skirts  are 
wide,  and  yours  are  narrow,  and  your 
hat  is  last  year's,  and  the  feathers  floppy, 
and  you  know  that  outwaidly  you  are 
not  correct,  your  character  gets  as  limp 
as  your  clothes.  But  I'm  crazy  to  see 
you.    I've  been  wanting  to  tell  you — " 

She  stopped.    Sudden  color  flamed  in 


her  face,  and  her  fingers  twisted.  "I 
would  have  told  you  at  once,  but  after 
his  illness,  after  w^e  knew  that  we  could 
not  be  married  for  some  time,  a  long 
time  perhaps — " 

"Get  your  coat  and  hat,  and  tell  me 
about  it  while  we  drive,"  I  said.  "I 
know  it  already,  but  I  want  to  hear  it 
from  you." 

"Who  has  told  you?  No  one  had  the 
right !"  Her  voice  was  tempestuous,  and 
in  her  eyes  came  amazement  and  incre- 
dulity, and  quickly  she  caught  my  hands 
in  a  tense  grip.  "It  isn't  at  your  house 
Donald  is  staying!  He  said  he  was  at  a 
Mr.  Tilton's — he  thought  that  was  the 
name.  Yet  nobody  but  you  would  have 
taken  them  in.    And  Mr.  Macon  told 


742 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


you.  He  wants  to  tell  everybody.  We 
can't  make  him  stop." 

"Go  get  your  things,"  I  said,  "or 
we'll  be  late  for  lunch.  If  you  start 
to  tell  me  now  there'll  be  no  drive." 

During  the  waiting  I  looked  around 
the  little  room  with  its  worn  rug  and 
half-dead  fire,  its  Nottingham  lace  cur- 
tains that  trailed  on  the  floor,  its  en- 
larged and  colored  crayon  portraits  of 
departed  members  of  the  family,  its 
bunches  of  dried  grass  and  paper  roses, 
and  its  fringed  and  figured  silk  lambre- 
quin on  the  mantel,  held  down  in  the 
middle  by  a  glass-covered  wreath  of  wax 
roses,  and  on  the  ends  by  a  piece  of  coral 
and  a  large  conch-shell,  and  I  wondered 
how  even  temporarily  Noel  could  endure 
them.  It  was  a  strange  setting  for  her. 
Every  drop  of  her  blood  was  artistic, 
and  these  fearful  furnishings  must  have 
pricked  painfully,  and  still  she  had  cho- 
sen them  rather  than  write  and  ask  if 
we  were  alone.  Frequently  she  had 
visited  us,  but  never  if  we  had  guests. 
Their  world  and  hers  were  far  apart,  and 
she  would  not  come  to  us  unless  we  were 
alone.  In  the  trying  days  of  my  illness 
she  had  been  more,  far  more,  than  a 
nurse,  and  always  we  kept  in  touch  with 
her;  but  of  late  our  letters  had  become 
more  and  more  infrequent,  and  not  for 
some  time  had  I  heard  from  her.  She 
was  quite  alone  in  the  world.  Her  par- 
ents were  dead,  and  the  near  relatives — 
a  married  sister  and  a  rather  trifling 
brother — were  too  far  away  in  distant 
states  for  her  to  see  much  of  them,  and 
her  return  of  the  affection  given  her  was 
deeper  perhaps  because  of  her  sense  of 
loneliness  at  times.  She  was  so  quaint 
and  quick,  so  dependable  and  untiring, 
so  sunny  natured,  and  yet  so  full  of  fire 
and  of  the  knowledge  of  life,  that  to  have 
her  about  was  always  a  delight,  and  I 
was  a  bit  provoked  over  her  refusal  to 
go  home  with  me. 

"It's  very  queer  that  Donald  should 
be  at  your  house."  In  the  car  she  drew 
closer  to  me  and  slipped  her  hand  into 
my  muff.  "Of  all  the  houses  in  town, 
for  him  to  have  stumbled  into  yours! 
He  falls  on  his  feet  always — that  is, 
he  used  to.  Of  late,  since  we've  been 
engaged,  everything  has  gone  wrong. 
Do  you  suppose" — the  gay,  sweet  voice 
grew  troubled — "do  you  suppose  I've 


had  anything  to  do  with  it?  Do  you 
believe  in  things  like  that?" 

"I  do  not."  I  twisted  my  fingers  into 
hers  and  drew  her  hand  farther  in  my 
muff*.  "And  now  I  want  to  know  every- 
thing, and  after  you  tell  me  we'll  have 
lunch,  and  then  you  and  he  can  have 
the  car  this  afternoon  while  I  write  let- 
ters that  must  be  mailed  to  -  night. 
Begin  with  where  you  met  him." 

There  was  not  a  great  deal  to  tell. 
They  had  met  some  months  before  in 
the  mountains  where  he  had  gone  to 
recover  his  health,  which  in  a  measure  he 
had  lost  during  a  fatiguing  year  at  the 
university,  and  where  she  had  been 
nursing  a  trying  patient.  They  had 
been  thrown  together  in  an  unconven- 
tional way,  and  the  usual  processes  by 
which  love  is  awakened  had  been  dis- 
pensed with.  They  had  soon  discov- 
ered that  they  cared  for  each  other, 
and  in  December  she  had  agreed  to 
marry  him.  For  a  year  he  must  stay  in 
the  country,  in  the  open,  and  his  profess- 
orship at  the  university  was  being  held 
for  him  while  he  taught  in  the  Fenwick 
High  School.  He  had  taken  a  position  in 
the  latter  not  only  because  it  was  in  the 
mountains,  but  because  she  was  there, 
and  they  wanted  much  to  be  together. 

"It  was  pretty  staggering.  He's  tre- 
mendously ambitious,  and  he  was  mak- 
ing a  name  for  himself  at  the  university." 
Noel's  voice  again  lost  its  gay  lilt,  and 
her  face  was  shadowed.  "To  leave  his 
work  and  go  to  a  small  village  was  a 
bitter  dose  to  get  down,  and  for  a  while 
he  balked.  Then,  just  as  he  began  to 
get  interested  in  the  school,  in  the  pupils, 
in  the  possibilities  before  him,  he  was 
taken  ill  with  typhoid  fever.  I  was  away 
at  the  time,  and  when  I  got  back  they 
had  taken  him  to  a  hospital  some  seven 
miles  distant,  and  I  could  do  nothing — 
nothing." 

"It  was  the  best  place  for  him."  My 
voice  strove  to  be  soothing.  I  hate  a 
soothing  voice,  but  Noel's  eyes  were 
mutinous.  "One  can  be  cared  for  so 
much  better  in  a  hospital." 

"That  depends  on  the  hospital.  In 
the  best  of  them  the  patient  needs  some 
one  around  who  knows  a  thing  or  two. 
Had  I  been  at  Fenwick  when  he  was 
taken  ill  I  would  have  married  him  at 
once.    Then  I  could  have  nursed  him, 


"IT  ISN'T  AT  YOUR  HOUSE  DONALD  IS  STAYING!" 


helped  him.  As  it  was,  I  had  to  stay 
away."  With  swift  movement  Noel 
turned  to  me.  "This  is  such  a  stupid 
world!  And  I  hate  them,  hate  them — the 
silly  old  conventions  that  make  a  woman 
helpless!  When  I  reached  the  hospital 
he  was  delirious,  and  they  would  not 
let  me  see  him.  They  did  not  know  I 
was  engaged  to  him,  and  I  could  not  tell 
them.  I  am  so  alone,  I — "  She  hesi- 
tated and  bit  her  lip.  "For  days  I  was 
tortured,  tormented,  and  when  finally 


the  crisis  was  past  I  was  limper  than  he. 
That  is,  inside  I  was,  and  outside  I  was 
a  mechanical  thing  that  nursed  an  abom- 
inable young  woman  because  I  must 
do  something,  and  because  I  knew  we'd 
need  the  money.  When  he  came  back  to 
Fenwick  he  needed  much  care  still,  and 
I  would  have  married  him  at  once,  but 
he  wouldn't  let  me." 

Noel's  head  went  up  and  her  gay 
laugh  was  good  to  hear.  "What  do  you 
think  of  that?   A  gentleman  refusing  to 


744 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


marry  the  girl  he  had  once  violently, 
humbly,  insistently  asked  to  marry  him? 
It  is  a  stupid  old  world,  and  civilization 
isn't  yet  out  of  the  primer  grade!  He 
would  not  marry  me  because  he  had  no 
money.  The  nurses  and  doctors  and 
hospital  had  taken  all  he  had  saved,  and 
when  I  told  him  I  could  work  as  well 
after  I  was  married  as  before,  he  had  a 
spasm — the  kind  all  men  have  when 
women  talk  of  earning  money  after  mar- 
riage." 

Getting  out  of  the  car,  we  went  in 
to  lunch.  At  the  table  we  continued 
our  conversation,  and  then  I  sent  Noel 
to  the  convention  hall  to  get  Donald, 
that  they  might  have  a  ride  together. 

I  was  greatly  interested  in  the  little 
love-afFair  that  had  so  unexpectedly 
come  across  my  way.  Noel  was  inclined 
to  be  a  bit  defiant  of  custom  and  con- 
vention, and  as  intolerant  of  pretense  and 
make-believe  as  few  people  I  had  ever 
known.  With  the  abandon  of  her  type — 
which  gives  unreservedly  when  it  gives 
at  all — she  would  go  into  poverty  and 
privation,  into  danger  or  death,  with  no 
thought  of  shrinking  if  love  so  led,  and 
with  acute  conviction  I  believed  it  best 
that  she  and  Donald  should  be  married 
at  once  if  Horatio  could  find  out  some  of 
the  things  I  must  know.  That  night  I 
told  him  what  I  wanted  him  to  do. 

"I'll  do  nothing  of  the  sort;  of  course 
I  won't."  Horatio  waved  his  hand  pro- 
testingly.  "You  say  he's  a  nephew  of 
James  Armstrong  Grey;  that  settles  him 
socially.  He  was  a  professor  of  English 
at  the  university  two  years;  that  set- 
tles him  intellectually;  and  he's  now  a 
teacher  in  the  Fenwick  High  School,  and 
in  Fenwick  on  account  of  his  health, 
which  settles  him  financially  and  phys- 
ically. The  first  two  points  are  offset  by 
the  last  two,  which  settles — " 

"But  there's  nothing  serious  the  mat- 
ter with  his  health.  He  was  just  run 
down,  and  had  fever,  and  will  be  all  right 
in  a  few  months,  the  doctor  says.  He 
has  no  money — there  are  times  when  I 
wish  nobody  had  any — but  its  lack  is 
not  so  serious  as  the  lack  of  certain  other 
things.  His  character  is  probably  all 
right,  or  Noel  would  hardly  care  for  him. 
Still,  I  want  to  be  sure.  The  only  way 
to  find  out  is  to  ask  a  disinterested  party. 
Noel  isn't  disinterested.    Richard  Dent 


knows  him  well,  she  tells  me.  If  you 
wire  him  to-night  and  get  the  answer  I 
want,  I  think  they  had  better  be  married 
here  at  our  house." 

"You  think  what?" 

Horatio's  voice  was  a  cross  between 
unbelief  and  despair.  Without  com- 
ment I  gave  him  a  slip  of  paper.  "This 
is  what  I  want  you  to  say.  I'd  like  to 
have  an  answer  as  soon  as  possible 
to-morrow." 

For  some  time  we  argued  the  matter, 
Horatio  stormily  insisting  that  I  was  do- 
ing a  very  unwise  thing  and  that  he 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  No 
matter  what  sort  of  man  Donald  Grey 
was,  he  was  not  able  to  marry,  his  sav- 
ings were  gone,  his  salary  a  mere  wage, 
and  marriage  would  be  suicidal,  insane. 
He  would  not  be  a  party  to  it,  and,  hands 
in  his  pockets,  he  walked  up  and  down 
the  room  and  glared  at  me  as  if  I  were 
beyond  all  power  of  understanding. 

"All  right,"  I  said;  "if  you  won't 
wire,  I  will.  And  they're  not  poor. 
They're  rich.  They  have  love  enough  to 
endure  privation  for  each  other,  and 
that's  not  a  bad  account  to  start  with. 
I'd  marry  you  if  you  didn't  have  as  much 
as  Donald.  If  you  send  a  night-letter, 
the  fifty  words  will  ask  all  I  want  to 
know." 

He  would  not  promise,  but  I  knew 
very  well  the  letter  would  be  sent.  I 
never  hurry  Horatio. 

On  the  fourth  afternoon  of  his  stay 
Donald  Grey  came  into  the  library  and 
asked  if  he  could  see  me  for  a  few  min- 
utes. The  day  before  we  had  had  a  long 
talk.  Noel  had  told  him  that  I  knew 
of  their  engagement,  and  it  was  with  the 
eagerness  of  long  repression  that  he  had 
unburdened  his  heart,  let  out  tumultu- 
ous hopes  and  quivering  fears,  and  as 
he  talked — even  if  I  had  not  heard  from 
Richard  Dent — I  should  have  known 
his  life  had  been  clean  and  high  and  of 
good  repute.  As  he  came  toward  me  I 
saw  his  eyes  were  no  longer  merry  nor 
his  mouth  wistful,  and  when  he  took  my 
hands  his  face  whitened. 

"You  have  done  much  for  me,  a 
stranger,"  he  said.  "Do  one  thing 
more.  Tell  me  frankly,  from  a  woman's 
view-point,  would  I  be  wicked  and  sel- 
fish to  take  Noel  back  with  me  as  my 
wife?    She  is  willing  to  go;  she  knows 


"  IF  YOU  SEND  A  NIGHT-LETTER,  THE  FIFTY  WORDS  WILL  ASK  ALL  I  WANT  TO  KNOW  " 


how  much  1  need  her,  want  her,  and  she 
would  sacrifice  herself  for  me,  but  I  have 
no  home  to  which  to  take  her.  The  little 
Saeter  hut  we  had  hoped  to  buy,  the  one 
built  by  an  artist  fellow  from  up  North, 
on  Waterfall  Mountain,  is  now  beyond 
our  getting.  It  was  a  queer  little  affair, 
a  genuine  reproduction  of  the  Nor- 
wegian Saeter  huts,  made  of  logs  on  the 
outside,  with  grass  growing  on  the  top, 
and  big  stone  fireplaces  inside.  A  palace 
wouldn't  have  appealed  to  us  as  this 
bit  of  a  mountain  home  appealed.  That 
dream  is  over,  however.  There's  noth- 
ing now  with  which — " 

His  teeth  came  down  sharply  on  his 
lip,  and,  turning,  he  walked  over  to  the 
window.  When  he  spoke  again  his  voice 
was  bitter.  ''I  have  nowhere  to  take 
her.    I  tell  you,  Mrs.  Tilghman,  there's 


no  power  on  earth  equal  to  that  of 
money.  The  lack  of  it  paralyzes,  hu- 
miliates, handicaps  as  does  nothing  else 
under  the  sun." 

"Except  the  lack  of  love,"  I  inter- 
rupted. "1  wonder  how  much  you  and 
Noel  have  for  each  other." 

He  turned  to  me,  his  face  puzzled,  his 
eyes  questioning,  but  before  he  could 
answer  Horatio  came  in,  and  quickly  he 
said  good-night. 

For  some  time  we  sat  by  the  fire, 
Horatio  and  I,  and  talked  of  everything 
but  that  of  which  we  were  thinking. 
We  had  never  said  to  each  other  that 
it  was  odd  or  unusual  that  one  of  the 
men  I  had  so  unwisely  taken  into  the 
house  without  knowing  his  name  should 
prove  to  be  Noel's  sweetheart.  The 
thing  we  were  interested  in  was  what 


746 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


to  do  about  it — this  situation  in  which 
we  found  ourselves. 

"When  is  she  going  back  to  Fen- 
wick  ?"  Horatio  leaned  over  and  put  a 
fresh  lump  of  coal  on  the  fire,  and 
broke  it  that  it  might  blaze.  We  had 
been  talking  of  a  bad  slump  in  stocks. 

"She  was  to  go  back  to-morrow, 
but" — I  slipped  my  hand  in  Horatio's — 
"she  has  decided  to  stay  a  few  days 
longer.  I  want  Donald  to  marry  her  on 
Saturday,  and  of  course — " 

"Want  what?" 

"Want  Donald  to  marry  her.  I've 
thought  it  all  out,  and  it's  the  only  thing 
to  be  done.  They  need  each  other,  love 
each  other  very  much,  and  there's  no 
use  in  waiting.  His  salary  is  wickedly 
small  at  present,  but  Noel  is  a  good 
manager  and  she  has  saved  a  little 
money  with  which  she  can  buy  some 
furniture  for  the  Saeter  hut.  That  is,  it 
is  absurdly  small,  the  price  asked  for 
the  little  place  that  to  them  means  pri- 
vacy and  home,  and  birds  and  books, 
and  flowers  and  fireside — means  all  the 
worthwhile  things.  Don't  you  think 
you  could  buy  it  for  them,  Horatio,  and 
let  them  pay  you  back  a  little  at  a 
time  as  they  are  able?" 

"For  the  love  of  Heaven!"  Horatio 
stared  at  me  with  his  "what-next" 
stare.  "I'm  not  a  real-estate  agent,  and, 
besides,  I  don't  approve  of  Noel's  mar- 
rying a  man  who  can't  care  for  her 
properly.  She's  had  a  hard  life,  and  de- 
serves a  home  in  which  she  can  rest, 
not  a  silly  thing  made  of  logs  with  grass 
growing  on  its  top.  Of  course  I  won't 
buy  such  a  place!" 

"  But  the  view  from  it  is  heavenly,  and 
it  has  a  nice  bath-room  and  an  adorable 
kitchen,  she  says,  and  the  two  big  rooms 
with  the  stone  fireplaces  are  all  she  can 
take  care  of  at  present.  It  could  be 
their  summer  home  for  years,  and  a 
woman  would  rather  work  with  the  man 
she  loves  than  be  in  a  palace  without 
him.  Of  course,  they  can  board  and 
eat  soda  biscuits,  and  have  dyspepsia, 
and  they're  going  to  risk  all  three.  But, 
you  see,  when  I  was  ill,  and  Noel  would 
not  leave  me  day  or  night—" 

"Don't  — oh,  don't!"  Getting  up 
quickly,  Horatio  turned  his  face  away, 
but  not  before  I  saw  it  twist  and  whiten. 


He  would  never  speak,  or  let  me  speak 
of  the  days  in  which  there  had  been  a 
long,  hard  fight  for  my  life,  a  fight  which 
would  not  have  been  won  had  it  not 
been  for  Noel. 

At  the  door  Slocum  was  announcing 
dinner,  and  that  evening  there  was  no 
chance  for  further  talk.  During  the 
next  two  days,  Donald,  Noel,  and  I  were 
very  busy.  Now  that  the  matter  of 
their  marriage  was  settled,  responsibil- 
ity was  off  them  and  on  me,  and  like  two 
joy-filled  children  they  made  their  pur- 
chases for  the  little  home  with  thrills 
of  indecision  and  delicious  delight;  and 
I  thrilled  with  them. 

When  I  reached  home  Thursday  night 
I  found  a  note  from  Horatio  saying  he 
had  been  called  out  of  town,  but  would 
be  back  the  next  evening.  He  did  not 
say  where  he  had  gone,  nor  did  I  ask  him 
on  his  return  where  he  had  been.  I  did 
tell  him,  however,  the  marriage  would 
take  place  at  twelve  o'clock  the  next 
morning  in  the  library,  and  that  a 
brother  of  Donald's  and  Mr.  Macon 
would  be  present.  If  he  could  come  I 
would  be  glad,  but  if  he  were  too  busy 
Noel  would  understand. 

Half  an  hour  before  the  time  set  for 
the  ceremony  he  came  up-stairs  and  into 
our  sitting-room.  I  had  on  a  white  dress 
and  was  holding  Noel's  flowers.  "I 
thought  you  could  not  get  back,"  I  said. 
"Mr.  Macon  told  me  you  had  an  impor- 
tant case  this  morning." 

"Not  get  back!"  He  took  out  his 
handkerchief  and  wiped  his  face.  "If 
you  will  have  these  children  married 
when  they've  nothing  to  live  on  but 
faith  and  love  and  a  few  pennies  a 
week,  do  you  suppose  I  am  going  to 
leave  my  house  while  it  is  being  done? 
By  the  way" — he  pulled  out  a  large 
envelope  and  threw  it  on  the  table — 
"there's  a  little  wedding-present  you 
can  give  them.  I  can't  imagine  why 
they  want  such  a  queer-looking  thing 
as  a  grass-topped  hut,  but  if  they  do 
there's  the  deed  for  it.  What  on  earth's 
the  matter  with  you?  Anybody  would 
think  you  were  going  to  cry." 

"I'm  not  going  to  cry — "  My  voice 
belied  my  words,  and,  arms  around  his 
neck,  I  kissed  him  smotheringly.  "You 
are  so  queer,  Horatio,  and  I  love  you  so!" 


In  Charleston 


BY   W.  D.  HO IV ELLS 


^0SJSiz^S^f^^  was  wnen>  through  an 
v>^^^^^^^^  unseasonable  storm  of 

§k  \  T  Si  co^  ram>  we  found  our- 
III V  selves  housed   on  the 

Mi      A  Battery  at  Charleston 

^^(^'^Vto'^R  t^iat  we  reahzed  our- 
^^^^^^^^^m  selves  in  a  city  which 
was  not  quite  like  any  other  city,  and 
which  differenced  itself  from  other  cities 
more  and  more  as  our  ten  days  of  it 
passed.  They  were  the  first  ten  days  of 
April,  and  that  they  were  wet  and  cold 
in  the  beginning  instead  of  bright  and 
warm  was  a  greater  grief  to  the  Charles- 
tonians,  who  almost  immediately  began 
making  us  their  friends,  than  to  us;  but 
we  accepted  their  excuses  for  the  weather 
quite  as  if  they  could  have  had  it  other- 
wise. The  fact  is  that  it  was  the  same 
make  of  chill  that  we  had  been  experi- 
encing at  St.  Augustine  during  a  month 
past  without  knowing  that  it  was  bad, 
though  people  there  said  it  ought  to  have 
been  indefinitely  better.  The  winter, 
they  said,  had  been  very  perverse;  but 
we  considered  what  it  must  have  been  in 
the  North  and  tried  not  to  suffer  from 
it  as  much  as  they  thought  we  should. 

When  the  weather  cleared  at  Charles- 
ton and  the  sun  came  out,  the  mocking- 
birds came  out  with  it  on  the  Battery. 
The  flowers  seemed  never  to  have  been 
in,  but  were  only  waiting  to  be  recog- 
nized in  the  gardens  that  flanked  the 
houses  facing  across  the  space  of  pal- 
mettos and  live-oaks  and  columns  and 
statues  and  busts,  and  burly  Parrott 
guns  glowering  eastward  and  southward 
over  the  sea-walls.  The  flowers  were 
there  to  attest  the  habitual  softness  of 
the  Charleston  winter,  but  experience  of 
Riviera  and  Bermuda  winters  had 
taught  me  that  flowers  are  not  to  be 
trusted  in  these  matters.  Still,  I  am  not 
saying  that  the  Charleston  winter  is  not 
mild,  and  as  for  the  Charleston  spring, 
what  I  saw  and  felt  of  it  was  divine, 
especially  on  the  Battery. 

It  is  a  city  imagined  from  a  civic 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785.-93 


consciousness  quite  as  intense  as  that 
of  any  of  the  famed  cities  of  the 
world,  say  such  as  Boston,  and  it  built 
most  of  its  stateliest  dwellings  in  that 
place.  All  the  old  houses  that  front 
upon  it  are  stately;  on  the  South  Bat- 
tery modern  houses  have  intruded  them- 
selves in  some  of  the  gardened  spaces; 
but  on  the  East  Battery  the  line  is  yet 
unbroken.  I  should  not  know  quite  how 
to  justify  them  in  making  me  think  of 
a  line  of  Venetian  palaces,  but  that  was 
what  they  did,  and  the  sense  of  some- 
thing Venetian  in  them  recurred  to  me 
throughout  our  ten  days.  Perhaps  it 
was  the  sea  and  the  sky  that  conspired 
to  trick  my  fancy;  certainly  it  was 
not  the  spacious  gardens  beside  the 
spacious  houses,  nor  the  make  of  the 
houses,  though  their  size,  if  not  their 
shape,  flattered  my  fond  notion.  With- 
out being  exactly  of  one  pattern,  they 
were  of  one  general  type  which  I  found 
continually  repeated  throughout  the 
city.  A  certain  rather  narrow  breadth  of 
stone  or  brick  or  wood  abuts  on  the 
street,  and  as  wide  a  space  of  veranda, 
colonnaded  and  rising  in  two  or  even 
three  stories,  looks  southward  or  west- 
ward over  a  more  or  less  ample  garden- 
ground.  The  street  door  opens  into  the 
house,  or  perhaps  into  the  veranda,  or 
perhaps  you  enter  by  the  gate  from  the 
garden  where  the  blossoms  of  our  sum- 
mer paint  the  April  air,  and  the  magnolia 
shines  and  darkles  over  the  coarse-turfed 
lawn.  The  garden-beds  seem  more  mea- 
gerly  covered  with  plants  than  with  us, 
but  there  are  roses  and  jasmines  in  every 
coign  of  vantage,  and  other  flowers 
which  my  vocabulary  fails  in  the  names 
of,  though  I  think  of  peach  blossoms  a 
month  old,  but  young  still,  and  pear 
buds  freshly  blown.  Nearly  all  the  gar- 
dens are  shut  in  by  high  brick  walls,  and 
it  is  something  fine  to  pass  in  or  out  by 
the  gate  of  such  a  garden,  with  a  light 
iron-work  grill  overhead  and  small 
globes   on   the   high-shouldered  brick 


748 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Hfflfc, 


GARDEN  STEPS  OF  THE  OLD  PRINGLE  HOUSE 


piers;  and  it  adds  I  know  not  just  what 
grace  of  experience  to  have  one's  hostess 
call  up  to  the  colored  uncle  dusting  the 
second  floor  of  the  balcony  above, 
"Wait  a  moment,  Romeo,"  though  in 
the  play  I  believe  it  was  Juliet  on  the 
balcony. 

Charleston  is  a  city  of  some  seventy 
thousand  people,  black  and  white,  and  it 
covers,  I  should  say,  about  as  much 
space  as  Manhattan,  rashly  judging  from 
what  seemed  our  night-long  drive  from 
the  railroad  station  to  the  hotel  on  our 
arrival.  Probably,  also,  the  city's  ex- 
tent is  an  illusion  arising  from  the 
indefinite  repetition  of  such  houses  and 
gardens  in  every  quarter.  There  are 
certain  distinct  business  thoroughfares, 
long,  very  long,  stretching  out  in  shops 
mostly  low;  but  people  who  built  their 
dwellings  in  the  old  time  seem  to  have 
built  them  wherever  they  liked,  unham- 
pered by  any  dictate  of  fashion.  There 


is  apparently  no  East 
Side  o  r  West,  as  in 
New  York;  no  South 
End  or  Back  Bay,  as 
in  Boston;  the  court 
quarter  of  Charleston 
was  where  any  of  its 
proud  families  chose 
to  put  their  houses. 
They  lived  nearly  al- 
ways in  houses  of  that 
two-story,  southward- 
veranda  type,  over- 
looking those  spacious 
gardens.  Wherever 
we  walked  or  drove 
we  counted  such 
houses  by  scores,  by 
hundreds;  if  I  did  not 
care  what  I  said,  I 
should  say  there  were 
thousands  of  such 
houses.  They  looked 
out  from  their  leaves 
and  flowers  over 
streets  of  modern  brick 
or  asphalt,  or  of  prime- 
val sand  where  the 
tire  buried  itself  in 
the  dust  and  the  hoof 
slowed  to  a  walk;  or  if 
they  varied  in  this  or 
that  stateliness  from 
the  type,  they  did  not 
wholly  forget  it,  or  suffer  the  passing 
stranger  to  forget  it. 

I  have  the  feeling  that  the  streets, 
whatever  make  they  were  of,  were  bet- 
ter kept  than  the  streets  of  Northern 
towns,  which  have  not  known  the  im- 
pulse to  purge  and  live  cleanly  given  by 
Colonel  Waring  to  New  York.  Certain- 
ly they  looked  neater  than  the  streets  of 
such  a  typical  New  England  town  as 
Portsmouth;  but  how  they  were  kept  so 
I  cannot  tell;  the  old  tradition  of  the 
turkey-buzzard  as  the  scavenger  of 
Charleston  dwindled,  in  my  observance, 
to  a  solitary  bird  of  the  species  in  the 
street  beside  the  Old  Market.  As  to 
other  matters  of  public  cleanliness,  I 
should  say  that  the  tobacco-chewing 
habit,  so  well-nigh  extinct  in  the  North, 
is  still  rife  in  the  South,  if  one  may 
judge  by  the  frank  provision  made 
for  it.  In  the  shuttle-car  which  carries 
the  traveler  into  Charleston  from  the 


IN  CHARLESTON 


749 


railroad  junction  when  one  comes  from 
the  South,  every  seat  was  equipped  with 
a  cuspidor  quite  a  foot  across;  and  a 
cuspidor  was  the  repulsive  convenience 
obtruded  at  frequent  intervals  in  the 
waiting-room  of  the  station  when  one 
departed.  The  cuspidors  there  were  much 
smaller  than  those  of  the  shuttle  -  car, 
but  then  they  were  filthier;  and  it  is 
with  very  sensible  relief  that  I  turn  back 
from  them  to  those  far  more  character- 
istic streets  where  I  have  been  asking  the 
reader  to  accompany  me.  I  rather  liked 
the  sandy  streets  as  the  more  frankly 
native,  and  I  particularly  liked  that  one 
which  widened  to  a  plaza  before  the 
vast  old  Aiken  house,  and  the  kindred 
houses  of  like  presence  which  it  had,  as 
it  were,  willed  beside  it.  Their  variance 
from  the  prevailing  type  was  decided, 
but  except  in  this  impressive  group  the 
type  held  its  own. 

The  houses  of  that  neighborhood  were 
square  rather  Lhan  oblong,  and  they 
wanted  the  southward  verandas,  which 


scarcely  happened  with  any  of  the  other 
old  houses.  I  have  no  sense  of  gar- 
dens beside  them,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  space  between  them  had  a  back- 
ground of  the  weather  -  worn,  never- 
painted  hovels  which  may  have  been 
the  negroes'  quarters  in  the  time  of 
slavery,  and  may  still  be  the  abodes 
of  their  poverty.  Upon  the  whole, 
perhaps  because  I  saw  them  almost  the 
last  of  the  great  old  houses,  they  gave 
me  a  strong  sense  of  their  surpassing 
dignity.  But  when  we  had  left  them  I 
reverted  with  increased  content  to  the 
typical  houses  which  I  think  were  more 
naturally  evolved  from  an  instinctive 
obedience  to  the  conditions,  climatic, 
civic,  social.  The  noble  mansions  on  the 
East  Battery  are  all  galleried  oblongs, 
flanked  with  gardens;  though  one  of  the 
noblest  mansions,  if  not  the  most  noble, 
in  Charleston,  the  beautiful  old  Pringle 
House,  fronts  the  street,  a  square  bulk 
from  a  narrow  space  fenced  high  with 
fine  iron-work,  and  with  the  faltering 


A  GATEWAY  ON  LEGARE  STREET 


750 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


memory  of  its  lovely  old  garden  lurking 
away  from  the  public  eye  behind  it. 
We  looked  into  this  garden  from  the 
stairway  leading  to  the  drawing-room 
where  we  had  sat  a  twilight  moment 
in  the  presence  of  the  young  builder  of 
the  house,  a  blur  of  vague  richness  on 
the  panel  for  which  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
had  painted  him  in  his  red  coat  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  ago,  and  from  which  he 
seemed  to  ofFer  us  the  hospitality  of  the 
mansion,  though  this  had  always  de- 
scended from  generation  to  generation 
in  the  female  line,  and  does  not  even 
bear  the  founder's  name. 

The  little  moment  of  that  intimation 
of  character,  of  conditioning,  was  su- 
preme in  its  way,  as  another  moment  was 
in  that  house  in  the  East  Battery,  where 
I  looked  from  the  veranda  and  saw  Fort 
Sumter  a  far-off  shadow  on  the  waters. 
My  host  pointed  it  out  to  me,  his  fellow- 
citizen  of  whatsoever  sort,  who  must 


THE  CURVE  OF  CHURCH  STREET 


wish  to  visit  with  my  eyes,  if  by  no 
nearer  approach  that  most  venerable 
monument  of  our  Civil  War.  But  we 
left  each  other  to  our  respective  thoughts, 
and  I  leave  the  reader  to  imagine  mine, 
for  if  I  did  not  needlessly  obtrude  them 
there  I  will  not  here.  No  other  Amer- 
ican city  has  such  a  monument  as  that, 
but  it  is  the  only  monument  in  Charles- 
ton which  commemorates  the  war  for 
and  against  our  nationality.  Her  other 
memorials  are  of  two  sorts — one  for  the 
insurrectionary  Colonies  and  one  for  the 
insurrectionary  States.  The  great  Chat- 
ham lifts  the  arms  maimed  by  the  Brit- 
ish bombardment  in  enduring  demand 
of  English  liberties  for  America;  the 
great  Calhoun  from  the  loftiest  column 
of  the  city  proclaims  the  sovereign  right 
of  each  member  of  the  Union  to  nullify 
the  Federal  compact. 

The  pathos  of  the  final  defeat  of  the 
hopes  which  his  doctrine  instilled  in  his 
fellow-citizens  is  most 
poignant,  I  think,  in 
that  collection  of  relics 
and  memorials  which 
the  Daughters  of  the 
Confederacy  have 
gathered  into  the  room 
over  the  Old  Market 
House,  and  which 
"  speak  a  various  lan- 
guage" to  the  visitor. 
Whatever  his  feeling 
toward  the  cause  which 
was  lost,  it  has  always 
the  appeal  of  a  lost 
cause,  and  the  battle- 
shredded  banners,  the 
swords  sheathed  in  ul- 
timate defeat,  the 
faded  letters -home 
from  the  fields  of  death, 
the  tokens  of  privation 
and  self-denial  stead- 
fastly borne  b  y  the 
women  left  behind 
hoping  and  despairing, 
they  all  witness  how 
hard  it  was  to  give  up 
that  which  was  taken 
away.  If  the  North 
had  failed  in  the  war 
for  the  Union,  it  would 
still  have  been  a  great 
nation,  but  to  the 


A  GROUP  OF  SOME  OF  THE  OLDEST  HOUSES 


South  defeat  came  with  a  message  of 
forhidden  nationality  and  all  hope  of 
it;  and  these  memorials  protested  against 
the  doom  with  a  deathless  pride  which 
one  must  reverence  at  least  in  the 
gentlewomanly  presence  expecting  rev- 
erence. The  collection  of  Civil  War 
relics  in  the  City  Hall,  though  so  in- 
tensely Confederate,  we  found  indef- 
initely less  moving,  perhaps  because 
there  we  gave  our  interest  chiefly  to  the 
wonderful  portrait  of  Washington  by 
Trumbull.  It  is  strange  that  this  should 
not  be  popularly  leproduced  as  the  true 
portrait,  for  it  shows  Washington  much 
more  imaginably  human  and  probable 
than  the  wooden  visage — impenshably 
expressive  of  the  artificial  teeth  of  the 
greatest  of  Americans,  if  not  men — which 
the  brush  of  Stuart  has  perpetuated. 
Trumbull  portrays  him  younger,  in  a 
vigorous  full-length,  with  deep-set  eyes, 
and  a  look  of  energy  and  life,  and  the 
mystery  of  his  exh  a  listless  patience  and 
indomitable  will. 

If  one  accused  oneself  of  hypocrisy 
one  could  only  hope  that  it  was  a  guilt- 


less hypocrisy  whenever  one  must  seem 
by  one's  silence  to  share  what  must  be 
the  pievalent  feeling  for  the  lost  cause. 
To  this  moment  I  do  not  know  what  the 
prevalent  feeling  in  Charleston  is  con- 
cerning slavery.  It  was  intimated  only 
once,  from  lips  that  trembled  with 
old  memories  in  owning  and  affirming 
of  the  negroes,  "They  were  slaves,  but 
they  were  happy,"  and  then  one  could 
dissent  only  in  silence.  Happy  or  most 
unhappy,  their  children  and  grandchil- 
dren prevail  in  Charleston  by  a  good 
majority  of  her  seventy  thousand  popu- 
lation; and  I  must  own  that  their  ab- 
sence would  be  preferable  to  their  pres- 
ence in  the  eye  seeking  beauty  or  even 
gaiety.  Their  presence  is  of  an  almost 
unbroken  gloom,  which  their  complexion 
relieves  by  little  or  no  gradation  from 
absolute  black  to  any  lighter  coloring. 
This  is,  of  course,  morally  to  be  desired; 
but  there  may  be  the  paler  shadings  of 
the  mulatto,  the  quadroon,  the  octa- 
roon,  but  I  did  not  notice  them, 
though  more  than  once  I  took  persons 
for  white  who  would  have  shown  to  the 


752 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


THE  STEEPLE  OF  ST.  MJCHAEL  S 

trained  eye  as  black  as  the  blackest  of 
that  majority  now  strictly  segregated 
from  the  genuine  whiteness.  To  the  city 
which  so  much  took  my  liking  their  color 
gave  a  cast  of  very  loathed,  yet  pitied, 
melancholy.  If  they  had  gone  about  in 
any  barbaric  brightness  of  rags,  any 
vivid  touch  of  scarlet  or  crimson  or 
orange,  they  might  even  have  given 
some  cheer  to  the  street  life,  but  their 
taste  seemed  to  be  for  the  gloomier  dyes. 
If  the  garments  had  holes  in  them,  and 
napped  in  tatters  here  and  there,  it  was 
probably  not  by  personal  or  racial  pref- 
erence; the  like  happens  with  the  poor 
everywhere.  I  have  found  the  destitute 
in  New  York  as  unbeautiful  and  even 
as  unpicturesque  as  the  segregated  in 
Charleston;  poverty  is  always  unlovely; 
let  me  be  as  fair  as  this  to  the  bygone 
conditions  ending  in  the  poverty  one 
sees  in  the  South.  If  I  speak  here  of 
the  rude  wooden  balcony  overhanging 


the  pavement  of  a  cer- 
tain Charleston  st  reet 
where  men,  women,  and 
children  used  to  stand 
and  be  bidden  off  at  auc- 
tion by  the  buyers  under- 
neath, it  is  not  to  twit 
the  present  with  the  past 
in  a  city  apparently  un- 
conscious of  it.  But  in 
my  impressions  of  that 
city  my  black  fellow- 
creatures  persist,  a  dreary 
cloud;  their  freedom  was 
not  animated  by  the 
smile,  much  less  the  light 
laughter  one  expects  of 
them;  only  once  did  they 
show  any  noticeable  in- 
terest in  life,  and  that 
was  when  they  stood  in 
a  crowd  at  one  side  of 
the  street,  strictly  segre- 
gated from  the  white 
crowd  on  the  other  side, 
but  equally  following 
with  it  the  events  of  the 
great  fight  in  Havana 
between  the  pugilistic 
champions  of  their  race 
and  ours,  as  the  bulletins 
reported  them.  I  wish 
they  could  have  pinned 
their  pride  and  hope  to 
some  other  champion  of  their  race,  like 
Booker  Washington,  or  their  great  paint- 
er Lewis,  or  such  a  poet  (if  there  is 
any  other  such)  as  Paul  Dunbar,  but 
these  no  doubt  were  beyond  the  furthest 
ken  of  the  crowd  listening  to  the  dis- 
heartening news  of  the  rounds  at  Havana. 

In  the  Southern  cities  their  race  never 
looks  fitly  present,  but  when  one  meets 
them  on  the  country  roads,  or  glimpses 
them  in  the  forests  of  pine,  they  seem  to 
belong.  At  one  place  far  from  town 
where  a  herd  of  wild-looking  black 
women-creatures  were  plying  their  axes 
among  the  undergrowth  of  the  woods, 
they  seemed  to  draw  the  African  jungle 
about  them,  and  revert  in  it  to  some- 
thing native  and  authentic.  But  in  the 
hovels  of  the  town  and  the  cabins  of  the 
suburbs  the  Southern  negroes  are  sim- 
ply a  black  image  of  the  poverty  which 
infests  the  world.  In  Charleston,  in- 
deed, this  has  something  of  the  relief 


IN  CHARLESTON 


753 


which  the  meridional  sun  seems  to  give 
poverty  everywhere,  and  I  have  it  on 
my  conscience  to  instance  the  black 
women  carrying  burdens  on  their  heads 
as  women  do  in  Italy,  and  a  certain 
quaint  mammy  who  sounded  a  personal 
if  not  racial  note  of  character  by  ped- 
dling vegetables  in  a  baby-carriage  as 
picturesque  exceptions  to  the  monotony 
otherwise  unrelieved.  I  am  also  bound 
to  note  that  the  cries  of  the  shrimp- 
sellers  were  soft  and  sweet,  and  consoled 
for  the  gloomy  silence  which  their  color 
otherwise  kept;  and  the  little  old  wrin- 
kled black  beldam,  who,  being  hard 
stared  at  by  the  strangers,  bobbed  a 
curtsy  to  them  from  her  threshold, 
did  something  to  abridge  the  aloofness 
of  her  race  from  theirs. 

Every  city  has  its  temperament,  and 
in  most  things  Charleston  is  like  no  other 
city  that  I  know,  but  there  were  mo- 
ments in  her  long,  long  streets  of  rather 
small  shops  which  recalled 
the  High  streets  of  English 
towns.  There  were  even 
moments  when  London 
loomed  upon  the  conscious- 
ness, and  in  breaths  of  the 
sea  air  one  was  aware  of 
Folkstone.  But  these  were 
very  fleeting  illusions,  and 
the  place  reserved  its  own 
strong  identity,  derived 
from  a  history  very  stren- 
uous in  many  epochs.  I 
do  not  know  how  stren- 
uously the  commercial 
life  of  the  port  survives, 
and  I  am  rather  ashamed 
of  having  tried  so  little 
to  know.  In  the  waters 
widening  from  the  Batter- 
ies, South  and  East,  ves- 
sels of  not  a  very  dominant 
type  lay  in  the  offing  or 
slowly  smoked  across  it. 
But  the  walk  along  the 
ancient  wharves  which  I 
went  one  rather  over-warm 
afternoon  did  not  persuade 
me  of  a  prospering  traffic. 
The  aging  warehouses 
had  been  visited  by  many 
fires  which  left  tumbled 
walls  and  tangled  pipes 
and  wires  in  gaps  of  black- 


ened ruin.  The  footways  were  broken, 
and  the  coarse  grass  sprouted  between 
the  cobblestones  of  the  wheelways.  The 
freight-cars  on  many  railroad  tracks 
shut  me  from  the  piers,  and  there  might 
have  been  fleets  of  commerce  lying  at 
them,  for  all  I  could  see,  but  I  doubt  if 
there  were. 

Not  only  those  fires  had  wrought  the 
devastation  I  saw,  but  that  earthquake 
which  shook  Charleston  so  terribly  cer- 
tain years  ago  had  done  its  part,  though 
one  hears  of  it  mostly  for  the  harm  it  did 
to  the  beautiful  houses  among  those 
fronting  on  the  East  Battery  which  so 
flattered  my  fondness  with  something 
vaguely  Venetian  in  their  keeping.  The 
great  water  beyond  the  Battery  could 
well  have  been  the  basin  of  St.  Mark, 
with  a  like  habit  of  rising  and  flooding 
the  shore  when  the  wind  and  tide  con- 
spire. All  those  beautiful  houses  had 
been  washed  full  of  the  sea  so  many 


PIAZZA  OF  THE  OLD  PRINGLE  HOUSE 


754 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


times  that  the  dwellers  in  some  had 
abandoned  their  lowest  story  to  it,  and 
had  their  domestic  and  social  life  above- 
stairs  out  of  its  reach;  yet  the  gardens 
kept  their  perennial  bloom,  and  the  rose 
and  jasmine  garlanded  the  forsaken  gal- 
leries of  the  ground  floor,  so  often  the 
water  floor. 

You  must  constantly  take  account  of 
the  galleries  and  the  gardens  if  you  are 
to  sense  Charleston  aright.  The  gal- 
leries give  the  city  its  peculiar  grace,  and 
the  gardens  its  noble  extent.  It  is  these 
which  spread  it  wide  over  the  sea-bor- 
dered plain  where  it  stands  in  that  proud 
indifference  to  Sides  or  Ends  which  I 
have  noted,  and  I  am  by  no  means  sure 
that  the  gardens  or  the  galleries  of  the 
East  Battery  are  the  finest  in  the  town. 
There  are  others  in  Legere  Street  and 
King  Street  and  Meeting  Street,  not  so 
far  from  the  South  Battery  as  not  to  be 
of  its  neighborhood;  yet  far  from  these 


I '#41 
t 1 1 

w-i^p^,  ... 


ESS 


THE  INNER  GATE  OF  A  LEGARE  STREET  GARDEN 


there  are  other  gardens  in  I  know  not 
what  quarters  which  won  my  heart  as 
we  drove  by  or  trundled  by  in  the 
trolley-cars  abounding  in  Charleston,  as 
with  the  purpose  of  showing  it  to  the 
stranger.  There  is  a  Belt  Line  most  con- 
venient for  his  curiosity,  but  I  especially 
liked  the  little  cars  on  King  Street  and 
Meeting  Street,  which  one  always  found 
waiting  at  the  Battery  corners  in  a  sort 
of  Old  Cambridge  leisure  such  as  our 
horse-cars  of  the  eighteen  sixties  and 
seventies  knew. 

If  I  have  hitherto  spoken  mostly  of  the 
fine  old  houses  and  the  prouder  streets, 
it  is  not  because  I  look  down  on  lowly 
dwellings  or  avert  my  idle  steps  from 
humble  avenues.  These,  if  they  had  any 
grace  of  historic  decline,  like  Tradd 
Street,  the  home  of  large  and  little  com- 
merce in  the  past,  took  my  liking  as 
much  as  the  ample  perspectives  of  Broad 
Street  with  its  show  of  handsome  public 
edifices,  and  I  liked  pass- 
ing through  alleyways 
where  the  small  black  chil- 
dren glistened  at  the 
thresholds  of  their  houses 
and  yards  in  the  proper 
effulgence  of  their  race.  I 
believe  that  in  the  old 
times  the  slave  children 
and  their  young  masters 
played  together,  but 
segregation  seems  to  have 
ended  that.  The  children 
in  the  paths  of  the  South 
Battery  were  all  white, 
and  there  was  no  note  of 
black  except  in  the  nurse- 
maids, who  exercised  the 
command  with  their  little 
charges  which  everywhere 
subordinates  the  children 
of  the  rich  to  the  rule  of 
the  poor.  The  sight  of 
one  small  patrician  hav- 
ing clawed  out  of  his  mouth 
the  diet  of  broken  shells 
in  which  he  was  indulging 
from  the  pathway,  while 
a  wild  clamor  of  reproach 
and  menace  from  the 
nurse's  tongue  went  up, 
was  an  example  of  this, 
probably  lost  upon  the  boy 
as  soon  as  his  nurse  went 


back  to  her  gossip  with  the  other  black 
nurses.  She  was  kind,  if  threatening,  and 
those  paths  of  the  Battery  looked  clean 
enough  to  eat.  The  white  children  played 
there;  not  so  vigorously  as  one  sees  them 
in  Central  Park,  nor  with  such  a  show  of 
ruddy  cheeks  or  sturdy  limbs,  but  with 
as  much  of  it  as  could  be  expected  in 
a  semi-tropical  climate.  The  place  is 
charming  with  its  live-oaks  and  the 
mocking-birds  lyrically  nesting  in  them. 
I  tried  to  surprise  these  in  some  of  their 
orchestral  moments  when  they  could  be 
expected  to  represent  the  whole  line  of 
local  songsters,  but  I  was  never  so  for- 
tunate, and  I  came  away  from  the  South 
with  the  Northern  belief  that  the  mock- 
ing-bird does  not  compare  in  its  "melo- 
dious bursts  "  with  our  bobolink  or  oriole, 
or  catbird,  and  might  well  be  silent  in 
the  presence  of  our  hermit-thrush.  All 
the  more  conveniently  in  the  silence  of 
the  mocking-bird  can  you  read  your 
novel  in  that  pleasant  shade,  or,  if  you 
are  young,  live  your  romance,  or,  still 
better,  if  you  are  old,  look  on  at  others 
living  theirs.  In  the  last  event  you 
will  not  be  abashed  by  those  shows  of 
impassioned  affection  which  are  so  apt 

Vol.  CXXXI  —  No.  785.-94 


to  embarrass  the  beholder  in  our  North- 
ern parks. 

The  car  on  Meeting  Street  (such  an 
acceptable  name!)  took  us  by  the  beau- 
tiful old  church  of  St.  Michael's,  and 
into  a  grouping  of  other  churches,  with 
their  graveyards  so  old  and  so  still  beside 
them  in  the  heart  of  the  city.  If  you  are 
very  worthy  or  very  fortunate  it  will 
be  the  Saturday  before  Easter  Sunday 
when  you  stray  into  St.  Michael's  and 
find  the  ladies  of  the  parish  trimming  the 
interior  with  sprays  and  flowers,  and 
one  of  these  may  show  you  the  more 
notable  among  the  wall  tablets  which 
you  have  brought  the  liking  for  from 
English  churches.  St.  Michael's  is  of 
a  very  sisterly  likeness  to  St.  Philip's 
Church  in  the  architectural  charm  de- 
rived from  their  mother  architecture  of 
the  Georgian  churches  in  the  Strand. 
These  two  Charleston  churches  seem  to 
me  more  beautiful  than  any  of  the 
Strand  churches;  and  St.  Philip's  is 
especially  fine  with  the  wide  curve  of 
open  space  before  it;  and  precious  for 
the  Chantry  bas-relief  in  one  of  its 
walls.  But  we  went  for  our  own 
Easter   service   to    the  perpendicular 


756 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Gothic  of  the  Unitarian  church  which 
keeps  the  social  eminence  enjoyed  by 
that  sect  in  Charleston  almost  from  the 
time  of  the  break  with  the  elder  faith  in 
Boston.  The  building  was  one  of  those 
which  suffered  most  in  the  earthquake, 
but  the  fan-work  of  the  roof  has  been 
renewed  in  its  pleasing  suggestion  of 
Oxford;  and  there  was  I  could  not  say 
just  what  keeping  in  the  sermon's  ap- 
peal to  Tennyson  and  Emerson  for  sup- 
port of  the  Scriptural  texts  of  immortal- 
ity which  the  Easter  service  dealt  with. 

The  church  has  its  traditions  of  a  dis- 
tinguished ministry  from  the  first,  and  I 
was  aware  of  something  as  authentically 
local  in  its  spiritual  atmosphere  as  in 
that  of  the  ancient  Huguenot  church 
which  we  saw  on  a  week-day  by  the  kind- 
ness of  the  pastor.  History  was  cumu- 
latively present  in  the  names  tableted 
round  the  walls  from  the  time  of  the 
first  emigrations  of  "the  Religion" 
which  the  great  Admiral  Coligny  pro- 
moted to  the  time  of  the  general  exile 
after  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes.  Their  names  became  and  re- 
main among  the  foremost  of  the  city; 
but  many  of  the  families  once  Huguenot 
are  now  of  the  Anglican  communion, 
though  there  is  still  a  service  in  French, 
which  perhaps  not  all  the  parishioners 
of  the  church  understand. 

The  gardens  and  the  churches  embody 
Charleston  to  the  visitor's  recollection, 
and  then  I  suppose  there  remains  al- 
most as  strongly  with  him  an  obscure 
sense  of  her  permanence  in  a  tradition 
which  one  of  the  greatest  civil  wars  was 
fought  to  extinguish.  For  good  and  all, 
or  for  bad  and  all,  South  Carolina  is 
politically  in  the  Union,  but  in  Charles- 
ton the  sense  of  her  being  spiritually 
still  in  the  Confederacy,  rightly  or  wrong- 
ly, haunts  the  visitor.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise,  with  a  people  not  super- 
human? Yet  I  like  to  record  that 
on  the  anniversary  of  the  surrender  at 
Appomattox,  which  fell  on  one  of  our 
ten  days,  the  leading  journal  (I  thought 
it  always  extremely  well  written)  ex- 
pressed in  frank  and  manly  terms  a 
sense  of  Grant's  delicate  behavior  in 
that  affair  which  may  well  have  been 
prevalent  in  the  community.  Still, 
this  could  have  been  without  the  rec- 
onciliation   to    the    result    which  I 


should  find  it  difficult  to  imagine.  It  is 
the  fatal  effect  of  war,  and  especially  of 
internecine  war,  that  after  the  hostili- 
ties the  hostility  abides,  and  the  house 
once  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand 
for  generations  as  it  stood  before  the 
division. 

Society  as  we  saw  it  a  little  in  Charles- 
ton had  the  informal  charm  of  the  vast 
cousinship  which  results  in  a  strongly 
localized  community  where  people  of 
vaiious  origins  intermarry  and  meet 
one  another  in  constant  ease  and  inti- 
macy. It  is  the  charm  of  all  aristocra- 
cies, and  I  suppose  Charleston  is  and 
always  has  been  an  aristocracy;  a  com- 
mercial aristocracy,  to  be  sure;  but 
Venice  was  a  commercial  aristocracy. 
The  place  has  its  own  laws  and  usages, 
and  does  not  trouble  itself  to  conform  to 
those  of  other  aristocracies.  In  London 
the  best  society  dines  at  eight  o'clock, 
and  in  Madrid  at  nine,  but  in  Charleston 
it  dines  at  four,  and  sups  lightly  at  seven. 
It  makes  morning  calls  as  well  as  after- 
noon calls,  but  as  the  summer  ap- 
proaches the  midday  heat  must  invite 
rather  to  the  airy  leisure  of  the  verandas 
and  the  cool  quiescence  of  interiors 
darkened  against  the  fly  in  the  morning 
and  the  mosquito  at  nightfall.  We  did 
not  stay  for  any  such  full  effect  of  the 
summer,  but  every  day  of  our  stay  the 
mocking  -  birds  increased  among  the 
young  buds  which  pushed  the  old  leaves 
from  the  spray  of  the  live-oaks  (to  fall 
and  send  up  a  small,  subtle,  autumnal 
scent  from  the  grass  beneath);  every 
morning  there  were  more  flowers  in  the 
garden-beds,  more  blossoms  on  the  trel- 
lises; the  wind  blew  softer  than  the 
day  before,  and  something  more  ap- 
preciably temperamental  declared  itself 
in  the  advancing  season. 

I  have  always  liked  places  with  a 
compact  history,  like  Florence,  for  in- 
stance, where  you  do  not  have  to  go  even 
so  far  as  the  Arno  to  compass  its  renown, 
or  like  Siena,  compacter  still  in  the  tale 
of  its  civic  life;  and  I  found  this  merit 
in  Charleston,  as  the  reader  will  under- 
stand better  if  he  acquaints  himself  wich 
the  city's  past  in  Mrs.  St.  Julien  Rave- 
nel's  very  interesting  historical  study 
of  The  Place  and  the  People.  After 
Boston,  no  other  American  city  has 
had   a  civic  consciousness  so  intense 


THE  PLEA 


757 


and   so   continuous,  and  in  both  the 

very  diverse  causes  and  characteristics 
eventuated  in  colonial  times,  at  least, 
in  much  the  same  social  life.  The 
Puritans  and  the  Proprietors  arrived 
in  one  city  and  the  other  at  a  like  ideal 
of  aristocratic  ease  and  dignity  as  a 
proper  expression  of  their  quality,  and 
if  the  Southern  city  was  habitually  the 
gayer,  there  were  extreme  moments  of 
the  little  Northern  capital  when  she 
relented  almost  as  far.  In  both  the  ideal 
was  aristocratic;  good  society  was  based 
(as  it  still  is  everywhere) upon  the  com- 
monalty which  consents  to  social  inferior- 
ity, and  if  in  Charleston  there  was  the 
deeper  and  dismaler  underworld  of  the 
slave,  in  Boston  slavery  was  not  yet 
condemned  as  immoral.  In  both  the 
leading  families  ruled,  but  the  Revolu- 
tion which  brought  banishment  to  many 
of  the  leading  families  of  Boston  con- 
firmed those  of  Charleston  in  their 
primacy. 

The  very  diversity  of  their  origin  in 
Charleston  contributes  to  the  pictur- 
esqueness  of  the  aspect  which  its  society 
wears  to  the  strangers.  Here  for  once 
in  the  human  story  the  victims  of  op- 


pression did  not  suffer  for  their  wrongs 
even  in  their  pride;  the  Huguenots  who 
fled  from  France  found  not  merely  refuge 
in  Carolina,  but  instant  worldly  honor. 
Their  abounding  names  are  of  the  first 
in  Charleston;  the  very  names  of  the 
streets  testify  to  their  equal  value  in  the 
community  proud  to  welcome  them;  and 
the  episode  of  their  coming  lends  unique 
distinction  to  annals  never  poor  in  dis- 
tinction. I  like  to  think  it  was  their 
qualification  of  the  English  ideal  which 
has  tended  to  give  the  Charlestonians 
their  gentle  manners.  But  if  I  am  alto- 
gether mistaken  in  this,  I  like  these 
manners  better  than  our  brusque  North- 
ern ways.  I  like  a  place  where  the  very 
ticket-seller  makes  the  question  of  a  Pull- 
man section  an  affair  of  social  cour- 
tesy, and  the  telegraph-operator  stays 
with  my  despatch  in  his  hand  to  invoke 
my  conjectures  of  the  weather.  In  a 
world  where  to-morrow  so  often  galls 
the  kibe  of  to-day,  it  is  pleasant  to 
draw  breath  awhile  where  the  present 
keeps  a  leisured  pace  which  seems 
studied  from  the  past,  and  Mid-April, 
such  as  we  left  in  Charleston,  promises 
to  stay  through  the  year. 


The  Plea 

BY  LOUIS  DODGE 

LORD,  when  the  evening  closes,  and  I  stand 
^  With  eager,  fearful  hands  toward  heaven's  far  shore, 
Bring  me  no  gift  of  roses,  as  the  sand 
Runs  out,  to  run  again  for  me  no  more. 

But  give  me  one  clear  hour  at  close  of  day, 
And  whisper,  as  the  darkling  shadows  fall, 

The  names  of  friends  I  lost  along  the  way, 
The  faithful  friends  I  can  no  more  recall. 

And  while  their  names  upon  my  lips  are  set, 
Oh,  speed  the  silent  tides  that  I  must  stem, 

That  ere  again  I  slumber  or  forget, 
I  may  begin  my  eager  quest  of  them. 


The  Wake 


BY  DONN  BYRNE 


T  times  the  muffled  con- 
versation in  the  kitchen 
resembled  the  resonant 
humming  of  bees,  and 
again,  when  it  became 
animated,  it  sounded 
like  the  distant  cackling 
of  geese.  Then  there  would  come  a 
pause;  and  it  would  begin  again  with 
sibilant  whispers,  and  end  in  a  chorus 
of  dry  laughter  that  somehow  suggested 
the  crackling  of  burning  logs. 

Occasionally  a  figure  would  open  the 
bedroom  door,  pass  the  old  man  as  he 
sat  huddled  in  his  chair,  never  throwing 
a  glance  at  him,  and  go  and  kneel  by  the 
side  of  the  bed  where  the  body  was. 
They  usually  prayed  for  two  or  three 
minutes,  then  rose  and  walked  on  tip- 
toe to  the  kitchen,  where  they  joined  the 
company.  Sometimes  they  came  in  twos, 
less  often  in  threes,  but  they  did  pre- 
cisely the  same  thing — prayed  for  pre- 
cisely the  same  time,  and  left  the  room 
on  tiptoe  with  the  same  creak  of  shoe 
and  rustle  of  clothes  that  sounded  so 
intensely  loud  throughout  the  room. 
They  might  have  been  following  instruc- 
tions laid  down  in  a  ritual. 

The  old  man  wished  to  heaven  they 
would  stay  away.  He  had  been  sitting 
in  his  chair  for  hours,  thinking,  until  his 
head  was  in  a  whirl.  He  wanted  to  con- 
centrate his  thoughts,  but  somehow  he 
felt  that  the  mourners  were  preventing 
him. 

The  five  candles  at  the  head  of  the 
bed  distracted  him.  He  was  glad  when 
the  figure  of  one  of  the  mourners  shut  ofF 
the  glare  for  a  few  minutes.  He  was 
also  distracted  by  the  five  chairs  stand- 
ing around  the  room  like  sentries  on 
post  and  the  little  table  by  the  window 
with  its  crucifix  and  holy-water  font. 
He  wanted  to  keep  thinking  of  "herself," 
as  he  called  her,  lost  in  the  immensity  of 
the  oaken  bed.  He  had  been  looking  at 
the  pinched  face  with  its  faint  suspicion 
of  blue  since  early  that  morning.  He 


was  very  much  awed  by  the  nun's  hood 
that  concealed  the  back  of  the  head,  and 
the  stiffly  posed  arms  and  the  small 
hands  in  their  white-cotton  gloves 
moved  him  to  a  deep  pity. 

Somebody  touched  him  on  the  shoul- 
der.   "Michael  James." 

It  was  big  Dan  Murray,  a  gaunt  red 
farmer,  who  had  been  best  man  at  his 
wedding. 

"Michael  James." 

|| What  is  it?" 

"I  hear  young  Kennedy's  in  the  vil- 

1  99 

lage. 

|| What  of  that?" 

"I  thought  it  was  best  for  you  to 
know." 

Murray  waited  a  moment,  then  he 
went  out,  on  tiptoe,  as  everybody  did, 
his  movements  resembling  the  stilted 
gestures  of  a  mechanical  toy. 

Down  the  drive  Michael  heard  steps 
coming.  Then  a  struggle  and  a  shrill 
giggle.  Some  young  people  were  coming 
to  the  wake,  and  he  knew  a  boy  had 
tried  to  kiss  a  girl  in  the  dark.  He  felt  a 
dull  surge  of  resentment. 

She  was  nineteen  when  he  married 
her;  he  was  sixty-three.  Because  he 
had  over  two  hundred  acres  of  land  and 
many  head  of  milch  and  grazing  cattle 
and  a  huge  house  that  rambled  like  a 
barrack,  her  father  had  given  her  to  him; 
and  young  Kennedy,  who  had  been  her 
father's  steward  for  years,  and  had  been 
saving  to  buy  a  house  for  her,  was 
thrown  over  like  a  bale  of  mildewed  hay. 

Kennedy  had  made  several  violent 
scenes.  Michael  James  remembered  the 
morning  of  the  wedding.  Kennedy  way- 
laid the  bridal-party  coming  out  of  the 
church.    He  was  drunk. 

"Mark  me,"  he  had  said,  very  quiet- 
ly for  a  drunken  man — "mark  me.  If 
anything  ever  happens  to  that  girl  at 
your  side,  Michael  James,  I'll  murder 
you.  I'll  murder  you  in  cold  blood.  Do 
you  understand?" 

Michael  James  could  be  forgiving  that 


THE  WAKE 


759 


morning.  "Run  away  and  sober  up, 
lad,"  he  had  said,  "and  come  up  to  the 
house  and  dance. " 

Kennedy  had  gone  around  the  coun- 
tryside for  weeks,  drunk  every  night, 
making  threats  against  the  old  farmer. 
And  then  a  wily  sergeant  of  the  Con- 
naught  Rangers  had  trapped  him  and 
taken  him  off  to  Aldershot. 

Now  he  was  home  on  furlough,  and 
something  had  happened  to  her,  and  he 
was  coming  up  to  make  good  his  threat. 

What  had  happened  to  her?  Michael 
James  didn't  understand.  He  had  given 
her  everything  he  could.  She  had  taken 
it  all  with  a  demure  thanks,  but  he  had 
never  had  anything  of  her  but  apathy. 
She  had  gone  around  the  house  apathet- 
ically, growing  a  little  thinner  every  day, 
and  then  a  few  days  ago  she  had  lain 
down,  and  last  night  she  had  died, 
apathetically. 

And  young  Kennedy  was  coming  up 
for  an  accounting  to-night.  ""Well," 
thought  Michael  James,  "let  him  come!" 

Silence  suddenly  fell  over  the  company 
in  the  kitchen.  Then  a  loud  scraping 
as  they  stood  up,  and  a  harsher  grating 
as  chairs  were  pushed  back.  The  door 
of  the  bedroom  opened  and  the  red  flare 
from  the  fire  and  lamps  of  the  kitchen 
blended  into  the  sickly  yellow  candle- 
light of  the  bedroom. 

The  parish  priest  walked  in.  His 
closely  cropped  white  hair,  strong,  ruddy 
face,  and  erect  back  gave  him  more  the 
appearance  of  a  soldier  than  a  clergy- 
man. He  looked  at  the  bed  a  moment, 
and  then  at  Michael  James. 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  take  it  like  that, 
man,"  he  said.  "You  mustn't  take  it 
like  that.  You  must  bear  up."  He  was 
the  only  one  who  spoke  in  his  natural 
voice. 

He  turned  to  a  lumbering  farmer's 
wife  who  had  followed  him  in,  and  asked 
about  the  hour  of  the  funeral.  She  an- 
swered in  a  hoarse  whisper,  dropping  a 
courtesy. 

"You  ought  to  go  out  and  take  a 
walk,"  he  told  Michael  James.  "You 
oughtn't  to  stay  in  here  all  the  time." 
And  he  left  the  room. 

Michael  James  paid  no  attention.  His 
mind  was  wandering  to  strange  fantasies 
he  could  not  keep  out  of  his  head.  Pic- 
tures crept  in  and  out  of  his  brain,  joined 


as  by  some  thin  filament.  He  thought 
somehow  of  her  soul,  and  then  wondered 
what  a  soul  was  like.  And  then  he 
thought  of  a  dove,  and  then  of  a  bat 
fluttering  through  the  dark,  and  then  of 
a  bird  lost  at  twilight.  He  thought  of  it 
as  some  lonely  flying  thing  with  a  long 
journey  before  it  and  no  place  to  rest. 
He  could  imagine  it  uttering  the  vibrant, 
plaintive  cry  of  a  peewit.  And  then  it 
struck  him  with  a  great  sense  of  pity 
that  the  night  was  cold. 

In  the  kitchen  they  were  having  tea. 
The  rattle  of  the  crockery  sounded  very 
distinctly.  He  could  distinguish  the 
sharp,  staccato  ring  when  a  cup  was  laid 
in  a  saucer,  and  the  nervous  rattle  when 
cup  and  saucer  were  passed  from  one 
hand  to  the  other.  Spoons  struck  china 
with  a  faint  metallic  tinkle.  He  felt  as 
if  all  the  sounds  were  made  at  the  back 
of  his  neck,  and  the  crash  seemed  to 
burst  in  his  head. 

Dan  Murray  creaked  into  the  room. 
"Michael  James,"  he  whispered,  "you 
ought  to  take  something.  Have  a  bite 
to  eat.  Take  a  cup  of  tea.  I'll  bring  it 
in  to  you." 

"Oh,  let  me  alone,  Daniel,"  he  an- 
swered. He  felt  he  would  like  to  kick 
him  and  curse  him  while  doing  so. 

"You  must  take  something."  Mur- 
ray's voice  rose  from  a  whisper  to  a  low, 
argumentative  sing-song.  "You  know 
it's  not  natural.    You've  got  to  eat." 

"No,  thank  you,  Daniel,"  he  an- 
swered. It  was  as  if  he  were  talking 
to  a  boy  who  wTas  good-natured  but 
tiresome.  "I  don't  feel  like  eating. 
Maybe  afterward  I  will." 

"  Michael  James,"  Murray  continued. 

"Well,  what  is  it,  Daniel?" 

"Don't  you  think  I'd  better  go  down 
and  see  young  Kennedy  and  tell  him 
how  foolish  it  would  be  of  him  to  come 
up  here  and  start  fighting?  You  know 
it  isn't  right.  Hadn't  I  better  go  down? 
He's  at  home  now." 

"Let  that  alone,  Daniel,  I  tell  you." 
The  thought  of  Murray  breaking  into 
the  matter  that  was  between  himself  and 
the  young  man  filJed  him  with  a  sense  of 
injured  delicacy. 

"I  know  he's  going  to  make  trouble." 

"Let  me  handle  that,  like  a  good  fel- 
low, and  leave  me  by  myself,  Daniel,  if 
you  don't  mind." 


760 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Ah  well,  sure.  You  know  best." 
And  Murray  crept  out  of  the  room. 

As  the  door  opened  Michael  could 
hear  some  one  singing  in  a  subdued 
voice  and  many  feet  tapping  like  drums 
in  time  with  the  music.  They  had  to 
pass  the  night  outside,  and  it  was  the 
custom,  but  the  singing  irritated  him. 
He  could  fancy  heads  nodding  and 
bodies  swaying  from  side  to  side  with 
the  rhythm.  He  recognized  the  tune, 
and  it  began  to  run  through  his  head, 
and  he  could  not  put  it  out  of  it.  The 
lilt  of  it  captured  him,  and  suddenly  he 
began  thinking  of  the  wonderful  brain 
that  musicians  must  have  to  compose 
music.  And  then  his  thoughts  switched 
to  a  picture  he  had  seen  of  a  man  in  a 
garret  with  a  fiddle  beneath  his  chin. 

He  straightened  himself  up  a  little, 
for  sitting  crouched  forward  as  he  was 
put  a  strain  on  his  back,  and  he  un- 
consciously sat  upright  to  ease  himself. 
And  as  he  sat  up  he  caught  a  glimpse  of 
the  cotton  gloves  on  the  bed,  and  it 
burst  in  on  him  that  the  first  time  he  had 
seen  her  she  was  walking  along  the  road 
with  young  Kennedy  one  Sunday  af- 
ternoon, and  they  were  holding  hands. 
When  they  saw  him  they  let  go  suddenly, 
and  grew  very  red,  giggling  in  a  half- 
hearted way  to  hide  their  embarrass- 
ment. And  he  remembered  that  he  had 
passed  them  by  without  saying  any- 
thing, but  with  a  good  -  humored,  sly 
smile  on  his  face,  and  a  mellow  feeling 
within  him,  and  a  sage  reflection  to  him- 
self that  young  folks  will  be  young  folks, 
and  what  harm  was  there  in  courting  a 
little  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  when  the 
week's  work  had  been  done? 

And  he  remembered  other  days  on 
which  he  had  met  her  and  Kennedy; 
and  then  how  the  conviction  had  come 
into  his  mind  that  here  was  a  girl  for  him 
to  marry;  and  then  how,  quietly  and 
equably,  he  had  gone  about  getting  her 
and  marrying  her,  as  he  would  go  about 
buying  a  team  of  horses  or  make  ar- 
rangements for  cutting  the  hay. 

Until  the  day  he  married  her  he  felt 
as  a  driver  feels  who  has  his  team  under 
perfect  control,  and  who  knows  every 
bend  and  curve  of  the  road  he  is  taking. 
But  since  that  day  he  had  been  thinking 
about  her  and  worrying  and  wondering 
exactly  where  he  stood,  until  everything 


in  the  day  was  just  the  puzzle  of  her, 
and  he  was  like  a  driver  with  a  restive 
pair  of  horses  who  knows  his  way  no 
farther  than  the  next  bend.  And  then  he 
knew  she  was  the  biggest  thing  in  his  life. 

The  situation  as  it  appeared  to  him 
he  had  worked  out  with  difficulty,  for 
he  was  not  a  thinking  man.  What 
thinking  he  did  dealt  with  the  price  of 
harvest  machinery  and  the  best  time  of 
the  year  for  buying  and  selling.  He 
worked  it  out  this  way:  here  was  this 
girl  dead,  whom  he  had  married,  and 
who  should  have  married  another  man, 
who  was  coming  to-night  to  kill  him. 
To  -  night  sometime  the  world  would 
stop  for  him.  He  felt  no  longer  a  per- 
sonal entity — he  was  merely  part  of  a 
situation.  It  was  as  if  he  were  a  piece 
in  a  chess  problem — any  moment  the 
player  might  move  and  solve  the  play 
by  taking  a  pawn. 

Realities  had  taken  on  a  dim,  unearth- 
ly quality.  Occasionally  a  sound  from 
the  kitchen  would  strike  him  like  an  un- 
expected note  in  a  harmony;  the  white- 
ness of  the  bed  would  flash  out  like  a 
piece  of  color  in  a  subdued  painting. 

There  was  a  shuffling  in  the  kitchen 
and  the  sound  of  feet  going  toward  the 
door.  The  latch  lifted  with  a  rasp.  He 
could  hear  the  hoarse,  deep  tones  of  a 
few  boys,  and  the  high-pitched,  sing- 
song intonations  of  girls.  He  knew  they 
were  going  for  a  few  miles5  walk  along 
the  roads.  He  went  over  and  raised  the 
blind  on  the  window.  Overhead  the 
moon  showed  like  a  spot  of  bright  saf- 
fron. A  sort  of  misty  haze  seemed  to 
cling  around  the  bushes  and  trees.  The 
outhouses  stood  out  white,  like  buildings 
in  a  mysterious  city.  Somewhere  there 
was  the  metallic  whir  of  a  grasshopper, 
and  in  the  distance  a  loon  boomed  again 
and  again. 

The  little  company  passed  down  the 
yard.  There  was  the  sound  of  a  smoth- 
ered titter,  then  a  playful  resounding 
slap,  and  a  gurgling  laugh  from  one  of 
the  boys. 

As  he  stood  by  the  window  he  heard 
some  one  open  the  door  and  stand  on 
the  threshold. 

"Are  you  coming,  Alice?"  some  one 
asked. 

Michael  James  listened  for  the  an- 
swer.   He  was  taking  in  eagerly  all  out- 


THE  WAKE 


761 


side  things.  He  wanted  something  to 
pass  the  time  of  waiting,  as  a  traveler 
in  a  railway  station  reads  trivial  notices 
carefully  while  waiting  for  a  train  that 
may  take  him  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

"Alice,  are  you  coming?"  was  asked 
again. 

There  was  no  answer. 

"Well,  you  needn't  if  you  don't  want 
to,"  he  heard  in  an  irritated  tone,  and 
the  speaker  tramped  down  toward  the 
road  in  a  dudgeon.  He  recognized  the 
figure  of  Flanagan,  the  football-player, 
who  was  always  having  little  spats  with 
the  girl  he  was  going  to  marry.  He  dis- 
covered with  a  sort  of  shock  that  he  was 
slightly  amused  at  this  incident. 

From  the  road  there  came  the  shrill 
scream  of  one  of  the  girls  who  had  gone 
out,  and  then  a  chorus  of  laughter.  And 
against  the  background  of  the  figure 
behind  him  and  of  young  Kennedy  he 
began  wondering  at  the  relationship  of 
man  and  woman.  He  had  no  word  for 
it,  for  "love"  was  a  term  he  thought 
should  be  confined  to  story-books,  a 
word  to  be  suspicious  of  as  sounding 
affected,  a  word  to  be  scoffed  at.  But  of 
this  relationship  he  had  a  vague  under- 
standing. He  thought  of  it  as  a  criss- 
cross of  threads  binding  one  person  to 
the  other,  or  as  a  web  which  might  be 
light  and  easily  broken,  or  which  might 
have  the  strength  of  steel  cables  and 
which  might  work  into  knots  here  and 
there  and  become  a  tangle  that  could 
crush  those  caught  in  it. 

It  puzzled  him  how  a  thing  of  inde- 
finable grace,  of  soft  words  on  June 
nights,  of  vague  stirrings  under  moon- 
light, of  embarrassing  hand-clasps  and 
fearful  glances,  might  become,  as  it  had 
become  in  the  case  of  himself,  Kennedy, 
and  what  was  behind  him,  a  thing  of 
blind,  malevolent  force,  a  thing  of  sin- 
ister silence,  a  shadow  that  crushed. 

And  then  it  struck  him  with  a  sense  of 
guilt  that  his  mind  was  wandering  from 
her,  and  he  turned  away  from  the  win- 
dow. He  thought  how  much  more  peace- 
ful it  would  be  for  a  body  to  lie  out  in 
the  moonlight  than  on  a  somber  oak 
bedstead  in  a  shadowy  room  with  yellow, 
guttering  candle-light  and  five  solemn- 
looking  chairs.  And  he  thought  again 
how  strange  it  was  that  on  a  night  like 
this  Kennedy  should  come  as  an  avenger 


seeking  to  kill  rather  than  as  a  lover 
with  high  hope  in  his  breast. 

Murray  slipped  into  the  room  again. 
There  was  a  frown  on  his  face  and  his 
tone  was  aggressive. 

"I  tell  you,  Michael  James,  we'll  have 
to  do  something  about  it."  There  was 
a  truculent  note  in  his  whisper. 

The  farmer  did  not  answer. 

"Will  you  let  me  go  down  for  the 
police?  A  few  words  to  the  sergeant 
will  keep  him  quiet." 

Michael  James  felt  a  pity  for  Murray. 
The  idea  of  pitting  a  sergeant  of  police 
against  the  tragedy  that  was  coming 
seemed  ludicrous  to  him.  It  was  like 
pitting  a  school-boy  against  a  hurricane. 

"Listen  to  me,  Dan,"  he  replied. 
"How  do  you  know  Kennedy  is  coming 
up  at  all?" 

"Flanagan,  the  football-player,  met 
him  and  talked  to  him.  He  said  that 
Kennedy  was  clean  mad." 

"Do  they  know  about  it  in  the 
kitchen  ?" 

"Not  a  word."   There  was  a  pause. 

"Well,  listen  here,  now.  Go  right 
back  there  and  don't  say  a  word  about 
it.  Wouldn't  it  be  foolish  if  you  went 
down  to  the  police  and  he  didn't  come 
at  all?  And  if  he  does  come  I  can  man- 
age him.  And  if  I  can't  I'll  call  you. 
Does  that  satisfy  you?"  And  he  sent 
Murray  out,  grumbling. 

As  the  door  closed  he  felt  that  the  last 
refuge  had  been  abandoned.  He  was  to 
wrestle  with  destiny  alone.  He  had  no 
doubt  that  Kennedy  would  make  good 
his  vow,  and  he  felt  a  sort  of  curiosity 
as  to  how  it  would  be  done.  Would  it 
be  with  hands,  or  with  a  gun,  or  some 
other  weapon?  He  hoped  it  would  be 
the  gun.  The  idea  of  coming  to  hand- 
grips with  the  boy  filled  him  with  a 
strange  terror. 

The  thought  that  within  ten  minutes 
or  a  half-hour  or  an  hour  he  would  be 
dead  did  not  come  home  to  him.  It 
was  the  physical  act  that  frightened 
him.  He  felt  as  if  he  were  terribly  alone 
and  a  cold  wind  were  blowing  about  him 
and  penetrating  every  pore  of  his  body. 
There  was  a  contraction  around  his 
breast-bone  and  a  shiver  in  his  shoulders. 

His  idea  of  death  was  that  he  would 
pitch  headlong,  as  from  a  high  tower, 
into  a  bottomless  dark  space. 


762 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


He  went  over  to  the  window  again 
and  looked  out  toward  the  barn.  From 
a  chink  in  one  of  the  shutters  there 
was  a  thread  of  yellow  candle-light.  He 
knew  there  were  men  there  playing  cards 
to  pass  the  time. 

Then  terror  came  on  him.  The  noise 
in  the  kitchen  was  subdued.  Most  of 
the  mourners  had  gone  home,  and  those 
who  were  staying  the  night  were  drowsy 
and  were  dozing  over  the  fire.  He  felt 
he  wanted  to  rush  among  them  and  to 
cry  to  them  to  protect  him,  and  to 
cower  behind  them  and  to  close  them 
around  him  in  a  solid  circle.  He  felt 
that  eyes  were  upon  him,  looking  at  his 
back  from  the  bed,  and  he  was  afraid  to 
turn  around  because  he  might  look  into 
the  eyes. 

She  had  always  respected  him,  he  re- 
membered, and  he  did  not  want  to  lose 
her  respect  now;  and  the  fear  that  he 
would  lose  it  set  his  shoulders  back  and 
steadied  the  grip  of  his  feet  on  the  floor. 

And  then  there  flashed  before  him 
the  thought  of  people  who  kill,  of  lines 
of  soldiery  rushing  on  trenches,  of  a 
stealthy,  cowering  man  who  slips  through 
a  jail  door  at  dawn,  and  of  a  figure  he 
had  read  of  in  books — a  sinister  figure 
with  an  ax  and  a  red  cloak. 

As  he  looked  down  the  yard  he  saw  a 
figure  turn  in  the  gate  and  come  toward 
the  house.  It  seemed  to  walk  slowly  and 
heavily,  as  if  tired.  He  knew  it  was 
Kennedy.  He  opened  the  kitchen  door 
and  slipped  outside. 

The  figure  coming  up  the  pathway 
seemed  to  swim  toward  him.  Then  it 
would  blur  and  disappear  and  then 
appear  again  vaguely.  The  beating  of 
his  heart  was  like  the  regular  sound  of  a 
ticking  clock.  Space  narrowed  until  he 
felt  he  could  not  breathe.  He  went 
forward  a  few  paces.  The  light  from  the 
bedroom  window  streamed  forward  in  a 
broad,  yellow  beam.  He  stepped  into  it 
as  into  a  river. 

"She's  dead,"  he  heard  himself  say- 
ing. "She's  dead."  And  then  he  knew 
that  Kennedy  was  standing  in  front  of 
him. 

The  fl  ap  of  the  boy's  hat  threw  a 
heavy  shadow  over  his  face,  his  shoul- 
ders were  braced,  and  his  right  hand,  the 
farmer  could  see,  was  thrust  deeply  into 
his  coat  pocket. 


"Aye,  she's  dead,"  Michael  James  re- 
peated. "You  knew  that,  didn't  you?" 
It  was  all  he  could  think  of  saying. 
"You'll  come  in  and  see  her,  won't 
you?"  He  had  forgotten  what  Kenne- 
dy had  come  for.  He  was  dazed.  He 
didn't  know  what  to  say. 

Kennedy  moved  a  little.  The  light 
from  the  window  struck  him  full  in  the 
face,  and  Michael  James  realized  with  a 
shock  that  it  was  as  grim  and  thin- 
lipped  as  he  had  pictured  it.  A  prayer 
rose  in  his  throat,  and  then  fear  seemed 
to  leave  him  all  at  once.  He  raised  his 
head.  The  right  hand  had  left  the 
pocket  now.  And  then  suddenly  he  saw 
that  Kennedy  was  looking  into  the  room, 
and  he  knew  he  could  see,  through  the 
little  panes  of  glass,  the  huge  bedstead 
and  the  body  on  it.  And  he  felt  a  desire 
to  throw  himself  between  Kennedy  and 
it,  as  he  might  jump  between  a  child  and 
a  threatening  danger. 

He  turned  away  his  head,  instinctively 
— why,  he  could  not  understand,  but  he 
felt  that  he  should  not  look  at  Kennedy's 
face. 

Over  in  the  barn  voices  rose  suddenly. 
They  were  disputing  over  the  cards. 
There  was  some  one  complaining  fever- 
ishly and  some  one  arguing  truculently, 
and  another  voice  striving  to  make 
peace.  They  died  away  in  a  dull  hum, 
and  Michael  James  heard  the  boy  sob- 
bing. 

"You  mustn't  do  that,"  he  said. 
"You  mustn't  do  that."  And  he  patted 
him  on  the  shoulders.  He  felt  as  if  some- 
thing unspeakably  tense  had  relaxed 
and  as  if  life  were  swinging  back  into 
balance.  His  voice  shook  and  he  con- 
tinued patting.  "You'll  come  in  now, 
and  I'll  leave  you  alone  there."  He 
took  him  under  the  arm. 

He  felt  the  pity  he  had  for  the  body 
on  the  bed  envelop  Kennedy,  too,  and 
a  sense  of  peace  came  over  him.  It  was 
as  though  a  son  of  his  had  been  hurt 
and  had  come  to  him  for  comfort,  and 
he  was  going  to  comfort  him.  In  some 
vague  way  he  thought  of  Easter-time. 

He  stopped  at  the  door  for  a  moment. 

"It's  all  right,  laddie,"  he  said.  "It's 
all  right,"  and  he  lifted  the  latch. 

As  they  went  in  he  felt  somehow  as  if 
high  walls  had  crumbled  and  the  three  of 
them  had  stepped  into  the  light  of  day. 


Aunt  Mary,  Preferred 


BY  HOWARD   BRU BAKER 


HEN  it  was  decided  in 
family  council  that 
Ranny  was  to  spend  a 
week  at  Aunt  Mary's  in 
the  country,  that  youth 
went  forth,  with  a  pock- 
et full  of  ginger-snaps, 
to  put  himself  in  a  favorable  light  before 
his  fellow-boy.  The  farm  was  always 
referred  to  in  matriarchal  terms  because 
Aunt  Mary  was  father's  own  sister, 
while  Uncle  Abner  Crane  was  merely  a 
matrimonial  incident.  There  was  also 
a  cousin  of  contemporary  age  to  Ranny, 
but  this  fact  was  not  for  the  general 
public,  because  the  cousin  was  of  the 
sex  appropriate  to  the  name  of  Dorothy. 
It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  Ranny 
having  found  a  victim,  should  say: 

"I'm  goin'  visitin'  at  my  Aunt  Mary's 
in  the  country." 

Bud  Hicks,  who  had  found  a  wabbly 
picket  in  Mr.  Webber's  front  fence  and 
was  making  original  researches  as  upon 
a  loose  tooth,  seemed  unable  to  rise 
above  mere  creature  wants. 

"Gimme  somepin'  good,"  he  said. 
Ranny  delivered  over  a  ginger-snap, 
and  they  munched  convivially  in  the 
June  sunshine.  It  was  a  time  of  drowsy 
contentment.  The  dusty  mills  of  learn- 
ing were  newly  closed,  and  there  were 
widespread  unemployment  and  happi- 
ness. Presently  upon  a  vagrant  breeze 
came  a  whoop  of  the  peculiar  Tom 
Rucker  quality. 

"I  gotta" — munch,  munch — "Aunt 
Mary  my  owwself,"  said  Bud. 
"  Yes,  ya  have." 

"I  have,  too.  She  lives  in  Manches- 
ter.   Ya  c'n  ast  my  mother." 

Tom  Rucker  approached,  was  fed  and 
enlightened.  The  three  took  leisure- 
class  postures  under  a  tree,  stomachs 
upon  the  grass,  and  bare  feet  pointing 
skyward. 

"My  aunt  Mary,"  said  Tom,  "lives 
more'n  a  thousand  miles  away." 

"Who  said  she  didn't?"    Ranny  had 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785.-95 


an  irritable  feeling  about  the  neck-bando 
Aunt  Marys  were  getting  too  common 
for  comfort. 

Two  other  boys  now  swelled  the  meet- 
ing of  the  unemployed.  The  new-comers 
were  cut  off  with  half  a  ginger-snap 
apiece,  but  each  claimed  a  full  share  in 
the  universal  Aunt  Mary. 

"Everybody's  got  one,"  said  Bud. 
"They  ain't  nothin'  to  have." 

Ranny,  who  was  growing  desperate, 
saw  with  relief  an  elegantly  dressed  per- 
son approaching  sedately  upon  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  street.  His  shoes  and 
stockings  alone  would  have  barred  him 
from  good  society,  and  his  flowing  neck- 
tie was  an  open  scandal. 

"I  betcha  Clarence  Raleigh  'ain't  got 
no  Aunt  Mary,"  said  Ranny.  "What  '11 
ya  bet?" 

"Well,  mebbe  not  Clarence"  Bud 
conceded,  easily. 

Surprised  at  a  summons,  the  gilded 
youth  picked  his  way  carefully  across  the 
dusty  street. 

"You  'ain't  got  any  Aunt  Mary,  have 
you,  Clarence?"  asked  Ranny,  hopefully. 

"Oh  no,  I  haven't  got  an  Aunt  Mary," 
replied  Clarence,  with  unwonted  spirit. 
"I've  got  two,  that's  all  I've  got!" 

Aunt  Mary,  Common,  having  dropped 
to  an  imperceptible  figure,  Ranny  saw 
that  his  only  hope  lay  in  Aunt  Mary, 
Preferred. 

"I  guess  proba'ly  nobody's  got  a 
Aunt  Mary  like  mine,"  he  said. 

"Good  reason,"  replied  Bud,  without 
going  into  details. 

"My  aunt  Marys  are  rich,"  said 
Clarence,  "pretty  near  both  of  them." 

Public  interest  presently  shifted  to  a 
dog  which  ran  upon  three  legs,  and  in  the 
ensuing  leisure  Ranny  resolved,  while 
visiting,  to  gather  up  Aunt  Mary's  supe- 
rior points  as  one  collects  horseshoe 
nails  or  bones.  When  he  came  home 
from  the  country  he  would  show  them 
something  rather  staggering. 

After  three  days,  which  were  long 


764 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


even  for  June,  Uncle  Abner  came  driving 
a  dust-colored  horse,  and  brought,  be- 
sides unimportant  gifts  of  butter  and 
eggs,  some  exciting  information.  His 
brother's  boy,  Fred,  was  now  visiting 
his  country  relations  and  playing  fast 
and  loose  with  the  Crane  landscape. 

"He's  a  caution — that  nephew  of 
mine,"  said  Uncle  Abner.  "I  suppose 
when  the  two  of  them  get  together  they 
won't  leave  much  of  the  poor  old  place." 

It  was  not  until  boy  and  man  and 
dust-colored  horse  had  left  Lakeville  be- 
hind them,  and  mother's  instructions 
about  being  nice  to  Dorothy  and  not 
giving  any  trouble  had  sunk  to  their 
proper  place  in  the  limbo  of  oblivion, 
that  Ranny  took  up  a  question  that  had 
been  giving  him  some  concern. 

"This  boy,  Fred — what  relation  is 
him  an'  me?" 

A  splotch  of  dried  mud  on  the  buggy- 
wheel  made  perhaps  a  dozen  revolutions 
before  Uncle  Abner  replied:  "Well,  you 
couldn't  say  he's  any  relation  exactly. 
Course  he's  a  cousin  to  your  cousin  Dot. 
Maybe  we  could  make  up  a  word  for 
it.  Let's  see,  now.  How  would  second 
cousin-in-law  do?" 

Being  second  cousin-in-law  to  a  "cau- 
tion" was  entirely  satisfactory  to  Ran- 
ny. "My  aunt  Mary's  his  aunt  Mary, 
too. 

"Yes,"  said  Uncle  Abner,  gently. 
"Yes,  you're  both  lucky  that  way." 

The  silence  that  followed  was  a  little 
more  intimate  than  its  predecessors. 
Ranny  kept  taking  cautious  glances  of 
exploration.  There  was  something  about 
the  eyes  of  this  tall,  lanky  uncle  that 
made  him  look  as  if  he  were  continually 
scared;  the  little  whiskery  patch  upon 
his  chin  was  like  a  beard  that  did  not 
want  to  give  any  trouble.  Uncle  Abner 
wore  a  linen  duster  to  protect  his  clothes, 
but  allowed  it  to  flap  open  so  that  it 
did  not  do  so,  though  permitting  a  fine 
view  of  a  lifelike  little  cucumber  upon 
his  watch-chain.  He  sat  timidly  close 
to  the  end  of  the  buggy  seat  and  kept 
one  foot  on  the  step  as  if  he  would  will- 
ingly get  out  and  walk  if  Ranny  but  said 
the  word. 

Uncle  Abner  studied  every  field  and 
cow  and  barn — one  would  think  he  had 
never  been  in  the  country  before.  Once 
he  started  to  hum  a  little  tune,  but 


thought  better  of  it.  At  last  he  spoke, 
in  evident  embarrassment:  "Our  farm 
is  shaped  like  a  piece  of  pie.  The  river 
curves  around  to  make  the  outside  crust, 
and  it  comes  together  toward  the  house." 

Ranny  stowed  away  this  good  news 
as  something  that  might  bring  Aunt 
Mary  credit  in  select  circles.  "I  guess 
we're  gonta  have  some  pie,"  he  said, 
politely. 

Uncle  Abner  seemed  to  find  this  re- 
mark witty.  For  a  moment  it  looked  as 
though  the  conversation  might  be  saved, 
but  it  went  down  for  the  third  time. 

"Here's  where  we  cross  the  county 
line,"  said  Uncle  Abner  at  last.  "Our 
farm  begins  at  this  fence." 

Here  was  exciting  information  for  the 
Lakeville  public;  Aunt  Mary  apparent- 
ly had  something  to  do  with  geography. 
But  there  was  no  time  to' go  into  this 
matter  deeply,  because  they  were  in  the 
yard  now,  and  Aunt  Mary  herself  was 
coming  out  to  greet  them.  Ranny  had 
not  been  able  to  remember  exactly  how 
Aunt  Mary  looked,  but  now  her  pre- 
dominating plumpness,  and  the  round 
face  that  smiled  so  easily,  and  the  series 
of  quick,  hard  hugs  she  gave  a  person, 
seemed  perfectly  familiar. 

"Well,  Dot,"  she  said,  apparently  ad- 
dressing the  open  air,  "aren't  you  going 
to  kiss  Ranny?" 

Dorothy  reluctantly  abandoned  her 
hiding-place  on  the  other  side  of  her 
mother,  and  put  her  face  at  his  disposal. 
The  rite  was  performed  in  a  sketchy 
fashion,  and  Ranny  hoped  that  it  had 
not  been  observed  by  the  dark  young 
stranger  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  porch 
and  examining  his  big  toe  in  an  elaborate 
pretense  that  nobody  had  come. 

Dorothy  was  the  first  to  recover  from 
the  operation.  "Come  on,  Fred,"  she 
called  out.  "We  have  something  to 
show  Ranny,  you  know."  This  was  at 
once  a  welcome,  an  introduction,  and  a 
promise  of  a  lively  future. 

Ranny  found  that  while  a  glance  at 
an  Aunt  Mary  establishes  her  upon  a 
familiar  footing,  one  has  to  get  ac- 
quainted with  a  girl  cousin  over  again 
each  time  because  she  is  always  chang- 
ing. Dorothy  had  grown,  undoubtedly, 
but  she  was  still  of  the  roly-poly  school 
of  architecture,  and  had  not  yet  begun 
to  put  all  her  energies  into  the  produc- 


AUNT  MARY,  PREFERRED 


7G5 


tion  of  arms  and  legs.  Dorothy's  speech, 
perhaps  because  in  her  home  life  she 
was  deprived  of  the  advantages  of  soci- 
ety of  her  own  age,  was  of  that  painful 
correctness  affected  by  teachers.  She 
was  incorrigibly  neat  in  her  clothing, 
too.  She  wore  shoes  in  the  summer- 
time (as  is  so  often  the  case  with  girls), 
her  stockings  were  never  allowed  to  sag, 
or  the  ribbons  which  secured  the  two 
braids  of  hair,  the  color  of  well-pulled 
molasses  taffy,  to  go  awry. 

Having  put  his  shoes  and  stockings 
and  his  "other  clothes"  where  they 
would  give  him  no  concern  until  it  was 
time  to  go  home,  Ranny  joined  his 
dainty  cousin  and  the  dark,  piratical 
Fred  for  a  tour  of  inspection.  Fred 
aspired  toward  the  zenith  rather  than 
toward  the  horizon;  he  was  active  and 
strong,  but  he  had  nothing  to  speak  of 
in  the  way  of  thickness.  While  Doro- 
thy's smile  was  almost  chronic  and  she 
giggled  without  effort,  it  was  the  solemn- 
faced  second  cousin-in-law  who  did 
the  ridiculous  things.  Fred  was  more 
laughed  against  than  laughing.  He  had 
a  hoarse,  low  voice  suggesting  a  perma- 


nent bad  cold,  and  whenever  he  said 
anything  funny  he  spoke  in  tones  of  deep 
depression,  as  one  trying  to  satisfy  the 
teacher's  curiosity  about  the  capital  of 
North  Carolina. 

Although  Dorothy,  smiling,  was  an 
agreeable  sight  rather  than  otherwise, 
Ranny  had  a  feeling  of  growing  irritation 
that  the  "caution"  was  taking  a  too 
prominent  part  in  the  entertainment. 
Therefore,  with  no  settled  plan,  he 
picked  up  a  corncob  and  hurled  it  val- 
iantly at  nothing  in  particular. 

"Watch  me  sling,"  he  said,  as  he  let 

fly. 

"That's  nothin',"  said  Fred,  gruffly; 
but  his  own  performance  did  not  prove 
remarkable  in  any  way. 

"I  can  throw,  too,"  said  Dorothy. 

What  followed  was  one  of  the  great 
surprises  of  Ranny's  life;  it  unsettled 
one  of  his  profoundest  convictions.  The 
soft-looking  hand  of  a  cream-whiteness 
which  had  resisted  the  June  sun,  disdain- 
ing corncobs,  closed  upon  a  stone,  which 
with  unbelievable  accuracy  sped  straight 
and  low  to  an  unoffending  carriage-shed. 

"She — she  slings  like  a  boy!"  said  the 


"  I  HAVEN'T  GOT  AN  AUNT  MARY,"  REPLIED  CLARENCE.     "  I'VE  GOT  TWO  " 


766 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


astonished  visitor  from  Lakeville.  "Un- 
derhand an'  ever'thing." 

From  that  moment  Dorothy  was  a 
force  to  be  reckoned  with.  A  girl  who 
could  throw  like  that  could  not  be 
shunted  off  to  play  with  dolls  while  im- 
portant people  went  about  seeing  life.  In 
fact,  Ranny  wondered  whetherthe  matter 
might  not  be  mentioned  cautiously  to 
discreet  people  back  in  Lakeville. 

Prominent  among  the  phenomena  of 
the  farm  was  Jake,  the  hired  man.  Jake 
was  apparently  two  kinds  of  hired  man: 
subdued  and  silent  when,  with  wet  hair 
plastered  down,  he  joined  the  family  at 
their  early  supper,  loquacious  and  self- 
confident  when,  before  a  mixed  audience 
of  three,  he  tyrannized  over  the  horses 
and  cows  in  the  gathering  dusk. 

"What  are  you  mostly,  Dot,"  he 
asked,  first  making  sure  that  Uncle  Ab- 
ner  was  not  within  earshot  of  the  water- 
ing-trough, "a  Crane  or  a  Dukes?" 

Dorothy  laughed,  but  declined  to 
analyze  herself. 

"Well,  which  cousin  do  you  like  best, 
Fred  or  Ranny?" 

"I  don't  know,  Jake."  said  the  embar- 
rassed hostess.    "I  like  them  both." 

Jake  slapped 
old  Prince  on 
the  flank,  and 
presently  re- 
turned from 
the  stable  with 
another  thirsty 
horse. 


OUR  FARM  IS  SHAPED  LIKE  A  PIECE  OF  PIE 


"A  crane  is  a  bird  with  long,  skinny 
legs,"  he  said,  helpfully,  "and  dukes  is 
a  kind  of  people  that  lives  in  foreign 
countries  like  England  and  Europe." 

Dorothy  did  not  care  to  choose  be- 
tween being  a  long-legged  bird  and  a 
foreigner.  "Come  on,  boys,"  she  said; 
"let's  go  to  the  corn-crib." 

"Don't  let  'em  fight,"  Jake  chuckled 
as  they  started  away. 

Ranny  furtively  sized  up  his  distant 
relative,  if  any.  Fred  was  undoubtedly 
the  taller,  but  just  the  same  he'd  better 
not  get  smart. 

"I  live  in  Manchester,"  said  Fred, 
ostensibly  to  Dorothy.  "I  bet  Man- 
chester's bigger  'n  Lakeville." 

"I  bet  it  ain't,"  Ranny  replied.  They 
wagered  several  barrels  of  imaginary 
money,  but  came  to  no  decision.  Their 
common  cousin  tried  to  shift  to  non- 
controversial  themes. 

"Jake  can  lift  a  calf  with  one  hand," 
she  said.  But  this  well-intentioned  re- 
mark only  started  an  argument  as  to  the 
relative  lifting  powers  of  Cranes  and 
Dukeses — a  disagreement  that  lasted 
until  Aunt  Maiy  called  out: 

"  Come  into  the  house  now.  My  good- 
ness! it's  getting  dark." 

It  is  hard  enough  to  go  to  sleep,  any- 
way, in  a  strange  bed  and  with  a  very 
strange  bedfellow,  without  having  per- 
plexing new  problems  to  worry  about. 
Ranny  saw  that  the  honor  of  the  Dukes 
family  was  in  his  keeping.    Dorothy  did 
not  seem  to  care  much  about  the  matter, 
but  Jake  wanted  it  settled,  and  Fred, 
otherwise  an  interesting  person,  was  be- 
ginning to  put  on  airs.     Ranny  had 
never  upheld  the  honor  of  a  family  be- 
fore, and  did  not  know  just  how  it  was 
done.    In  what  way  the 
Dukeses  were  superior  to 
the  rest  of  humanity 
father  and  mother  had 
never   taken    pains   t  o 
explain.  In  his  perplexity 
Ranny  wished  heartily 
that  he  was  back  where 
the  Dukeses  were  a  more 
common  phenomenon. 
It  was  the  first  time  he 
had  ever  left  his  family 
at  home  alone,  and  he 
wondered  how  everybody 
was  getting  along.  His 


A  CRANE  IS  A  BIRD  WITH  LONG,  SKINNY  LEGS,     HE  SAID,  HELPFULLY 


wish  and  wonder  became  something  of 
an  ache.  Fortunately,  Fred  was  sleep- 
ing loudly  and  would  never  know  what 
happened. 

Whatever  it  was,  it  must  have  re- 
sulted in  sleep,  for  the  next  thing  he 
knew  it  was  broad  day,  and  the  crinkly 
cornered  eyes  of  Aunt  Mary  were  laugh- 
ing down  upon  him.  "Well,  Ranny. 
I  declare,  you  sleep  just  like  a  Dukes. 
Get  up,  boys;  breakfast  is  ready." 

Presently  there  were  noises  in  Doro- 
thy's room,  indicating  that  a  person  who 
slept  like  a  Crane  should  stop  doing  so 
and  get  up. 

At  breakfast  Uncle  Abner  introduced 
an  embarrassing  topic:  "You  weren't 
homesick  or  anything  last  night,  Ran- 
ny? 

Fred,  happily,  was  absorbed  in  the 
question  of  how  much  syrup  a  pancake 
would  hold. 

"No,"  replied  Ranny,  unconvincingly, 
"not  hardly." 

"That's  good.  Fred  wasn't  homesick 
the  first  night,  either" — (squirming  by 
the  "caution") — "not  hardly." 

Ranny  laughed  with  pure  relief.  Fred 
had  probably  cried  like  a  baby. 


The  honor  of  the  family  might  have 
rested  there,  while  the  delights  of  the 
pie-shaped  farm  were  being  investigated, 
but  after  breakfast  Jake,  having  put  on 
his  straw  hat  and  his  other  personality, 
took  up  the  matter  again. 

"You  hadn't  oughta  let  them  two 
cousins  come  here  at  the  same  time, 
Dot.  There'll  be  trouble  before  the 
day's  over." 

Fred  and  Ranny  glared  at  each  other. 
Dorothy  smoothed  out  her  skirt  and 
suggested  that  all  hands  go  down  to  the 
river.  Hostilities  were  averted  again,  but 
all  that  crowded  forenoon,  whether  they 
were  throwing  stones  into  the  stream 
which  formed  the  crust  of  the  piece  of 
pie,  or  swinging  from  the  hay-carrier  in 
the  big  barn,  or  sitting  chaufFeur-wise 
upon  assorted  machinery  in  the  imple- 
ment-shed, or  inspecting  the  old  woods 
or  the  young  lambs,  the  case  of  Crane  vs. 
Dukes  was  with  them  always.  Fred  was 
constantly  boasting  about  his  prowess 
and  that  of  blood  relations  unknown  to 
Ranny,  and  yet  if  Ranny  remarked  in 
an  inoffensive  way  that  there  was  noth- 
ing especially  wonderful  about  Cranes  as 
compared  with  Dukeses,  Fred  got  angry. 


768 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


By  noontime  Dorothy's  smile  had 
worn  very  thin.  Ranny  heard  her  ask 
Aunt  Mary,  "How  long  are  the  boys 
going  to  be  here?"  The  answer  was  not 
audible,  but  Dorothy's  face  was  that  of 
one  who  has  just  received  bad  news. 

At  the  dinner-table  Dorothy  proposed 
the  highest  known  form  of  entertain- 
ment. "May  we  go  to  the  tile-mill  this 
afternoon  ?" 

"Why,  yes,  I  suppose  so,"  Aunt  Mary 
replied.  "Be  careful  and  don't  hurt 
yourselves  on  the  car." 

"Or  fall  in  the  creek,"  added  Uncle 
Abner. 

"No,  we  won't,"  Dorothy  promised 
on  behalf  of  the  trio. 

Jake  was  in  his  harmless  personality, 
and  could  do  nothing  but  look  depressed. 

"Remember,  Dot,"  was  Aunt  Mary's 
parting  word,  "Ranny  and  Fred  are  the 
visitors.  Play  nicely,  and  let  them  have 
their  way  sometimes." 

For  a  season  it  looked  as  though 
Dorothy's  trump  card  had  won;  the  de- 
lights of  the  tile-mill  (now  deserted  be- 
cause of  the  exhaustion  of  the  supply  of 
clay)  were  so  transcendent  that  rival 
families  dwelt  together  in  harmony.  The 
roomy,  shed-like  structure,  standing  be- 
side a  creek  at  the  extreme  eastern  edge 
of  the  farm,  contained  a  number  of  little 
compartments  that  would  have  been 
invaluable  for  hide-and-seek  purposes 
had  there  not  been  a  higher  and  nobler 
sport  at  hand,  namely,  railroading.  For 
down  the  center  of  the  shed  and  out  upon 
a  low  trestle  through  the  open  door  ran 
a  wooden  track  for  a  flat-car  with  genu- 
ine iron  wheels.  The  motive  power  was 
the  human  leg,  but  he  who  pushed  the 
car  could  easily  drop  upon  his  stomach 
from  time  to  time  and  take  pleasant 
little  rides. 

Dorothy  was  a  marvel  of  diplomacy 
and  self-effacement.  As  a  working  com- 
promise she  proposed  the  M.  &  L.  Rail- 
road, Manchester  being  the  inside  ter- 
minal, and  Lakeville  the  bumper  at  the 
outer  end  of  the  trestle.  The  manage- 
ment made  a  point  of  running  into  this 
open-air  city  with  something  of  a  bang. 
Dorothy  accepted  an  ignominious  but 
comfortable  position  as  a  passenger, 
paying  imaginary  fares  for  real  rides, 
while  her  troublesome  cousins  were  al- 
ternately the  noble  conductor  and  the 


lordly  engineer.  The  traveling  public 
exhibited  the  proper  amount  of  restless- 
ness, and,  no  matter  which  city  she  was 
in,  promptly  wished  to  be  transported 
to  the  other,  often  without  abandoning 
her  seat  in  the  center  of  the  car.  All 
parties,  professional  and  amateur,  were 
expected  to  yell  at  bumpy  places  and  to 
whoop  at  the  terminals.  Ranny  had 
never  experienced  a  louder  or  more  en- 
joyable time. 

Perhaps  the  edge  of  the  diversion  was 
beginning  to  grow  dull,  but  it  was  Fred 
who  brought  the  afternoon  to  ruin.  It 
was  he  who  conceived  the  hilarious  idea 
that  a  conductor  should  be  polite  to 
ladies. 

"How  do,  Miss  Crane?"  he  said,  gruff- 
ly, bowing  as  gracefully  as  his  position 
on  his  knees  at  the  front  end  of  the  sway- 
ing car  would  permit.  "-Where  d'ye 
want  a  go?" 

"I  want  to  go  to  Manchester  very 
much." 

Taking  advantage  of  her  need,  the 
conductor  said,  "Ten  dollars,"  and 
punched  a  mythical  ticket.  Engineer 
Ranny,  seeing  this  performance,  broke 
all  speed  records  to  Manchester  in  order 
to  put  his  new  idea  into  effect  as  quickly 
as  possible.  On  the  return  trip  Con- 
ductor Ranny  made  an  almost  fatal  bow, 
but  saved  himself  and  asked,  "How  do, 
Mis'  Dukes—" 

At  this  point  the  engineer  went  on 
strike  and  the  train  stopped.  "Her 
name  ain't  Dukes,"  said  Fred.  "Wha's 
the  matter  with  ya?" 

"'Tis,  too.  I  guess  I'm  the  conductor." 

"Tain't,  either.    Is  it,  Dot?" 

But  the  traveler  did  not  propose  to 
become  involved  in  the  crew's  disagree- 
ments. "It's  no  matter  what  my  name 
is.  I  want  to  go  to  Lakeville."  Dorothy 
affected  the  hopeless  look  of  one  upon 
whom  the  habit  of  going  to  Lakeville 
has  been  fastened  in  early  life. 

Fred  took  hold  of  the  rolling-stock  of 
the  M.  &  L.  Railroad  as  if  to  pull  it 
back  toward  his  favorite  terminal,  but 
Ranny  tugged  the  other  way.  The  re- 
sult was  the  worst  tie-up  in  the  history 
of  the  line.  Failing  to  get  the  train, 
Ranny  laid  hands  upon  outlying  por- 
tions of  the  traveling  public — more  spe- 
cifically, Dorothy's  feet.  In  rebuttal, 
Fred  seized  the  unfortunate  passenger 


AUNT  MARY,  PREFERRED 


769 


under  the  arms.  The  public  service  cor- 
poration braced  its  various  knees  against 
the  ends  of  the  train  and  pulled.  Just 
what  either  of  them  wanted  with  Doro- 
thy was  not  clear,  but  a  bystander  might 
have  thought  they  were  trying  to  divide 
their  mutual  cousin  into  her  component 
hereditary  parts. 

Even  a  passenger  will  turn.  The 
wrath  which  Dorothy  had  been  storing 
in  her  batteries  all  day  came  forth  with 
galvanic  upheaval.  In  its  broader  out- 
lines her  plan  seemed  to  be  to  strike 
Fred  at  any  convenient  place  with  her 
fists  and  to  kick  her  maternal  relative  in 
the  stomach.  The  railroaders  fell  back 
baffled;  and  just  as  things  looked  darkest 
for  the  M.  &  L.  system  its  financial 
support  slipped  away  and  started  for 
home. 

Ranny  was  so  scandalized  by  this  in- 
hospitable conduct  that  when  his  breath 
came  back  his  speech  lost  all  restraint. 

"Doggon  'er!"  he  gasped.  "Her 
mother  told  'er  to  play  nice!" 

"She  hadn't  oughta  hit  a  fella  in  the 


nose,"  said  the  scion  of  the  house  of 
Crane. 

Abandoning  the  bankrupt  line,  they 
set  ofF  in  pursuit.  The  culprit  had  se- 
cured something  of  a  start,  but  it  could 
be  seen  that  she  was  wasting  time  in  a 
detour,  and  that  clever  people  could  cut 
across  the  low,  bumpy  ground  nearer  the 
creek  and  head  her  off.  Fred,  being  a 
little  in  advance,  was  the  one  to  get  into 
the  swamp  and  fall  down.  Warned  by 
this  amusing  disaster,  Ranny  took  a 
middle  course  consisting  largely  of  black- 
berry brambles  hostile  to  bare  legs. 
When  he  finally  emerged  upon  high 
ground  Dorothy  was  out  of  sight  and 
Fred  was  trying  to  wash  off  the  muck  at 
the  creek  without  violating  Uncle  Ab- 
ner's  instructions  about  falling  in. 

Not  caring  for  his  society,  Ranny  went 
back  to  the  house  by  a  procedure  of  his 
own,  consisting  in  part  of  tearing  his 
trousers  on  a  barbed-wire  fence,  of  get- 
ting lost  for  a  season  in  the  edge  of  the 
woods,  and  finally  of  being  frightened  by 
a  cow  which  had  no  business  getting  up 
so  suddenly  when  a  person  was  going 
past.  During  what  remained  of  the  af- 
ternoon two  boys  could  be  observed 
popping  in  and  out  of  widely  separated 
sheds  and  stables,  obviously  unaware  of 
each  other's  existence.  Dorothy  had  ap- 
parently adopted  a  girl's  prerogative  of 
staying  in  the  house.  When  the 
supper-bell  sounded,  Ranny's  body, 


JUST  WHAT  EITHER  OF  THEM  WANTED  WITH  DOROTHY  WAS  NOT  CLEAR 


770 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


slightly  scratched,  was  in  a  loft  over 
the  corn-crib,  but  his  untrammeled  soul 
was  in  Lakeville  with  Tom  Rucker  and 
such  sprightly  non-relations. 

That  evening  three  strangers  graced 
Aunt  Mary's  table — strangers,  that  is, 
to  one  another.  They  were  addressed  by 
their  host  in  such  terms  as:  "Have  some 
more  beans,  Fred?  You,  Dot?  Ranny, 
you're  not  eating."  The  unnatural  si- 
lence finally  proved  to  be  too  much  for 
Uncle  Abner.  "What's  the  matter  here, 
anyway?   You  folks  had  a  falling  out?" 

Dorothy  shattered  another  of  Ranny's 
favorite  ideas— that   girls   are  always 
tattle-tales.     Fred  confined  his  gaze  to 
edibles,  and  Jake  shook  his  head  as  one 
whose  worst  fears  have  been  realized. 
Ranny  was  overwhelmed  with  the  futil- 
ity of  life;   the  remaining  days  of  his 
visit  stretched  out  bleak  and  endless  be- 
fore him.    He  did 
not  speak,  but  out 
of  a  number  of  pos- 
sible courses  he 
chose  the  worst. 
The  grief  that  was 
in  his  heart  rose  to 
his  throat  and  clog- 
ged  it   up,  then 
overflowed  through 
his  eyes.    With  a 
sob  that  tried  un- 
successfully to  be 
a  cough  he  slid 
from  his  chair  and 
left  the  room  by  the 
stairway  door.  A 
moment  later  he 
was  gazing  out  the 
window  of  the 
guest-bedroom,  but 
seeing   nothing  of 

any  value.  Presently  the  door  opened 
and  admitted  the  only  admirable  char- 
acter for  miles  around. 

"Won't  you  tell  me  about  it,  Ranny? 
Maybe  I  can  straighten  things  out." 
The  laughter  was  gone  from  Aunt 
Mury's  eyes  now,  but  there  was  some- 
thing appealing  and  comforting  in  its 
place.  Yet  it  proved  hard  to  put  the 
trouble  into  words. 

"Fred  says — the  farm  an'  horses  an' 
Dot  an'  ever'thing  b'longs  to  Uncle  Ab- 
ner.  He  says  Cranes  is  stouter  'n 
Dukeses — an'  slings  better,  an'  Man- 


chester's bigger  'n  Lakeville,  an'  he 
thinks  he's  so  smart." 

" I  see,"  said  Aunt  Mary.  "And  what 
does  Dot  say  about  it?" 

"Nothin'.  We  pulled  her  a  little  an' 
she  got  mad  at  me  an'  Fred  an'  went 
home."  It  was  not  for  him  to  reveal 
Dorothy's  unladylike  act  of  kicking  a 
conductor  in  the  stomach. 

"Who  started  the  trouble  about 
Cranes  and  Dukeses,  anyway?" 

"I — I  guess  it  was  Jake." 

"Oh,  I  see."    Aunt  Mary  seemed  re- 


A  COW  WHICH  HAD  NO  BUSINESS  GETTING  UP  SO 
SUDDENLY    WHEN    A    PERSON    WAS    GOING  PAST 


lieved  at  this  news.  "Your  uncle  Abner 
will  have  to  give  Jake  a  talking  to." 

"Uncle  Abner 'd  be  scared." 

"No,  Ranny;  you've  made  a  mistake 
about  Uncle  Abner.  He  gets  embar- 
rassed when  he  has  to  talk  to  people,  but 
he  goes  ahead  just  the  same.  I  don't 
suppose  there's  a  farmer  for  five  miles 
around  that  Uncle  Abner  hasn't  helped 
in  some  way." 

Ranny  remembered  without  enthusi- 
asm yesterday's  encounter  with  "Hen- 
ry." Nothing  mattered  now.  Aunt 
Mary,  whom  he  had  counted  upon,  had 


FROST  SONG 


771 


gone  over  to  the  Crane  camp  and  was 
shamelessly  praising  her  husband. 

"Your  uncle  Abner  always  was  a  little 
shy."  Aunt  Mary  was  smiling  now  as 
one  who  remembers  something.  "  A  long 
time  ago,  when  I  was  a  girl  and  your 
uncle  was  a  young  man,  he  got  the  habit 
of  coming  over  to  our  house.  He  didn't 
tell  anybody  why  he  came,  but  I  had  a 
pretty  good  idea.  One  spring  night  he 
started  over  to  ask  me  a  very  important 
question,  but  when  he  got  near  our  gate 
he  lost  his  courage  and  ran  for  the 
woods."  Ranny  dropped  into  the  chair 
by  the  window.  This  was  developing 
into  a  very  good  story.  "It  was 
very  dark  in  the  woods,  but  he  went 
in  farther  and  farther,  and  at  last  he 
heard  a  cry  in  the  direction  of  the  river. 
He  followed  the  sound  and  kept  answer- 
ing until  he  reached  the  bank.  The  cry 
for  help  seemed  to  come  from  the  middle 
of  the  river,  which  was  rushing  very  fast, 
as  it  does  in  the  spring.  He  plunged  into 
the  pitch-black  water  and  swam  toward 
the  voice;  he  found  a  boy  clinging  to  a 
snag  and  almost  ready  to  let  go.  Abner 
Crane  got  the  boy  out  and  carried  him 
home.  The  boy  was  about  sixteen  then; 
he  was  my  younger  brother.  He's  a  big 
man  now,  and  runs  a  wagon-factory,  and 
has  a  boy  named  Randolph  Harrington 
Dukes." 


|]  Father!" 

"Yes,  Ranny.  Nobody  in  our  family 
ever  called  Abner  Crane  afraid  after  that 
night." 

Gazing  thoughtfully  out  the  window, 
with  his  face  resting  upon  one  hand, 
Ranny  scarcely  sensed  Aunt  Mary's 
noiseless  departure  from  the  room.  He 
was  reveling  in  relaxed  responsibility — 
the  honor  of  the  family  had  been  taken 
care  of  long  before  he  was  born.  He 
could  make  peace  with  Fred  now;  Doro- 
thy could  be  a  Crane  to  her  heart's  con- 
tent. Suddenly  his  mind  went  racing 
over  the  long,  dusty  miles  to  Lakeville — 
for  what  is  glory  unless  they  know  about 
it  in  the  home  town?  A  county  line  and 
a  pie-shaped  farm,  a  river  and  a  tile-mill, 
and  a  girl  that  throws  like  a  boy — these 
things  were  all  very  fine  in  their  way. 
But  the  best  thing  about  Aunt  Mary  was 
Uncle  Abner. 

Ranny  returned  from  his  mental  wan- 
derings to  the  sound  of  a  stifled  little 
giggle  and  the  touch  of  a  pair  of  soft 
hands  clapped  over  his  eyes. 

"Dot!"  he  guessed  amiably. 

His  cousin  laughingly  released  him 
and  stepped  back,  revealing  Fred,  who 
seemed  to  be  struggling  with  impending 
speech.  "Hey,  Ranny,"  he  said,  in  his 
low,  solemn  tones;  "I  know  a  fine  trick 
we  c'n  play  on  oP  Jake." 


Frost  Song 

BY  KATHARINE  WARREN 

THERE  fell  deep  frost  last  night, 
That  had  been  dew  before. 
By  that  same  freshness  they  had  lived  upon 
The  flowers  are  stricken  sore. 

Blackened  and  sunk,  they  heed 

No  sun-warm  after  hours. 
Alas,  the  touch  of  love's  dark-changed  dew! 

Alas,  my  flower  of  flowers! 


Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785.-96 


The  Friendly  Chickadee 


BY    WALTER    P  RICHARD  EATON 


HE  world  would  be 
rather  a  dull  and  dolo- 
rous place  without  a  cer- 
tain type  of  jovial  per- 
son who  leavens  the 
lump  in  any  commu- 
nity. Such  a  person  my 
grandmother  would  have  described  as 
"a  cheerful  little  body."  The  "cheerful 
little  bodies"  greet  you  with  a  smile, 
they  sing  or  whistle  at  their  work,  they 
are  frankly  curious  about  your  affairs 
and  as  frankly  sympathetic.  They  be- 
long to  the  limited  company  of  the  im- 
mortals who  get  up  cheerful,  who  can 
take  an  interest  in  life  before  breakfast, 
and  are  still  interested  after  dinner. 
Needless  to  say,  they  are  in  good  health, 
and  very  often  inclined  to  a  certain 
placid  and  pleasant  plumpness.  In  a 
word,  they  are  the  human  chickadees. 

Everybody  who  knows  anything  at 
all  about  birds  knows  the  common 
chickadee,  or  black-capped  titmouse,  as 
he  was  perhaps  more  commonly  called 
by  our  forefathers — the  Parus  atricapil- 
lus.  And  to  know  him  is  to  love  him. 
"The  nightingale  has  a  lyre  of  gold,"  the 
skylark  pours  out  his  melody  against  the 
blue  empyrean — both  made  famous  by 
generations  of  Old  World  poets.  Our 
own  hermit  thrush,  who  is  a  much  more 
skilled  musician  than  either,  with  a  more 
exquisite  timbre  than  even  the  nightin- 
gale, has  no  classic  background  to  sing 
against,  and  because  his  song  reaches  its 
perfection  only  in  the  depths  of  the 
Northern  woods  in  June,  his  incom- 
parable melody  is  relatively  unknown; 
yet  echoes  of  his  prowess  have  reached 
us  all.  Our  minor  poets  have  celebrated 
his  inferior  cousin,  the  veery.  The  robin 
has  almost  ceased  to  be  a  bird,  and 
become  a  symbol.  Edward  Rowland 
Sill  has  enshrined  him  in  poetry,  Mac- 
Dowell  in  song — a  wistful  song  quite 
unlike  the  buxom  and  ubiquitous  bird's 
own  domineering  melody.  Yet,  in  spite 
of  all  the  poets  have  done,  it  is  doubtful 


if  any  of  us  who  dwell  in  the  north- 
eastern section  of  the  United  States, 
from  Illinois  to  the  sea,  and  even  pretty 
well  south  along  the  ridges  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  would  yield  to  any  other  bird 
the  first  place  in  our  affections  held  by 
the  little  chickadee. 

Other  birds  go  south  in  winter — the 
chickadee  remains.  He,  and  he  alone, 
is  always  present  either  about  our  dwell- 
ings or  in  the  woods,  every  day  in  the 
year.  Other  birds  are  shy  of  man,  save 
only  that  Pariah,  the  English  sparrow, 
and  even  when  they  build  nests  under 
our  very  eaves  they  avoid  human  con- 
tact. But  the  chickadee  will  perch  on 
our  shoulders  and  eat  from  our  hand. 
The  instinct  of  other  birds,  when  man 
passes  through  their  leafy  retreats,  is  to 
fly  farther  away.  The  chickadee,  when 
he  sees  us  coming,  flits  nearer  and  nearer 
inquisitively,  and  either  tweets  a  soft 
little  greeting  or  shouts  right  out  his 
chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee.  Other 
birds,  even  the  nuthatches,  seek  shelter 
in  the  winter  storms,  but  the  chickadee, 
his  black  cap  conspicuous  in  the  white- 
ness, his  feathers  fluffed  into  a  fat  ball 
by  the  wind,  goes  buffeting  through  the 
driving  snow,  just  as  cheerful  as  ever, 
a  five-inch-long  epitome  of  indomitable 
good  nature.  He  sings  when  all  else  in 
nature  is  silent.  And  he  sings  when  all 
the  woods  are  musical — and  holds  his 
own!  He  is  the  bird  of  the  summer  pine 
woods,  and  the  snow-covered  window- 
ledge  in  winter,  of  our  forests  and  our 
dwellings.  One  chickadee  is  worth  a 
gallon  of  kerosene  emulsion,  considered 
utilitarianly.  Spiritually,  he  is  a  tonic 
that  makes  for  cheerfulness,  and  there 
are  no  standards  of  value  for  that. 

I  have  observed  the  chickadee  for 
many  years.  Indeed,  during  our  Berk- 
shire winters  it  is  impossible  not  to 
observe  him;  he  attends  to  that!  Nor 
has  it  been  necessary  much  of  the  time 
to  stir  out  of  the  house.  We  welcome 
the  first  good  snowfall  for  many  reasons, 


THE  FRIENDLY  CHICKADEE 


773 


but  not  the  least  of  them  is  because  the 
first  heavy  snow  brings  our  little  black- 
capped,  acrobatic  friends  into  the  pine 
hedge  thirty  feet  from  the  kitchen  door, 
and  the  process  of  forming  familiar 
acquaintance  begins.  Food,  of  course, 
is  the  lure  which  attracts  and  holds 
them.  Almost  overarching  the  kitchen 
door-steps  and  one  of  the  dining-room 
windows  is  an  apple-tree.  Between  this 
tree  and  the  pine  hedge  is  a  drive.  The 
birds  make  their  winter  roost  in  the 
thick  protection  of  the  pines,  but  they 
use  the  bare  twigs  of  the  apple-tree  for 
a  daytime  perch,  and  from  this  tree  they 
descend  to  pick  up  food.  Outside  both 
the  kitchen  and  dining-room  windows 
we  have  built  flat  ledges  eight  or  ten 
inches  wide,  which  are  kept  free  from 
snow,  and  on  them  are  placed  pieces  of 
suet  and  sunflower  seeds.  Even  before 
the  snow  comes,  some  chickadees  and 
possibly  a  pair  of  nuthatches  and  a  pair 
of  woodpeckers  have  discovered  the 
provender,  and  make  periodic  visits. 
But  it  requires  a  snowfall  to  drive  them 
up  to  the  dwelling  in  considerable  num- 


bers. A  day  after  the  ground  is  perma- 
nently covered,  however,  the  pine  hedge 
is  alive  with  them,  and  we  see  their  little 
fat,  fluffed  bodies  twinkling  in  the  bare 
branches  of  the  apple-tree,  and  as  we 
are  seated  at  breakfast  suddenly  there 
is  a  flutter  of  wings  outside  the  window, 
and  a  pair  of  bright,  bead-like,  marvel- 
ously  intelligent  eyes  look  in  at  us. 
If,  on  this  first  morning,  we  rise  from 
the  table  and  move  toward  the  window, 
the  bird  will  probably  take  flight,  drop- 
ping the  seed  he  had  picked  up.  But 
in  a  very  few  days  he  gets  over  his  timid- 
ity. We  can  come  close  to  the  window 
and  sit  with  our  faces  not  a  foot  from 
the  ledge  outside,  while  the  bird  will  hop 
about  selecting  a  seed  or  pecking  with 
his  tiny,  sharp  bill  at  the  piece  of  frozen 
suet  with  loud,  ringing  blows. 

A  bird  is  an  incredibly  quick  thing  in 
all  his  movements.  Watch  a  robin 
crossing  the  lawn,  and  you  will  be  hard 
put  to  say  whether  he  runs  or  hops,  so 
fast  do  his  legs  move.  Watch  a  chicka- 
dee pecking  at  a  piece  of  frozen  suet,  and 
again  you  will  be  amazed  at  the  rapidity 


OTHER  BIRDS  GO  SOUTH  IN  WINTER — THE  CHICKADEE  REMAINS 


774 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  his  blows,  and  also  at  the  muscular  ning,  stops  short,  looks  up  to  the  sky, 
power  in  that  tiny  neck,  which,  under  and  then  suddenly  ducks  his  head,  per- 
its  deceptive  ruff  of  downy  feathers,  haps  pulls  up  a  worm,  and  goes  on 
can't  be  much  thicker  than  your  little  again.  Even  when  he  doesn't  pick  up 
finger.  His  whole  body  is  scarce  larger  any  worms,  he  alternately  runs  and 
than  your  thumb.  Bang,  bang,  bang,  stands  still  contemplating  the  heavens, 
goes  his  beak — and  then  he  suddenly  The  chickadee  hammers  at  suet  in  the 
stops,  lifts  his  head,  cocks  a  shiny,  twink-  same  disjointed  manner.  But  he  gets 
ling  eye  at  you,  swallows,  looks  around  what  he's  after.  A  day  or  two,  and  a 
at  the  landscape,  hops  off  the  suet,  hops  pound  of  frozen  suet  will  be  gone — suet 
on  again,  and — bang,  bang,  bang,  go     frozen  so  hard  that  it  is  all  you  can  do 

to  pick  off  a  crumb  with 
your  finger-nail. 

As  soon  as  the  birds 
have  become  accus- 
tomed to  the  house,  to 
the  dog,  and  to  the 
human  beings,  we  begin 
the  process  of  coaxing 
them  into  still  greater 
familiarity.  There  i  s 
always  one  bird  braver 
or  more  friendly  than 
the  rest,  possibly  an 
old  fellow  who  was  with 
us  last  season,  and 
sometimes  he  will  eat 
from  our  hands  several 
days  before  the  others 
get  up  their  courage. 
My  wife  is  much  more 
successful  as  a  chicka- 
dee tamer  than  I  am, 
possibly  because  she  has 
more  patience;  but  in 
the  course  of  a  long, 
hard  winter  we  have 
frequently  had  a  whole 
flock  so  tame  that  they 
would  come  not  only  to 
our  hands,  but  to  those 
of  adults  and  even 
children  visiting  us. 

The  process  is  simple. 
My  wife   puts  half  a 
dozen  sunflower  seeds 
in  the  palm  of  her  hand 
the  first  snowfall  brings  him  to  our  windows  and  stands  under  the 

apple-tree  at  the  hour 
when  the  birds  are  most 

the  blows  of  his  beak  once  more.  Birds  hungry.  (They  are  comparatively  hun- 
are  curiously  jerky  in  their  movements  gry  all  the  time,  but  early  in  the  morn- 
when  they  are  not  flying.  A  few  rapid  ing,  at  about  our  lunch-time,  and  again 
acts — then  a  pause,  with  a  change  to  a  late  in  the  winter  afternoon,  they  make 
fresh  position  for  no  reason  that  you  can  their  chief  meals,  with  innumerable 
fathom.  When  a  robin  is  hunting  snacks  between.)  Then  she  holds  out 
worms,  he  runs  five  or  six  feet  like  light-    her  hand  invitingly,  looks  up,  and  usu- 


THE  FRIENDLY  CHICKADEE 


775 


ally  whistles  once  or  twice  the  chicka- 
dee's song — not  his  dee-dee  call,  but  his 
real  song: 


The  chances  are  that  several  birds  are 
already  hopping  and  twittering  in  the 
aople-tree  overhead.  If  they  aren't, 
they  come  in  a  moment.    Every  bird 


THE  CHICKADEE, 


has  his  eye  on  the  palmful  of  inviting 
black  seeds.  Every  bird  shows  unmis- 
takable signs  of  excitement,  hopping 
nearer  and  nearer  to  lower  and  lower 
twigs,  till  the  bare  tree  looks  exactly  like 
one  of  good  St.  Francis's  congregations. 
Finally,  one  bird,  bolder  than  the  rest, 
gets  on  the  very  lowest  twig  nearest  the 
hand,  and,  like  a  small  boy  suddenly 
making  up  his  mind  to  dive  into  cold 
water,  plunges  off.  Very  often  he  is 
terrified  before  he  quite  reaches  the 
hand,  and  puts  on  all  brakes,  beating 
back  with  his  wings.  But  the  bait  is  too 
tempting.  The  same  bird,  after  flying 
away  to  the  pine  hedge  for  a  moment, 
almost  invariably  comes  back  to  his 
perch  over  the  outstretched  hand,  dives 
again,  this  time  alights  on  a  finger, 
snatches  a  seed,  and  is  off  with  it  into 
the  pines.  The  other  birds  seem  plainly 
to  have  been  watching  the  outcome  of 
his  experiment,  for  soon  after  two  or 
three  others  repeat  the  operation — a 
first  attempt  which  is  stopped  in  mid- 
air, and  a  second,  braver  trial  which 
results  in  capturing  a  seed.    The  next 


day  these  bold  leaders  do  not  hesitate. 
They  come  at  once,  and  after  a  week  or 
two  of  deep  snow  the  whole  flock  will 
have  become  so  bold  that  merely  to  hold 
out  a  palmful  of  seeds  at  breakfast-time 
is  to  bring  a  steady  procession  of  chicka- 
dees to  perch  one  after  the  other  on  your 
finger. 

If  you  hold  the  seed  on  your  bare 
hand,  the  sensation  of  the  tiny  claws 
clutching  your  finger  with  a  light  yet 
strong  grip  is  quite  indescribable — a 
delicate  clutch  from  this  wild,  pretty 
little  creature  of  the  air,  this  mite  of 
puffed  feathers  and  snapping,  bright 
eyes  which  somehow  warns  the  very 
cockles  of  your  heart.  Perhaps  the  flat- 
tery of  the  bird's  confidence  has  some- 
thing to  do  with  it. 

But  my  wife  doesn't  stop  with  calling 
the  chickadees  to  her  hand.  After  they 
are  comparatively  tame  and  fearless, 
she  puts  a  sunflower  seed  between  her 
lips,  tips  her  face  upward,  and  holds  out 
her  index  finger  as  a  perch  a  few  inches 
from  her  mouth.  Many  of  the  birds 
will  now  fly  down  to  her  finger,  perch 
there  a  moment  looking  directly  into  her 
face,  then  lean  forward,  take  the  seed 
from  between  her  lips  as  though  they 
were  snatching  a  kiss,  and  fly  off  with 
it.  I  have  seen  a  chickadee  perch  in  her 
hair  also,  and  reach  down  across  her 
cheek  for  the  seed.  I  have  seen  one  on 
her  finger  and  one  on  her  hat-rim  at  the 
same  moment,  each  taking  a  seed,  for 
she  held  two  in  her  lips.  If  there  is 
only  one  seed,  however,  the  well-bred 
little  fellows  never  fight  for  it,  at  least 


OR  BLACK-CAPPED  TITMOUSE 


776 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


not  in  our  dooryard,  where  they  are  sure 
of  plenty  more.  They  are  not  nearly  so 
ready  to  take  seeds  from  my  lips,  but 
once  or  twice  they  have  done  so.  Usu- 
ally, however,  they  draw  back  when  they 
get  close;  and  it  is  a  pretty  sight  to  see 
them  put  on  the  brakes  with  their  wings 
while  their  bright  eyes  still  look  hun- 
grily at  the  food. 

The  chickadees  not  only  take  food 
from  our  hands,  however,  but  they  will 
even  come  into  the  house  to  get  it.  I 
was  inclined  not  to  believe  this  at  first, 
but  Katie  convinced  me  by  bidding  me 
sit  quietly  in  the  corner  of  the  kitchen 
while  she  set  out  her  dinner  close  to 
the  door.  Then  she  left  the  door  open, 
put  some  seeds  beside  her  plate,  and 
laid  a  little  trail  of  them  conspicuously 
on  the  white  cloth  out  to  the  end  of  the 
table.  She  began  to  eat  herself,  paying 
no  attention  to  the  birds.  Suddenly 
there  was  a  whir  of  wings,  a  bird  en- 


HE  MAKES  LIGHT  OF  THE  RIGORS  OF  WINTER 


tered,  snatched  a  seed  from  the  table, 
and  flew  out.  A  second  bird  came,  a 
third,  and  soon  the  trail  was  carried 
off,  and  Katie  was  eating  her  dinner 
with  two  chickadees  actually  standing 
on  the  table  within  six  inches  of  her 
plate!  Once  a  bird  hopped  up  on  the 
edge  of  a  dish  of  tomatoes  and  took  a 
seed  out  of  that. 

Of  course,  there  are  other  winter 
birds  than  the  chickadees  about  our 
dwelling — nuthatches  always,  for  you 
meet  few  flocks  of  chickadees  without  at 
least  a  pair  of  "devil  downheads"  in 
friendly  companionship;  a  tree  sparrow 
or  two;  and  usually  a  pair  of  wood- 
peckers. All  these  birds  feed  on  the 
window-ledge,  but  only  very  rarely  can 
a  nuthatch  be  persuaded  to  eat  from 
the  hand,  and  the  others  never.  The 
occasional  flocks  of  pine-grosbeaks  do 
not  come  even  to  the  ledge.  They  are 
shy  and  silent  birds.  But  a  pair  of  red- 
breasted  nuthatches 
— smaller  than  the 
more  common  variety 
— have  been  with  us 
for  two  winters  now. 
They  are  an  extreme- 
ly ill-mannered  and 
aggressive  pair,  too, 
driving  off  their  larger 
cousins  till  they  them- 
selves have  eaten  their 
fill.  At  first  they 
also  intimidated  the 
chickadees,  but  the 
little  fellows  soon 
rallied,  came  back 
with  a  counter  offen- 
sive en  masse,  and 
taught  the  redbreasts 
their  place. 

How  valuable  the 
chickadees  are  as  in- 
s  e  c  t  destroyers  can 
readily  be  observed 
by  anybody  who 
watches  them.  Their 
winter  appetite  is  vo- 
racious, for  it  must 
require  a  deal  of  heat 
to  keep  those  little 
bodies  warm  in  the 
bleak  storms  and 
zero  weather.  I  have 
seen   one    bird  eat 


WINGING  CHEERILY  AGAINST  THE  WHITENED  LANDSCAPE 


twenty  sunflower  seeds  in  an  hour, 
each  seed  being  for  him  the  equivalent 
in  size  of  an  English  muffin  for  you  and 
me.  With  their  short,  sharp,  powerful 
little  bills  they  go  pecking  busily  and 
incessantly  all  over  the  trees.  But  they 
are  never  too  busy  to  pay  attention  to 
the  passing  stranger. 

Not  far  from  us  there  is  a  large  coun- 
try estate,  with  a  walled  garden  deserted 
in  winter.  Over  the  wall  looks  an  apple- 
tree,  and  as  we  tramp  by  on  the  snowy 
road  we  have  only  to  pause  at  that 
point  and  whistle  to  bring  a  whole  flock 
of  chickadees  into  the  branches.  They 
are  the  only  live  things  visible  on  the 
white  face  of  nature.  They  come  down 
into  the  low  twigs  quite  close  to  us,  and 
pretend  that  all  they  came  for  was  to 
pick  off  eggs  and  scale.  They  hop  busily 
about,  their  little  bills  tapping,  their 
little  eyes  twinkling,  and  every  few 
seconds  one  of  them  does  a  flip-flop  to 
some  other  twig,  swells  up  his  throat, 
and  peals  out  his  chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee- 
dee,  exactly  as  if  he  were  greeting  us. 

When  the  world  is  beautiful  with  its 
winter  mantle,  the  fields  white,  the  tim- 


bered mountains  reddish-gray  or  ame- 
thyst, and  the  bare,  gracefully  curving 
blackberry  stalks  by  a  gray  stone  wall  a 
lovely  lavender,  the  chickadees  are  con- 
spicuous objects,  in  spite  of  their  diminu- 
tive size.  They  are  as  conspicuous  as  a 
robin  on  a  spring  lawn,  and  far  more 
decorative,  for  their  little  black  caps  and 
their  soft,  fluffy,  gray  bodies,  swaying  on 
a  lavender  berry  stalk  against  the  snow- 
white  fields,  or  perched  on  a  roadside 
rail  fence,  or  on  the  end  of  a  bare  twig 
that  comes  into  the  composition  like  the 
inevitable  branch  in  a  Japanese  print, 
seem  always  to  tone  into  the  simple  color 
scheme  of  winter — to  fit  its  minor  har- 
monies. Even  in  the  deep  woods  the 
tiny  birds  become  conspicuous  at  this 
season.  That  flock  of  them  we  saw  fly- 
ing over  the  bare  fields  toward  the  pine 
cover  is  twittering  and  dee-deeing  to  greet 
us  when  we  arrive  in  the  hushed  naves 
of  the  forest,  and  one  little  fellow,  gray 
against  the  gray  bole  of  a  giant  chestnut, 
flutters  lowrer  like  a  bit  of  animated 
bark,  to  see  who's  coming. 

From  the  fact  that  the  chickadees  re- 
main in  the  North  the  year  round,  it 


778 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


IN  THE  HUSHED  NAVES  OF  THE  FOREST 


may  be  inferred  that  they  are  either  ex- 
tremely clever  in  securing  food,  like  the 
crows,  or  else  extremely  liberal  in  their 
choice  of  a  diet.  Possibly  both  infer- 
ences are  correct.  Frozen  insects  and 
eggs  from  trees,  weed  seeds,  pine  seeds, 
and  corn  they  can  usually  find  for  them- 
selves, and  they  devour  all  of  them. 
Personally,  from  watching  their  actions 
on  apple-trees,  I  believe  they  eat  oyster- 
shell  scale.  Like  almost  all  birds,  of 
course,  they  are  greedy  for  suet;  and 
they  are  very  fond  of  sunflower  and 
pumpkin  seeds.  If  you  will  try  to  break 
a  sunflower  seed  with  your  finger-nail, 
you  will  realize  how  strong  their  little 
bills  are,  for  they  take  ofF  the  outer  shell 
with  a  couple  of  rapid  motions  as  neatly 
as  you  please.  If  you  follow  one  of  them 
down  in  the  winter  corn-field  where  a 


few  ears  have  been  left 
on  the  shocks,  or  per- 
haps on  the  ground  not 
yet  covered  with  snow, 
you  will  find  that  they 
drill  into  the  kernel 
and  extract  the  meat, 
again  with  the  utmost 
neatness.  In  common 
with  other  birds,  they 
must  like  plenty  of 
water  to  drink,  though 
I  have  never  seen  one, 
in  spring  or  summer, 
in  our  bird  baths.  I 
have,  however,  seen 
their  tracks  about  an 
open  spring  in  the 
woods,  where  the  pheas- 
ants also  came  in  great 
numbers,  and  I  have 
seen  them  eat  ice  as  a 
thirsty  dog  will  eat 
snow. 

Although  the  chick- 
adee is  such  a  friendly 
little  beggar  all  winter 
long  (indeed,  the  season 
through),  when  he  is 
merely  engaged  in  the 
occupation  o  f  getting 
food  and  the  joyous 
pastime  of  living,  when 
breeding- time  arrives 
he  suddenly  becomes 
highly  secretive,  and 
gets  as  far  out  of 
as  possible.  No  doubt  that  is 
one  of  the  reasons  the  species  has 
been  so  successful  in  the  fight  for  sur- 
vival. Like  the  woodpecker  and  the 
bluebird,  the  chickadee  nests  in  a 
hole.  Of  course  they  have  been  known 
to  select  holes  close  to  a  dwelling.  Walter 
King  Stone  tells  me  he  knew  of  a  pair 
who  nested  in  a  cranny  over  a  back- 
stoop  not  more  than  two  feet  above  the 
heads  of  the  passers.  We  now  have  an 
artificial  bird-box  in  the  apple-tree  by 
our  kitchen  window,  and  as  I  write  (in 
early  May)  a  pair  of  chickadees  have 
been  hopping  in  and  out  of  it  for  several 
days.  But  so  far  as  we  can  observe 
they  have  been  engaged  rather  in  taking 
the  sawdust  out  than  taking  any  new 
material  in.  The  same  pair  have  re- 
moved material  from  a  bluebird -box 


si^ht 


THE  FRIENDLY  CHICKADEE 


779 


near  by,  on  another  tree,  much  to  our 
disgust,  for  a  pair  of  bluebirds  had 
looked  the  property  over  several  times, 
and  apparently  were  much  pleased  with 
it. 

But  for  the  most  part  the  chickadees 
pick  out  a  well-hidden  and  rather  remote 
hole  for  their  nest,  sometimes  in  an  old 
fence-post,  more  often  higher  from  the 
ground,  in  a  tree  in  the  woods.  Some 
writers  say  they  excavate  these  holes  for 
themselves,  but  I  have  never  seen  a  nest 
in  a  hole  which  didn't  appear  to  have 
been  already  dug.    The  actual  nest  is 
made  of  wood  fiber,  wool,  hair,  fine  moss, 
feathers,  or  other  soft  material.  They 
take  the  hair  where  they  can  get  it. 
Thoreau,  who  loved  the  chickadees  and 
used  to  watch  them  pecking  bread  out 
of  the  French-Canadian  woodchopper's 
hand  in  the  Concord  woods,  records  a 
nest  in  a  small  maple  stump  which  seemed 
to  be  made  of  bluish-slate  rabbit's  fur. 
Mr.  Stone  has  seen  a 
chickadee  taking  hair 
from  the   back  of  a 
Jersey  cow  for  two 
hours.    If  they  take 
hair  from  a  cow,  they 
undoubtedly  used  to 
take  it — and  perhaps 
still  do  in  the  deep 
woods  —  from  the 
backs  of  the  deer. 
They  lay  a  sizable 
number  of  little  white 
eggs,  with  rusty,  red- 
dish -  brown  spots. 
The  young  birds, when 
they  get  their  feath- 
ers, are  indescribably 
adorable;  but  it  is  not 
often  that  you  will  see 
them.    The  male  and 
female  birds   do  not 
differ  in  appearance, 
so  it  is  usually  impos- 
sible to  determine 
which  is  the  mother, 
except  in  the  incubat- 
ing season. 

The  song  of  the 
chickadee  is  very  sim- 
ple, but  to  many  ears 
very  beautiful  in  its 
absolute  definiteness 
of  interval.  Of  course, 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785.-97 


the  better  -  known  chick-a-dee-dee-dee- 
dee-dee  is  not  its  song.  That  is  more 
like  its  college  yell,  into  which  it 
breaks  at  periodic  intervals  out  of  sheer 
exuberance  of  spirits.  Neither  is  the 
song  that  tinkling  little  lisp  with  which 
it  talks  to  you  from  the  low  twigs  of  an 
apple-tree  as  you  pass  by.  Its  song  is 
the  exquisitely  clear  whistle  which  is 
most  commonly  heard  in  spring,  and 
which  is  undoubtedly  associated  with 
the  love  life  of  the  bird — 


Some  bird  writers  render  this  whistle 
by  two  notes  instead  of  three,  and  Tho- 
reau constantly  speaks  of  the  Phce-be 
note  of  the  chickadee.  But  in  five 
years  of  constant  residence  among  the 
chickadees  of  western  Massachusetts  I 


IN  SEARCH  OF  FOOD  IN  A  WINTER  CORN-FIELD 


780 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


have  never  heard  one  who  did  not  break 
up  the  second  tone  clearly  and  sharply 
into  two  quarter-notes,  and  Mr.  Stone 
agrees  with  me  in  this.  Nor  is  it  true 
that  the  song  is  confined  to  spring, 
though  it  is  then  most  frequently  heard. 
It  comes  occasionally  out  of  the  depths 
of  the  summer  pines  or  the  pasture  hedge- 
rows, and  very  often  we  hear  it  floating 
over  the  frozen  fields  of  winter,  an  ex- 
quisite and  a  cheering  note,  the  chicka- 
dees' 

If  winter   comes,  can   spring  be   far  be- 
hind?" 

F.  Schuyler  Matthews,  in  his  excellent 
Field  Book  of  Wild  Birds  and  Their 
Music,  says:  "Few  small  birds  whistle 
their  songs  so  clearly,  and  separate  the 
tones  by  such  lucid  intervals.  The 
charm,  too,  of  the  chickadee's  singing 
lies  in  the  fact  that  he  knows  the  value 
of  a  well-sustained  half-note,  another 
point  which  should  be  scored  in  the 
little  musician's  favor."  Still  another 
is  that  the  chickadee  so  far  recognizes 


the  musical  intervals  of  his  song  that  he 
will  answer  those  notes  when  you  whistle 
them.  We  can  go  out  into  our  yard  at 
any  hour  of  the  day  in  spring — indeed, 
during  the  winter,  too — and  whistle  a 
couple  of  times,  to  be  answered,  from 
near  or  far,  by  a  bird.  After  he  has  once 
answered  you,  he  will  keep  up  the  con- 
versation, the  musical  dialogue,  as  long 
as  your  patience  holds  out,  like  a  dog 
chasing  a  stick.  Mr.  Matthews  records 
a  curious  thing  about  this  performance. 
He  has,  he  says,  frequently  persuaded 
the  chickadee  to  come  down  to  a  lower 
pitch  by  setting  his  own  whistle  lower, 
but  he  has  never  been  able  to  persuade 
the  bird  to  go  back  to  the  original  one 
after  the  descent. 

While  it  is  easy  for  anybody  to  in- 
duce the  chickadee  to  answer  his  whistle, 
comparatively  few  people  can  imitate 
the  timbre  well  enough  to  call  the  birds 
directly  to  him.  The  artist  for  this 
article  can,  however,  and  it  is  a  quaint 
spectacle  which  would  have  delighted 
the  good  Saint  of  Assisi  to  see  him  with 


ON  THE  BLACKBERRY  STALKS  BY  A  GRAY  STONE  WALL  THE  CHICKADEE  IS  A  CONSPICUOUS  OBJECT 


PERCHED  ON  THE  END  OF  A  BARE  TWIG  AS  IN  A  JAPANESE  PRINT 


a  fat  little  fellow  on  his  head,  another 
on  his  hand,  and  still  another  on  his 
shoulder  actually  answering  the  whistle 
directly  into  his  mouth!  The  oddest 
part  about  this  performance  is  that  no 
matter  how  many  birds  come  to  the 
call,  first  into  overhanging  branches  and 
then  to  his  person,  only  one  of  them 
does  the  replying,  and  that  bird  is  the 
only  one  which  appears  excited.  He, 
however,  is  manifestly  wrought  up.  His 
feathers  fluff,  his  movements  are  rapid, 
he  is  conspicuously  restless. 

This  song,  undoubtedly,  is  connected 
with  the  mating  and  domestic  life  of  the 
chickadees.  I  have  records  of  observa- 
tions which  show  that  a  bird,  bringing 
food,  uttered  it,  that  it  was  answered 
by  the  mate  inside  the  nesting-hole,  and 


that  she  then  appeared  out  of  the  hole 
and  took  the  food.  Not  all  of  us  humans 
summon  our  wives  in  so  charming  a 
manner! 

Cheerful,  happy,  brave,  musical  little 
bird,  whom  Thoreau  loved  and  Emerson 
praised ! 

This  scrap  of  valor  just  for  play 

Fronts  the  north  wind  in  waistcoat  gray, 

As  if  to  shame  my  weak  behavior. 

Like  the  dog,  you  flatter  us  with  your 
friendliness,  you  protect  our  trees,  you 
sing  of  summer  when  the  woods  are 
bare,  you  put  life  and  music  into  our 
bleakest  landscapes.  May  your  supply 
of  sunflower  seeds  never  grow  less  on 
hospitable  window-ledges! 


Constance  the  Parasite 


BY  J  LICE  COWDERY 


S  Constance  dusted  the 
living-room  she  glanced 
at  Tom  in  the  sun- 
parlor,  where,  beyond 
tight-shut  glass  doors, 
haloed  in  spirals  of  pipe 
smoke,  he  pounded  at 
his  typewriter.  He  sat  there  from  eight 
to  eleven  every  morning  with  dashing 
fingers,  disheveled  hair,  knitted  brow, 
and  a  persistency  that  fascinated  her 
while  it  baffled  her  comprehension. 

Suddenly  she  threw  down  her  duster 
and,  going  over  to  the  piano,  opened  her 
music  haphazardly  and  began  to  play. 
The  noise  of  it  pierced  gradually  even 
the  abstraction  of  the  sun-parlor.  Tom, 
frowning,  raised  his  head  and  peered  in 
at  her.  She  looked  like  a  little  girl,  the 
toes  of  her  white  pumps  just  on  the 
pedals.  He  grinned  and  went  on  with  his 
story.  The  crash  of  the  piano  keys,  the 
pound  of  the  typewriter,  continued  in 
fearful  competition  for  three  minutes. 
Then,  as  suddenly  as  she  had  begun, 
Constance  hurled  the  music  from  the 
rack  and  picked  up  her  duster  again. 

At  eleven  Tom  emerged,  repaired  the 
ravages  of  work,  and  started  for  the  city, 
where,  in  the  afternoons,  he  had  a  post 
as  private  secretary. 

"I  mustn't  forget  to  renew  our  lease 
to-day,"  he  said  as  he  left  Constance 
in  the  doorway. 

"You  want  to  keep  always  stuck  in 
the  country,  do  you?"  asked  Constance, 
with  a  gusty  sigh. 

"Why" — Tom  stopped  on  the  lower 
step  and  stared  back  at  her — "I  thought 
we'd  decided  to  stay  here  for  another 
year. 

Constance  leaned  listlessly  against  the 
door-post  and  sighed  again. 

"1  nought  you  liked  it,"  said  Tom, 
and  there  was  a  note  of  injury  in  his 
voice.    "  You  suggested  it." 

"Not  for  ever." 

"But  I  can  write  here  better  than  in 
the  city," 


"I've  nothing  to  do,"  said  Constance, 
"for  seven  hours." 

Tom  still  stared  at  her.  "Why  there's 
the  house,  and  reading,  and  walking,  and 
— and  your  tea-parties  and  all  that — " 

"Oh,  that!"  Constance  shrugged  a 
scornful  shoulder. 

Tom  glanced  impatiently  from  his 
watch  to  the  incoming  ferry-boat  in  the 
cove  below. 

"Well,  if  we  were  in  the  city  what 
would  you  do?" 

"I  don't  know,"  murmured  Con- 
stance. Tom  looked  at  her,  puzzled,  and 
ran  for  his  boat. 

"It's  all  right,  then,  is  it?"  he  shouted 
back  from  the  road.  "I'm  to  renew  it, 
eh?" 

"Oh,  renew  it!  I  don't  care,"  said 
Constance. 

She  roamed  about  the  bungalow,  went 
up  into  their  redwood  grove,  and  flung 
herself  into  a  hammock.  Seven  hours 
until  dinner  and  Tom's  return.  Always 
seven.  Eight  or  nine  out  of  the  twenty- 
four  you  slept.  Three  or  four  you  de- 
voted to  food  and  dressing.  Three  or 
four  you  did  up  all  the  things  you  had 
undone  in  the  others,  morning  after 
morning.  Then  for  the  seven  remaining 
you  could  sew  or  walk  or  read  or  see 
people  you  really  didn't  care  about  see- 
ing. Why,  it  was  ghastly !  Or  you  could 
sit  before  a  piano  and  emphasize  how 
hopelessly  execrable  a  player  you  were. 
Suddenly  she  flung  herself  out  of  the 
hammock.  She  would  go  home  to  lunch, 
thereby  using  up  most  of  that  day's 
seven  hours. 

There  was  a  certain  palliation,  after 
all,  she  found,  in  being  young,  pretty, 
well  dressed,  in  the  knowledge  that  the 
general  public  were  not  quite  indifferent 
to  these  attributes  of  herself.  On  the 
whole,  it  was  a  radiant-seeming  Con- 
stance that  stopped  to  pull  the  tawny 
whiskers  of  the  fat  cat  on  the  family 
door-step,  that  greeted  old  Fong,  who, 
grinning  welcome,  let  her  in.   The  little 


CONSTANCE  THE  PARASITE 


783 


spasm  of  homesickness  that  she  always 
felt  when  she  came  back  there  was  mel- 
lowing, not  unpleasant. 

"  Mother  home,  Fong?" 

"Old  lady  out,"  said  Fong,  uncon- 
scious of  disrespect.  Sister  up-stairs." 

Constance  raised  her  voice  from  the 
foot  of  the  stairs,  but  received  no  re- 
sponse. 

"Fong,"  she  whispered,  confidentially, 
over  the  banisters.  "Crab  salad  for 
lunch  ?" 

Fong  grinned. 

"And,  Fong.    Lots  of  mayonnaise?" 

Fong  grunted  ecstatically. 

Constance,  as  she  went  up  to  her  sis- 
ter's room,  was  aware  now  of  a  familiar 
click  and  pound. 

"Hello,  Helen!"  she  cried;  and  then 
she  added,  "Good  gracious!  there's  no 
escaping  it — " 

Her  sister,  without  turning,  waved  a 
hand  briefly,  and  continued  to  pound  on 
her  typewriter  with  the  other.  Con- 
stance stared  at  her  back,  smiling 
slightly. 

"There,"  said  Helen.  "Was  afraid  I'd 
lose  it."  She  gloated  over  the  last  line 
a  moment,  removed  her  glasses  focused 
to  writing  distance,  and  turned  about 
to  Constance.  "Hullo!"  she  said,  blink- 
ing slightly.    "No  escaping  what?" 

Constance  looked  rather  solemnly 
now  at  the  typewriter.  "Tom's  goes  all 
the  morning,  sometimes  at  night.  Didn't 
think  I'd  get  it  here,  too.  Why,  every- 
body s  writing!" 

Helen  regarded  her  sister  with  some 
displeasure.  She  felt  an  objection  to 
"everybody's  writing."  But  she  con- 
quered her  annoyance,  or  thought  she 
did,  and  smiled  in  slight,  superior  man- 
ner. "There's  a  little  difference,  my 
dear  child,  between  Tom's  baseball 
stories,  for  instance,  stories  written  for 
the  mere  object  of  giving  amusement, 
and — er — well,  in  short,  a  problem  play 
that  aims  to  give  light" 

"Oh!"  said  Constance.  She  had  an 
idea  that  she  prefered  the  certain  amuse- 
ment that  Tom  gave  to  the  vague  light 
that  Helen  might  possibly  disseminate. 
Furthermore,  for  Tom's  sake,  she  re- 
sented Helen's  tone  of  superiority. 
Helen  was  aware  that  behind  that  "Oh!" 
forces  of  argument  and  rebuttal  were 
marshaling,  so  she  added,  briskly: 


"You're  looking  awfully  well,  dear. 
Your  clothes  are  so  becoming.  /  don't 
have  time  any  more  to  bother  about 
such  things." 

Constance,  still  rankled  by  this  supe- 
rior attitude,  surveyed  her  sister  criti- 
cally. Helen's  hair  was  rolled  about  her 
head  with  one  disheveled  sweep  from 
which  a  few  straight  locks  straggled 
about  her  face.  She  had  on  a  once 
handsome  kimona  of  pale -blue,  now 
adorned  with  spots  suggestive  of  break- 
fasts in  abstraction.  Her  slippers  were 
far  from  what  self-respecting  slippers 
should  be. 

"Where's  mother  gone?"  asked  Con- 
stance after  assimilating  these  details. 

"That  superficial  club  of  hers.  She 
said  if  you  came  over,  to  meet  her  there 
at  three." 

Constance  sighed.  She  had  success- 
fully evaded  that  club  hitherto.  "  How's 
father?" 

"All  right,"  said  Helen,  indifferently. 
"Plodding  along." 

Constance  picked  up  the  'phone  and 
rang  her  father  up.  As  she  put  down 
the  receiver  there  was  a  little  mist  be- 
fore her  eyes.  "He's  a  dear,  isn't  he?" 
shemurmured,  ratherwistfully.  "  Sounds 
awfully  tired,  his  voice,  though."  She 
looked  at  Helen  inquiringly. 

"Oh,  he  keeps  cheerful,"  said  Helen. 
"Every  one  who  works,  who  has  some 
object  in  life,  even  money-making,  gets 
tired.  But  it's  a  nice  tired.  I'm  tired 
all  the  time  now."  She  glanced  at  her 
typewriter.  There  was  a  hint  of  pride 
in  Helen's  voice.  There  was  in  it  also, 
Constance  felt,  a  certain  undercurrent 
of  reproof  quite  subtly  directed  toward 
Constance  herself. 

Constance  took  off  her  coat  and 
gloves,  threw  them  on  the  bed,  and  went 
over  to  the  window.  "Turners  have  a 
Pomeranian,"  she  cried,  to  change  the 
subject. 

"That  seems  to  be  her  object.  That 
and  dear  Alfred."  Here  reproof  ap- 
peared to  direct  itself  more  forcibly  sis- 
terward.  Constance  began  to  tap  on 
the  window-pane. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "if  she's  happy — " 

"No  woman  can  be  happy  who  just 
lives  on  a  man." 

Constance  turned  about  at  her  sister. 
"How  do  you  know?" 


784 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"My  dear  child,  aren't  you  reading  at 
all?  Not  your  pretty  love-stories,  but 
real  things  about  what  women  are  doing 
and  thinking.  Can't  you  feel  it  in  the 
air?"  Helen  made  a  large  circum- 
ambient gesture.  "But  perhaps,"  she 
added,  thoughtfully,  "it  takes  the  more 
sensitive  creative  temperament  to  feel 
such  things."  She  looked  at  Constance 
solemnly.  "Don't  you  know  that  no 
woman  really  begins  to  live  until  she  is  at 
least  economically  independent?" 

"What's  that?"  said  Constance,  an 
impertinent  gleam  in  her  eye. 

"You  don't  know  what  economical 
independence  means!"  cried  Helen,  ig- 
noring that  gleam,  or,  perhaps  because 
of  it,  interpreting  as  if  to  a  child.  "It 
means  supporting  herself  without  any 
man's  aid." 

Constance  considered  her  sister. 
Helen  was  really  almost  insufferable  to- 
day. "After  all,"  she  cried,  suddenly, 
triumphantly,  "you  do.  You  live  on  a 
man.  You  live  on  father,  and  you  have 
been  for  twenty-five  years." 

Helen  shrugged  her  shoulders  with 
that  same  cool  superiority.  "Fathers 
are  different.  They  knew  what  respon- 
sibilities they  were  undertaking  when 
they  became  fathers.  But  the  point  is, 
with  other  men  the  sex  question  becomes 
confused  with  that  of  support,  and 
makes  the  whole  thing  degrading." 

"It  is  not,"  said  Constance,  hotly. 

Helen  kept  her  superior  calm.  "Be- 
sides, I  shall  only  be  dependent  on 
father  now  until  I've  had  my  play  ac- 
cepted." 

Constance  looked  rather  grudgingly 
at  the  papers  scattered  over  desk  and 
bed.  "So  that's  why  you're  doing  all 
this." 

Helen  smiled.  "Naturally  it  will 
make  me  economically  independent. 
But  I'm  writing  a  play  because  I 
must." 

Constance  stared  at  Helen  reflectively 
again.  There  was  something  she  didn't 
quite  understand  about  her  sister  in  this 
new  phase.  She  had  left  her  a  happy- 
go-lucky  person  occupied  with  sociabil- 
ity and  clothes,  and  there  she  sat  now 
in  a  sort  of  irritating  unbudgingness  as  if 
she  said,  "I  shall  sit  here,  hour  after 
hour,  day  after  day,  writing  plays;  for 
years  and  years  I  shall  sit  here." 


"I  get  breakfast  and  take  care  of  our 
bungalow,"  said  Constance,  suddenly. 

"Pooh!"  said  Helen.  "A  couple  of 
hours'  work.  You  bring  in  nothing. 
You  give  nothing  to  the  world.  It's  just 
you  and  Tom — " 

"Yes,"  said  Constance,  softly,  "it's 
just  me  and  Tom." 

"Of  course,"  Helen  continued,  medi- 
tatively, "if  a  woman  is  fulfiling  mar- 
riage in  its  highest  sense — producing 
children — I  suppose,  for  a  while,  that's 
enough;  but  for  two  people — "  Again 
Helen's  tone  was  laden  with  cadences  of 
reproach. 

Constance  glared  at  her  sister.  "I'll 
manage  my  affairs  in  my  own  way,"  she 
said,  hotly. 

"Just  the  same,  /" — and  Helen  em- 
phasized it  almost  viciously—"/  would 
rather  be  in  my  grave  than  content  to 
be  a — "  Before  Constance's  face  she 
hesitated. 

"Well,  go  on.    Say  it—" 

"Parasite,"  said  Helen,  tensely. 

"  Parasite?"  repeated  Constance.  "Oh, 
you  mean  mistletoe?" 

Helen  wheeled  fiercely  to  her  desk. 
At  this  crisis  the  Chinese  gong  in  the  hall 
below  summoned  sweetly  to  lunch. 

"Helen,"  cried  Constance,  resolved  on 
peace,  "crab  salad!  Surprise,  Fong  and 
I  planned.  We  never  got  enough  unless 
we  were  alone.  Remember  the  glorious 
gorges  we  used  to  have,  Helen  darling?" 

To  the  warmth  occasioned  by  this  ten- 
der memory,  to  the  touch  of  Constance's 
arm  about  her,  Helen's  strenuous  aloof- 
ness melted.  They  went  down  to  the 
dining-room.  But  suddenly  Constance, 
in  the  midst  of  lunch,  got  up  and  went 
across  into  the  library.  She  opened  the 
big  dictionary  at  P  and  read: 

"Parasite:  one  who  frequents  the 
tables  of  the  rich  and  earns  his  welcome 
by  flattery."  A  peal  of  mirth  came  out 
from  the  library. 

"What's  the  matter?"  called  Helen. 

Constance,  unheeding  her,  read  fur- 
ther. "Parasite:  a  plant  or  animal 
which  attaches  itself  to  and  lives  upon 
another." 

Yes,  Helen's  use  of  the  word,  as  a 
word,  and  according  to  Helen's  lights, 
was  justifiable.  She  came  slowly  back 
to  her  place  and  continued,  during  in- 
tervals of  crab,  to  meditate. 


CONSTANCE  THE  PARASITE 


785 


Constance's  mother,  in  tailored  mauve 
taffetas,  her  sleek  gray  hair  crowned 
with  a  pansy  toque,  was  presiding  over 
affairs  when  Constance  arrived  at  her 
club.  Constance  sat  down  as  near  the 
wall  as  possible. 

Her  mother  announced  the  week's  pro- 
gramme of  club  work.  Then  a  young 
man  was  produced  who  spoke  of  The 
Influence  of  Japanese  Art  on  Our  Do- 
mestic Interiors.  Constance  planned, 
vaguely,  to  get  a  stunted  Japanese  tree 
for  the  dining-room  table,  but  still  in 
her  consciousness  the  word  parasite  was 
underscoring  itself. 

Here  were  women,  vastly  older  than 
herself,  most  of  them.  Were  they,  too, 
parasites?  If  you  tried  to  become  ab- 
sorbed in  Japanese  art,  for  example,  were 
you  not  still  attaching  yourself  to  and 
living  on  Tom?  She  made  her  way 
through  the  risen  groups  to  her  mother's 
side. 

"My  dear  child,  so  glad  you  came," 
cried  her  mother,  and  introduced  her 
copiously.  "My  daughter,  Mrs.  Parker; 
my  other  girl  is  a  playwright  now." 
Always  her  mother  managed  to  intro- 
duce the  absent  Helen  as  a  playwright. 
That  fact  undoubtedly  held  the  mo- 
ment's thrill.  Her  mother  took  her  away 
at  last  in  her  little  electric. 

"I,  too,"  mused  her  mother,  "if  I'd 
had  the  chance,  at  Helen's  age — but 
there  were  you  children."  She  implied 
vast  achievements  of  some  sort,  ir- 
revocably thwarted.  "However,"  she 
continued,  briskly,  "to  keep  stimulated 
is  the  thing,"  and  she  neatly  evaded  two 
cars  and  a  truck.  "I  hope  you  keep  up 
your  music.    Do  you?" 

Constance  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"You  must.  And  you  must  get  into 
some  intellectual  and  social  work.  Now 
while  I'm  in  office  I  can  get  you 
started.  You  could  join  the  Browning 
classes  and  the  Social  Amelioration,  and 
then  on  Saturdays  there's  a  sewing-class 
which  the  younger  women  are  conduct- 
ing in  the  South  Park  slums.  Just 
vegetating  over  there  in  the  country 
won't  keep  you  happy  long." 

Constance  murmured  something 
about  thinking  it  over. 

"I'll  have  to  leave  you  at  your  car, 
dear,"  resumed  her  mother.  "I've  a 
committee   meeting.     Love   to  Tom. 


Now  remember  you're  going  to  join 
us. 

Constance  looked  after  that  trim 
mauve  efficiency  tooling  away  in  her 
shining  little  car,  sighed,  recalled  that 
Mila  lived  near,  and  decided  that  she 
might  as  well  pay  her  a  long-delayed  call. 
There  were,  after  all,  a  number  of  things 
one  could  do  from  moment  to  moment 
to  keep  from  thinking;  and  if  one  did 
enough  of  them,  hour  after  hour,  day 
after  day,  year  after  year — she  sighed 
again,  took  a  hasty  glance  at  herself  on 
the  vestibule  of  Mila's  flat,  and  rang  the 
bell. 

A  rather  slovenly  maid  let  her  in. 
Mila  stuck  her  head  out  from  a  room 
down  the  long  hall,  called  to  her,  and 
disappeared.  She  was  in  the  nursery. 
There  was  dampness  from  small  gar- 
ments on  a  tiny  clothes-horse  before  the 
radiator.  Two  children  on  the  floor 
strewn  with  blocks  and  toys  were  in 
various  stages  of  undress.  Mila  was  un- 
doing a  third.  She  was  Helen's  age 
and  had  been  married  eight  years.  To 
Constance's  critical  young  eye  she 
seemed  older  than  her  own  mother.  She 
had  lost  the  color  which  had  been  her 
chief  claim  to  prettiness;  her  loose  wrap- 
per was  none  too  becoming.  Constance 
regarded  her  with  mingled  pity  and  dis- 
gust. Conversation  was  intermittent, 
broken  by  admonition  to  the  two  on  the 
floor.  It  was  as  if  Mila  moved  in  a 
world  in  which  Constance  was  exotic, 
almost  superfluous.  Suddenly  the  baby 
reached  out  and  grabbed  Constance's 
lace  frill  in  a  moist  fist. 

"He  likes  the  pretty,  pretty  lady," 
cried  Mila.  "Want  to  go  to  pretty  lady 
a  moment?" 

Constance,  with  an  apprehensive  eye 
on  her  new  tailored  suit,  took  him  gin- 
gerly. She  had  never  held  a  baby  before. 
She  felt  fearful  of  doing  some  strange 
damage  to  the  baby;  she  felt  a  curious 
respectfulness  toward  its  appalling  help- 
lessness; and  then,  as  the  warm  little 
body  relaxed  in  her  arms  and  the  deep 
blue  eyes  stared  up  into  hers,  some  pri- 
mal instinct  of  womanhood  stirred  in 
her,  held  her  fascinated,  brooding. 

She  handed  the  baby  back  and  sprang 
up  with  the  excuse  of  a  boat  to  be 
caught.  A  wild  impulse  to  escape  sent 
her  running  down  the  steps  and  out  of 


786 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


the  house.  There  was  quick  joy  in 
movement,  in  the  consciousness  of  her 
unhampered  pace,  in  her  beauty  con- 
trasted with  the  memory  of  Mila's  dis- 
torted figure — momentary,  triumphant 
joy  singing  in  her.  And  then,  as  she 
went  her  way  to  the  boat,  she  became 
conscious  of  the  streams  of  women  that 
poured  out  from  factory  and  shop  and 
office,  and  that  rankling  word  "parasite" 
began  its  underscoring  again.  Hitherto 
she  had  taken  these  women  for  granted, 
but  now  she  saw  them.  They  were  tired 
and  dragged;  they  were  healthy  and 
smiling,  but  they  did  not,  apparently, 
attach  themselves  to  and  live  on  others. 

It  was  a  tired  and  quiet  Constance 
that  greeted  Tom  that  night  at  dinner. 

"Been  home?"  asked  Tom. 

She  nodded,  and  then  remarked, 
"Helen's  writing  a  play." 

"The  deuce  she  is!"  And  for  some 
reason  Tom  laughed. 

"She's  going  to  be  economically  inde- 
pendent." 

Constance,  soothed  by  that  first 
laugh,  awaited  another.  Instead  Tom 
said,  heartily,  "Good  for  Helen!" 

Constance  stared  at  him  in  quick  in- 
dignation. "You  think  /  ought  to  be 
economically  independent?" 

"You!"  Tom  laughed  again.  "What 
an  idea!" 

^Why  not— if  Helen— " 

"You're  married,"  said  Tom,  finally. 
"That's  different." 

"Helen  says  it's  not." 

"What's  she  know  about  it?" 

Again  this  mollified  Constance  a  bit. 
"I'm  nearly  twenty-one  and  I've  never 
really  worried  about  anything." 

"Good  gracious!   Why  should  you?" 

"I  don't  do  a  bit  of  good." 

"You  do  me  a.  lot." 

Constance  smiled  slightly.  "Oh,  the 
house  and  things.  But  even  mother 
thinks  it  time  I  worried,  you  know. 
Tom,  I  ought  to — Japanese  art — and 
votes  and  purposes  and  suffering  and  all 
those  things.  I'm  not  a  bit  interested  in 
votes;  I  only  give  people  dimes  when 
they  ask  me  for  them;  I  hate  clubs — I 
think  it's  impertinent  to  go  around  tell- 
ing other  people  what  they  ought  to  do. 
I've  just  been  happy  with  you  and  every- 
thing,and  I've  no  right  to  just  be  happy." 


"You  have"  said  Tom,  indignantly. 

Constance  went  into  the  living-room. 
Tom  followed  her.  He  turned  on  the 
reading-lamp,  got  out  his  manuscript  to 
read  over  his  morning's  work.  Con- 
stance wandered  to  the  window  and 
stared  out  to  where  the  lights  twinkled 
in  the  cove  below,  where  the  rim  of  cities 
curved  like  a  shining  necklace  about  the 
bay;  where  a  world  of  beings  lived, 
purposeful,  unparasitic.  She  turned  and 
stared  at  Tom  immersed  in  smoke,  ab- 
sorbed in  his  work,  purposeful,  unpara- 
sitic. She  went  over  to  the  fireplace, 
kicked  a  spark  from  the  rug,  walked  over 
to  the  piano,  crashed  down  on  it.  Tom, 
frowning  slightly,  continued  reading. 

"Went  in  to  Mila's  to-day,"  said  Con- 
stance, between  crashes. 

"Wonderful,"  reflected  Tom's  sub- 
conscious self,  "what  noise'  so  slight  a 
girl  can  make." 

"It  was  awful — "   Another  crash. 

"H'm?    How?"  murmured  Torm 

"Nerve-wracking.  Three  under  seven 
— disgusting — "  Crash. 

Tom  looked  up  suddenly.  "Children 
— disgusting?" 

"Wet  things,  steaming.  She  looks 
like  old  Kate  who  does  our  wash — " 
Another  crash,  and  then,  "I  can't  stand 
children." 

Tom  removed  his  pipe  slowly,  looking 
over  at  her. 

"Just  a  few  moments — when  they're 
clean  and  dressed  up — not  in  those  hide- 
ous flannel  things — and  then — I  want 
nurses — tidy,  smart  nurses  to  come  im- 
mediately— and  take  'em  away."  Con- 
stance stood  up  abruptly,  and  swept  her 
music  from  the  stand.  "I've  practised 
years  and  years,  and  I  can't  even  play. 
I'm  going  to  bed." 

He  heard  the  door  of  her  room  shut. 
His  manuscript  lay  neglected  on  the 
table.  Long  after  his  pipe  went  out 
Tom  stared,  motionless,  into  the  fire. 

Tom  carried  about  with  him  the  next 
day  a  vague  impression  of  merry  lips 
repressed.  It  was  really  a  matter  of 
chin,  for  Constance  was  developing  the 
theory  that  if  you  consistently  protrude 
that  feature  your  character  will  thereby 
achieve  aggression  and  purposefulness. 
After  Tom  had  gone  and  she  had  eaten 
a  sandwich  for  lunch,  sitting  medita- 


CONSTANCE  THE  PARASITE 


787 


tively  on  the  kitchen  table,  Constance 
went  over  to  the  city  and  procured  such 
volumes  appertaining  to  matters  of  mod- 
ern feminism  as  the  librarian  could  sug- 
gest. Laden  with  these  and  a  copious 
supply  of  milk  chocolate,  she  turned 
homeward.  She  began  her  reading  on 
the  long  boat-ride,  exhilaratingly  con- 
scious of  aloofness  to  the  mere  suburban 
shoppers  about  her  chattering  so  puer- 
ilely. She  took  out  a  pencil  from  her 
vanity-case  and  underlined  the  more 
striking  phrases.  At  home,  fortified  at 
intervals  by  chocolate,  she  continued  to 
read  until  Tom's  advent  for  dinner, 
when  she  deposited  her  books  under  the 
living-room  couch  and  emerged,  firm 
but  kindly,  to  her  immediate  duties. 
She  listened  politely  to  Tom's  account 
of  his  afternoon. 

"Saw  Chalmers  to-day,"  he  remarked. 
Chalmers  used  to  be  a  fellow  bank  clerk 
with  Tom.    "He's  got  a  son." 

Constance  raised  her  brows  with 
slightly  over-emphasized  indifference. 
Tom  looked  at  his  plate  in  silence. 

"Their  income  isn't  nearly  as  large  as 
ours,  is  it?"  she  asked,  reflectively. 

"No." 

"And  they  wanted  it?"  She  laid  on  an 
emphasis  of  extreme  skepticism. 

"Judging  from  Chalmers's  remarks," 
said  Tom,  quietly,  "it  seems  they 
wanted  it,  all  right." 

Constance  suddenly  brought  a  small 
fist  down  on  the  table.  "It's  all  wrong," 
she  said. 

Tom  looked  at  her  in  some  amaze- 
ment. 

"Oh,  I've  been  reading  books  you 
mightn't  imagine,"  continued  Con- 
stance. "There  are  too  many  people 
now  in  the  world.   Think  of  the  slums." 

Tom  gulped.  "Chalmers's  home,"  he 
said,  weakly,  "is  hardly  a  slum." 

"That  evades  the  question,"  replied 
Constance,  loftily.  "Population  should 
be  based  on  income." 

"Well,"  said  Tom,  "if  everybody 
waited  until  they  thought  they  could 
afford  to  have  children,  precious  few 
there'd  be."  He  rose  from  the  table. 
"Want  to  walk?" 

"No." 

Tom  wandered  away  into  the  long 
twilight. 

Constance  took  her  book  and  sat  down 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  785.-98 


by  the  open  window.  Tom  walked  up 
and  down  the  road  before  the  house. 
Then  she  heard  voices  calling  to  him. 
She  glanced  out.  Two  children  came 
scampering  through  the  bushes  and  flung 
themselves  upon  Tom.  Constance  re- 
sumed her  reading,  but  squeals  of  delight 
and  the  low  murmur  of  Tom's  voice  in- 
terrupted it.  She  glanced  out  again 
from  behind  her  curtain.  Tom  had  set- 
tled on  the  top  step  with  a  child  on 
either  side.  Evidently  a  story  was  going 
on.  The  little  girl,  the  very  bow  on  her 
head  bristling  with  absorption,  had  her 
hand  on  Tom's  knee.  Suddenly  Tom 
ended  in  a  roar  of  laughter,  rumpled  the 
boy's  hair,  caught  up  the  little  girl  under 
his  arm,  swinging  her  gigantically,  put 
her  down  with  a  hug,  and  sent  them 
shouting  before  him  down  the  road. 
Constance  slammed  her  book  shut  and 
drew  the  curtains. 

When  Tom  came  in  she  was  reading 
with  an  air  of  calm  aloofness.  After  a 
moment  she  raised  her  eyes.  "It  is 
perfectly  true,"  she  remarked.  "If  a 
woman  doesn't  intend  to  have  children, 
then  she  must  be  economically  inde- 
pendent or  she's  a  parasite." 

"A  what?"   Tom  stared  at  her. 

"Parasite:  one  who  attaches  herself 
to  and  lives  on  another." 

Tom  roared.  He  couldn't  help  it. 
She  did  look  so  proud  and  funny. 

"You  laugh?" 

"I  can't  help  it,  you  darling  little, 
little — Parry."  The  very  instant  he  had 
said  it  Tom  realized  his  mistake.  The 
silence  hung  icy.  Constance  picked  up 
her  book  and  went  toward  the  door. 

"See  here,"  cried  Tom,  "you're  stuff- 
ing your  head  with  a  lot  of  second-hand 
notions  you  don't  know  anything  about. 
I'm  taking  care  of  the  economic  inde- 
pendence of  this  family.  I'm  making  it 
the  end  and  object  of  my  life  at  present 
to  be  able  to  do  it.  I'm — "  but  Con- 
stance was  already  in  the  hall. 

"See  here,"  shouted  Tom,  desperately, 
after  her.  "You  earn  your  keep,  if  that's 
what  ails  you." 

Constance  turned  then  with  gentle 
dignity.  "You  do  not  understand.  I  do 
not  intend  to  go  through  life  a  mere 
housekeeper." 

Tom  rumpled  his  hair  violently. 
"Aren't  things  getting  easier?  Haven't 


788 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


you  a  Jap  now  for  dinner  and  cleaning? 
Why,  I'm  making  more  money  all  the 
time.  This  series  of  stuff  the  Friday 
Night  Herald's  running,  and — " 

"It  is  not  entirely  a  question  of 
money."  There  was  a  curious  echo  of 
Helen's  lofty  superiority  in  her  tone. 
"It's  a  moral  issue,"  said  Constance,  and 
wafted  herself  gently  away. 

It  was  the  fatal  first  of  the  month. 
Tom  looked  up  from  a  bill  in  his  morn- 
ing's mail.  The  eye  that  he  fixed  on 
Constance  was  irate.  Immediately  Con- 
stance knew.  It  was  that  account  she 
had  opened. 

"That  was  addressed  to  me,"  she  said. 

Tom  looked  at  the  envelope  again. 
"It  was  not." 

"It  should  have  been,"  said  Con- 
stance. 

Tom  frowned  down  at  the  bill.  "I 
thought,"  he  said,  with  cold  restraint, 
"we  had  decided  not  to  charge." 

Constance  sat  silent,  but  the  eyes 
fixed  on  him  were  shining,  and  a  smile 
was  hidden  at  the  corner  of  her  lips. 

Tom  continued  to  stare  at  the  bill,  the 
muscles  about  his  jaws  working  in  de- 
termined self-control  as  he  muttered: 
"Twenty  for  a  hat,  twelve  for  shoes,  and 
ten  —  Good  heavens!- — I — ■  See  here, 
Constance.  I'm  damned  if  I  get  into  debt 
again.  I  can't  pay  for  these  things  this 
month."  He  picked  up  his  mail  and 
left  the  room  abruptly.  Tom  was  deeply 
hurt.  He  had  always  put  his  checks  into 
the  bank  for  her  to  draw  on  as  she 
needed,  confident  of  her  discretion.  Sud- 
den wanton  extravagance  on  her  part 
was  less  of  a  hurt  to  him  than  her  having 
gone  back  on  their  agreement. 

Constance  arose  swiftly  and  followed 
him  into  the  sun-parlor.  "You're  not 
going  to  pay  for  them,  Tom."  Her  eyes 
shone,  her  voice  was  vibrant  with  ex- 
citement. "/  am,  with  my  very  own 
money." 

Tom  faced  about  at  her. 

"That's  why  I  got  them."  And  Con- 
stance, with  a  little  chuckle,  perched  her- 
self on  the  window-ledge.  "A  dollar  and 
a  half  an  hour,"  she  cried,  "three  after- 
noons a  week — forty  dollars  a  month. 
I'll  settle  that  bill  in  a  month." 

"What  on  earth  are  you  talking 
about?" 


"The  minute  the  idea  struck  me  I  put 
on  my  things  and  went  over  to  the  city. 
And  I  got  it." 

"Got  what?" 

"Music  pupils,  the  very  littlest — at 
Miss  Greggs's — my  old  school,  you 
know.  There  was  a  vacancy,  and  I'm 
to  give  her  twenty  per  cent,  commission; 
and  I  was  so  excited  I  guess  I  made  her 
think  I  really  could  do  it — and  really, 
Tom,  I  can,  you  know."  She  gave  a 
quick  glance  at  Tom's  face,  hesitated, 
and  then  continued  a  little  breathlessly: 
"And  the  children  will  adore  me.  They 
love  pretty  clothes,  and — and  people — 
and  haven't  you  noticed  my  restraint, 
Tom  ?  No  more  wild  slashes  at  things — 
scales  now,  etudes.  I  begin  next  week. 
You  see,  I  didn't  intend  to  tell  you  until 
I'd  really  started —  Well" — her  voice 
broke  abruptly — "what's  the  matter?" 
She  slipped  slowly  to  her  feet;  the  glow 
died  from  her  face. 

"What,"  said  Tom,  slowly,  with  in- 
tense bitterness,  "must  they  think  of 
inez 

"You!"  faltered  Constance. 

"Great  heavens! — that  I  can't  sup- 
port my  wife!" 

Constance  opened  great  eyes.  "Why 
— I  never  thought — " 

"You  never  do  think — of  me." 

"Oh!"  breathed  Constance  before  that 
injustice. 

"And  for  such — "  Tom  pointed  to 
the  bill  and  turned  abruptly  from  her. 

"It's  not  just  for  those,  Tom;  it's — ■ 
Oh,  don't  you  feel  it?" 

"No,"  said  Tom,  and  went  toward  the 
door. 

"If  you'd  just  think,  Tom — ■" 

"Oh,  I'll  think,"  cried  Tom,  and, 
snatching  his  hat  from  the  hall  rack,  he 
v^nt  out  of  the  house. 

Constance  saw  him  striding  up  the 
road.  She  stared  out  long  after  he  had 
passed.  His  pride.  That  was  all  he 
cared  about — his  pride.  She  struggled 
manfully  against  tears.  If  she  was  going 
to  plunge  into  economics  she  must  first 
learn  not  to  cry. 

Tom  burst  into  the  room  again  as  sud- 
denly as  he  had  left  it.  "See  here,"  he 
cried,  brusquely.  "You're  happy,  are 
you?   That's  the  point." 

Constance  gulped  down  a  sob.  "D-do 
I  look  it?"   Tom  ran  his  fingers  through 


CONSTANCE  THE  PARASITE 


789 


his  hair.  "How  can  I  be  happy,"  she 
added,  "if  it's  going  to  make  you  un- 
happy?  How  can  I?" 

"Never  mind  me,"  said  Tom,  heroic- 
ally. "I'll  get  used  to  it.  But  you're 
going  to  be  honestly  satisfied — now,  hon- 
est?" 

"How  can  I  tell?"  cried  Constance. 
"I  was  until  you  spoiled  it."  Her  voice 
broke  again. 

"Never  mind  me,  I  tell  you.  It's 
work  you  want  to  do,  and  forty  dollars 
more  for  clothes.    That's  it,  is  it?" 

"I  told  you  it  wasn't  all  the  money. 
It's  something  to  do — of  my  own — " 

Tom  nodded.  "Well,"  he  said,  "let 
it  go  at  that." 

Constance  came  over  to  him.  "I'll 
tell  everybody  it's  not  the  money,  Tom," 
she  said,  wistfully. 

"No,"  said  Tom;  "it's  none  of  their 
darn  business." 

Constance  stared  at  him  a  moment 
and  smiled  slightly.  Then  she  caught  at 
his  arm  and  rested  her  cheek  on  his 
shoulder.  "It's  rather  a  muddle,  life — 
isn't  it,  Tom?" 

Tom  kissed  her  abstractedly,  patted 
the  hand  on  his  arm,  murmured  some- 
thing about  his  boat,  and  went  out  again. 

Constance  turned  from  the  window 
where  she  had  watched  his  departure 
and  opened  the  beginners'  text-book  she 
was  to  use  next  week.  The  thing  seemed 
rather  flat. 

Of  course,  she  reflected,  this  teaching 
business  wouldn't  content  her  forever. 
It  would,  however,  be  an  opening.  She 
wanted  to  do  something  fine,  noble,  for 
Tom.  She  looked  about  her,  sprang  off 
the  couch,  and  then  went  out  and  got 
some  huckleberry  branches  and  red  ber- 
ries and  piled  them  on  the  shelf  above 
Tom's  desk.  She  covered  the  ugly  type- 
writer with  a  piece  of  gold  brocade,  and 
dusted  carefully  around  his  papers.  As 
she  did  so  her  eye  fell  on  a  manuscript 
she  had  never  seen  before.  It  was  called, 
"The  Little  Lost  Child." 

"Um — "  murmured  Constance, 
thoughtfully;  and  then,  "silly  old  title." 
But  she  perched  herself  on  the  window- 
ledge  and  began  to  read.  Suddenly  she 
looked  around  herwith  wide,  startled  eyes. 

It  was  a  rather  silent  dinner  they  had 
that  night.  After  it  they  wandered  out 
to  the  veranda. 


"I  found  a  story  of  yours  to-day  I'd 
never  seen" — Constance's  voice  was 
hesitant — 'The  Little  Lost  Child.'  " 

"Oh,  that!"  said  Tom,  quietly. 

"But  why  didn't  you  finish  it,  Tom?" 

Tom  shrugged  his  shoulder.  "I  don't 
know.  Didn't  imagine  you'd  care  for 
it,"  he  added,  and  then,  "Not  your 
sort,  exactly,  is  it?" 

Constance  was  silent  a  moment.  Then 
she  said,  in  a  low  voice,  "Tom,  that  man 
who  cared  so — who  wanted  a  child  so — 
how  did  you  know?" 

Tom  laid  down  his  pipe  and  folded 
his  arms  on  the  veranda  railing.  "I 
write  better  than  I  talk,  I  guess,"  he 
said. 

Constance's  wide  eyes  sought  his. 
"Then — it  was  you.  You  really  wanted 
one,  like  that?" 

"It's  all  right,"  murmured  Tom; 
"we'll  not  say  any  more  about  it.  It's 
all  right." 

"It's  not — oh,  it's  not!"  cried  Con- 
stance, brokenly. 

"Constance!" 

"Let  me  go — alone,"  she  cried  again, 
and  ran  swiftly  down  the  steps  and  out 
on  to  the  road.  She  went  blindly,  un- 
reasoningly,  stopped  suddenly  under  the 
oaks  that  hung  above  the  cove,  stared 
down  into  the  silver  waters,  and  dropped 
to  her  knees,  huddled  into  the  grass. 

He  had  wanted,  all  the  time,  like  that 
— Tom,  on  whose  love  she  had  rested 
the  foundation  of  her  life.  He  had 
wanted  like  that — Tom,  who  gave  his 
strength  and  manhood  to  her  service. 
She  sprang  to  her  feet;  she  heard  him 
calling,  his  quick  steps;  she  felt  his 
arms  about  her,  the  crush  of  his  lips  on 
hers,  and  with  the  murmur  of  his  voice 
she  shook  in  an  answering  passion  of 
tears. 

Gradually  she  grew  calmer;  her  eyes, 
rolling  up  past  him,  became  aware  of  a 
dark  mass  above  them  on  a  scraggly  oak 
branch. 

"Look,"  she  whispered,  "mistletoe." 
She  repeated  the  word  softly.  Strange, 
mystic  plant  high  up  against  the  moon, 
dark  with  the  memories  of  sacrificial 
altars,  green  symbol  of  joy  and  love 
where  home  fires  glowed.  "Parasite!" 
she  murmured,  and  laughed  softly  up 
to  where  it  clung,  white-berried,  on  the 
sturdy  oak. 


At  Twilight 


BY  GWENDOLEN  OVERTON 


SHADOW  of  abstrac- 
tion and  weariness 
clouded  the  glance  of 
inquiry  which  the  man, 
sitting  before  a  wide, 
encumbered  desk  raised 
to  the  young  girl  who 
had  just  brought  in  several  typewritten 
sheets  of  paper,  and  who  now  stood 
awaiting  possible  further  service. 

Then  the  vague  query  became  under- 
standing. "Nothing  else  to-day,  thank 
you,"  he  said — and  added,  "Good  eve- 
ning." 

The  girl  answered,  "Good  evening, 
sir."  She  was  smiling,  decorously,  as  she 
turned  to  the  door.  She  liked  to  have 
this  office  the  one  she  came  to  last,  at  the 
close  of  the  afternoon.  The  other  two 
'members  of  the  firm  were  not  wont  to 
dismiss  her  with  the  little  ceremony  of 
speech  and  gravely  courteous  inclination 
of  the  head.  And  in  the  lingering,  soft- 
ened note  of  her  own  few  words  she 
hoped  to  convey  her  appreciation,  her 
very  special  deference.  So  that  Las- 
celles,  feeling  the  intention,  and  appre- 
ciating a  gentleness  of  bearing  none  too 
common  from  youth  to  age,  smiled  also, 
passingly,  as  he  went  back  to  reading 
over  the  letter  he  had  remained  to  sign. 

He  took  up  his  pen,  changed  a  word 
on  one  page,  interpolated  another, 
stopped  several  times,  referring  to  the 
notes  on  a  pad  at  his  elbow.  Then  he 
folded  the  sheets,  put  them  into  an 
envelope,  sealing  and  stamping  it.  It 
was  the  last  detail  of  the  day's  work. 
But  though  he  turned  his  chair  away 
from  the  desk,  for  some  moments  he  re- 
mained without  rising. 

He  faced  the  door  which  opened  di- 
rectly into  the  corridor,  and  the  lights 
glowed,  diffused,  through  the  ground 
glass,  with  its  reversed  lettering  of  the 
firm  name.  For  the  last  half-hour 
shadows  had  been  moving  across  the 
glass,  footsteps  passing  on  the  corridor 
tiles,  the  elevator  gates  opening  and 


closing  with  metallic  clink  and  clash. 
But  at  present  everything  was  still  ex- 
cept for  the  occasional  rattling  of  the 
janitor's  keys  as  he  went  about  his 
duties. 

Their  own  offices,  he  knew,  were  de- 
serted. Mallock  had  gone,  and  Hyde — 
youngest  of  the  firm,  and  usually  last  at 
his  post.  The  latter  had  come,  hat  in 
hand,  reporting  the  last  phase  of  a  piece 
of  business,  and  apparently  waiting  to 
be  off.  Lascelles,  remembering  his 
daughter-in-law's  recent  speculations  as 
to  when  the  engagement  would  be  con- 
fessed, had  not  detained  him.  Ordinari- 
ly he  himself  would  have  left  before  this, 
but  Catherine  had  told  him  that  she  was 
going  to  some  reception  and  would  be 
out  until  almost  the  dinner  hour.  Al- 
ways he  had  been  more  than  a  little  dis- 
appointed if  she  were  not  at  home  to 
welcome  him,  but  the  sense  of  dreariness 
at  entering  the  house  when  she  was  away 
seemed  to  increase  as  the  time  drew  al- 
ways nearer  which  might  bring  it  to  pass 
that  he  would  thenceforth  have  nothing 
to  expect  save  the  quiet  rooms  with 
their  sense  of  absence.  v 

With  the  abrupt  movement  of  one 
avoiding  unpleasant  thought,  he  stood 
up  from  his  chair  and  crossed  to  the 
window.  He  looked  down  into  the 
street,  upon  the  two  lines  of  close- 
pressed  surface-cars,  motor-cars,  trucks, 
and  teams,  and  the  endless  foot-passen- 
gers upon  the  sidewalks.  As  they  passed 
the  bright  expanse  of  a  jeweler's  window 
opposite,  he  could  distinguish  many 
faces.  Presently  he  recognized  one — 
that  of  a  friend  who  lived  at  the  club 
several  blocks  away,  and  who  probably 
was  bound  thither  now.  Lascelles  re- 
flected that  he  himself  might  go  over  to 
the  Club  for  a  while.  But  he  dismissed 
the  idea.  It  accorded  too  little  with  his 
humor. 

The  humor,  certainly,  was  not  one  of 
cheerfulness.  The  day  had  tried  him 
considerably.    In  part  it  was,  possibly, 


AT  TWILIGHT 


791 


that  he  felt  even  more  fatigue  than  had 
seemed  usual  of  late.  But  over  and 
above  this,  two  or  three  matters  had 
gone  unsatisfactorily;  and  while,  to  be 
sure,  they  were  of  no  great  importance 
in  themselves,  yet  to  have  his  purposes 
defeated  tended  to  lessen  self-confidence. 
And  already,  of  recent  months,  he  had 
been  conscious  that  self  -  confidence 
waned.  More  than  once  he  had  asked 
himself  if  the  other  members  of  the  firm 
might  not  be  beginning  to  feel  that  they 
were  carrying  dead-wood,  if  such  guar- 
antee of  principle,  integrity,  and  prac- 
tised dealing  as  was  lent  by  his  name 
could  offset  the  fact  that  in  the  nature  of 
things  he  brought  few  new  clients  to 
replace  those  who  were  lost,  as  from  time 
to  time  death  took  some  lifelong  friend. 
There  had  haunted  him  continually  a 
whispering  deep  within  his  mind  that  the 
course  of  pride  would  be  to  withdraw 
while  as  yet  his  loss  could  occasion  some 
true  regret. 

The  suggestion  came  to  him  now 
again  as  he  stood,  his  hands  clasped  be- 
hind him,  watching  all  the  movements 
of  the  thoroughfare  below.  But,  once 
more  indecisively  opposing,  he  told  him- 
self that  it  would  come  hard  to  bring  to 
an  end  the  habits  of  so  many  years. 
Young  men  contemplated  sUch  things 
easily,  yet  when  the  time  came  they 
would  find  that  one  did  not  abandon 
without  very  genuine  suffering  the  pro- 
fession of  one's  youth  and  manhood,  in 
which  one  had  achieved  some  measure 
of  success. 

Above  all,  however,  there  was  Cath- 
erine to  be  considered.  Despite  all  the 
high  hopes  of  the  first  years,  and  the  ex- 
cellent prospects  of  maturer  life,  the 
event  had  proved  him  unable  to  give  his 
wife  all  that  once  he  had  planned.  And 
though  there  had  never  been  a  hint  of 
complaint — not  so  much,  he  was  sure, 
as  an  acknowledged  regret — she  must 
feel  it  at  times  that  she  found  herself 
obliged  to  do  without  luxuries  which  so 
many  of  the  women  of  her  circle  ac- 
counted necessities. 

A  decade  or  two  before,  with  stand- 
ards of  living  more  generally  modest 
than  now,  her  position  had  been  re- 
garded as  enviable.  Their  home  had 
been  more,  than  commonly  well  pro- 
vided, the  margin  had  been  wide  for  self- 


gratification  within  what  were  consid- 
ered reasonable  limits,  and  there  had 
remained  besides  sufficient  for  quite 
generous  benefactions.  But  it  had  been 
the  zenith  of  their  fortunes.  Others  of 
the  men  he  knew — a  considerable  num- 
ber— had  been  able  to  keep  on  past  the 
point  of  merely  easy  circumstances  and 
reach  the  goal  of  wealth.  A  few  had 
used  methods  he  himself  could  not  have 
adopted;  but  most,  he  believed,  had 
conceded  no  point  of  honor.  Besides 
these,  however,  there  had  come  into  the 
field  a  group  of  men  and  women  who 
formerly  would  not  have  been  accounted 
eligible  to  more  than  the  outer  confines 
of  acquaintance,  yet  who  now,  through 
numbers  and  financial  rating,  were  pow- 
ers to  be  reckoned  with,  and  could  quite 
well  do  without  the  approbation  of  an 
elderly  couple  faithful  to  the  customs 
and  prescriptions  of  an  obsolete  order — 
usages  which  even  the  son  of  his  own 
training,  and  that  son's  wife,  disposed 
of  as  impracticable  in  the  world  one 
found  ready  to  hand. 

Assuredly  it  was  not  as  he  had  meant 
to  have  it  at  the  close  of  their  days. 
And  yet,  though  he  felt  a  certain  dis- 
appointment, it  was  more  than  offset  by 
intense  satisfaction,  warming  the  depths 
of  his  heart,  that  he  and  Catherine  had 
never  in  all  the  years  yielded  one  jot  or 
tittle  of  principles  which  many,  even 
among  those  accounted  fastidious,  would 
dismiss  as  hyperscrupulous.  The  sense 
of  integrity  was  worth  any  and  all  of  the 
more  material,  more  generally  percepti- 
ble values  of  existence. 

The  janitor's  keys  were  unlocking 
the  door  of  the  adjoining  office.  He 
glanced  over  at  the  big  clock  in  the 
jeweler's  window.  Then  he  went  to  the 
closet,  took  out  his  coat  and  hat,  and  put 
them  on.  If  they  had  abated  those 
principles  just  a  little — he  pursued  his 
thoughts  as  he  settled  the  coat  upon  his 
shoulders — if,  for  instance,  they  had 
been  willing  to  make  the  one  slight  con- 
cession of  now  and  then  turning  their 
home,  their  hospitality,  to  the  ends  of 
"policy,"  perhaps — he  smiled  involun- 
tarily— perhaps  instead  of  going  out  to 
catch  his  street-car  he  would  be  starting 
for  home  in  a  limousine  as  imposing  as 
that  which  Mallock  had  established  after 
his  highly  sagacious  marriage. 


792 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Taking  up  the  letter  to  be  posted,  he 
opened  the  door  and  went  out  into  the 
corridor.  An  elevator,  empty  of  all  save 
the  operator,  carried  him  down  the 
short  distance  to  the  ground  floor. 

Out  in  the  street  the  air  of  dusk  was 
fresh  and  brisk.  Even  the  clang  of  the 
surface-car  bells  and  the  raucous  warn- 
ings of  automobiles  had  a  cheerful  live- 
liness. The  electric  signs,  luminous  in 
whiteness  or  color,  steady  or  changing, 
merged  the  daylight  warmly  with  the 
night.  It  was  all  very  bright  and  ani- 
mating, and  the  people  on  foot  walked 
quickly,  as  if  on  their  way  to  meet  the 
pleasantly  anticipated.  His  own  step 
quickened.  Catherine  would  be  at  home 
by  the  time  he  reached  there,  would  in 
all  likelihood  be  watching  at  the  win- 
dow, as  she  had  almost  always  watched 
for  his  return  since  what  seemed  to  them 
both  the  so  recent  days  when  they  had 
been  mere  boy  and  girl,  beginning  to 
play  the  delightful  game  of  keeping 
house  together.  She  would  be  in  the 
hallway  to  meet  him  by  the  time  he 
should  have  opened  the  door,  and  all 
would  be  as  usual  until  after  they  should 
have  had  their  dinner  and  have  gone 
into  the  library  for  cofTee. 

But  then  would  come  the  change  in 
the  habitual  course  of  things — a  change 
which  seemed  to  go  deeper  than  the 
mere  surface  event,  and  to  the  prospect 
of  which  he  had  found  himself  recur- 
ring all  day,  with  a  quite  unwarrantable 
sense  of  despondency. 

As  a  rule  they  would  have  ensconced 
themselves  in  their  accustomed  chairs 
by  the  fireplace,  and  he  would  have  read 
aloud,  while  she  would  have  busied  her- 
self about  one  of  the  endless  successions 
of  hemstitchings  or  tuckings  or  rufHings 
or  embroideries,  whose  use  and  beauty 
he  was  always  expected  to  understand 
and  which  were  destined  to  adorn  the 
diminutive  person  of  the  one  and  only 
granddaughter. 

To-night,  however,  was  to  inaugurate 
a  new  departure — one  which  he  had  not 
only  approved,  but  urged,  directly  Cath- 
erine, emboldened  and  prompted  by 
their  daughter-in-law,  had  laid  the  plan 
before  him. 

Merely  because  the  physician's  order 
ran  that  he  himself  must  avoid  night  air 
and    late   hours   was,  as  Evelyn  had 


pointed  out,  no  real  reason  for  his  wife 
to  feel  that  she  must  forego  at  least  an 
occasional  evening  of  some  such  pleasure 
as  this  one  offered  at  the  house  of  old 
friends.  Not  that  argument  had  been 
necessary.  He  had  acceded  at  once,  had 
insisted  that  she  must  go.  She  could 
enjoy  the  music  for  a  couple  of  hours 
and  come  away  a  little  early,  if  she  chose. 
The  children  would  call  for  her  and 
fetch  her  home.  As  for  himself,  he  could 
glance  over  the  newspaper  or  the  maga- 
zines for  a  while,  and  it  would  do  him  no 
harm  to  retire  sooner  than  usual. 

So  the  arrangement  had  been  made. 
And  to-night  the  unprecedented  would 
befall.  Catherine  would  go  out,  and  he 
would  be  left  at  home  alone.  It  was  a 
little  modern,  no  doubt,  but  entirely 
right  and  sensible. 

As  he  stopped  at  the  corner  where  he 
must  take  his  car,  he  realized  that  he  was 
tired  and  more  than  a  bit  dispirited. 

» 

The  soft-toned  bell  of  the  clock  in  the 
hallway  struck  five  as  Mrs.  Lascelles 
stood  by  the  fireplace  and,  drawing  off 
her  gloves,  held  out  her  hands  to  the 
warmth.  They  were  shapely  hands,  and 
the  fine,  transparent  skin  of  age  blended 
with  the  pearls,  opals,  and  tiny  dia- 
monds of  numerous  rings. 

It  was  earlier  than  she  had  expected 
to  be  at  home.  She  had  said  that  she 
would  probably  not  return  until  just 
before  the  dinner  hour.  For  she  had 
counted  upon  enjoying  herself  more  than 
ordinarily  this  afternoon;  and  even 
ordinarily  she  enjoyed  herself  very 
well  indeed  wheresoever  her  friends 
were  gathered  together — with  strangers 
enough  for  variety  and  the  promise  of 
new  interests.  It  was  frivolous,  per- 
haps, for  one  of  her  years,  but  there  was 
no  denying  that  she  continued  to  be 
sociably  inclined  to  the  point  of  gregari- 
ousness — fond  of  people,  liking  to  be 
with  them,  to  have  them  coming  and 
going  about  her.  And  she  liked  the 
pretty  clothes  and  the  jewels  and  all  the 
trappings  of  festivity.  The  propensity 
did  not  diminish  with  time,  as  once  she 
had  taken  for  granted  that  it  must. 
From  one  period  of  life  to  another,  the 
zest  of  intercourse  with  her  kind  did  not 
seem  to  have  become  less  keen.  People 
were  an  exhilaration,  they  were  pleasant 


AT  TWILIGHT 


793 


and  well-disposed,  they  brought  her  the  ' 
bits  of  news  she  liked  to  hear,  confided 
in  her,  sought  her  advice,  and  alto- 
gether made  much  of  her  until  often  she 
experienced  almost  the  same  sense  of 
being  charming  which  had  made  her 
young  womanhood  so  delightful  a  mem- 
ory. 

And  to-day  the  affair  had  been  espe- 
cially agreeable,  the  house  beautiful, 
every  one  there  whom  she  most  liked. 
Yet  she  had  come  away  an  hour  sooner 
than  she  had  planned,  and  while  every 
one  was  insisting  that  she  must  stay  a 
little  longer. 

Why  must  she  go?  they  had  de- 
manded. Was  it  because  she  meant  to 
stop  at  her  son's  house  to  see  the  pre- 
cious granddaughter?  She  had  evaded 
an  answer;  but  young  Hyde  had  be- 
trayed her.  "Mr.  Lascelles  always 
leaves  the  office  at  a  quarter  to  five,"  he 
had  suggested,  with  an  air  of  great  de- 
tachment. And  there  had  been  a  laugh 
when  she  had  colored.  It  was  not  with- 
out satisfaction  that  she  had  seen  Hyde 
and  the  girl  at  whose  side  he  stood  color 
in  their  turn  at  her  quick  rejoinder: 

"And  I  can  remember  the  time  when 
he  even  found  that  he  had  to  leave  as 
early  as  you  must  have  left  this  after- 
noon." 

But  she  was  quite  used  to  all  manner 
of  banter  on  the  score  of  this  habit.  For 
though  in  the  early  days  of  their  mar- 
riage the  skeptical-minded  had  foretold 
that  "it  would  not  last,"  yet  the  years, 
the  decades,  had  come  and  gone  and 
rarely  had  it  failed  that,  as  evening 
closed  down,  she  was  to  be  found  at 
home  awaiting  Anthony's  return.  Her 
"sense  of  duty,"  Evelyn  called  it.  She 
was  conscious  of  a  subtle  pity  for  Will 
that  his  wife  should  only  be  able  to  con- 
ceive it  so;  but  feeling  how  useless  would 
be  explanation,  she  had  never  attempted 
to  make  clear  that  it  was  simply  "her 
own  pleasure."  For  the  most  part  she 
was  self-accusingly  aware  of  a  certain 
irritation  when  her  thoughts  dwelt  upon 
her  daughter-in-law.  And  at  present 
she  sincerely  hoped  Evelyn  would  not 
find  out  how  early  she  had  come  away 
this  afternoon,  after  having  gone  to  the 
length,  too,  of  informing  her  husband 
that  she  meant  to  stay  until  late.  It  was 
vexatious  to  be  for  ever  feeling  oneself 


upon  the  defensive  in  these  matters — to 
have  one's  little  luxuries  of  sentiment 
dragged  out  into  the  crude  light  of  the 
rational  and  analyzed  in  the  girl's  sweet, 
unmodulated,  high-pitched  voice.  Eve- 
lyn was  so  restrictedly  reasonable,  so 
concise  in  thought  and  expression,  that 
what  she  did  not  reckon  a  fact  actually 
ceased,  for  the  time  being,  to  seem  one. 
To  be  a  fact,  anything  had  to  come 
within  the  limits  of  "common  sense." 
It  seemed  the  touchstone  for  all  of  life. 
One  might  almost  have  believed  it  her 
proudest  spiritual  possession. 

But  it  did  not  do  to  let  her  thoughts 
take  this  trend.  They  would  bring  her 
to  the  verge  of  an  antagonism  she  did 
not  wish  to  feel.  For,  after  all,  there 
was  nothing  in  fairness  to  be  said  against 
Evelyn.  She  was  a  nice  little  thing, 
earnest  about  doing  the  best  of  which 
she  was  able  to  conceive.  And,  in  real- 
ity, it  was  very  kind  of  her  to  take 
enough  interest  in  her  husband's  mother 
to  persuade  her  to  do  what  was  "for 
her  own  good,"  to  insist  that  she  must 
not  settle  down  into  a  mere  home-keep- 
ing old  lady. 

"It  is  not  as  if  you  didn't  care  for 
parties  and  plays  and  music  and  pic- 
tures, and  all  that  sort  of  thing,"  Evelyn 
had  argued.  "Of  course,  if  you  were  the 
kind  whose  interests  could  be  confined 
just  to  your  house  and  your  husband, 
there  would  be  nothing  more  to  say. 
But  you  enjoy  yourself  with  people,  and 
people  enjoy  you.  And  just  because 
the  doctor  has  decided  that  Father 
Anthony  must  stay  at  home  in  the 
evenings  is  no  reason  whatever  why  you 
should  have  to  'regret'  for  every  invita- 
tion that  would  take  you  out  at  night. 
It  is  your  duty  to  yourself  to  keep  in 
touch  with  things.  Now  this  musicale, 
for  instance — you  have  a  real  taste  for 
music,  and  for  once  it  is  likely  to  be  very 
good  indeed.  It  isn't  as  if  it  were  a  din- 
ner or  something  of  that  sort.  Then,  of 
course,  you  could  not  very  well  go  alone. 
But  in  this  case  it  would  be  perfectly 
proper,  and  Will  and  I  would  stop  for 
you,  and  would  come  away  early,  if  you 
liked.  As  for  Father  Anthony,  I  suppose 
he  might  just  possibly  exist  without  you 
for  two  or  three  hours.  It  will  be  good 
for  him  to  miss  you  a  little  now  and  then. 
And,  besides,  if  you  keep  up  with  the 


794 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


times  and  are  lively  and  interested,  you 
can  be  all  the  more  entertaining  to  him." 

It  had  been  entirely  incontrovertible; 
and  Will  had  enforced  it,  and  the  host- 
ess had  begged,  and  Anthony  had  said 
that  of  course  she  must  go  and  have  a 
good  time.  So  the  outcome  had  been 
that  she  was  going — to  have  a  good 
time. 

She  sighed,  and  stood  pensive.  Then, 
raising  her  eyes  to  the  mirror  over  the 
mantelpiece  and  observing  the  wistful- 
ness  of  her  face,  she  resolutely  assumed 
an  expression  of  cheerfulness. 

A  step  on  the  walk  outside  made  her 
turn  her  head  quickly,  and  she  waited 
to  hear  the  latch-key  put  into  the  lock. 
But,  instead,  the  bell  was  rung.  After  a 
minute  the  door  was  opened,  closed 
again,  and  the  maid  came  bringing  a 
box — a  florist's  box. 

It  lay  on  the  table,  opened.  The 
transparent  green  paper  was  folded  back 
from  violets  and  lilies -of- the -valley. 
And  the  card  she  had  drawn  from  the 
little  envelope  was  that  of  Mr.  Anthony 
Lascelles. 

She  held  it  in  her  fingers  and  looked 
at  it,  as  if  there  had  been  more  upon 
the  smooth  white  surface  than  only  the 
engraved  name.  Someway — she  had  not 
thought  about  his  sending  her  flowers 
to-night.  To  be  sure,  he  always  did — 
always  had — whenever  they  were  to  go 
somewhere  together.  But  this  time — 
it  was  not  together. 

Presently  she  turned  away  and  went 
slowly  back,  seating  herself  on  the  low 
settee  by  the  hearth.  The  scent  of  the 
flowers  was  already  sweet  in  the  room. 
And  it  was  poignant  with  memories — 
not  of  one  day  or  another,  not  of  one  or 
another  special  happening,  but  rather, 
merged  and  blending,  of  all  the  days  and 
all  the  incidents  in  almost  a  lifetime  of 
companionship. 

That  Anthony  should  have  abided 
quite  simply  by  the  custom  of  the  years 
meant  more  than  only  the  fact  of  his 
finding  time  to  think  of  her  pleasure  in 
the  midst  of  a  busy,  exacting  day.  It 
meant  that  he,  upon  his  part,  had  kept 
faith  with  the  memories. 

And  upon  her  own  part — ? 

Yet  she  was  doing  only  what  they  all 
had  urged,  what  they  all  had  insisted 


was  reasonable,  and  her  duty  to  herself. 
She  turned  and  looked  over  at  the  violets 
and  sprays  of  tiny  lilies  in  their  half- 
removed  green  covering.  Her  eyes  were 
on  the  flowers,  but  it  was  scarcely  those 
she  saw.  Rather  it  was  Anthony — An- 
thony as  he  would  turn  away  from  the 
door  to-night,  after  it  should  have  closed 
behind  her,  as  he  would  walk  back  down 
the  hall,  as  he  would  go  into  the  library 
and  draw  up  his  chair  before  the  fire, 
as  he  would  take  up  a  paper  or  a  book 
and  read  for  an  hour  or  so,  then,  with 
the  low  sigh  of  fatigue  which  seemed  to 
come  so  often  recently,  would  leave  his 
chair,  turn  the  lights  low,  and  go  out  to 
the  stairs  alone. 

Even  as  Lascelles  opened  the  front 
door  and  came  into  the  house  he  caught 
the  sound  of  his  wife's  voice  from  the 
direction  of  the  recess  beneath  the  stair- 
landing.  It  was  her  telephone  voice,  he 
recognized  with  some  amusement — un- 
certain, nervous,  raised  considerably 
above  the  tones  of  her  usual  speech. 
The  telephone  had  never  taken  its  rank 
with  her  as  a  commonplace  convenience. 
For  a  conversation  to  go  forward  as 
might  have  been  expected  was  a  cause 
of  agreeable  surprise;  but  such  was  her 
habitual  distrust  that  to  be  called  to 
speak  across  the  wire  was  only  a  degree 
less  agitating  than  to  be  driven  to  the 
necessity  of  calling  up  some  one  else. 
Usually  the  maid  transmitted  messages. 
So  that  now  he  wondered  what  matter 
was  transpiring  of  importance  sufficient 
to  warrant  departure  from  the  rule. 
Divesting  himself  of  his  coat  and  hat,  he 
went  across  the  hallway  to  the  drawing- 
room.  It  would  have  been  impossible  to 
avoid  hearing  what  Catherine  was  say- 
ing, even  had  it  occurred  to  him  that 
there  might  be  any  reason  why  he  should 
do  so.  Her  words  came  to  him  distinct- 
ly. He  caught  the  name  of  the  hostess  of 
to-night's  affair,  gathering  that  it  was 
she  herself  who  was  at  the  other  end  of 
the  line. 

"Now,  my  dear" — it  was  the  accent 
of  eager  explanation — "it  isn't  that;  it 
isn't  because  I  think  I  ought  not  to  go. 
You  don't  understand" — almost  de- 
spairingly— "nobody  seems  to  under- 
stand. I  suppose  really  I  ought  to  go. 
I've  let  you  expect  me  up  to  the  very 


Drawn  by  T.  K.  Hanna 

THE    VERY    SPIRIT    OF    HER    RESOLVE    WAS    IN    THE    QUICK    LIFT    OF    HER  HEAD 


AT  TWILIGHT 


795 


last  minute,  but  of  course  that  will  not 
make  any  real  difference.  .  .  .  Yes,  oh 
yes!  certainly  I  know  that  you  want 
me.  But  I  mean  you  will  not  be  incon- 
venienced. And  you'll  forgive  me.  An- 
thony wants  me  to  go,  you  know." 
Earnestness  was  making  havoc  of  co- 
herence. "  He  insisted.  He  thinks  even 
now  that  I  mean  to,  and  you  were  so 
sweet  about  it,  and  Will  urged  me,  and 
Evelyn  was  so  determined. "  In  the 
mirror  above  the  mantelpiece  Lascelles 
caught  the  glint  of  laughter  in  his  own 
eyes.  "And  I  know  it  would  be  only 
reasonable,  and  that  it  is  my  duty  to 
myself.  But,  my  dear" — the  voice  rose 
higher  with  anxiety  to  be  comprehended 
— "what  I  just  cannot  bring  myself  to 
see  is  how  reason  and  duty  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  it.  It  is  the  way  I  feel. 
I  don't  want  to  go  without  Anthony.  I 
should  not  have  a  nice  time  if  I  did.  I 
should  be  perfectly  lost  and  unhappy. 
I've  been  unhappy  this  whole  week, 
every  time  I  have  let  myself  think  of  it. 
I  suppose  I  am  absurd  and  old-fashioned. 
And  I  dare  say  Evelyn  will  give  me  up 
completely.  But  it  can't  be  helped,  if 
it's  the  way  I  feel." 

The  hurrying  phrases  stopped  abrupt- 
ly, as  if  speech  at  the  other  end  had 
broken  in. 

For  all  that  overhearing  had  been  un- 
avoidable, restlessness  under  the  sense 
of  intrusion  prompted  Lascelles  to  re- 
move himself  beyond  the  range  of  invol- 
untary listening.  He  crossed  to  a  win- 
dow at  the  far  end  of  the  room.  The 
evening  was  gray  and  darkening,  and  the 


street,  within  sight,  empty  of  all  save 
two  or  three  vague  figures,  which  only 
enhanced  the  loneliness. 

Drawing  the  shade  again,  he  turned 
back  with  a  sense  of  well-being  that  he 
was  surrounded  by  everything  familiar 
for  many  years,  that  there  was  the  glow 
of  the  fire  in  the  grate,  the  warm,  low 
light  of  a  lamp — and  the  scent  of  lilies- 
of-the-valley  and  violets. 

The  voice  at  the  telephone  had  so 
dropped  to  the  note  of  relief  that  only 
an  occasional  word  was  distinguishable, 
an  expression  of  apology,  of  gratitude 
and  appreciation.  Then  he  caught  a 
"good-by,"  and  the  click  of  the  receiver 
being  returned  to  its  hook. 

He  was  once  more  standing  at  his 
place  upon  the  hearth-rug  as  his  wife 
re-entered  the  room.  At  sight  of  him 
she  started,  hesitating  upon  the  thresh- 
old. A  soft  flush  came  over  her  face, 
beneath  the  softening  white  hair;  but 
the  very  spirit  of  resolve  was  in  the 
quick  lift  of  her  head  and  in  the  light  of 
her  eyes  as  they  met  his.  "Anthony" — 
she  came  to  it  instantly — "I  may  as 
well  tell  you — " 

He  nodded  anticipation.  "I  know," 
he  said. 

"You  heard  me?"  she  reproached,  a 
little  aggrieved  at  having  been  betrayed 
into  raised  tones.  He  maintained  stead- 
fast gravity.  "I  don't  know  what  you 
will  think — "  she  began  again.  Her 
look  was  upon  him,  questioning  doubt- 
fully. His  own,  through  a  long  moment 
answered,  before  he  reached  out  his 
hand. 


Vol.  CXXXI  —  No.  785.-99 


W.  D.  HOW  ELLS 


FLORINDO  and  Lindora  had  come 
to  the  end  of  another  winter  in 
town,  and  had  packed  up  for 
another  summer  in  the  country.  They 
were  sitting  together  over  their  last 
breakfast  until  the  taxi  should  arrive  to 
whirl  them  away  to  the  station,  and  were 
brooding  in  a  joint  gloom  from  the  effect 
of  the  dinner  they  had  eaten  at  the  house 
of  a  friend  the  night  before,  and,  "Well, 
thank  goodness,''  she  said,  "there  is  an 
end  to  that  sort  of  thing  for  one  while." 

"An  end  to  that  thing,"  he  partially 
assented,  "but  not  that  sort  of  thing." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  demanded 
excitedly,  almost  resentfully. 

"  I  mean  that  the  lunch  is  of  the  nature 
of  the  dinner,  and  that  in  the  country  we 
shall  begin  lunching  where  we  left  off 
dining." 

"Not  instantly,"  she  protested  shrilly. 
"There  will  be  nobody  there  for  a  while 
— not  for  a  whole  month,  nearly." 

"They  will  be  there  before  you  can 
turn  round,  almost;  and  then  you 
women  will  begin  feeding  one  another 
there  before  you  have  well  left  off  here." 

"We  women!"  she  protested. 

"Yes,  you — you  women.  You  give 
the  dinners.    Can  you  deny  it?" 

"It's  because  we  can't  get  you  to  the 
lunches." 

"In  the  country  you  can;  and  so  you 
will  give  the  lunches." 

"We  would  give  dinners  if  it  were  not 
for  the  distance  and  the  darkness  on 
those  bad  roads." 

"I  don't  see  where  your  reasoning  is 
carrying  you." 

"No,"  she  despaired,  "there  is  no 
reason  in  it.  No  sense.  How  tired  of  it 
all  I  am!  And,  as  you  say,  it  will  be  no 
time  before  it  is  all  going  on  again." 

They  computed  the  number  of  din- 
ners they  had  given  during  the  winter; 
that  was  not  hard,  and  the  sum  was  not 
great:  six  or  seven  at  the  most,  large 
and  small.  When  it  came  to  the  dinners 
they  had  received,  it  was  another  thing; 


but  still  she  considered,  "Were  they 
really  so  few?  It's  nothing  to  what  the 
English  do.  They  never  dine  alone  at 
home,  and  they  never  dine  alone  abroad 
— of  course  not!  I  wonder  they  can 
stand  it.  I  think  a  dinner,  the  happy-to- 
accept  kind,  is  always  loathsome:  the 
everlasting  soup,  if  there  aren't  oysters 
first,  or  grape-fruit,  or  melon,  and  the 
fish,  and  the  entree,  and  the  roast  and 
salad,  and  the  ice-cream  and  the  fruit 
nobody  touches,  and  the  coffee  and  cigar- 
ettes and  cigars — how  I  hate  it  all!" 

Lindora  sank  back  in  her  chair  and 
toyed  desperately  with  the  fragment  of 
bacon  on  her  plate. 

"And  yet,"  Florindo  said,  "there  is 
a  charm  about  the  first  dinner  of  au- 
tumn, after  you've  got  back?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  assented;  "it's  like  a 
part  of  our  lost  youth.  We  think  all  the 
dinners  of  the  winter  will  be  like  that, 
and  we  come  away  beaming." 

"But  when  it  keeps  on  and  there's 
more  and  more  of  our  lost  youth,  till  it 
comes  to  being  the  whole — " 

"Florindo!"  she  stopped  him.  He 
pretended  that  he  was  not  going  to  have 
said  it,  and  she  resumed,  dreamily,  "I 
wonder  what  it  is  makes  it  so  detestable 
as  the  winter  goes  on." 

"All  customs  are  detestable,  the  best 
of  them,"  he  suggested,  "and  I  should 
say,  in  spite  of  the  first  autumnal  dinner, 
that  the  society  dinner  was  an  unlovely 
rite.  You  try  to  carry  it  off  with  china 
and  glass,  and  silver  and  linen,  and  if 
people  could  fix  their  minds  on  these,  or 
even  on  the  dishes  of  the  dinner  as  they 
come  successively  on,  it  would  be  all 
very  well;  but  the  diners,  the  diners!" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "the  old  men  are 
hideous,  certainly;  and  the  young  ones 
— I  try  not  to  look  at  them,  poking 
things  into  the  hollows  of  their  faces  with 
spoons  and  forks — " 

"Better than  when  it  was  done  with 
knives!  Still,  it's  a  horror!  A  veteran 
diner-out  in  full  action  is  certainly  a 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


797 


hideous  spectacle.  Often  he  has  few 
teeth  of  his  own,  and  the  dentists  don't 
serve  him  perfectly.  He  is  in  danger 
of  dropping  things  out  of  his  mouth,  both 
liquids  and  solids:  better  not  look!  His 
eyes  bulge  and  roll  in  his  head  in  the 
stress  of  mastication  and  deglutition; 
his  color  rises  and  spreads  to  his  gray 
hair  or  over  his  baldness;  his  person 
seems  to  swell  visibly  in  his  chair,  and 
when  he  laughs — " 

"Don't,  Florindo!  It  is  awful." 

"Well,  perhaps  no  worse  than  the 
sight  of  a  middle-aged  matron  tending 
to  overweight  and  bulking  above  her 
plate—" 

"Yes,  yes!  That's  dreadful,  too.  But 
when  people  are  young — " 

"Oh,  when  people  are  young!"  He 
said  this  in  despair.  Then  he  went  on  in 
an  audible  muse.  "When  people  are 
young  they  are  not  only  in  their  own 
youth;  they  are  in  the  youth  of  the 
world,  the  race.  They  dine,  but  they 
don't  think  of  the  dinner  or  the  un- 
pleasantness of  the  diners,  and  the  gro- 
tesqueness  of  feeding  in  common.  They 
think — "  he  broke  off  in  defect  of  other 
ideas,  and  concluded  with  a  laugh, 
"they  think  of  themselves.  And  they 
don't  think  of  how  they  are  looking." 

"They  needn't;  they  are  looking  very 
well.  Don't  keep  harping  on  that!  I 
remember  when  we  first  began  going  to 
dinners,  I  thought  it  was  the  most  beau- 
tiful thing  in  the  world.  I  don't  mean 
when  I  was  a  girl;  a  girl  only  goes  to  a 
dinner  because  it  comes  before  a  dance. 
I  mean  when  we  were  young  married 
people;  and  I  pinned  up  my  dress  and 
we  went  in  the  horse-cars,  or  even 
walked.  I  enjoyed  every  instant  of  it: 
the  finding  who  was  going  to  take  me  in 
and  who  you  were;  and  the  going  in; 
and  the  hovering  round  the  table  to  find 
our  places  from  the  cards;  and  the  seeing 
how  you  looked  next  some  one  else,  and 
wondering  how  you  thought  I  looked; 
and  the  beads  sparkling  up  through  the 
champagne  and  getting  into  one's  nose; 
and  the  laughing  and  joking  and  talking! 
Oh,  the  talking!  What's  become  of  it? 
The  talking,  last  night,  it  bored  me  to 
death!  And  what  good  stories  people 
used  to  tell,  women  as  well  as  men!  You 
can't  deny  it  was  beautiful." 

"I  don't;  and  I  don't  deny  that  the 


forms  of  dining  are  still  charming.  It's 
the  dining  itself  that  I  object  to." 

"That's  because  your  digestion  is 
bad." 

"Isn't  yours?'; 

"Of  course  it  is.  What  has  that  got 
to  do  with  it  ?" 

"It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  arrived 
at  what  is  called  an  impasse  in  French." 
He  looked  up  at  the  clock  on  the  wall^ 
and  she  gave  a  little  jump  in  her  chair. 
"Oh,  there's  plenty  of  time.  The  taxi 
won't  be  here  for  half  an  hour  yet.  Is 
there  any  heat  left  in  that  coffee?" 

"There  will  be,"  she  said,  and  she 
lighted  the  lamp  under  the  pot.  "But 
I  don't  like  being  scared  out  of  half  a 
year's  growth." 

"I'm  sorry.  I  won't  look  at  the  clock 
any  more;  I  don't  care  if  we're  left. 
Where  were  we?  Oh,  I  remember — the 
objection  to  dining  itself.  If  we  could 
have  the  forms  without  the  facts,  dining 
would  be  all  right.  Our  superstition  is 
that  we  can't  be  gay  without  gorging; 
that  society  can't  be  run  without  meat 
and  drink.  But  don't  you  remember 
when  we  first  went  to  Italy  there  was 
no  supper  at  Italian  houses  where  we 
thought  it  such  a  favor  to  be  asked?" 

"I  remember  that  the  young  Italian 
swells  wouldn't  go  to  the  American  and 
English  houses  where  they  weren't  sure 
of  supper.  They  didn't  give  supper  at 
the  Italian  houses  because  they  couldn't 
afford  it." 

"I  know  that.  I  believe  they  do,  now. 
But — 'Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity,' 
and  the  fasting  made  for  beauty  then 
more  than  the  feasting  does  now.  It 
was  a  lovelier  sight  to  see  the  guests  of 
those  Italian  houses  conversing  together 
without  the  grossness  of  feeding  or  being 
fed — the  "sort  of  thing  one  saw  at  our 
houses  when  people  went  out  to  supper." 

"I  wonder,"  Lindora  said,  "whether 
the  same  sort  of  thing  goes  on  at  evening 
parties  still — it's  so  long  since  I've  been 
at  one.  It  was  awful  standing  jammed 
up  in  a  corner  or  behind  a  door  and 
eating  vis-a-vis  with  a  man  who  brought 
you  a  plate;  and  it  wasn't  much  better 
when  you  sat  down  and  he  stood  over 
you  gabbling  and  gobbling,  with  his 
plate  in  one  hand  and  his  fork  in  the 
other.  I  was  always  afraid  of  his  drop- 
ping things  into  my  lap;  and  the  sight 


798 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


of  his  jaws  champing  as  you  looked  up  at 
them  from  below !" 

"Yes,  ridiculous.  But  there  was  an 
element  of  the  grotesque  in  a  bird's-eye 
view  of  a  lady  making  shots  at  her 
mouth  with  a  spoon  and  trying  to  smile 
and  look  spirituelle  between  shots." 

Lindora  as  she  laughed  bowed  her 
forehead  on  the  back  of  her  hand  in  the 
way  Florindo  thought  so  pretty  when 
they  were  both  young.  "Yes,"  she  said, 
"  awful,  awful !  Why  should  people  want 
to  flock  together  when  they  feed?  Do 
you  suppose  it's  a  survival  of  the  primi- 
tive hospitality  when  those  who  had 
something  to  eat  hurried  to  share  it  with 
those  who  had  nothing?" 

"Possibly,"  Florindo  said,  flattered 
into  consequence  by  her  momentary 
deference,  or  show  of  it.  "But  the  peo- 
ple who  mostly  meet  to  feed  together 
now  are  not  hungry;  they  are  already 
so  stufFed  that  they  loathe  the  sight  of 
the  things.  Some  of  them  shirk  the 
consequences  by  frankly  dining  at  home 
first,  and  then  openly  or  covertly  dodg- 
ing the  courses." 

"Yes,  and  you  hear  that  praised  as  a 
mark  of  high  civilization,  or  social  wis- 
dom. I  call  it  wicked,  and  an  insult  to 
the  very  genius  of  hospitality." 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  It  must  give 
the  faster  a  good  chance  of  seeing  how 
funny  the  feeders  all  look." 

"I  wonder,  I  do  wonder,  how  the  feed- 
ing in  common  came  to  be  the  custom," 
she  said,  thoughtfully.  "Of  course 
where  it's  done  for  convenience,  like 
hotels  or  in  boarding-houses — but  to  do 
it  wantonly,  as  people  do  in  society,  it 
ought  to  be  stopped." 

"We  might  call  art  to  our  aid — have 
a  large  tableful  of  people  kodaked  in 
the  moments  of  ingulfing,  chewing,  or 
swallowing,  as  the  act  varied  from  guest 
to  guest;  might  be  reproduced  as  picture 
postals,  or  from  films  for  the  movies. 
That  would  give  the  ten  and  twenty  cent 
audiences  a  chance  to  see  what  life  in  the 
exclusive  circles  was." 

She  listened  in  dreamy  inattention. 
"It  was  a  step  in  the  right  direction 
when  people  began  to  have  afternoon 
teas.  To  be  sure,  there  was  the  bit- 
ing and  chewing  sandwiches,  but  you 
needn't  take  them,  and  most  women 
could  manage  their  teacups  gracefully." 


"Or  hide  their  faces  in  them  when 
they  couldn't." 

"Only,"  she  continued,  "the  men 
wouldn't  come  after  the  first  go  ofT. 
It  was  as  bad  as  lunches.  Now  that  the 
English  way  of  serving  tea  to  callers 
has  come  in,  it's  better.  You  really  get 
the  men,  and  it  keeps  them  from  taking 
cocktails  so  much." 

"They're  rather  glad  of  that.  But  still, 
still,  there's  the  guttling  and  guzzling." 

"It's  reduced  to  a  minimum." 

"But  it's  there.  And  the  first  thing 
you  know  you've  loaded  yourself  up 
with  cake  or  bread  -  and-butter  and 
spoiled  your  appetite  for  dinner.  No, 
afternoon  tea  must  go  with  the  rest  of  it, 
if  we're  going  to  be  truly  civilized.  If 
people  could  come  to  one  another's  tables 
with  full  minds  instead  of,  stomachs, 
there  would  be  some  excuse  for  hospital- 
ity. Perhaps  if  we  reversed  the  practice 
of  the  professional  diner-out,  and  read 
up  at  home  as  he  now  eats  at  home,  and — 
No,  I  don't  see  how  it  could  be  done. 
But  we  might  take  a  leaf  from  the  book 
of  people  who  are  not  in  society.  They 
never  ask  anybody  to  meals  if  they  can 
possibly  help  it;  if  some  one  happens 
in  at  meal-times  they  tell  him  to  pull  up 
a  chair — if  they  have  to,  or  he  shows  no 
signs  of  going  first.  But  even  among 
these  people  the  instinct  of  hospitality — 
the  feeding  form  of  it — lurks  somewhere. 
In  our  farm-boarding  days — " 

"Don't  speak  of  them!"  she  implored. 

"We  once  went  to  an  evening  party," 
he  pursued,  "where  raw  apples  and  cold 
water  were  served." 

"I  thought  I  should  die  of  hunger. 
And  when  we  got  home  to  our  own 
farmers  we  ravaged  the  pantry  for  every- 
thing left  from  supper.  It  wasn't  much. 
There!"  Lindora  screamed.  "There  is 
the  taxi!"  And  the  shuddering  sound  of 
the  clock  making  time  at  their  expense 
penetrated  from  the  street.  "Come!" 

"How  the  instinct  of  economy  lingers 
in  us,  too,  long  after  the  use  of  it  is  out- 
grown. It's  as  bad  as  the  instinct  of 
hospitality.  We  could  easily  afford  to 
pay  extra  for  the  comfort  of  sitting  here 
over  these  broken  victuals — " 

"I  tell  you  we  shall  be  left,"  she  re- 
torted; and  in  the  thirty-five  minutes 
they  had  at  the  station  before  their 
train  started  she  outlined  a  scheme  of 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


799 


social  reform  which  she  meant  to  put  in 
force  as  soon  as  people  began  to  gather 
in  summer  force  at  Lobster  Cove. 

He  derided  the  notion;  but  she  said, 
"You  will  see!"  and  in  rather  more  time 
than  it  takes  to  tell  it  they  were  settled 
in  their  cottage,  where,  after  some 
unavoidable  changes  of  cook  and  laun- 
dress, they  were  soon  in  perfect  running 
order. 

By  this  time  Lobster  Cove  was  in  the 
full  tide  of  lunching  and  being  lunched. 
The  lunches  were  almost  exclusively 
ladies'  lunches,  and  the  ladies  came  to 
them  with  appetites  sharpened  by  the 
incomparable  air  of  those  real  Lobster 
Cove  days  which  were  all  cloudless  skies 
and  west  winds,  and  by  the  vigorous 
automobile  exercise  of  getting  to  one 
another's  cottages.  They  seized  every 
pretext  for  giving  these  feasts,  marked 
each  by  some  vivid  touch  of  inven- 
tion within  the  limits  of  the  grace- 
ful convention  which  all  felt  bound  not 
to  transcend.  It  was  some  surprising 
flavor  in  the  salad,  or  some  touch  of 
color  in  appealing  to  the  eye  only;  or  it 
was  some  touch  in  the  ice-cream,  or  some 
daring  substitution  of  a  native  dish  for 
it,  as  strawberry  or  peach  shortcake; 
or  some  bold  transposition  in  the  order  of 
the  courses;  or  some  capricious  arrange- 
ment of  the  decorations,  or  the  use  of 
wild  flowers,  or  even  weeds  (as  meadow- 
rue  or  field-lilies),  for  the  local  florist's 
flowers,  which  set  the  ladies  screaming 
at  the  moment  and  talking  of  it  till  the 
next  lunch.  This  would  follow  perhaps 
the  next  day,  or  the  next  but  one,  ac- 
cording as  a  new  cottager's  claims  in- 
sisted or  a  lady  had  a  change  of  guests, 
or  three  days  at  the  latest,  for  no  reason. 

In  their  rapid  succession  people 
scarcely  noticed  that  Lindora  had  not 
given  a  lunch,  and  she  had  so  far  aban- 
doned herself  to  the  enjoyment  of  the 
others'  lunches  that  she  had  half  for- 
gotten her  high  purposes  of  reform, 
when  she  was  sharply  recalled  to  them 
by  a  lunch  which  had  not  at  all  agreed 
with  her;  she  had,  in  fact,  had  to  have 
the  doctor,  and  many  people  had  asked 
one  another  whether  they  had  heard  how 
she  was.  Then  she  took  her  good  resolu- 
tion in  both  hands  and  gave  an  after- 
noon, asking  people  by  note  or  'phone 


simply  whether  they  would  not  come  in 
at  four  sharp.  People  were  a  good  deal 
mystified,  but  for  this  very  reason  every- 
body came.  Some  of  them  came  from 
somebody's  lunch,  which  had  been  so 
nice  that  they  lingered  over  it  till  four, 
and  then  walked,  partly  to  fill  in  the 
time  and  partly  to  walk  off*  the  lunch, 
as  there  would  be  sure  to  be  something  at 
Lindora's  later  on. 

It  would  be  invidious  to  say  what  the 
nature  of  Lindora's  entertainment  was. 
It  was  certainly  to  the  last  degree  orig- 
inal, and  those  who  said  the  worst  of  it 
could  say  no  worse  than  that  it  was 
queer.  It  quite  filled  the  time  till  six 
o'clock,  and  may  be  perhaps  best  de- 
scribed as  a  negative  rather  than  a 
positive  triumph,  though  what  Lindora 
had  aimed  at  she  had  undoubtedly 
achieved.  Whatever  it  was,  whether 
original  or  queer,  it  was  certainly  novel. 

A  good  many  men  had  come,  one  at 
least  to  every  five  ladies,  and  as  the 
time  passed  and  a  certain  blankness  be- 
gan to  gather  over  the  spirits  of  all,  they 
fell  into  different  attitudes  of  the  despair 
which  the  ladies  did  their  best  to  pass  off 
for  rapture.  At  each  unprogrammed 
noise  they  started  in  a  vain  expectation, 
and  when  the  end  came,  it  came  so 
without  accent,  so  without  anything  but 
the  clock  to  mark  it  as  the  close,  that  they 
could  hardly  get  themselves  together  for 
going  away.  They  did  what  was  nice 
and  right,  of  course,  in  thanking  Lindora 
for  her  fascinating  afternoon,  but  when 
they  were  well  beyond  hearing  one  said 
to  another:  "Well,  I  shall  certainly  have 
an  appetite  for  my  dinner  to-night!  Why, 
if  there  had  only  been  a  cup  of  the  weak- 
est kind  of  tea,  or  even  of  cold  water!" 

Then,  those  who  had  come  in  autos 
gathered  as  many  pedestrians  into  them 
as  they  would  hold  in  leaving  the  house, 
or  caught  them  up  fainting  by  the  way. 

Lindora  and  Florindo  watched  them 
from  their  veranda. 

"Well,  my  dear,"  he  said,  "it's  been  a 
wonderful  afternoon;  an  immense  stride 
forward  in  the'causeof  anti-eating — or — " 

"Don't  speak  to  me!"  she  cried. 

"But  it  leaves  one  rather  hungry, 
doesn't  it?" 

"Hungry!"  she  hurled  back  at  him. 
"I  could  eat  a — I  don't  know  what!" 


HENRY  MILLS  ALDEN 


COMMERCIALISM  is  easily  a 
term  of  contempt,  but  it  justly 
claims  a  virtue  of  its  own,  an 
estimable  value  and  validity.  The  poets 
of  an  older  world  had  no  quarrel  with 
that  of  their  time.  The  same  faith  and 
heroism  which  inspired  their  song  had 
first  moved  the  tent,  filled  the  sail,  and 
built  the  walls  of  cities,  before  poetry 
could  ever  have  been,  or  any  form  of  art. 
In  all  these  ways  the  soul  of  man  had 
found  him,  and  he  the  soul  in  things. 

Our  present  twentieth-century  econ- 
omy— so  much  of  it  as  is  not  going  on 
to  a  martial  accompaniment — suggests 
nothing  in  us,  or  in  the  scene  before  us, 
that  recalls  ancient,  medieval,  or  even 
comparatively  modern  ideals.  We  seem 
to  have  wholly  committed  ourselves  to 
a  vast  and  soulless  mechanical  scheme. 

Yet  it  is  in  the  fullness  and  spon- 
taneity of  this  commitment  that  our 
ultra-modern  excellence  lies.  The  most 
definite  outward  symbol  of  human  prog- 
ress is  the  Machine.  Nothing  is  more 
directly  associated  with  spiritual  dy- 
namics than  mechanics.  Those  ma- 
chines, for  the  most  part  so  simple  as 
to  be  mere  implements,  except  for  the 
vehicle  on  land  or  sea,  which  were  re- 
lated to  the  old  scheme  of  human  busi- 
ness, including  war  as  a  part  of  that 
business,  were  as  mystically  invested  as 
a  Freemason's  outfit.  It  needed  but 
three  more  inventions  to  complete  and, 
we  might  say,  wind  up  that  old-fash- 
ioned commercialism  which  was  bound 
up  with  the  old  faith  and  heroism,  and 
which  so  easily  wins  and  holds  the 
poet's  favor — printing,  the  mariner's 
compass,  and  gunpowder.  That  of 
printing  was  the  most  significant,  not 
only  as  making  immediately  effective 
the  revival  of  the  old  learning  for  the 
benefit  of  the  few,  but  for  the  office  it 
was  to  serve  in  the  general  diffusion  of 
knowledge,  new  and  old,  among  the 
people,  helping  to  establish  a  new  kind 
of  social  solidarity. 

All  together,  these  inventions  sufficed 


for  the  consummation  of  one  distinct 
order  of  progress  and  for  the  prepara- 
tion of  what  is  truly  the  modern  scene, 
in  which  another  order  prevails — one 
that  has  turned  a  point,  showing  a 
change  of  direction,  and  the  consum- 
mation of  which  is  yet  afar  off.  Less 
than  two  centuries  have  passed  since 
that  turning-point  was  clearly  manifest. 
It  was  that  point  when  history  began  to 
be  mainly  concerned  with  movements 
and  policies  expressing  popular  expec- 
tations and  aspirations.  But  our  retro- 
spect of  this  comparatively  brief  period 
does  not  disclose  a  volume  of  pent-up 
energy  forcing  its  outlet,  with  premedi- 
tation of  its  course  and  its  goals. 
Rather  we  behold  a  ready  and  waiting 
will  and  intelligence  emerging  with  an 
ever  increasingly  eager  activity  at  ev- 
ery prompting  of  opportunity.  These 
promptings  have  been  due  chiefly  to  the 
disclosure  of  nature's  secrets  by  mod- 
ern physicists  and  chemists  in  researches 
primarily  disinterested,  but  quickly  con- 
verted into  those  mechanical  inventions 
which  have  developed  a  new  commer- 
cialism through  means  as  subtle  as  the 
old  mechanical  leverages  were  obvious. 

The  methods  of  research  and  inven- 
tion are  occult  to  the  multitudes  who 
avail  of  their  benefits,  and  who  are  most- 
ly inept  at  the  organization  which  makes 
them  available  and  which  enters  as  an 
all-important  factor  into  the  whole 
scheme;  but  eliminate  the  inexpert  mass, 
and  every  distinctive  feature  falls  into 
insignificance,  and  we  revert  to  that 
old  social  order,  conservative,  leisurely, 
and  picturesque,  in  which  the  accelera- 
tions of  recent  progress  would  have 
seemed  impertinent  and  offensive,  and 
our  most  ingenious  inventions  would 
have  been  preserved  only  as  useless 
toys. 

When  we  say  that  we  have  commit- 
ted ourselves  whole-heartedly  to  the  so 
conspicuous  and  complex  mechanical 
scheme  of  our  time,  we  have  in  view 
the  new  type  of  social  solidarity  which 


EDITOR'S  STUDY 


801 


it  connotes  and  the  unrealized  possi- 
bilities of  which  still  lie  in  the  lap  of 
evolution. 

Nothing  essential  in  the  older  hu- 
manism has  been  destroyed  in  this 
transformation  scene,  though  in  the 
changed  conditions  another  humanism 
seems  to  have  arisen — one  not  exclu- 
sive; fluent  because  of  the  infinitely 
multiplied  channels  open  to  it;  and 
having  the  mastery  of  a  service  claimed 
and  abundantly  permitted.  Progress — 
call  it  material  (which  must  include  the 
mental),  mechanical,  or  what  we  will, 
and  with  whatever  denunciatory  accent 
— is  an  indispensable  condition  of  crea- 
tive social  evolution,  which  finds  its 
amplitude  of  permission  only  when 
progress  is  of  the  whole  and  for  the 
whole.  Every  term  by  which  qualita- 
tive excellence  was  expressed  in  the  old 
scheme — heroism,  dignity,  distinction, 
leisure,  tolerance,  good  manners — is  sub- 
ject to  transvaluation  in  the  new,  with 
an  added  respect  for  quantitative  in- 
crease, especially  for  the  surplus  of 
wealth,  achieved  mechanically  and 
through  expert  organization.  That  con- 
ception of  social  justice  which  is  be- 
coming effective  against  the  exploitation 
of  humanity  is  perfected  only  through  a 
solidly  collective  Public  Opinion. 

The  human  soul  finds  and  fills  a 
larger  room  in  this  modern  scheme,  as 
indeed  it  must  in  order  to  give  vitality 
and  significance  to  the  otherwise  be- 
wildering foreground.  The  ideals  it  has 
foregone  have  given  place  to  other, 
clearer,  more  hopeful  and  inspiring, 
holding  in  their  reality  more  of  miracle. 
Its  manners,  too,  have  such  reality  that 
they  need  not  be  imposing,  after  the 
old  fashion.  Out  of  the  whole  complex 
business  it  will  bring  a  new  simplicity. 

The  "  soulless "  machine  stands  out 
in  our  foreground  in  bold  contrast  with 
its  soulful  mission.  The  soulless  cor- 
poration seems  a  combination  quite  con- 
tradictory to  the  sympathetic  co-opera- 
tion which  is  inevitably  its  issue.  In 
like  manner  the  pecuniary  measure  of 
motive,  while  contrasting  with  a  dis- 
interestedness possible  only  to  beings 
without  appetite,  is  practically,  as  de- 
termining the  choice  of  careers,  and  as 
an  incentive  to  emulation  for  greater 
excellence  as  well  as  to  competition  for 


profit,  a  means  of  general  social  benefit 
and  of  an  immense  accumulation  of 
altruistic  reserves.  Yet  it  is  only  three 
generations  ago  that  it  was  a  detraction 
of  a  gentleman's  dignity  to  "go  into 
trade"  or  to  receive  a  pecuniary  reward 
for  writing.  The  author's  acceptance 
of  aristocratic  patronage  was  sufficiently 
consistent  with  a  lingering  system  of 
feudalism  to  be  respectable. 

The  mechanical  production  of  litera- 
ture is  a  part  of  our  modern  commer- 
cialism. The  invention  of  the  power- 
press  was  the  natural  sequel  to  that  of 
the  locomotive.  That  of  the  telegraph, 
followed  so  soon  by  international  use 
through  the  cable,  though  it  marked  but 
the  beginning,  seemed  to  complete  the 
scientific  system  for  the  acceleration  and 
unlimited  extension  of  communication. 
A  new  era  for  literature  was  opened  by 
these  permissive  conditions. 

But  literature,  unlike  other  products 
mechanically  multiplied  and  extensively 
distributed,  is  in  its  very  content  the 
immediate  communication  of  thought 
and  feeling,  informing,  inspiring,  and 
entertaining.  It  is  the  conservator  of 
the  creations  of  past  genius,  both  of 
those  which  have  taken  a  literary  form 
and  of  those  which  must  be  pictorially 
reproduced;  and  these  are  open  to  all 
in  cheap  and  accessible  forms,  and  more 
and  more  availed  of  with  the  ever- 
increasing  culture  of  the  people. 

Periodical  literature,  because  of  the 
conditions  which  permitted  its  emer- 
gence and  which  have  become  impera- 
tive in  its  diversified  specialization, 
must  confine  itself  to  meeting  the  con- 
temporaneous tastes  and  desires  of  the 
people.  This  is  true  also  of  the  great 
majority  of  books  written  in  this  era, 
including  fiction  not  serially  published. 
The  art  of  prose  writing  has  been  per- 
fected through  its  spontaneous  appeal 
to  millions  of  intelligent  readers.  Purg- 
ing itself  of  pedantry  and  vain  glosses, 
it  has  gained  in  reality  and  charm.  The 
realism,  in  the  true  meaning  of  the  term, 
in  the  fiction  of  this  era  has  come 
through  this  appeal  and  its  exacting  re- 
quirements— exacting  in  the  line  of  re- 
ality, fidelity,  sincerity. 

Wood-engraving,  which,  as  an  inter- 
pretative art,  is  almost  coeval  with  the 
use  of  type,  and  the  capabilities  of  which 


802 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


were  sufficient  in  the  middle  of  the  last 
century  to  permit  the  emergence  of  this 
Magazine  as  a  popular  illustrated  peri- 
odical, became  an  important  auxiliary 
to  every  literary  feature  of  it.  A  gen- 
eration later,  through  generous  rivalry 
between  the  older  magazine  and  another 
that  had  entered  the  same  field,  this  art 
reached  its  golden  age — and  then  al- 
most entirely  disappeared  from  maga- 
zine literature.  Just  at  this  point  the 
invention  of  the  mechanical  photo- 
engraving process,  because  of  the  scien- 
tific exactitude  it  had  attained  in  the 
reproduction  of  the  draughtsman's  work, 
line  for  line,  and  yet  at  a  comparatively 
small  cost,  suddenly  relegated  the  wood- 
engraver  to  almost  complete  oblivion, 
chiefly  because  the  black-and-white  ar- 
tist, who  had  achieved  an  equal  distinc- 
tion, naturally  preferred  the  fac-simile 
reflecting  his  own  originality  to  an  inter- 
pretation, however  brilliant,  which  re- 
flected the  originality  of  the  engraver. 
This  plea,  reasonable  in  itself  and  in  the 
interests  of  art,  was  accepted  by  the 
very  magazines  which  had  so  especially 
cherished  and  promoted  the  art  of  wood- 
engraving,  paying  often  for  an  engrav- 
ing twice  as  much  as  for  the  original 
drawing.  But  in  both  of  these  maga- 
zines the  master  wood-engraver  still 
found  a  considerable  scope  for  his  art 
in  a  field  peculiarly  adapted  to  its  most 
original  interpretation — that  of  the  re- 
production of  the  most  significant  of 
the  paintings  of  all  times,  including  our 
own.  Our  readers,  who  for  several 
years  have  enjoyed  and  appreciated  Mr. 
Henry  WolPs  wonderful  interpretations 
in  this  field,  one  in  almost  every  number 
of  the  Magazine,  have  already,  in  their 
hearts  at  least,  tendered  him  their  con- 
gratulations on  his  reception  of  the  re- 
cent award  of  the  grand  prize  in  etching 
and  wood-engraving  at  the  Panama- 
Pacific  Exposition. 

This  award  is  a  victory  of  wood-en- 
graving, by  the  hand  of  a  master,  over 
every  mechanical  graphic  process.  The 
New  York  Times  writer,  in  announcing 
the  award,  speaks  justly  of  Mr.  WolPs 
"  passionately  exact  interpretation,"  and 
it  is  true  that  the  photo-engraved  plate 
has  always  had  to  receive  something  of 
this  touch  of  human  art  for  a  complete- 
ly satisfactory  result — for  a  relief  from 


the  rigidly  scientific  exactitude.  Yet  the 
improvements  of  the  purely  mechanical 
process  have  been  such  as  to  permit  not 
only  an  unlimited  expansion  of  its  bene- 
fits, but  a  marvelous  excellence  of  qual- 
ity, as  attested  in  current  illustrated 
journalism. 

It  is  certainly  a  matter  of  congratula- 
tion that  literature,  open  to  all  even  on 
its  highest  levels,  in  books  and  in  peri- 
odicals, maintains  the  continuity  of  art 
at  the  same  time  that  it  cherishes  new 
forms  of  art,  so  that  the  older  excellence 
remains  alongside  with  the  new. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking,  certainly 
the  most  novel,  application  of  a  scien- 
tific mechanical  invention  is  that  to 
which  the  cinematograph  has  been  put 
in  these  early  years  of  the  twentieth 
century.  To  the  seriously  minded  the 
first  suggestion  of  its  marvelous  pos- 
sibilities was  in  the  line  of  its  educa- 
tional use.  Instead  of  a  verbal  exposi- 
tion of  the  most  elusive  processes  of 
Nature — those  of  crystallization,  for 
example — people,  of  all  ages,  were  to 
behold  these  processes  as  actually  going 
on.  Descriptive  chemistry  and  every 
branch  of  science  were  to  have  the  ben- 
efit of  this  new  realism,  based  on  scien- 
tific exactitude— such  a  benefit  as  sur- 
gery had  already  received  from  X-ray 
photography. 

This  high  function  has  not  been  fore- 
gone, but  it  has  been  held  in  abeyance, 
as  an  allurement  to  the  popular  imagi- 
nation, by  the  more  attractive  capa- 
bilities of  the  invention  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  all  classes — this  community 
of  enjoyment  being,  sociologically,  its 
most  interesting  feature.  Lying  ap- 
parently beyond  the  reaches  of  litera- 
ture and  of  the  established  order  of 
stage  representation,  it  has  drawn 
within  its  charmed  circle  the  cleverest 
of  short-story  writers  and  the  brightest 
stars  of  the  theatrical  firmament.  Its 
realism  has  outdone  that  of  ultra- 
modern fiction.  Its  ethical  uses  out- 
rival those  of  every  other  form  of  rep- 
resentation, as  appealing  to  the  average 
sensibility;  it  has  even  been  employed 
recently  to  quell  a  riot.  It  serves  as  a 
most  convincing  illustration  of  the  many 
virtues  of  modern  mechanicalism,  not  the 
least  of  which,  in  this  case,  is  the  capacity 
for  so  vast  and  varied  entertainment. 


Mr.  'Possum's  Sick  Spell 

BY  ALBERT  BIGELOW  PAINE 


ONCE  upon  a  time,  said  the  Story 
Teller,  something  very  sad  nearly 
happened  in  the  Hollow  Tree.  It 
was  Mr.  'Possum's  turn,  one  night,  to 
go  out  and  borrow  a  chicken  from  Mr.  Man's 
roost,  and,  coming  home,  he  fell  into  an  old 
well  and  lost  his  chicken.  He  nearly  lost 
himself,  too,  for  the  water  was  icy  cold  and 
Mr.  'Possum  thought  he  would  freeze  to 
death  before  he  could  climb  out,  because  the 
rocks  were  slippery  and  he  fell  back  several 
times. 

As  it  was  he  got  home  almost  dead,  and 
next  morning  was 
sicker  than  he  had 
ever  been  before  in 
his  life.  H  e  had 
pains  in  his  chest 
and  other  places, 
and  was  all  stuffed 
up  in  his  throat,  and 
very  scared.  The 
'Coon  and  the 
Crow,  who  lived  in 
the  Hollow  Tree 
with  him,  were 
scared  too.  They 
put  him  to  bed  in 
the  big  room  down- 
stairs, and  said  they 
thought  they  ought 
to  send  for  some- 
body, and  Mr.  Crow 
said  that  Mr.  Owl 
was  a  good  hand 

with  sick  folks,  because  he  looked  so  wise 
and  didn't  say  much,  which  always  made 
the  patient  think  he  knew  something. 

So  Mr.  Crow  hurried  over  and  brought 
Mr.  Owl,  who  put  on  his  glasses  and  looked 
at  Mr.  'Possum's  tongue,  and  felt  of  his 
pulse,  and  listened  to  his  breathing,  and  said 
that  the  cold  water  seemed  to  have  struck 
in,  and  that  the  only  thing  to  do  was  for 
Mr.  'Possum  to  stay  in  bed  and  drink  hot 
herb  tea  and  not  eat  anything — which  was 
a  very  sad  prescription  for  Mr.  'Possum,  be- 
cause he  hated  herb  tea  and  was  very  partial 
to  eating.  He  groaned  when  he  heard  it,  and 
Vol.  CXXXI— No.  785.— 100 


MR.  OWL  LOOKED  AT  HIS 
TONGUE  AND  FELT  HIS  PULSE 


said  he  didn't  suppose  he'd  ever  live  to  enjoy 
himself  again,  and  that  he  might  just  as  well 
have  stayed  in  the  well  with  the  chicken, 
which  was  a  great  loss  and  doing  no  good  to 
anybody.  Then  Mr.  Owl  went  away,  and 
told  the  Crow  outside  that  Mr.  'Possum  was 
a  very  sick  man,  and  that  at  his  time  of  life 
and  in  his  state  of  flesh  his  trouble  might 
go  hard  with  him. 

So  Mr.  Crow  went  back  and  made  up  a  lot 
of  herb  tea  and  kept  it  hot  on  the  stove, 
and  Mr.  'Coon  sat  by  Mr.  'Possum's  bed  and 
made  him  drink  it  almost  constantly,  which 

Mr.  'Possum  said 
might  cure  him  if  he 
didn't  die  of  it  be- 
fore the  curing  com- 
menced. 

He  said  if  he  just 
had  that  chicken 
made  up  with  a  good 
platter  of  dumplings 
he  believed  it  would 
do  him  more  good 
than  anything,  and 
he  begged  the  'Coon 
to  go  and  fish  it  out, 
or  to  catch  another 
one,  and  try  it  on 
him,  and  then  if  he 
did  die  he  would  at 
least  have  fewer  re- 
grets. 

But  the  Crow  and 
the  'Coon  said  they 
must  do  as  Mr.  Owl  ordered,  unless  Mr. 
'Possum  wanted  to  change  doctors,  which 
was  not  a  good  plan  until  the  case  became 
hopeless,  which  would  probably  not  be  be- 
fore some  time  in  the  night.  Mr.  'Coon  said, 
though,  there  was  no  reason  why  that  nice 
chicken  should  be  wasted,  and  that  as  it 
would  still  be  fresh  he  would  rig  up  a  hook 
and  line  and  see  if  he  couldn't  save  it.  So 
he  got  out  his  fishing-things  and  made  a 
grab-hook  and  left  Mr.  Crow  to  sit  by  Mr. 
'Possum  until  he  came  back.  He  could  fol- 
low Mr.  'Possum's  track  to  the  place,  and  in 
a  little  while  he  had  the  fine  fat  chicken,  and 


804 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


IN  A  LITTLE  WHILE  HE 
HAD  THE  FINE  FAT  CHICKEN 


came  home  with  it  and  showed  it  to  the 
patient,  who  had  a  sinking  spell  when  he 
looked  at  it,  and  turned  his  face  to  the  wall 
and  said  he  seemed  to  have  lived  in  vain. 

Mr.  Crow,  who  always  did  the  cooking, 
said  he'd  better  put  the  chicken  on  right 
away,  under  the  circumstances,  and  then  he 
remembered  a  bottle  of  medicine  he  had 
once  seen  sitting  on  Mr.  Man's  window-sill, 
outside,  and  he  said  while  the  chicken  was 
cooking  he'd  just  step  over  and  get  it,  as  it 
might  do  the  patient  good,  and  it  didn't 
seem  as  if  anything  now  could  do  him  any 
harm. 

So  the  Crow  dressed  the  nice  chicken  and 
put  it  in  the  pot  with  the  dumplings;  and 
while  Mr.  'Coon  dosed  Mr.  'Possum  with  the 
hot  herb  tea,  Mr.  Crow  slipped  over  to  Mr. 
Man's  house  and  watched  a  good  chance 
when  the  folks  were  at  dinner  and  got  the 
bottle,  and  came  back  with  it,  and  found  Mr. 
'Possum  taking  a  nap  and  the  'Coon  setting 
the  table,  for  the  dinner  was  about  done  and 
there  was  a  delicious  smell  of  dumplings 
and  chicken,  and  Mr.  'Possum  began  to  talk 
in  his  sleep  about  starving  to  death  in  the 
midst  of  plenty.  Then  he  woke  up  and 
seemed  to  suffer  a  good  deal,  and  the  Crow 
gave  him  a  dose  of  Mr.  Man's  medicine,  and 
said  that  if  Mr.  'Possum  was  still  with  them 
next  morning  they'd  send  for  another  doctor. 

Mr.  'Possum  took  the  medicine  and  choked 
on  it,  and  when  he  could  speak  said  he 
wouldn't  be  long  with  them — he  could  tell  by 
his  feelings  that  he  would  never  get  through 


this  day  of  torture,  and  that  he  wanted  to 
say  some  last  words.  Then  he  said  that  he 
wanted  the  'Coon  to  have  his  Sunday  suit, 
which  was  getting  a  little  tight  for  him,  and 
would  just  about  fit  Mr.  'Coon,  and  that  he 
wanted  the  Crow  to  have  his  pipe  and  toilet 
articles,  to  remember  him  by.  He  said  he 
had  tried  to  do  his  best  by  them  since  they 
had  all  lived  together  in  the  Hollow  Tree, 
and  he  supposed  it  would  be  hard  for  them 
to  get  along  without  him,  but  that  they 
would  have  to  do  the  best  they  could.  Then 
he  guessed  he'd  try  to  sleep  a  little,  and 
closed  his  eyes,  and  Mr.  'Coon  looked  at 
Mr.  Crow  and  shook  his  head;  and  they 
didn't  feel  like  sitting  down  to  dinner  right 
away,  and  pretty  soon  when  they  thought 
Mr.  'Possum  was  asleep  they  slipped  softly 
up  to  his  room  to  see  how  sad  it  would  seem 
without  him. 

Well,  they  had  only  been  gone  a  minute 
when  Mr.  'Possum  woke  up,  for  the  smell 
of  that  chicken  and  dumpling,  coming  in 
from  Mr.  Crow's  kitchen,  was  too  much  for 
him.  When  he  opened  his  eyes  and  found 
that  Mr.  'Coon  and  Mr.  Crow  were  not  there, 
and  that  he  felt  a  little  better — perhaps  be- 
cause of  Mr.  Man's  medicine — he  thought  he 
might  as  well  step  out  and  take  one  last 
look  at  chicken  and  dumpling  anyway. 

It  was  quite  warm,  but,  being  all  in  a  sweat, 
he  put  the  bed-sheet  around  him  to  protect 
him  from  the  draughts,  and  went  out  to  the 
stove  and  looked  into  the  pot,  and  when  he 
saw  how  good  it  looked  he  thought  he  might 
as  well  taste  of  it  to  see  if  it  was  done. 


""f  i 

Kit 


MR.  CROW  SAID  IF  MR.  'POSSUM  WAS  STILL  WITH 
'EM  THEY   WOULD    SEND   FOR  ANOTHER  DOCTOR 


EDITOR'S 


WHEN  THE  DUMPLING  WAS  GONE  HE 
FISHED    UP   A   LEG    AND    ATE  THAT 


So  he  did,  and  it  tasted  so  good  and  seemed 
so  done  that  he  got  out  a  little  piece  of 
dumpling  on  a  fork,  and  blew  on  it  to  cool 
it,  and  ate  it,  and  then  another  piece,  and 
then  the  whole  dumpling,  which  he  sopped 
around  in  the  gravy  after  each  bite.  Then 
when  the  dumpling  was  gone  he  fished  up  a 
chicken  leg  and  ate  that,  and  then  a  wing, 
and  then  the  gizzard,  and  felt  better  all  the 
time,  and  pretty  soon  poured  out  a  cup  of 
coffee  and  drank  that,  all  before  he  remem- 
bered that  he  was  sick  abed  and  not  expected 
to  recover.  Then  he  happened  to  think,  and 
started  back  to  bed,  but  on  the  way  there 
he  heard  Mr.  'Coon  and  Mr.  Crow  talking 
softly  in  his  room,  and  he  forgot  again  that 
he  was  so  sick  and  went  up  to  see  about  it. 

Mr.  'Coon  and  Mr.  Crow  had  been  quite 
busy  up  in  Mr.  'Possum's  room.  They  had 
looked  at  all  the  things,  and  Mr.  Crow 
remarked  that  there  seemed  to  be  a  good 
many  which  Mr.  'Possum  had  not  mentioned, 
and  which  they  could  divide  afterward. 
Then  he  picked  up  Mr.  'Possum's  pipe  and 
tried  it  to  see  if  it  would  draw  well,  as  he 
had  noticed,  he  said,  that  Mr.  'Possum  some- 
times had  trouble  with  it,  and  the  'Coon 
went  over  to  the  closet  and  looked  at  Mr. 
'Possum's  Sunday  coat  and  pretty  soon  got 
it  out  and  tried  on  the  coat  which  wouldn't 
need  a  thing  done  to  it  to  make  it  fit  exactly. 
He  said  he  hoped  Mr.  'Possum  was  resting 
well  after  the  medicine,  which  he  supposed 
was  something  to  make  him  sleep,  as  he 
had  seemed  drowsy  so  soon  after  taking  it. 
He  said  it  would  be  sad,  of  course,  though  it 


DRAWER  805 

might  seem  almost  a  blessing  if  Mr.  'Possum 
should  pass  away  in  his  sleep  without  know- 
ing it,  and  he  hoped  Mr.  'Possum  would  rest 
in  peace  and  not  come  back  to  distress 
people,  as  one  of  the  'Coon's  own  ancestors 
had  done  a  good  while  ago.  Mr.  'Coon  said 
his  mother  used  to  tell  them  about  it  when 
she  wanted  to  keep  them  in  nights,  though 
he  didn't  really  believe  in  such  things  much 
any  more,  and  he  didn't  think  Mr.  'Possum 
would  be  apt  to  do  it  anyway,  because  he  was 
always  quite  a  hand  to  rest  well.  Of  course, 
any  one  was  likely  to  think  of  such  things,  he 
said,  and  get  a  little  nervous,  especially  at 
a  time  like  this — and  just  then  Mr.  'Coon 
looked  toward  the  door  that  led  down  to  the 
big  room,  and  Mr.  Crow  he  looked  toward 
that  door,  too,  and  Mr.  'Coon  gave  a  big 
jump  and  said,  "Oh,  my  goodness!"  and 
fell  back  over  Mr.  'Possum's  trunk. 

And  Mr.  Crow  he  gave  a  big  jump,  too, 
and  said,  "Oh,  my  gracious!"  and  fell  back 
over  Mr.  'Possum's  chair. 

For  there  in  the  door  stood  a  figure 
shrouded  all  in  white,  all  except  the  head, 
which  was  Mr.  'Possum's,  though  very  sol- 
emn, its  eyes  looking  straight  at  Mr.  'Coon, 
who  still  had  on  Mr.  'Possum's  coat,  though 
he  was  doing  his  best  to  get  it  off,  and  at 
Mr.  Crow,  who  still  had  Mr.  'Possum's  pipe, 
though  he  was  trying  every  way  to  hide  it; 
and  both  of  them  were  scrabbling  around  on 
the  floor  and  saying,  "Oh,  Mr.  'Possum  go 
away — please  go  away,  Mr.  'Possum — we 
always  loved  you,  Mr.  'Possum — we  can 
prove  it." 

But  Mr.  'Possum  looked  straight  at  Mr. 


THERE  IN  THE  DOOR  STOOD  A  FIG- 
URE   SHROUDED    ALL    IN  WHITE 


806 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Crow,  and  said,  in  a  deep  voice,  "What  were 
you  doing  with  my  Sunday  coat  on?" 

And  Mr.  'Coon  tried  to  say  something, 
but  only  made  a  few  weak  noises. 

And  Mr.  'Possum  looked  at  Mr.  Crow  and 
said,  "What  were  you  doing  with  my  pipe?" 

And  a  little  sweat  broke  out  on  Mr.  Crow's 
bill,  and  he  opened  his  mouth  as  if  he  were 
going  to  say  something,  but  couldn't  make 
a  sound. 

Then  Mr.  'Possum  said  in  a  slow  voice,  so 
deep  that  it  seemed  to  come  from  down  in 
the  ground,  "Give  me  my  things!" 

And  Mr.  'Coon  and  Mr.  Crow  said,  very 
shaky:  "Oh  y-yes,  Mr.  'Possum.  W-we 
meant  to,  a-all  the  t-time." 

And  they  tried  to  get  up,  but  were  so 
scared  and  weak  they  couldn't;  and  all  at 
once  Mr.  'Possum  gave  a  great  big  laugh,  and 
threw  off  his  sheet  and  sat  down  on  a  stool 
and  rocked  and  laughed,  and  Mr.  'Coon  and 
Mr.  Crow  realized  then  that  it  was  Mr. 
'Possum  himself,  and  not  just  his  appearance, 
as  they  had  thought.  Then  they  sat  up, 
and  pretty  soon  began  to  laugh,  too,  though 
not  very  gaily  at  first,  but  feeling  more 
cheerful  every  minute,  because  Mr.  'Possum 
himself  seemed  to  enjoy  it  so  much. 

Then  Mr.  'Possum  told  them  about  every- 
thing, and  how  Mr.  Man's  medicine  must 
have  made  him  well,  for  all  his  pains  and 
sorrows  had  left  him,  and  he  invited  them 
down  to  help  finish  up  the  chicken  which 
had  cost  him  so  much  suffering. 


So  then  they  all  went  down  to  the  big 
room,  and  the  Crow  brought  in  the  big  plat- 
ter of  dumplings,  and  a  pan  of  biscuits,  and 
some  molasses,  and  a  pot  of  coffee,  and  they 
all  sat  down  and  celebrated  Mr.  'Possum's 
recovery.  And  when  they  were  through, 
and  everything  was  put  away,  they  smoked, 
and  Mr.  'Possum  said  he  was  glad  he  was 
there  to  use  his  property  a  little  more,  and 
that  probably  his  coat  would  fit  him  again 
now,  as  his  sickness  had  caused  him  to  lose 
flesh.  He  said  that  Mr.  Man's  medicine  was 
certainly  wonderful,  but  just  then  Mr.  Rab- 
bit dropped  in,  and  when  they  told  him 
about  it  he  said  of  course  the  medicine  might 
have  had  some  effect,  but  that  the  dumplings 
and  chicken  caused  the  real  cure.  He  said 
there  was  an  old  adage  to  prove  that — one 
that  his  thirty-fifth  great-grandfather  had 
made  for  just  such  a  case  of  this  kind.  This 
Mr.  Rabbit  said  was  the  adage: 

If  you  want  to  live  for  ever, 
Stuff  a  cold  and  starve  a  fever. 

Mr.  'Possum's  trouble  had  come  from 
catching  cold,  he  said,  so  the  dumplings  were 
probably  just  what  he  needed.  Then  Mr. 
Owl  dropped  in  to  see  how  his  patient  was, 
and  when  he  saw  him  sitting  up,  and  smok- 
ing, and  well,  he  said  it  was  wonderful  how 
his  treatment  worked,  and  the  Hollow  Tree 
people  didn't  tell  him  any  different,  for  they 
didn't  like  to  hurt  Mr.  Owl's  feelings. 


A  Winged  Doubt 

BY  MINNIE  LEON  A  UPTON 

jy^Y  Mother  said,  "Now  hurry,  Ted,  and  run  along  up-stairs, 

And  get  the  pretty  nightie  that  Little  Sister  wears!" 
But  I  was  orfle  busy  with  my  bran'-new  spinning-top. 
I  love  my  Little  Sister,  but  I  didn't  want  to  stop; 
I  only  had  a  little  time — the  clock  was  striking  seven — 
But  Mother  said,  "If  you're  not  kind,  she'll  fly  right  back  to  heaven!" 

And  now  I'm  spanked  and  sent  to  bed — I'm  sure  I  don't  see  why! 

I  wish  I  wasn't  seven,  and  much  too  old  to  cry! 

When  I  was  six  'twas  diff'rent;  but  now,  you  see,  I  don't. 

I  only  asked  a  question — I  didn't  say,  "I  won't!" 

I  only  asked,  "If  she  can  fly  to  heaven,  so  highty-tighty, 

Then  why  can't  Little  Sister  fly  up-stairs  and  get  her  nightie?" 


The  Backslider 


More  Problems 

BY   MARIE   LOUISE  TOMPKINS 


QH,  see  the  creepy,  crawlly  things 
A-rolling  down  the  window-pane! 
As  soon  as  they  are  gone  away 

They  start  and  come  right  back  again! 
I  never  see  them  when  the  Sun 

Is  shining  with  his  yellow  eye, 
But  only  when  the  big  gray  clouds 

Have  covered  up  the  nice  blue  sky. 

The  Go-cart  will  not  come  to  take 

Me  riding  by  the  bright  green  grass, 
Where  Grown-ups  they  smile  down  on  you 

And  peer  in  at  you  as  we  pass. 
And  somebody  that  people  call 

A  Gram'ma  goes  'way  off  to  get 
A  great  big,  funny,  round  "umbrell," 

So's  some  one  else  won't  get  "all  wet." 

And  who  they  call  a  Gram'pa  turns 
Around  and  waves  his  hand  at  me, — 


They  tell  me  I  must  wave  mine  back; — 
I  watch  him  far  as  I  can  see. 

But  just  before  the  Sandman  comes 
The  door  bangs  loud  in  the  front  hall, 

And  Somebody  is  in  the  room, — 
Somebody  big  and  strong  and  tall, 

That  picks  me  right  straight  off  my  chair 

And  hugs  me  in  an  overcoat 
Until  I  make  a  little  sound 

Down  somewhere  in  my  tiny  throat; 
And  then  the  Sweetest  Voice  I  know, — 

It  says,  "Don't  smother  her,  Bob  dear! 
Take  off  that  dripping  overcoat," 

And  then, — I  think  it's  very  queer, 
He  puts  me  right  down  in  my  chair, 

And  they  forget  there  is  a  Me. 
It  is  a  very  funny  world, 

But  I'm  as  happy  as  can  be! 


808 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"  Well,  I  made  two  thousand  dollars  this  month,  enough  to  pay 
all  my  debts.'" 

11  What  kind  of  car  are  you  going  to  buy  with  it?" 


Up  To  Date 
THERE  is  an  old-fash- 
ioned Kentuckian, 
well  -  known  as  a  horse- 
lover,  who  has  never  been 
able  to  reconcile  himself 
to  the  advent  of  the  auto- 
mobile. 

"The  trail  of  the  serpent 
is  over  everything,"  he 
remarked,  not  long  ago. 
"I  went  into  a  little  shop 
to  buy  candy  for  some 
children.  The  shopkeeper 
sold  me  a  lot  of  old- 
fashioned  peppermint 
hearts  bearing  printed 
mottoes.  I  took  them 
home,  thinking  that  I 
had  found  the  very  candy 
that  used  to  gladden  my 
heart  when  I  was  a  child. 
I  looked  for  the  old-time 
mottoes.  The  first  heart 
read : 

"'Dear,  I'll  ask  you  to  be 
mine 

In  taxi  number  ninety- 
nine.' 


In  Fit  Condition 

EORGE  was  so  proud  that  he  had  learned 
V*  to  repeat  the  Lord's  Prayer  that,  after 
being  told  by  his  mother 
one  day  that  his  face  was 
very  dirty  and  needed 
washing,  he  came  back 
with  it  shining  and  said, 
"Now,  how  about  repeat- 
ing the  Lord's  Prayer?" 


The  second  read: 

"'In  an  auto  run  by  gasolene, 

Fly  with  me,  my  love,  my  dream.' 


Super -Dentistry 

MISS  W.:  "Mrs.  B.  is 
to  read  a  paper  before 
our  club  this  afternoon 
on  Transcendentalism. 
Tell  me  something  about 
it.    What  does  it  mean?" 

Miss  C.  "What  is  the 
word  ?" 

Miss  W.  repeated  it — 
"Transcendentalism." 

Miss  C.  "Say  it  again, 
please.  What  is  the  last 
part  of  it?" 

Miss  W.  "Transcen- 
dentalism — Dentalism. 

Miss  C.  (triumphantly) 
"Dentalism?  It  has 
something  to  do  with 
teeth,  of  course/ 


Traveler:    "  Isn't  this  train  pretty  late?" 
Station-Master:    11  Yes,  she  is  a  bit  behind,  mister,  but 
we're  expectin'  her  every  hour,  now" 


"  My  dear,  they  say  he  is  the  cleverest  man  here — a  genius,  in  fact. 
"  Absurd.    He  doesn't  even  fox-trot." 


She  Needed  Help 

A  STANCH  Presbyterian  lady  was  at- 
tending a  meeting  of  the  Presbytery  in 
her  own  church.  With  great  interest  in  the 
matters  before  the  assembly,  she  was  seated 
amid  the  visiting  delegates  near  the  front 
part  of  the  church,  where  not  a  motion  or 
step  proposed  by  the  body  could  escape  her 
observation. 

About  this  time  she  was  approached  by 
an  usher,  who,  in  a  quiet  and  confidential 
voice,  informed  her  that  her  presence  was 
required  outside  the  church. 

Woman-like,  she,  being  overwhelmed  by 
her  imaginings,  knezv  something  dreadful 
must  have  happened,  for  surely  —  so  she 
reasoned — no  one  would  call  her  from  her 
position  in  the  midst  of  the  assembled  dele- 
gates except  for  serious  cause. 

So  overcome  was  she  by  the  shock  of  her 
emotions  that  she  almost  fainted,  but  re- 
strained herself  sufficiently  to  enable  two 
members  to  assist  her  from  the  pew  and  lead 
her  to  the  church  door,  when  the  pastor,  in 
sympathy  with  a  devoted  member  of  his 
church,  remarked: 

"As  Sister  B  is  apparently  in  great 

trouble,  it  may  not  be  amiss  for  those 
present  to  join  me  in  prayer  on  her 
behalf." 


Whereupon  heads  were  bowed  and  the 
pastor  led  in  prayer. 

Meantime,  the  distressed  lady  reached  the 
outside  porch,  where  she  was  met  by  a  col- 
ored man.  Holding  his  hat  in  one  hand  and 
bowing  low  as  he  approached,  he  said, 
"Missis,  de  washerwoman  is  done  sont  yer 
clo'es  home,  an'  she  say  she  'bleeged  ter  hav* 
de  money!" 


A  Persuaded  Prisoner 

^HERE  is  a  deputy-marshal  in  Mississippi 
who  does  not  permit  any  such  trifles  as 
extradition  laws  to  stop  him  in  the  perform- 
ance of  his  duties. 

When  a  certain  term  of  court  was  about  to 
begin  a  man  who  was  out  on  bail  was  re- 
ported to  be  enjoying  himself  over  in  Georgia. 
The  deputy-marshal  went  after  him.  The 
next  day  he  telegraphed  the  judge: 

"I  have  persuaded  him  to  come." 

A  few  days  later  he  rode  into  town  on  a 
mule,  leading  his  prisoner  tied  up  snugly  with 
a  clothes-line.  The  latter  looked  as  if  he  had 
seen  hard  service. 

"Why,  Jim,"  said  the  judge,  "you  didn't 
make  him  walk  all  the  way  from  Georgia?" 

"  No,  sir.  Part  of  the  way  I  drug  him,  and 
when  we  come  to  the  Tallapoosa  River  he 
swum." 


810 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


High  Intelligence 

A  GENTLEMAN  who 
had  been  stopping  at 
one  of  the  Back  Bay  hotels 
in  Boston,  upon  entering 
a  taxi  to  go  to  the  station 
discovered  that  he  had  left 
a  small  box  behind.  Call- 
ing one  of  the  bell-boys, 
he  told  him  to  go  to  Room 
234  as  quick  as  he  could 
and  see  if  he  had  left  a 
small  box  on  the  dresser, 
and  to  hurry,  as  the  train 
went  in  five  minutes. 

The  boy  entered  the 
hotel,  rushed  up  the  stairs, 
and  was  back  in  two  min- 
utes, all  out  of  breath. 
"Yes,  sir,"  he  panted; 
"you  left  it,  sir!" 


"  Y'unerstan  ,  Nora — what  I'm  tellin  yers  strickly  between 
you  an  me" 


Frenzied  Finance 

A  THRIFTY  farmer  approached  the  stamp- 
window  at  the  village  post-office.  "Hev 
ye  got  eny  postage-cards?"  he  drawled. 
Yes. 

"How  much  be  they?" 
"One  cent  apiece." 
"Card  and  stemp  both?" 
Yes. 

"Never  sell  'em  six  for  five  cents?" 
"Never.    Postal-cards  are  always  a  cent 
apiece  straight." 

"Wall— then— I'll  take— one." 


Simple  Faith 

TTIE  Methodist  minister 
in  a  small  country 
town  was  noted  fbr  his 
begging  propensities  and 
for  his  ability  to  extract 
generous  offerings  from 
the  close-fisted  congrega- 
tion, which  was  made  up 
mostly  of  farmers.  One 
day  the  young  son  of  one 
of  the  members  acciden- 
tally swallowed  a  ten-cent 
piece,  much  to  t  h  e  ex- 
citement of  the  rest  of  the 
family.  Every  means  of  dislodging  the  coin 
had  failed  and  the  frightened  parents  were 
about  to  give  up  in  despair  when  a  bright 
thought  struck  the  little  daughter,  who 
exclaimed: 

"Oh,  mamma,  I  know  how  you  can  get  it! 
Send  for  our  minister;  he'll  get  it  out  of 
him!" 


Not  Needed 

QNE  day  a  young  colored  woman  came 
to  the  rectory  during  the  rector's  ab- 
sence, and  said  that  she  had  come  seeking 
work;  and  by  way  of  explanation  added, 
"  Dey  tol'  me  ter  come  ter  de  house  what  was 
kep'  by  de  man  what  run  de  church  whar 
dey  don'  hafter  hav'  any  'ligion  ter  git  in." 
"  This  is  the  place  I"  the  rector's  wife  replied. 


An  Example 

Teacher:  "Mary,  give  and  illustrate  a 
rule  for  the  use  of  capital  letters." 

Mary:  "All  names  of  Deity  should  begin 
with  a  capital  letter,  as — Democrat." 


The  New  Geography 

'THE  lesson  of  the  juvenile  class  in  geography 
was  about  zones,  and  the  teacher  asked 
George  what  zone  he  lived  in. 

"The  parcel-post  zone,"  was  the  prompt 
reply. 


Painting  by  Howard  E.  Smith  Illustration  for  "  To  the  Home  of  Pierre 

A    PEACEFUL    SENTRY    OF    WHITE-MANTLED  HILLS 


HARPER'S 


Magazine 


Vol.  CXXXI         NOVEMBER,    1915         No.  DCCLXXXVI 


An  Interview  with  Napoleon's  Brother 

FROM  AN  UNPUBLISHED  MS.  BY  JAMES  K.  PAULDING 
With  Introduction  and  Editorial  Comment 
BY  JAMES  KIRKE  PAULDING 


RITTEN  in  a  cramped 
hand,  in  faded  ink, 
upon  the  shiny,  square, 
gilt-edged  paper  that 
used  to  be  in  vogue  for 
the  writing  of  sermons, 
the  sheets  bound  to- 
gether with  a  bit  of  narrow  pink  ribbon, 
the  little  manuscript  now  for  the  first 
time  printed  has  lain  long  on  a  dusty 
shelf  in  an  old  safe  in  the  country. 
Whatever  objections  there  might  have 
been  to  its  publication  at  an  earlier  day 
have  long  been  removed  with  the  prin- 
cipal actors  in  the  nearly  forgotten  scene 
it  so  vividly  evokes.  Two  of  these — the 
Marquis  of  La  Fayette  and  Joseph  Bo- 
naparte, quondam  King  of  Naples  and 
King  of  Spain,  styling  himself  at  the  time 
of  this  recital  Count  of  Survilliers — have 
passed  to  their  respective  niches  in  his- 
tory, whence  they  cannot  easily  be  dis- 
lodged by  any  evidence  now  discovered 
or  discoverable.  The  third — the  writer 
of  the  memorandum — is  less  secure  of 
his  niche,  although  widely  known  in  his 
day  as  a  writer  of  fiction  and  political 
satire  in  the  little  group  of  early  New 
York  litterateurs  who  were  proud  to 
recognize  Washington  Irving  as  their 
chief.  James  K.  Paulding,  who  was 
later  on  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in  the 
Cabinet  of  President  Van  Buren,  held 

Copyright,  1915,  by  Harper  & 


at  the  time  of  the  interview  he  describes 
the  post  of  Naval  Agent  at  New  York — 
an  office  appreciated  by  him,  as  he  is 
frank  to  admit,  for  the  unrivaled  oppor- 
tunities it  afforded  for  the  indulgence  of 
his  pet  vice  of  scribbling.  At  the  time 
when  Joseph  Bonaparte  came  to  see  him 
he  was  occupying  a  house  in  Whitehall 
Street  which  had  fallen  to  the  share  of 
his  wife  upon  the  death  of  her  father, 
Peter  Kemble,  shortly  before — "the 
house,"  he  writes  Irving  (abroad  at  the 
time),  "which  we  have  so  often 
haunted,"  and  he  adds,  "If  living  in  a 
great  house  constitutes  a  great  man  after 
the  fashion  of  New  York,  a  great  man 
am  I,  at  your  service." 

Lafayette's  final  visit  to  the  United 
States,  undertaken  as  the  guest  of  the 
nation  upon  invitation  by  President 
Monroe,  began  with  his  landing  in  New 
York  on  August  15,  1824,  and  lasted 
until  September  of  the  following  year. 
Joseph  Bonaparte  had  come  in  18 15, 
after  the  failure  (if  it  was  actually  at- 
tempted) of  the  plan  ascribed  to  him  to 
take  the  place  of  his  brother  Napoleon 
on  the  war-ship  bound  for  St.  Helena, 
and  was  then  living  in  considerable  style 
and  luxury  at  Point  Breeze,  near  Borden- 
town,  New  Jersey. 

With  these  few  words  of  necessary  in- 
troduction, the  little  manuscript  may  be 

Brothers.    All  Rights  Reserved. 


814 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


left  to  speak  for  itself,  the  editor  reserv- 
ing such  comment  as  may  still  be  called 
for  until  the  conclusion  of  its  testimony. 
It  is  inscribed  simply: 

INTERVIEW    WITH    JOSEPH  BONAPARTE 

On  the  return  of  La  Fayette  from  his 
tour  through  the  United  States,  I  dined 
with  him  in  a  large  company  at  my 
brother's,  who  was  at  that  time  Mayor 
of  the  city  of  New  York.  Among  the 
guests  were  the  late  Cadwallader  D. 
Colden  and  John  J.  Morgan,  then  a 
member  of  Congress,  and  many  others 
whose  names  it  is  not  worth  while  to 
specify. 

The  conversation  at  table  turned  on 
the  political  situation  of  France,  on 
which  subject  Mr.  Colden,  who  sat  near 
La  Fayette,  requested  information  of 
the  General,  professing  at  the  same  time 
his  inability  to  comprehend  it.  La 
Fayette  then  entered  very  frankly  into 
the  state  of  political  parties  in  that 
country,  the  Republicans,  Carlists,  and, 
lastly,  the  Orleans  party,  to  which,  said 
he,  "I  belong."  It  will  be  recollected 
that  during  his  progress  through  the 
United  States,  La  Fayette  had  uniformly 
announced  himself  a  Republican,  and 
knowing  as  I  did  that  the  Orleans  party 
had  no  pretensions  to  an  affinity  with 
Republicanism,  this  frank  avowal  ex- 
cited my  surprise  at  the  time  and  often 
recurred  to  my  recollection.  I  thought 
I  must  have  misunderstood  the  General, 
and,  meeting  Mr.  Morgan  shortly  after- 
ward, took  occasion  to  compare  notes 
with  him.  His  recollection  perfectly 
corresponded  with  mine,  and  he  was 
equally  surprised  at  the  inconsistency 
of  La  Fayette's  public  with  his  private 
declarations. 

At  this  period  General  Charles  Lalle- 
mand  had  established  a  seminary  in  the 
city  for  the  education  of  boys,  and  my 
eldest  son  was  one  of  his  scholars.  This 
produced  an  intimacy  between  the  Gen- 
eral and  myself.  He  occasionally  dined 
with  my  family,  and  borrowed  money 
which  he  never  repaid.  One  day  after 
dinner,  when  no  one  else  was  present,  the 
conversation  turned  on  La  Fayette,  and 
I  then  related  what  he  had  said  at  my 
brother's  table. 

Lallemand  appeared  exceedingly  sur- 
prised and  begged  me  to  repeat  the  con- 


versation, which  I  did  very  circumstan- 
tially. He  made  no  reply,  fell  into  a 
reverie,  and  soon  afterward  left  me. 

Not  long  afterward  I  was  somewhat 
surprised  at  receiving  a  message  from 
Joseph  Bonaparte  expressing  a  particu- 
lar desire  to  see  me,  and  requesting  that 
I  would  designate  the  hour  for  an  inter- 
view at  my  house.  I  complied  with  his 
wish,  and  about  twelve  o'clock  the  next 
day  he  came  alone.  After  the  usual 
compliments,  he  proceeded  to  state  the 
object  of  his  visit.  Lallemand  had  com- 
municated to  him  the  declaration  of  La 
Fayette  at  my  brother's  table,  and 
Joseph  had  called  to  ascertain  if  the 
statement  was  correct.  Perceiving  that 
I  was  a  little  surprised,  he  added,  "I 
will  afterward  tell  you  my  'reason  for 
particularly  wishing  to  know." 

I  complied  with  his  request,  and  he 
then  gave  me  the  following  curious  de- 
tails: 

He  stated  that  not  long  after  La 
Fayette  came  to  this  country  he  paid 
him  a  visit  at  his  chateau  in  New  Jersey, 
and  while  there  had  requested  a  private 
interview,  in  the  course  of  which  he  pro- 
nounced France  to  be  on  the  eve  of  a 
revolution  which  would  be  fatal  to  the 
Bourbon  Dynasty,  and  distinctly  and 
positively  proposed  to  Joseph  that  if  he 
would  advance  him  two  millions  of  dol- 
lars he  would  make  his  nephew  Napo- 
leon King  of  France. 

"I  confess,"  continued  Joseph,  "that 
I  did  not  believe  him  at  the  time.  I 
knew  the  situation  of  France  was  pre- 
carious, but  had  no  idea  that  the  revolu- 
tion was  so  near  at  hand,  or  that  La 
Fayette  had  the  power  to  direct  it  so 
completely  as  has  since  appeared.  Be- 
sides, I  had  not  at  my  disposal  the  means 
he  required,  for,  though  rich,  the  sup- 
port of  various  members  of  my  family, 
together  with  the  perpetual  application 
of  my  brother's  exiled  friends,  left  me 
little  beyond  my  necessary  personal  ex- 
penses. This  last  was  the  reason  I  gave 
for  declining  the  proposal.  It  seems, 
however,  that  at  the  moment  he  was 
announcing  himself  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States  as  a  Republican,  and  at 
your  brother's  table  as  an  adherent  of 
the  Duke  of  Orleans,  he  made  me  the 
offer  of  placing  my  nephew  on  the 
throne  of  France  for  the  sum  of  two 


tfiL,  cut  J* 3  /tixZftj  ,  /  defied  orirfir  A^>^      c-  fa^oy 

/° c  t d*si uv  CtiO  Jefit^  J.  <Mi-\.j a* .  eJrs,.  i^/cy-  ,j.  y 

6fr?*~j\*^>    Co-*)    f-C**e  *Tfe&*t   e<v/wi.a-  J>-t:s>>a^  «^   £-7  A  &2  lo»>/£r 

/Uj,ct#t<^*  ,  JLui*£T,  J^ZTj  ,  mz.  fal^^   tfLOj ,  fiT 


FACSIMILE  OF  THE  FIRST  PAGE  OF  THE  PAULDING  MANUSCRIPT 


millions  of  dollars.  I  have  long  believed 
La  Fayette  devoid  of  faith,  and  now  I 
am  satisfied.  Future  events  may  give 
great  importance  to  my  knowledge  of  his 
character." 

In  my  answer  I  gave  him  to  under- 
stand very  distinctly  that  in  complying 
with  his  request  I  had  no  intention  of 
casting  the  slightest  imputation  on  the 
character  of  La  Fayette,  of  whose  offer 
to  him  I  was  till  now  entirely  ignorant; 
that  the  General  was  so  intimately  as- 
sociated with  our  Washington,  and  had 
borne  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  attain- 
ment of  cur  independence,  that  no  cir- 
cumstances could  ever  induce  me  to 
become  an  instrument  in  casting  the 
slightest  imputation  on  his  name.  Jo- 
seph assented  to  this  with  a  bow,  but 


I  thought  he  looked  rather  disappointed, 
and  our  subsequent  conversation  let  me, 
as  I  thought,  into  the  secret  of  the  prin- 
cipal object  of  his  visit. 

I  soon  perceived  that  he  cherished  a 
deep  enmity  to  La  Fayette,  whom  he 
considered  the  great  enemy  of  his  broth- 
er Napoleon.  He  proceeded  to  tell  the 
origin  of  the  General's  opposition,  which 
he  denied  was  founded  on  any  attach- 
ment to  Republican  institutions,  but 
the  details  are  too  long  to  be  inserted 
here.  It  must  suffice  to  say  that  Joseph 
directly  accused  him  of  being  the  great 
cause  of  the  surrender  of  Paris,  the  abdi- 
cation of  Napoleon,  and  the  subsequent 
degradation  of  France.  He  asserted 
that  La  Fayette  as  [vice-]  president  of 
the  [Chamber  of  Deputies]  took  the  op- 


816 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


portunity  presented  by  the  critical  situa- 
tion of  Napoleon  during  the  siege  of 
Paris  to  use  all  his  interest  and  effort 
for  the  purpose  of  crippling  his  power 
at  the  precise  period  when  the  Romans 
would  have  created  a  Dictator.  This  he 
asserted  was  the  decisive  cause  of  the 
surrender  and  abdication.  Perceiving 
new  restrictions  continually  proposed 
for  the  limitation  of  that  power  which 
should  then  have  been  absolute,  he 
despaired  of  final  success,  and  yielded 
not  so  much  to  the  allied  armies  as  to  the 
fetters  of  La  Fayette  and  his  party  in 
the  [Representative  Assembly].  Most 
unquestionably  history  justifies  these 
assertions,  for  it  distinctly  appears  that 
such  was  the  course  pursued  by  the 
party  of  which  La  Fayette  was  the  head. 
Of  his  motives,  God  alone  can  judge.  It 
was  assuredly  no  time  to  propose  re- 
strictions when  nothing  but  a  Dictator 
could  save  the  state. 

Our  interview  lasted  upward  of  three 
hours,  in  the  course  of  which  Joseph 
became  not  only  warm,  but  eloquent  on 
the  subject  of  his  brother,  although  he 
spoke  but  indifferent  English  and  I  was 
ignorant  of  French.     He  denied  that 
Napoleon  was  a  tyrant.     He  was  the 
creature  of  necessity,  and  his  ambition 
was  imposed  upon  him  as  a  solemn,  im- 
perative duty.    He  stood  forth  the  re- 
generator of  the  age  and  was  placed  in  a 
situation  where  to  prevent  everything 
from  going  backwards  it  was  necessary 
to  be  always  going  forward.    The  insti- 
tutions which   he   had   established  in 
France  by  his  absolute  will  were  yet 
highly  favorable  to  the  freedom  and 
happiness  of  mankind  and  especially 
[to]  the  people  of  France  who  at  that 
moment  were  in  the  enjoyment  of  rights 
denied  to  the  rest  of  Europe.  Napoleon 
was  therefore  an  object  of  extreme  jeal- 
ousy, of  bitter,  enduring  hate,  for  he  had 
broken  the  great  Arch  of  Legitimacy — 
he  had  humbled  Kings  and  exalted  the 
People.     His  existence  and  his  power 
were  incompatible  with  the  safety  of 
ancient  abuses,  and  hence  he  knew  that 
no  permanent  repose  could  be  enjoyed 
by  Europe  unless  the  old  established 
despotisms  were  so  humbled  as  to  be 
acquiescent,  or  their  systems  so  modified 
as  to  associate  harmoniously  with  that 
which  he  had  established  in  France.  In 


short,  he  well  knew  that  all  the  great 
powers  of  Europe  were  either  secretly 
or  openly  united  against  him  and  that 
his  son  could  never  reign  in  peace  unless 
the  enemies  of  France  were  absolutely 
subdued  into  acquiescence  beforehand. 
His  latter  wars,  though  apparently  offen- 
sive, were  not  so  in  reality,  since  they 
were  only  to  disarm  enemies  who,  as 
plainly  appeared  in  the  end,  were  only 
waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  wield 
them  to  his  destruction. 

"My  brother,"  concluded  he,  "would 
during  the  years  of  his  undisturbed 
reign  have  been  glad  of  repose  for  the 
remainder  of  his  life.  But  his  position 
and  his  destiny  would  not  permit.  It 
seems  that  a  great  martyr  was  necessary 
to  lead  the  way  to  the  freedom  of  Eu- 
rope, and  none  more  illustrious  than  my 
brother  could  have  been  selected  from 
the  race  of  mankind." 

There  was  a  fine  bust  of  Napoleon  by 
Canova  in  the  room,  and  while  Joseph 
was  thus  vindicating  his  brother  with 
eloquent,  affectionate  enthusiasm,  I 
thought  I  never  saw  a  more  striking 
likeness  than  between  the  two.  Joseph 
was  dressed  very  neatly,  but  very  plain- 
ly, in  a  blue  coat  and  pantaloons  and 
white  waistcoat.  He  had  gradually  be- 
come exceedingly  animated,  having  at 
length  risen  from  his  chair,  and,  standing 
directly  in  front  of  the  bust,  could 
scarcely  refrain  from  tears  as  he  vindi- 
cated that  most  extraordinary  of  men 
whose  character,  actions,  motives,  and 
destiny  will  probably  remain  subjects  of 
unceasing  doubt,  inveterate  contro- 
versy. To  me  it  appears  that  the  future 
history  of  the  world  will  demonstrate 
that,  with  the  exception  of  Washington, 
he  has  done  more  for  the  liberties  of 
mankind  than  any  other  man  that  ever 
lived.  Whether  such  was  his  object,  or 
whether  he  was  only  an  instrument  of 
Providence  in  bringing  about  eventually 
results  which  he  neither  desired  nor  an- 
ticipated, is  more  than  belongs  to  human 
sagacity  to  decide. 

Joseph  spoke  with  contempt  of  the 
pretended  private  conversations,  secret 
motives,  and  still  more  secret  interviews 
of  Napoleon  with  different  persons, 
most  especially  his  brothers,  which  had 
been  laid  before  the  world  in  history  and 
memoirs.    Among  others  he  instanced  a 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  NAPOLEON'S  BROTHER  817 


particular  account  of  the  interview  be- 
tween himself  and  Napoleon  when  the 
latter  sent  for  him  from  Naples  to  Ba- 
yonne  in  order  to  make  him  King  of 
Spain,  in  which  the  writer  had  detailed 
the  very  words  that  passed  between 
them. 

"How  should  these  people  know  any- 
thing about  the  matter?" 
said  Joseph.  "There  was 
nobody  present  but  cur- 
se 1  v  e  s  ;  I  have  never 
opened  my  lips  on  the 
subject,  and,  as  to  my 
brother,  he  never  told 
anything  that  was  not 
necessary  to  be  known. 
To  show  you  how  much 
of  the  matter  was  known 
by  this  writer,  I  will  tell 
you  exactly  how  it  was. 
You  may  recollect  I  was 
at  that  time  King  of 
Naples.  The  people  were 
quiet,  I  may  say  happy, 
under  my  government, 
and,  as  for  myself,  I  had 
no  ambition  to  occupy 
any  other  throne.  I  n 
this  state  o  f  things  I 
was  sent  for  by  my  brother 
and  set  out  for  Bayonne 
without  in  the  least  sus- 
pecting his  object.  On 
my  arrival  he  conducted 
me  to  his  private  closet, 
and,  being  a  man  of  few 
words  and  little  cere- 
mony, abruptly  said,  'I 
have  sent  foryou,  Joseph, 
to  make  you  King  of 
Spain.' 

"I  replied  I  had  no  wish  to  be  King 
of  Spain,  or  to  exchange  a  quiet,  peace- 
able throne  to  reign  over  a  people  who 
could  only  be  governed  by  force,  even 
by  their  own  legitimate  sovereigns.  I 
begged  him  therefore  to  excuse  me  and 
named  some  of  his  most  distinguished 
marshals  in  my  stead.  But  my  brother 
objected.  'Europe,'  said  he,  'is  accus- 
tomed to  see  my  brothers  made  kings, 
and  will  acquiesce  in  your  elevation  to 
the  throne  of  Spain  not  only  because 
you  are  already  a  king,  but  because  you 
are  my  brother.  The  monarchs  of 
Europe  who  occupy  their  hereditary 


thrones,  seeing  that  I  have  only  a  cer- 
tain number  of  brothers,  will  perceive 
that  I  cannot  make  more  than  a  certain 
number  of  kings  without  going  out  of 
my  own  family,  and  will  therefore  sub- 
mit to  their  elevation,  but  if  I  once  begin 
with  my  marshals  they  will  not  know 
where  I  mean  to  stop,  and  will  combine 


Secretary 


JAMES  K.  PAULDING 
of  the  Navy  during  Van  Buren's  Administration 

against  me  as  an  absolute  measure  of 
self-defense.    You  must  go,  Joseph.' 

"'But  who  will  you  make  King  of 
Naples?'  asked  I. 

"'Murat — he  is  my  brother-in-law.' 

"I  consented  at  last  most  unwillingly, 
and  this  was  all  that  passed  between  us." 

Several  things  occurred  in  this  long 
interview  which  convinced  me  that  Jo- 
seph looked  anxiously,  if  not  confidently, 
to  the  elevation  of  his  nephew,  young 
Napoleon,  to  the  throne  of  France,  and 
that  preliminary  measures  were  at  that 
time  going  on.  I  took  occasion  to  ex- 
press my  sincere  regrets  at  the  course 


818 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


pursued  by  the  Imperial  Court  toward 
this  devoted  youth,  who  was  little  less 
than  a  state  prisoner,  a  victim  to  the 
jealous,  dastardly  policy  of  Austria  and 
her  allies.  Joseph  showed  me  a  letter 
which,  being  in  cipher,  he  interpreted 
for  me,  from  which  it  appeared  that  the 
agents  of  the  Napoleon  party  in  France 


JOSEPH  BONAPARTE 

had  at  length  succeeded  in  opening  a 
correspondence  with  the  young  man, 
who,  however,  died  not  long  after,  and 
this,  I  imagine,  put  a  final  stop  to  all 
the  hopes  of  the  Bonaparte  family  in 
France.  Not  long  after  this  interview 
Lallemand  had  received  permission  to 
return  to  France,  and  on  his  departure 
was  charged  with  important  communi- 
cations which  he  betrayed  to  Louis 
Philippe,  for  which  he  was  made  a  Peer 
of  France  and  Governor  of  the  important 
frontier  post  of  Strasbourg. 

When  Joseph  left  me,  the  impression 
on  my  mind  was  that  had  he  not  been 
Napoleon's  brother  he  would  have 
passed  for  a  very  remarkable  man. 

I  had  almost  forgot  to  mention  that 
the  conversation  having  incidentally 
turned  toward  his  chateau  at  Borden- 
town,  he  mentioned  as  the  principal 
reason  for  choosing  that  situation  a  con- 
versation with  Napoleon,  I  think  imme- 
diately, or  not  long  after,  Napoleon's  re- 
turn from  Russia.  They  were  alone 
together,  and  his  brother,  laying  a  large 
map  of  the  United  States  on  a  table,  said : 


"Joseph,  it  is  very  probable  that  the 
time  is  not  distant  when  you  and  I 
will  be  forced  to  seek  an  asylum  in  the 
United  States.  Come,  let  us  look  out 
the  best  spot." 

After  a  careful  examination  they  de- 
cided that  the  most  desirable  place  was 
somewhere  between  the  Delaware  and 
Hudson  in  the  state  of  New  Jersey. 
Napoleon  was  destined  to  a  slow  and 
painful  sacrifice,  but  Joseph  found  refuge 
in  the  United  States,  and  was  governed 
in  his  selection  of  a  home  by  the  recol- 
lection of  the  prophetic  interview  with 
his  brother. 

J.  K.  P. 

The  meeting  between  Lafayette  and 
Joseph  Bonaparte  referred  to  in  the 
"Interview"  occurred  at  Bordentown 
on  the  26th  of  September,  1824.  The 
General  was  under  obligations  to  Napo- 
leon's brother,  if  only  of  a  very  general 
and  little  personal  nature.  Joseph  had 
been  the  negotiator  of  the  Treaty  of 
Campo  Formio,  under  which  Lafayette 
had  obtained  his  release  from  an  Aus- 
trian dungeon.  Furthermore,  he  had 
been  the  guest  of  Joseph  at  Mortefon- 
taine  on  the  occasion  of  the  signing  of 
the  new  treaty  between  France  and  the 
United  States,  likewise  negotiated  by 
Joseph.  It  was  natural  that  he  should 
turn  aside  from  his  triumphal  progress 
to  greet  his  distinguished  compatriot 
now  that  their  respective  positions  were 
to  a  certain  extent  reversed.  The  visit 
is  mentioned  by  Lafayette's  secretary, 
Levasseur,  who,  however,  describes  it 
only  on  its  external,  spectacular  side — 
the  people  from  the  surrounding  coun- 
try swarming  over  the  grounds  of  Point 
Breeze  to  get  a  look  at  Lafayette,  and 
obtain,  perhaps,  for  themselves  or  their 
children  a  blessing  or  other  mark  of 
recognition  from  the  illustrious  Friend 
of  Liberty.  Joseph,  the  secretary  tells 
us,  was  good-natured  about  it;  indeed, 
he  was  liberal  at  all  times  in  allowing 
the  public  access  to  his  estate,  and  was 
accustomed  in  particular  to  receive  the 
people  of  Bordentown  at  a  great  display 
of  fireworks  each  Fourth  of  July. 

The  private  conversation  between  the 
two  men  occurred  in  the  study  before 
dinner,  and  is  related  in  substance  by 
Charles   Jared    Ingersoll,  Bonaparte's 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  NAPOLEON'S  BROTHER 


819 


friend,  in  his  History  of  the  Second  War 
between  the  United  States  and  England. 
Lafayette,  according  to  this  statement, 
began  by  saying  that  he  regretted 
the  part  he  had  taken  in  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Bourbons;  their  dynas- 
ty could  not  endure,  as  it  clashed 
too  much  with  national  sentiment; 
every  one  was  now  convinced  that  the 
Emperor's  son  would  be  the  best  repre- 
sentative of  the  reforms  accomplished 
by  the  Revolution.  A  donation  of  two 
million  francs  (not  dollars)  by  Joseph, 
to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  committee 
to  be  named  by  Lafayette,  would  be 
sufficient  to  place  Napoleon  II.  on  the 
throne  within  two  years'  time.  Joseph 
declined  the  proposal,  partly  because  of 
shortness  of  funds,  partly  because  he 
mistrusted  Lafayette's  ability  to  carry 
it  out.    Ingersoll  adds: 

Joseph  and  Lafayette  parted  on  the  kind- 
est terms,  which  were  never  interrupted,  al- 
though six  years  afterward  they  differed  as 
much  as  ever  on  Lafayette's  last,  and 
again  unfortunate,  instrumentality  in  the  at- 
tempt to  restore  a  Bourbon  monarch. 

Two  discrepancies — neither  of  them 
very  important — may  be  noted  in  the 
accounts  of  the  interview  given  by  Jo- 
seph to  Ingersoll  and  Paulding  respec- 
tively.    One  concerns  the   sum  men- 
tioned,  which   i  s   obviously  due 
to  a  misunderstanding;  the  other  is 
the  omission  in  the  interview  with 
Paulding  of  any  mention  of  a  com- 
mittee to  have  the  custody  of  the 
proposed  fund.    No  one  acquainted 
with  Lafayette's  character,  however 
— particularly  with  his  reputation 
for  lavish  generosity  and  disinter- 
ested giving — could  for  a  moment 
entertain  the  hypothesis  that  the 
General  was   proposing   a  bribe. 
Almost  at  this  very  time  he  declined 
the  gift  of  #200,000  and  a  township 
of  land,  voted  him  by  Congress, 
and    discouraged    the    efforts  un- 
dertaken in  several  of  the  states 
to  offer  him  money. 

There  remains  the  question  of 
Lafayette's  sincerity,  which,  despite 
Ingersoll's  assertion  of  their  con- 
tinued friendship,  was  evidently 
gravely  compromised  in  Bonaparte's 
eyes  at  the  time  of  his  visit  to 
Paulding. 


Was  Lafayette  a  Republican,  an 
Orleanist,  a  Bonapartist,  or  more  simply 
a  believer  in  constitutional  liberty,  ready 
to  take  advantage  of  any  party  to  secure 
an  advance  in  the  general  direction  of 
his  ideals?  The  subsequent  correspon- 
dence between  himself  and  Bonaparte 
sheds  considerable  light  upon  this  ques- 
tion. 

Immediately  upon  hearing  of  the 
Revolution  of  1830,  Joseph  wrote  to  La- 
fayette as  the  Frenchman  who  best 
knew  his  thoughts,  taking  occasion  at 
the  same  time  to  express  entire  confi- 
dence in  his  character.  Lafayette  re- 
plied with  every  evidence  of  affection 
and  esteem,  as  well  as  with  considerable 
frankness. 

You  have  been  disappointed  in  me  during 
these  latest  happenings  [he  writes],  not  be- 
cause I  had  committed  myself  to  you  or  to 
anybody  else,  but  you  have  said  to  yourself, 
"Since  Lafayette  has  felt  it  incumbent  on 
him  in  view  of  the  existing  conditions  to 
relax  his  well-known  and  oft  -  proclaimed 
preference  for  completely  republican  institu- 
tions, why  has  this  concession  been  exerted 
to  the  advantage  of  another  family  than  my 
own?  Has  he  forgotten  that  three  million 
votes  have  accredited  the  imperial  dynasty?" 
.  .  .  The  first  condition  of  republican  con- 
victions being  a  respect  for  the  general  will, 
I  was  prevented  from  proposing  a  purely 


THE  MARQUIS  OF  LAFAYETTE 
about  the  time  of  his  last  visit  to  the  United  States 


VIEW  NEAR  BORDENTOWN  FROM  THE  GARDENS  OF  JOSEPH  BONAPARTE'S  ESTATE 

[From  a  contemporary  print.] 


American  constitution,  the  best  of  all  in  my 
eyes;  to  have  done  so  would  have  been  to 
disregard  the  voice  of  the  majority,  to  risk 
civil  strife,  and  to  invite  a  foreign  war.  If 
I  was  mistaken,  it  was  at  least  against  my 
constant  inclination,  and  supposing  that  I 
was  actuated  by  a  vulgar  ambition,  even 
against  what  would  have  been  called  my 
own  interest.  A  popular  throne  in  the  name 
of  the  national  sovereignty,  surrounded  by 
republican  institutions — that  is  what  we 
considered  practicable.  .  .  . 

I  might  confine  myself  to  saying  that  your 
dynasty  was  dispersed,  .  .  .  but  I  owe  to 
your  friendship  my  full  and  frank  opinion. 
The  Napoleonic  system  has  been  radiant 
with  glory,  but  stamped  with  despotism, 
aristocracy,  and  servitude,  and  if  there  be  a 
combination  that  could  make  these  scourges 
tolerable  and  almost  popular  in  France 
(which  God  forbid!),  it  would  be  a  return  of 
the  imperial  regime.  Besides  this,  the  son 
of  your  immortal  brother  has  become  an 
Austrian  prince,  and  you  know  what  the 
cabinet  of  Vienna  is.  There,  my  dear  Count, 
in  spite  of  my  personal  feelings  toward  you, 
you  have  the  reasons  which  have  prevented 
me  from  desiring  the  re-establishment  of  a 
throne  whose  constant  tendency  toward  an- 
cient errors  was  demonstrated  during  the 
Hundred  Days. 

This  was  in  1830.  May  it  have  been 
that  in  1824 — six  years  earlier — Lafa- 
yette, while  holding  the  same  opinion, 


was  in  doubt  whether  Louis  Philippe  or 
the  young  Napoleon  was  more  likely  to 
provide  the  liberal  monarchy  of  which 
the  French  nation  had  need,  and,  in  the 
throes  of  that  doubt,  inclined  now  to  the 
one  side,  now  to  the  other? 

To  understand  this  position  one  has 
to  remember  that  the  name  "Republic" 
in  France  was  laden  still  with  recollec- 
tions of  the  Terror;  that  at  no  time 
between  the  close  of  the  great  Revolu- 
tion and  the  later  years  of  the  reign  of 
Louis  Philippe  would  it  have  entered  the 
region  of  practical  politics  to  propose 
a  revival  of  the  republican  regime.  La- 
fayette himself  had  recoiled  from  par- 
ticipation in  the  later  governmental 
stages  of  the  earlier  republic;  conserv- 
ing his  theoretical  principles,  he  had 
subsequently  held  aloof  from  both  the 
Empire  and  from  the  Bourbon  monarchy 
he  had  helped  to  restore.  In  America 
he  might  reasonably  and  justly  describe 
himself  as  a  Republican;  to  a  group  of 
friends  at  a  private  table  in  a  discussion 
of  contemporary  French  politics  he 
might  well  refer  to  the  Orleanist  party 
as  the  one  to  which  he  "belonged"  in 
the  sense  that  he  was  compelled  to  act 
with  its  representatives.  In  the  privacy 
of  Bonaparte's  study  was  he  betrayed 
by  the  good  feeling  of  the  moment — the 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  NAPOLEON'S  BROTHER 


821 


sympathetic  atmosphere  of  old  France 
in  the  middle  of  his  dust-laden  journey — 
into  a  profession  of  the  other  alternative? 
Or  did  he  only  mean  to  sound  Joseph  as 
to  the  lengths  he  was  prepared  to  go  in 
an  attempt  to  restore  his  nephew  to  the 
throne?  Lafayette's  biographers  all 
describe  him  as  impulsive  and  prone  to 
give  his  confidence  on  insufficient 
grounds. 

To  Ingersoll  Joseph  writes  on  January 
2,  183 1,  that  he  has  sure  information 
that  Lafayette  proposed  the  exclusion 
of  the  Bourbons  in  the  preceding  July, 
and  was  willing  to  assent  to  the  procla- 
mation of  young  Napoleon,  but  yielded, 
after  a  defense  lasting  thirty  hours,  to 
the  arguments  of  those  who  wanted  the 
Duke  of  Orleans.  In  another  letter, 
written  in  the  following  March,  he  ad- 
mits, however,  that  Lafayette  has 
informed  him  that  in  his  (the  General's) 
opinion  the  Duke  of  Orleans  alone  was  in 
a  position  to  prevent  war,  and  Joseph 
hints  his  belief  that  Lafayette  was 
duped  again.   Ingersoll  says: 

Joseph  always  held  that  on  several  great 
conjunctures  Lafayette  misjudged  French 
interest,  welfare,  and  glory;  once  by  his 
flight  from  the  head  of  the  French  army  in 
1792;  again  by  his  acquiescence  in  the  Bour- 
bon restoration  of  181 5;  and  a  third  time 
when  he  helped  the  Duke  of  Orleans  to  the 
throne:  all  calamities  for  his  country. 

That  this  was  Joseph's  final  judgment 
we  may  well  believe.  It  is  not  incom- 
patible with  a  belief  in  Lafayette's 
integrity,  which,  although  shaken  for  a 
moment  at  the  time  of  his  visit  to  Pauld- 
ing, was  in  all  probability  quickly  re- 
established, as  witness  his  reply  to  the 
letter  of  Lafayette  last  quoted: 

I  am  convinced  that  on  this  occasion,  too, 
you  have  acted  as  you  judged  yourself  bound 
in  conscience  to  do.    Please  believe,  my  dear 


General,  that  I  am  full  of  esteem,  gratitude, 
and  friendship  for  you,  against  wind  and 
tide. 

That  it  will  also  be  the  verdict  of  his- 
tory it  may  be  going  too  far  to  assert, 
yet  historians  are  agreed  that  Lafa- 
yette was  more  remarkable  for  his  quali- 
ties of  heart  than  of  head.  "A  political 
ninny,"  Napoleon  called  him,  in  one  of 
his  outbursts,  "the  eternal  dupe  of  men 
and  things."  But  Taine,  taking  note 
of  it,  writes: 

With  Lafayette  and  some  others  one  em- 
barrassing detail  remains,  namely,  proven 
disinterestedness,  constant  solicitude  for  the 
public  good,  respect  for  others,  the  authority 
of  conscience,  loyalty,  and  good  faith;  in 
short,  pure  and  noble  motives. 

"A  weak  man,"  again  he  has  been 
called,  "overridden  by  the  abstract 
principles  he  professed."  But  it  is  not 
a  characteristic  of  weakness  to  remain 
faithful  throughout  a  long  career  in 
troubled  times  to  a  single  ideal,  no  mat- 
ter how  abstract.  Matched  by  the 
standard  of  public  men  in  France  who 
passed  from  Bourbon  to  Bonaparte  and 
back  again  within  a  space  of  a  few 
months,  he  appears  a  model  of  consis- 
tency. That  he  was  venal,  nobody  has 
ever  asserted.  That  he  was  ready  upon 
more  than  one  occasion  to  sacrifice  him- 
self and  his  possessions  for  the  cause  of 
liberty  is  amply  admitted.  If  he  con- 
templated for  an  instant  lending  his  in- 
fluence to  a  renewal  of  the  Empire,  it 
must  have  been  in  acceptance  of  the 
dictum  announced  by  Joseph  himself — 
"Individual  families  have  duties  to  per- 
form in  their  relation  to  nations,  but 
nations  alone  have  rights  to  exercise." 
The  claim  of  Napoleon's  son,  on  this 
theory,  rested  upon  his  proclamation  by 
the  deputies  in  1815,  and  was  valid  only 
until  the  nation  made  another  choice. 


Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  786.— 102 


Wedding-gifts 


BY   ALICE  BROWN 


YRUS  HOLT,  a  tall, 
light-colored  man  some- 
thing over  thirty,  stood 
in  his  little  front  garden 
watering  the  Canter- 
bury-bells. He  had 
slow,  deft  movements 
like  a  clumsy  dog  taught  to  do  clever 
tricks.  But  his  tricks  were  all  useful 
ones,  though  they  sometimes  seemed  to 
him  tiresome  because  nobody  cared 
whether  he  did  them  or  not.  He  lived 
alone  in  the  little  gray  shingled  house, 
and  did  over  old  furniture  in  the  shop 
behind.  Touring-cars  stopped  often  at 
his  gate,  and  ladies  loved  to  talk  with 
him.  If  he  had  traded  on  his  charm,  he 
might  have  sold  out  his  shop  as  fast  as 
he  filled  it;  but  that  elaboration  of  busi- 
ness had  never  occurred  to  him. 

Cyrus  not  only  bought  and  repaired 
furniture,  but  did  his  own  cooking  and 
kept  the  house  neat.  He  never  told  how 
bitterly  he  hated  all  the  sweeping  and 
washing  that  went  to  fulfilling  the  old 
traditions  his  mother  had  kept  up  even 
through  her  illness,  because  he  had  a 
feeling  she  might  get  wind  of  such  dis- 
loyalty, wherever  her  spirit  lived,  and 
perhaps  be  hurt  by  it.  But  sometime, 
he  thought,  he  should  shut  the  door  and 
turn  the  key  upon  all  the  exacting  tasks 
that  lay  in  wait  for  him  there.  This 
would  be  after  Annie  Lincoln's  marriage, 
and  the  marriage  came  to-morrow.  As 
he  watered  the  Canterbury  -  bells  he 
looked  down  on  them  worshipfully,  all 
of  them  snow-white,  standing  in  a  chaste 
perfection,  holding  their  scalloped  cups 
up  to  the  light.  He  had  been  sprinkling 
them  for  a  long  time,  half  in  absent 
habit,  and  the  drops  lay  thickly  on  them, 
and  the  ground  about  them  was  black 
with  richness.  His  garden  had  never 
looked  so  happy  and  prosperous  as  this 
year,  and  yet  this  was  the  year  when  he 
felt  himself  done  with  it  for  ever. 

"You've  got  an  elegant-lookin'  patch 
there,"  came  a  woman's  voice  from  the 


gate.  It  was  an  old  voice  with  seams 
and  cracks  in  it,  yet  always  a  thrill  like 
perpetual  laughter. 

Cyrus  knew  who  she  was:  old  Huldy 
Lincoln  from  the  Ridge.  She  was  An- 
nie's cousin  of  some  distant  degree,  and 
she  had  walked  over  to  the  wedding. 
He  had  heard  the  neighbors  speak  of  her 
coming,  laughingly,  yet  with  tolerance. 
They  knew  she  was  half  a  gipsy,  and  the 
wedding  was  to  be  a  proper  one.  The 
aunt  and  uncle  who  had  brought  Annie 
up,  and  half  pushed,  half  cajoled  her  into 
accepting  Joel  Brewster,  were  fore- 
handed folks,  and  they  would  not  be 
over-pleased  to  see  an  awkward  old  re- 
lation stumbling  into  their  gala-day. 
Joel  Brewster  might  not  be  pleased.  He 
was  the  storekeeper,  and  his  first  wife 
had  been  a  Tappan  and  brought  him 
money. 

Cyrus  set  down  his  watering-pot  and 
went  along  the  path.  Huldy  was  resting 
her  strong  brown  hands  on  the  gate, 
while  her  keen  eyes  sought  here  and 
there  in  the  garden  with  the  professional 
gaze  of  one  who  also  has  built  up  a  thing 
of  beauty  and  knows  the  pitfalls  in  the 
way.  She  was  a  muscular,  broad  woman 
between  sixty  and  seventy,  dressed  in 
dark-blue  gingham  of  the  thickness  often 
devoted  to  men's  shirts,  and  Cyrus,  who 
had  thought  of  Annie's  wedding  until 
he  had  got  nervous  over  every  detail, 
wondered  whether  Huldy  would  not 
spoil  the  picture  if  she  had  no  clothes  but 
these. 

"I  never  see  such  poppies  in  my  life," 
she  said. 

"Too  bad  they  wilt  so  quick,  ain't  it?" 
Cyrus  answered.  "They're  all  right  if 
you  leave  'em  on  the  stem,  but  if  you 
cut  'em,  where  be  they?" 

"You  can  plunge  the  stems  into  hot 
water." 

"Yes,  so  the  papers  say.  But  I  can't 
say  's  I  take  much  stock  in  it.  What 
I'd  like,"  he  said,  in  a  burst  of  confi- 
dence, "would  be  to  have  hunderds  of 


WEDDING-GIFTS 


823 


'em  in  vases  'round  the  room  for  Annie's 
weddin'.  I  couldn't  think  of  anything 
'twould  light  it  up  so.  But  you  can't 
resk  it.  One  and  another  wilts,  and  that 
spiles  all  the  rest." 

She  glanced  sharply  at  him.  "You 
goin'  to  the  weddin'  ?"  she  asked. 

He  shook  his  head. 

"I've  heard  Annie  say  consid'able 
about  you,"  she  continued.  "That  week 
she  come  over  to  the  Ridge  to  see  me 
she  couldn't  talk  about  nobody  else, 
your  flower-garden  and  all.  But  if  I 
hadn't  known  ye  I  should  ha'  thought, 
the  way  she  spoke,  you  were  an  older 
man." 

"That's  it,"  said  Cyrus,  gravely.  "I 
s'pose  Annie  would  think  of  me  that 
way.  When  mother  and  I  come  back  here 
to  live,  Annie  didn't  seem  no  more  'n  a 
little  girl  to  me.  I  s'pose  I  seemed  as 
old  again  to  her  as  I  be.  I  used  to  watch 
her,  and  kind  of  wait  for  her  to  grow  up, 
and  fust  thing  I  knew  she  was  goin'  to 
marry  Brewster." 

"Yes,"  said  Huldy.  "I  shouldn't 
wonder  if  they  kind  of  egged  her  on." 

"Well,"  said  Cyrus,  angrily,  "that's 
neither  here  nor  there.  The  weddin's 
to-morrer,  and  next  day  she'll  be  gone." 

"Yes,"  said  Huldy,  taking  her  hands 
off  the  gate,  "that's  so.  Well,  I  must 
be  gittin'  along.  If  I  don't  step  lively 
I  sha'n't  git  home  'fore  night." 

"Ain't  you  goin'  to  stay  to  the  wed- 
din'?" 

"Law,  no.  I'm  no  hand  for  weddin's. 
I'd  ruther  set  down  on  the  front  steps 
with  a  bowl  o'  bread  and  milk  and  hear 
the  whippoorwill.  But  I've  got  a  little 
mite  of  a  present  for  Annie,  and  I'm  goin' 
to  put  it  into  her  own  hands.  You  want 
to  see  what  'tis?" 

Cyrus  did  want  to  see.  She  thrust  a 
hand  into  her  long  pocket  and  pulled  up 
the  bottom  of  it  in  her  search.  When  she 
brought  the  hand  out,  she  opened  it — 
a  broad,  brown,  serviceablemember — and 
showed  him  two  ten-dollar  gold-pieces. 

"I've  had  'em  laid  up  for  most  eight 
year,"  she  said,  "toward  buryin'  me. 
But  I  got  thinkin'  of  Annie  t'other  night 
when  I  set  eatin'  my  supper  on  the  steps, 
and  I  says,  'Some  o'  the  Lincolns  '11 
bury  me  and  be  glad  to.  And  I'll  tell 
Annie  to  lay  these  by  and  say  nothin' 
about  'em  till  she  wants  to  run  away 


from  Brewster,  and  mebbe  they'll  buy 
her  a  ticket  some'er's.'" 

Cyrus  stepped  forward  hastily  and 
opened  the  gate,  as  if  he  would  pursue 
her  and  her  thoughts  to  their  last  con- 
clusion. "Do  you  know  anything  ag'inst 
Brewster?"  he  demanded. 

"Not  the  leastest  thing  in  the  world." 

"Then  what  makes  you  think  she'll 
want  to  run  away?" 

"Law,  'most  everybody  does,"  said 
Huldy,  calmly.  "From  time  to  time, 
that  is.  But  they  git  over  it,  and  byme- 
by  they  quiet  down  for  good.  Only  I 
kinder  set  by  Annie.  She's  a  delicate 
little  thing,  and  if  she  wanted  to  go  I 
guess  'twould  break  her  heart  to  find  she 
couldn't.  So  you  ain't  goin'  to  give  her 
no  poppies?" 

"No,"  said  Cyrus,  "but  I'm  goin'  to 
give  her  these." 

He  swept  his  arm  toward  the  Canter- 
bury-bells, and  Huldy  nodded  at  them, 
as  if  she  acknowledged  their  perfection. 

"Yes,"  said  she.  "That's  more  like 
it." 

Cyrus  did  not  finish  watering  the  gar- 
den. He  watched  her  tramping  down 
the  road,  and  then  went  back  to  his 
tract  of  Canterbury-bells  and  stood  look- 
ing at  them  with  a  grave  consideration. 
He  knew  how  wonderful  they  were;  yet 
now  at  the  last  he  debated  whether  there 
could  be  anything  more  to  do  to  crown 
their  perfectness.  But  there  was  no  last 
care  to  show  them,  and  he  turned  back 
to  the  house.  On  the  step  he  paused, 
with  the  feeling  that  some  one  was  look- 
ing at  him.  There  was  no  sound,  but 
his  senses  told  him  he  was  not  alone. 
There  in  the  orchard  path,  half  screened 
by  the  great  lilac  bush,  she  stood,  Annie 
Lincoln  in  her  light  dress,  the  sun  on  her 
yellow  hair.  It  seemed  to  him  he  could 
not  get  to  her  quickly  enough,  though 
he  crossed  the  garden  in  long  strides. 
It  was  not  like  Annie,  really.  It  was 
like  the  ghost  of  her.  As  he  came,  he 
did  not  see  her  moving  away  from  him, 
but  at  his  call  she  returned  to  her  place 
behind  the  bush. 

"Why,  Annie!"  he  said;  and  that  was 
all  he  could  say  for  a  moment.  "Where 
you  goin'?" 

She  stood  staring  at  him  as  if  she  hard- 
ly knew  what  she  might  allow  herself  to 
answer,  and  he  thought  he  had  never 


824 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


seen  her  look  so  strange.  She  was  fair 
and  delicate,  but  her  eyes  were  a  dark, 
deep  brown,  and  now  they  seemed 
larger  than  ever,  the  pupils  wide  and 
black. 

"Where  you  goin'?"  he  repeated 
gently.  It  seemed  to  him  he  should  have 
to  reach  over  the  fence  and  touch  her 
arm  to  recall  her  from  her  trance. 

"To  get  some  brakes,"  she  answered. 

"What  for?" 

"They  want  'em — for  to-morrow  " 
"For  trimmin'  ?" 

"Yes.  They're  goin'  to  trim  the 
house." 

"You  run  back  home,"  said  Cyrus. 
He  felt  compassion  for  her,  she  seemed 
so  tired  and  frail.  Yet  she  was  strong 
and  healthy,  really.  This  state  was  like 
the  withering  of  a  lovely  flower.  "I'll 
get  'em  for  you  and  bring  'em  in  the 
mornin'." 

"No,  no,"  she  said.  Now  she  looked 
terrified.  "I'd  ruther  go.  I  want  to  get 
away  a  spell." 

Cyrus  could  understand  that.  He 
could  fancy  Aunt  Sarah  charging  about 
the  house,  talking  cake  and  decorations, 
and  Uncle  Timothy  clumping  in  and  out, 
silent  but  ponderous. 

"All  right,"  said  he.  "You  go  along 
down  to  the  spring,  and  set  there  a  spell 
and  hear  the  brook  runnin'.  But  don't 
you  worry  about  the  brakes.  I'll  fetch 
you  a  whole  cartload  in  the  mornin'  while 
the  dew's  on  'em." 

She  turned  away,  but  she  looked  back 
at  him.    "Good-by!"  she  called. 

Cyrus  put  his  hand  on  the  fence,  to 
leap  it  and  hurry  after  her.  But  that 
would  startle  her  and  do  him  no  good. 
So  he  stood  staring,  and  the  sound  of  her 
last  word  beat  on  in  his  ears  until  he  had 
to  answer  it. 

"Don't  you  say  that  word,  Annie. 
There's  no  such  word  betwixt  you  and 
me." 

She  stopped,  and  their  eyes  met  sadly. 
Then  she  smiled  in  a  strange  way. 
"Yes,"  said  she,  "I  guess  there  is.  If 
this  ain't  good-by,  I  don't  know  what 
good-by  is." 

Now  she  went  on,  and  Cyrus  leaped 
the  fence  and  followed  her.  She  walked 
rapidly  down  the  lane  and  he  walked 
beside  her. 

"Annie,"  said  he,  "you  sick?" 


"No,"  she  answered,  looking  down 
and  hurrying  on.  "I  guess  I'm  well 
enough." 

"They  'ain't  been  worryin'  you?" 

"No.    Oh,  no." 

"I  s'pose  you're  tired  out,"  said 
Cyrus,  bitterly.  "Sewin'  on  things  and 
beatin'  up  cake.  It's  no  way  to  start 
out  bein'  married.  They've  worked  you 
like  a  dog." 

Annie  stopped  and  seemed  to  recover 
herself.  She  even  smiled  a  little. 
"There,  Cyrus,"  she  said.  "You  turn 
about  and  go  back  home.  I'll  run  along 
and  set  a  minute  by  the  spring." 

She  looked  strangely  lonely  and  un- 
friended, yet  he  could  not  think  of  any- 
thing to  do  to  help  her. 

"Don't  you  want" — he  hesitated — 
"don't  you  want  I  should  go  with  you?" 

"No,"  said  Annie,  quickly.  "I 
couldn't  bear  it." 

"All  right,"  said  Cyrus. 

But  as  he  turned  away  from  her  it 
came  to  him  suddenly  that  he  must  see 
her  again  before  the  morning.  "You 
comin'  back  this  way?"  he  called. 

"No,"  said  she.  "I  shall  go  through 
the  medder." 

Cyrus,  walking  rapidly  back,  turned 
once  to  look  at  her.  She,  too,  was  walk- 
ing fast,  and  in  a  moment  she  crossed 
the  little  rise  and  he  had  lost  her.  Then 
he  went  into  the  house  and  shut  the 
door  behind  him,  not  to  be  tempted  to 
go  out  to  follow  her  or  even  to  look 
again  at  the  Canterbury  -  bells.  But 
while  he  did  the  tasks  he  hated,  setting 
out  his  supper  on  the  scoured  table — 
though  he  had  no  mind  to  eat — he  heard 
some  one  at  the  door,  and  hurried  tow- 
ard it.  The  latch  lifted,  and  Huldy 
stepped  in  with  a  little  nod  that  did  for 
ceremony.- 

"Look  here,"  said  she;  "when  you 
goin'  over  there  with  your  blooms?" 

"In  the  mornin',"  Cyrus  answered, 
pulling  out  a  chair  for  her. 

"Well,  then,  you  see  'f  you  can  see 
Annie,  and  you  give  her  what  I  showed 
you,  unbeknownst." 

Again  she  plunged  her  hand  into  the 
deep  pocket  and  brought  out  the  two 
gold-pieces.  Cyrus  felt  an  unreasoning 
excitement. 

"Why  didn't  you  give  'em  to  her?" 
he  asked. 


WEDDING-GIFTS 


825 


"I  never  see  her,"  said  Huldy.  "I 
guess  they  didn't  want  I  should.  They 
said  she'd  gone  off  some'er's.  I  knew  I 
shouldn't  git  home  'fore  midnight  if  I 
waited  any  longer,  an'  I  come  away." 

"I  see  Annie  not  twenty  minutes  ago," 
said  Cyrus.  "She  went  down  through 
that  lane  and  she's  goin'  back  through 
the  medder.  You  take  the  cart-path  an' 
foller  her.    That's  what  you  do." 

Huldy  stood  a  moment,  thinking. 
"Well,"  said  she,  "I  dunno'  what  I'm 
goin'  to  foller  her  for.  You  better  do  it 
yourself,  come  to  that." 

"No,  I  can't.  'Tain't  my  place.  But 
you  go,  Huldy.    You  go." 

"I  dunno'  what  for." 

Cyrus  did  not  know  either,  but  he  felt 
she  might  understand  that  look  in  An- 
nie's eyes.  "You  go,"  he  repeated. 
"You  do  it.    You  find  out — " 

"What  be  I  goin'  to  find  out?"  Huldy 
asked  him. 

"Find  out  how  she  feels  about  it." 

"'Bout  her  weddin'?" 

"Yes." 

"There  ain't  many  girls  can  tell  how 
they  feel  about  their  weddin',"  said 
Huldy,  shrewdly.  "I  guess  it's  all  a 
dream." 

"Yes,"  said  Cyrus.  "That's  it.  That's 
the  way  she  looked.  As  if  she's  in  a 
dream." 

Huldy  glanced  at  him  sharply. 
"Well,"  said  she,  "what  kind  of  a 
dream?    Good  or  bad?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Cyrus.  "She 
didn't  look  hardly — right." 

Huldy  had  sunk  into  the  chair,  and 
now  she  rose  and  stood  for  a  moment 
looking  down  at  her  stout  shoes. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "I  guess  I'll  chance 
it.  I  can  give  her  the  gold-pieces,  and 
she  needn't  say  anything  if  she  don't 
want  to.  Which  way  'd  you  say  she 
went  ?" 

Cyrus  opened  the  door  for  her.  He 
felt  an  unreasoning  haste. 

"You  go  down  the  lane,"  he  said. 
"Then  there's  the  cart-path.  You  foller 
that  and  'twill  bring  you  to  the  spring. 
I'd  go  with  you,  but  I  guess  you'll  make 
out  better  alone." 

But  some  one  else  was  striking  into 
the  lane — Joel  Brewster,  walking  fast, 
his  head  high,  and  whistling.  He  was  a 
heavy  man,  with  a  close,  grizzled  beard, 


and  bags  under  his  eyes,  and  to  Cyrus 
he  had  looked  more  and  more  unpleasant 
as  the  wedding-day  came  near.  Brey/- 
ster  was  a  man  who  was  always  driving 
fast,  bent  on  business  and  in  haste  about 
it.  But  now  his  haste  was  joyous,  and, 
strangely,  it  did  not  become  him.  It 
was  a  distinct  shock  to  hear  him  whis- 
tling.   He  nodded  at  the  two. 

"Seen  anybody  goin'  this  way?"  he 
called. 

Cyrus  did  not  answer,  and  Brewster 
hardly  waited. 

"I  guess  I  know  where  to  find  her,"  he 
said.   "Her  uncle  seen  her  turn  in  here." 

He  went  on,  and  Cyrus  watched  him 
and  hated  his  heavy  shoulders.  Yet  his 
own  shoulders  were  as  broad,  only  they 
had  muscle  without  fat.  Huldy  was 
watching,  too. 

"That  him?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  said  Cyrus. 

"Well,  then,  I'll  be  moggin'  along 
home.  I  guess  if  anything  could  been 
done  we'd  better  done  it  afore  now.  An' 
mebbe  you  couldn't,  anyways.  That 
kind  of  a  creatur's  hard  to  git  away  from. 
Sometimes  a  girl's  bewitched.  But  you 
give  her  the  money,  quick  as  ever  you 
can. 

Again  she  drew  forth  the  gold-pieces, 
but  somehow  he  did  not  want  to  take 
them  into  his  hand.  They  seemed  to  be 
the  price  of  something  that  should  not 
be  sold.  But  he  remembered  then  that 
they  were  to  be  the  price  of  Annie's  de- 
liverance if  she  needed  it.  Huldy  seemed 
to  understand.  She  went  to  the  window, 
slipped  up  the  screen,  and  laid  them  on 
the  sill. 

"There!"  said  she.  "In  the  mornin' 
you  give  'em  to  her  and  tell  her  right  out 
what  I  said.  Tell  her  they're  to  run 
away  with,  if  she  wants  to  go." 

Cyrus  came  awake.  "I'll  see  to  it," 
he  said.  "Now  you  come  in  and  have  a 
cup  o'  tea  and  I'll  harness  up  and  carry 
you  along  home." 

"No,"  said  Huldy.  "'Bleeged  to  you, 
but  I'd  ruther  by  half  walk." 

Cyrus  followed  her  to  the  gate. 
"Why,"  said  he,  "it's  a  matter  o'  ten 
mile. 

"I  know  it,"  said  Huldy;  "but  it's 
moonlight,  and  good  goin'  all  the  way. 
Besides,  I  kinder  feel  as  if  you'd  better 
hang  'round  here.    It's  borne  in  on  me, 


826 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


and  when  I  have  them  feelin's  I  give  in 
to  'em.  Anyways,  you  set  down  an' 
think  it  over,  an'  when  you  hand  her  the 
money  you  speak  up  and  tell  her  what 
it's  for." 

Cyrus  watched  her  away  through  the 
dusk  and  then  went  into  the  house  and 
stood  a  moment  in  the  front  room  looking 
at  the  gold-pieces  on  the  sill.  He  thought 
of  wrapping  them  in  a  little  packet  for 
Annie's  hand,  but  there  was  time  enough 
for  that,  and  he  went  off  into  the  kitchen 
and  left  them  lying  there.  After  he  had 
eaten  hastily  and  as  a  matter  of  habit, 
he  cleared  away  his  supper,  and  the 
night  was  before  him  like  a  wall.  Cyrus 
had  thought  a  good  many  times  of  this 
one  night,  the  last  before  Annie  Lin- 
coln's marriage.  After  it,  he  knew,  he 
could  not  be  the  same  again.  When  she 
walked  out  of  the  neighborhood  into 
another  man's  house  she  would  have 
shut  a  door  behind  her,  and  he  would  be 
left  in  a  strange  state  he  did  not  like  to 
think  of,  in  the  emptiness  she  had  left. 
But  the  night  was  even  more  strange 
than  he  had  fancied  it.  Perhaps  Huldy 
had  helped  make  it  so,  with  her  uncom- 
pleted errand  and  her  dark  talk  of  men 
and  women  who  wanted  to  get  away. 
He  sat  down  in  his  arm-chair  in  the 
kitchen  and  bent  forward  over  his  folded 
hands  in  a  throbbing  misery.  The 
moon  came  up  and  the  whippoorwill 
sang,  and  there  were  scented  waves  of 
dampness,  and  it  seemed  to  him  the 
hours  would  never  pass.  He  was  not 
thinking  either  about  Annie  or  his  lack 
of  her.  He  was  only  merged  into  a  flood- 
ing life  where  everything  is  pain.  It 
seemed  to  him  he  had  sat  there  half  the 
night  when  the  clock  struck  and  star- 
tled him.  He  counted,  and  could  not 
believe  himself,  for  it  was  only  ten.  And 
at  the  last  quivering  stroke  somebody 
beat  upon  the  door.  But  she  did  not 
wait  for  him  to  come.  She  called  him 
over  and  over. 

" Cyrus!    Cyrus!  You  there?" 

At  the  instant  of  her  calling  he  was  at 
the  door,  but  it  seemed  to  him  that  it 
was  long  enough  for  them  to  find  her 
and  drag  her  away  from  him.  There  she 
was,  a  slender  figure  in  her  light  dress 
the  moonlight  turned  to  mist.  Her  hair 
was  in  one  long  braid,  and  it  looked  like 
silver.     Cyrus  put  out  his  hand  and 


drew  her  in  and  shut  the  door  behind  her. 
Then  he  shot  the  great  bolt,  though 
when  he  slept  there  alone  he  never 
thought  of  fastening  it  at  all.  But  the 
sound  of  the  bolted  door  was  reassuring 
to  her,  he  knew,  though  she  seemed  not 
to  notice  it,  for  she  fell  to  crying. 

"Come  in  here,"  said  Cyrus,  guiding 
her  into  the  living-room.  "I'll  get  a 
light." 

His  passion  of  the  hours  before  had 
hardened  into  a  calm.  He  felt  not  like 
a  lover,  but  a  fighting  man. 

"No,  no,"  said  she.  "Not  in  there. 
They'll  see  me  through  the  window." 

"'D  they  know  you're  comin'?" 

"No.  They  think  I'm  abed.  I  was 
goin'.  I'd  got  my  hair  braided.  But  I 
dressed  me  again  and  come." 

"Nobody  '11  see  you  in  the  kitchen," 
said  Cyrus.  "  I'll  pull  down  the  curtains." 

She  went  with  him  obediently,  but 
when  they  stood  in  the  broad  track  of 
moonlight  from  the  kitchen  window  he 
turned  and  looked  at  her.  He  had  for- 
gotten the  lamp  and  all  the  quiet  sani- 
ties he  meant  to  weave  about  her. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked  her.  "What 
made  you  come?" 

In  the  last  minutes  she  had  cried  vio- 
lently, so  that  now  she  caught  her  breath 
in  sad  after-gasps,  trying  hard  to  still 
them.    "I  was  afraid,"  she  said. 

Cyrus  understood.  But  he  felt  he  had 
to  understand  a  little  more.  "What 
made  you?"  he  asked  her.  "If  you're 
afraid  now,  why  wa'n't  you  afraid  be- 
fore?" 

She  was  silent  a  moment.  He  could 
hear  her  catch  her  breath. 

"It's  to-morrow,  Cyrus,"  she  said. 
"  Don't  you  know  'tis  ?  And  I'm  afraid." 

Cyrus  felt  he  could  not  let  her  leave 
anything  unsaid.  "You  knew  'twas 
goin'  to  be  to-morrer,"  he  reminded  her. 
"You've  been  walkin'  right  along  tow- 
ard it." 

"But  he  come  down  there,"  she  said — 
"down  into  the  woods  right  after  I  left 
you.  I  was  standin'  by  the  spring.  I 
guess  I  was  cryin'.  Not  like  this,  but  I 
was  cryin'.  I  see  him,  and  'fore  I  knew 
what  I  was  doin'  I  started  to  run.  And 
he  run,  too.  I  heard  his  steps  behind 
me.  And  he  ketched  me  up  and  kissed 
me.  That's  all,  Cyrus.  I  can't  bear  it. 
I'm  afraid." 


WEDDING-GIFTS 


827 


"Hadn't  he  ever  kissed  you?" 

"Once,  on  my  cheek.  And  I  got  away. 
I  thought  he'd  see  I  didn't  like  it.  But 
now,  somehow,  he  don't  care.  •  I  can't 
bear  it,  Cyrus.    I'm  afraid." 

They  stood  there  silent  for  a  mo- 
ment, hearing  the  clock  tick  and  the 
stress  of  each  other's  breath.  Cyrus 
seemed  to  himself  calm  enough,  because 
he  had  to  be.  He  was  thinking  hard; 
although  he  knew  what  he  meant  to  do, 
he  was  sure  it  must  be  done  in  the  right 
way.  He  had  no  faith  in  his  own  power 
of  speech,  and  yet  she  had  to  see  things 
as  he  saw  them.  But  as  he  debated  over 
words,  he  put  out  his  hands  and  drew 
her  to  him,  and  they  stood  there,  his 
arms  about  her,  and  she  did  not  shrink 
from  him.  Cyrus  bent  his  cheek  to 
hers. 

"Annie,"  said  he,  "are  you  afraid?" 

He  was  holding  her  lightly,  but  she 
did  not  stir,  and  he  asked  his  question 
over. 

"No,"  said  she. 

"Then,"  said  Cyrus,  "you  kiss  me, 
and  see  if  you're  afraid." 

She  did  it  so  obediently  that  he  was 
sorry  for  her.  She  touched  his  heart  in  a 
way  that  hurt  him. 

"Annie,"  said  he,  "what  made  you 
come  here  to  me  to-night?" 

"I  told  you.    I'm  afraid." 

"Yes,"  said  Cyrus,  "but  what  made 
you  come  to  me?  There's  the  minister. 
He'd  stand  by  you.  What  made  you 
come  right  straight  to  me?" 

She  had  not  thought  of  reasons.  That 
made  it  all  the  better.  But  she  with- 
drew from  him  a  little  and  her  voice  was 
troubled.   "  Hadn't  I  ought  to  come  ?" 

He  snatched  her  back  into  his  arms. 
"Yes,"  he  said.  "You'd  ought  to  come, 
and  you'd  ought  to  stay.  And  you'd 
ought  to  come  before.  I'd  ought  to 
made  you." 

"You've  been  real  good  to  me,"  said 
Annie.  "Only  I  guess  you  thought  I 
was  nothin'  but  a  little  girl.  And  I 
thought  if  you  ever  liked  anybody 
'twould  be  somebody  older  'n'  better  'n' 
me. 

"Now,"  said  Cyrus,  "you  listen  to 
me.    I'm  goin'  to  leave  you  here — " 

"No,  no,"  she  cried.  "Don't  you 
leave  me,  Cyrus." 

He  led  her  to  the  chair  where  he  had 


begun  his  vigil,  and  put  her  into  it. 
Then  he  knelt  beside  her  and  kept  his 
arms  about  her  while  he  talked.  "You 
sit  right  here  like  a  good  girl,  and  I'll 
go  and  harness  up." 

"But  you  can't  take  me  anywheres 
they  wouldn't  get  me.  I've  no  place  to 
goto."^ 

"  We'll  overtake  your  cousin  Huldy — " 

"Has  Huldy  been  here?" 

"She  didn't  stop  long.  I  guess  your 
folks  never  encouraged  her.  She  left  you 
some  money  in  case  you  wanted  to  run 
away — " 

"How'd  she  know?"  asked  Annie. 

"She  knew  more  'n  I  did,"  said  Cyrus. 
"And  now  she's  footin'  it  home,  and  if 
I  hadn't  been  half  crazed  I  should  'a' 
harnessed  up  then  and  took  her.  But 
'twas  well  I  didn't,  or  I  should  'a'  missed 
you.  You'd  'a'  knocked  at  the  door  and 
found  me  gone." 

"Yes,"  said  Annie.  "She'd  take  me 
in.  Maybe  she'd  find  me  somethin'  to 
do." 

"She'll  take  you  in,"  said  Cyrus,  "but 
she  won't  find  you  anything  to  do. 
You're  comin'  back  here,  Annie.  You're 
goin'  to  live  with  me.  Ain't  you  goin' 
to  live  with  me?"  Her  hand  on  his 
shoulder  held  it  a  little  tighter.  "We'll 
be  married  in  less  'n  a  week,"  said  Cyrus. 
"Soon 's  ever  I  get  this  house  cleared  up 
for  you  to  come  into." 

Annie  laughed  a  little.  "Why,"  said 
she,  "it's  neat  as  wax." 

"You  think  so?"  asked  Cyrus,  hope- 
fully. 

"I  certain  do." 

"Then  if  it  suits  you,  it  suits  me.  And 
when  I've  seen  you  into  Huldy's  house 
and  the  door  locked  behind  you,  I'll 
come  back  here  and  tell  your  folks  where 
you  be,  and  if  they  want  a  weddin'  to- 
morrer  they'll  have  to  scare  up  some 
kind  of  a  bride,  for  this  one's  mine. 
Now  you  wait." 

He  left  her  sitting  in  the  great  chair 
and  went  out  to  harness.  When  he  had 
finished  and  tied  the  horse  at  the  gate, 
he  came  in  again,  knowing  he  should 
find  her  there,  and  yet  afraid,  her  pres- 
ence seemed  so  inevitable  a  part  of  this 
strange  night.  There  she  was,  a  still, 
white  figure,  waiting.   She  called  to  him. 

"Cyrus,  you  sure  you  want  me  to?" 

He  was  getting  his  coat  out  of  the 


828 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


front  hall,  and  she  heard  the  opening  of 
a  bureau  drawer. 

''Here/'  he  said,  returning,  "here's 
somethin'  for  you  to  put  over  you." 

He  wrapped  it  about  her,  and  Annie 
felt  the  silky  texture. 

"Why,"  said  she,  "it's  your  mother's 
white  embroidered  shawl.  Once  she 
showed  it  to  me." 

"You've  got  to  go  in  white,"  said 
Cyrus.  His  hands  trembled  as  they 
drew  it  close.  "Mother  had  it  when  she 
walked  out  a  bride.  Here's  somethin' 
else."  It  was  the  two  gold-pieces,  and 
he  closed  her  hand  upon  them.  "You 
keep  tight  hold  of  'em,  and  when  we 
overtake  Huldy  you  can  give  'em  back 
to  her." 


"Yes,"  said  she.  "I  don't  want  to 
take  Huldy's  money." 

"  She  give  it  to  you  to  run  away  with," 
said  Cyrus.  "I  guess  you  won't  need 
it  now." 

Midway  down  the  garden  path  he 
stopped  beside  the  poppies.  "Only  to 
think,"  he  said,  "I  talked  about  givin' 
you  poppies  to  trim  up  with.  I  wanted 
to  have  the  house  look  gay.  But  I  guess 
we  can  be  gay  enough  now.  You  wait 
a  minute."  He  went  on  to  the  Canter- 
bury-bells, took  out  his  knife  and  cut 
stalk  after  stalk.  He  heaped  her  arms 
with  them,  and  when  he  had  put  her  in 
the  wagon  he  laid  a  pile  of  them  at  her 
feet.  "There,"  said  he,  "that's  some- 
thin' like!" 


The  Heretic 

BY  WILLIAM  ROSE  BENET 

""THEN,"  said  my  Angel,  "I  leave  you!" 

A     "So!"  whispered  my  Devil,  "I  come!" 
But  my  lips  framed  no  regretting; 

I  stood  struck  dumb. 

With  pathos  the  angels  would  grieve  you; 

With  threats  the  devils  would  fright. 
Man  travails  within,  begetting 

A  god  of  light. 

Now  though  all  Heaven  bereft  me 

Of  flowers  and  music's  sound, 
Now  though  all  Hell,  to  win  me, 

Flamed  red  around, 

Only  one  thing  was  left  me, 

One  only  since  time  began: 
To  speak  the  truth  that  was  in  me 

And  play  the  man. 


To  the  Home  of  Pierre 


BY  HOWARD  E.  SMITH 


RELENTLESS  wind 
blew  the  snow  in 
wraith-like  forms  across 
long,  barren  fields  into 
my  face,  and  my  eyes 
pained  under  the  blasts. 
My  lungs  seemed  with- 
ering in  the  cold,  and  my  heavy  socks 
and  boots,  although  buried  deep  in  hay 
and  robes,  could  not  keep  the  cold  from 
penetrating  to  the  very  arteries  of  my 
feet.  Whenever  Pierre  spoke,  his  words 
were  scurried  away  by  the  wind,  and  for 
fear  my  endeavor  to  catch  the  escaping 
remarks  would  derange  the  protecting 
robes  he  had  tucked  about  me  at  the 
railroad  station,  I  seldom  asked  him  to 
repeat.  So  we  rode  on,  listening  to  the 
hum  of  the  wind  and  the  creaking  snow 
beneath  us. 

Mile  after  mile  the  road  took  us  on 
over  hills  blown  nearly  bare  of  the  ever- 
shifting  snow,  down  into  gullies  where 
drifts  towered  above  us  and  where  sap- 
lings had  been  erected  in  the  expanse  of 
snow  to  mark  our  way.  The  white  was 
so  intense  I  could  not  keep  my  eyes  open. 
On  either  side  of  the  road  treeless  fields 
stretched  away  to  a  black  forest.  Over 
the  forest  rose  the  cheerless  Laurentides, 
and  over  all  a  gray  January  sky.  Only 
the  tops  of  parallel  fences  broke  the 
uniform  whiteness,  marking  the  lots  of 
land  given  to  each  habitant  in  the  days 
of  the  Old  Regime  by  the  Seigneur  when 
he  was  lord  of  the  land.  The  lots  were 
originally  very  long  and  narrow,  and  as 
their  narrower  sides  faced  the  road,  the 
houses  were  brought  close  together  for 
protection  and  sociability.  I  could 
hardly  realize  that  I  was  on  the  very 
outskirts  of  civilization  and  that  the 
distant  forest  was  almost  pathless  to  the 
silent  Arctic.  To  have  stepped  over  the 
fence  would  have  been  to  step  out  of 
civilization. 

The  road  seemed  the  only  street  of  an 
endless  village.  One  would  have  been  at 
a  loss  to  determine  where  a  township 

Vol.  CXXXI .— No.  780— 103 


began  or  ended.  Only  the  churches 
marked  the  parishes.  They  were  cov- 
ered with  tin,  which,  though  unpainted, 
was  without  rust  or  discoloration,  owing, 
I  fancy,  to  the  clear,  dry  air  of  Canada. 
They  were  substantial  constructions,  al- 
ways built  of  stone.  The  older  ones 
were  of  decided  Norman  design — the 
sharp,  tall  tower  surmounted  by  a  cock, 
long,  sloping  roof,  and  little  windows. 

One  huge  church  with  two  tall  towers 
stood  on  an  imposing  knoll  in  a  parish 
that  seemed  poorer  than  the  others. 
Between  the  towers  stood  a  bronze  figure 
of  St.  Paul  glistening  like  gold  against 
the  leaden  background  of  sky.  The 
church  looked  new,  and  I  asked  Pierre 
if  it  had  been  constructed  long. 

"No,  monsieur.  Three  year  ago  eet 
was  begun,  that  church.  Eet  is  not  bad 
for  a  poor  parish  in  three  year,  nest- 
ce  pas  ?"  he  added,  with  an  admiring 
cant  of  his  head. 

Surely  I  could  not  but  marvel  at  the 
love  of  these  humble  folks  for  the  church 
to  which  they  had  so  generously  laid 
down  of  their  worldly  goods  for  the 
promise  of  peace  en  haut  and  the  quiet 
mind  on  earth. 

The  houses  bordering  the  road  were 
set  at  whatever  angle  to  the  road  pleased 
the  builder's  fancy.  They  were  usually 
built  of  stone  and  plaster,  one  story  high. 
Often  each  side  of  the  house  was  of  a 
different  color,  but  white  plaster  soft- 
ened by  the  rigors  of  the  climate  pre- 
vailed. A  galerie,  or  piazza,  raised  high 
enough  above  the  ground  to  allow  for 
windows  beneath,  and  a  shady  place  for 
dogs  in  summer,  ran  the  entire  length 
front  and  back.  They  were  without 
railings,  and  the  long,  overhanging  eaves 
served  them  as  roofs.  The  roofs  were 
pierced  with  dormer  windows,  reminis- 
cent of  Normandy,  and  were  sur- 
mounted with  smoking  chimneys. 

The  wood  they  consume  in  a  winter's 
time  must  be  appalling,  especially  to 
those  who  have  to  cut  it — and  one  does 


830 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


not  hear  the  ceaseless  chug  of  a  motor- 
driven  saw  in  these  parts.  The  only  im- 
plement I  saw  in  use  was  a  blade  with  a 
bent  limb  for  a  frame,  like  the  one  Noah 
built  the  ark  with.  But  that  it  served 
its  purpose  was  evident  in  the  towering 
piles  of  fragrant  wood  stacked  near  the 
houses.  Beside  the  pile  some  one  was 
usually  wielding  the  saw  or  piling  the 
newly  cut  pieces.  In  fact,  this  occupa- 
tion of  gathering  and  cutting  of  fire- 
wood was  the  only  one  I  saw  indulged  in. 

Occasionally  we  passed  sleds  laden 
with  uncut  wood  from  near-by  forests, 
or  laden  with  what  appeared  to  be  a  pile 
of  furs  and  blankets,  but  as  the  sled 
came  opposite,  the  top  of  the  shapeless 
mass  would  bow  toward  us  with,  "Bon 
jour,"  and  I  would  notice  two  eyes 
glistening  under  the  folds  of  a  blanket. 

The  road  we  were  on  was  not  new  to 
me.  Often  when  the  song-sparrow  was 
on  the  wing  and  the  sound  of  rushing 
waters  filled  the  air  I  had  gone  over  it 
with  my  creel  and  flies.  I  knew  each  little 
village  and  the  long  hilly  slopes  where 


the  horses  stopped  to  blow,  giving  me 
opportunity  to  gaze  leisurely  on  the 
panorama  of  undulating  wilderness  and 
the  streams  I  was  to  whip,  glistening 
through  its  depths.  Nature  then  chat- 
tered with  delightful  abandon,  but  now 
she  seemed  lofty  and  resentful  of  my 
approach.  The  trees  cracked  in  the  cold, 
the  ice  boomed  in  the  rivers,  and  the 
wind  hissed  at  us  from  the  treetops. 

I  began  to  weary  of  the  endless  houses 
and  the  parallel  fences  and  to  long  for 
the  warmth  of  Pierre's  fireside. 

"How  far  are  we  from  St.  Jean?"  I 
asked  at  length. 

"Pardon,  mats,  le  monsieur  he  does 
not  know  how  far  eet  ees  when  he  has 
come  so  many  tame  on  top  of  this  road  ?" 

"Yes,  Pierre,  I  do  know,  but  I  want 
to  hear  you  say  it's  only  one, mile  more." 

"You  want  me  say  one  miles.  Eh, 
bien,  mats,  you  just  say  some  tame  ago 
that  one  miles  make  two  miles  een  win- 
tertame,  n  est  -  ce  pas  ?  So  excuse, 
monsieur,  eef  I  go  to  say  we  have  two 
miles  encore,"  he  said,  smiling  and  show- 


EVERY  HEAVY  SNOW-FALL  MAKES  WORK  FOR  PIERRE 


THE  END  OF  THE  DAY'S  WORK 


ing  his  strong,  broad  teeth.  "Mais> 
voyez-vous,  there  is  the  church  now/'  he 
added,  reassuringly. 

The  road  turned  and  we  began  to 
descend  into  a  little  valley  where  the 
force  of  the  wind  was  broken.  There  at 
the  bottom  was  the  village  clustering 
about  the  old  church.  The  bell  was 
ringing  Angelus.  The  gray,  wind-swept 
roof  of  the  church  was  lost  in  the  gray 
sky  behind  it,  but  the  golden  cross  on 
the  apex  of  the  spire  shone  brilliantly. 
Twilight  was  settling  over  the  scene,  and 
I  could  look  at  it  without  hurting  my 
eyes.  How  different  the  place  looked 
under  its  heavy  blanket  of  snow!  The 
river  that  reflected  the  old  mill  of  the 
Seigneur  in  the  summer  and  mingled  its 
voice  with  the  wind  in  the  black  forest 
above  it  in  a  melody  of  joy  and  gladness 
was  now  silent  and  white-bound  in  ice. 

The  road  we  were  on  was  simply  the 
continuation  of  the  only  street  St.  Jean 
possessed.    As  we  descended  toward  the 


village  the  houses  became  more  numer- 
ous. Here  and  there  a  habitant  was 
busy  at  the  all-important  wood-pile,  and 
a  few  black  figures  were  on  their  way  to 
church.  This  winter  twilight  contrasted 
strangely  with  those  of  summer,  when 
Baptiste  sits  tilted  back  in  his  home- 
made chair  and  plays  his  violin  to  the 
whir  of  his  wife's  spinning-wheel,  when 
the  sound  of  song  comes  from  the  return- 
ing laborers  over  the  fields  and  the  trout 
play  in  the  black  pool  at  the  foot  of  the 
chute.  Now  a  horse  with  shaggy  belly 
stood  knee-deep  in  the  snow  before  the 
general  store.  His  blanket,  partly  off, 
flapped  in  the  wind.  His  head  drooped. 
The  wind  played  in  his  unkempt  mane. 
He  was  the  picture  of  dejection.  A 
wolfish  dog  rushed  at  us  with  a  snarl, 
but  retreated  at  the  sound  of  Pierre's 
stout  whip.   This  was  St.  Jean. 

The  house  of  Pierre  was  once  the 
house  of  the  Seigneur.  It  was  similar  in 
design  to  the  others  in  the  village,  but 


832 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


EVERY  HOME  RECEIVED  BENEDICTION  FROM  HIS  HANDS 


larger  and  more  massive.  Two  huge 
chimneys  dominated  the  roof.  I  was 
surprised  to  see  a  French  flag  at  a 
window. 

"  Le  drapeau  is  for  the  Allies,"  Pierre 
explained.  "We  found  eet  in  the  house. 
Eet  was  the  Seigneur's  long  tame  ago. 
When  the  war  come  we  make  patri- 
otic. 

The  weicome  from  Pierre's  folks  was 
as  warm  as  the  kitchen  air  that  em- 
braced me  when  the  old  mother  opened 
the  door  to  greet  me. 

"  Bien,  bien,"  she  said.  "Come  in  and 
warm  yourself.  You  must  have  feet  of 
ice.    Mon  Dieu  !  but  you  look  cold !" 

The  spacious  kitchen  was  alive  with 


children  of  all  ages, 
from  a  tot  staring  at 
me  uncertainly  over  a 
slice  of  bread  generous- 
ly spread  with  molas- 
ses, to  a  young  lady 
lighting  a  lamp  on  the 
table.  All  eyed  me 
curiously  from  behind 
chairs  or  from  that 
most  popular  hiding- 
place  of  children, 
mother's  skirts.  The 
floor  of  the  room  was 
yellow.  Bright  strips 
of  hand-woven  carpet 
ran  the  length  of  it. 
Countless  little  rugs, 
which  all  the  girls  are 
taught  to  make  in 
spare  moments,  were 
scattered  about.  The 
walls  were  tinted  blue. 
The  ceiling  was  low 
and  timbered.  On  an 
end  wall,  near  the 
table,  hung  a  large 
wooden  cross,  and  by 
it  a  sampler  into 
which  were  woven  the 
words  "Dieu  me  voit." 

I  settled  into  a  chair 
beside  Pierre's  father 
and  the  cure,  who  had 
dropped  in  to  greet 
me,  while  madame  and 
Marie  prepared  the 
supper. 

The  cure  was  a 
fair  example  of  the 
black-robed  guides  of  these  simple  peo- 
ple. For  twoscore  years  he  had  min- 
istered to  his  isolated  parish.  Every 
door  was  open  to  him  and  every  home 
had  received  benediction  from  his  hands. 
And  those  same  hands  were  not  solely 
for  turning  the  leaves  of  prayer-books. 
I  remember  with  what  pride  he  once 
showed  me  a  little  vegetable  -  garden 
behind  the  presbytere  which  he  had 
planted  and  tilled  with  an  ardor  that 
made  evident  his  keen  belief  in  a  future 
crop  of  pease,  beans,  and  carrots.  His 
gray  hair  was  shaggy.  His  chin  was 
small  but  decidedly  firm.  His  smile  was 
pleasant,  but  never  grew  to  the  magni- 
tude of  laughter.   His  gray  eyes  squinted 


TO  THE  HOME  OF  PIERRE 


833 


as  he  listened.  His  knowledge  of  the 
world  was  limited,  but  his  years  of  con- 
tact with  the  innermost  experiences  of 
his  parishioners  had  given  him  a  keen 
appreciation  of  life.  His  answers  to  my 
questions  were  often  surprisingly  naive, 
but  occasionally  as  cunning  as  a  lawyer's. 
Soon  the  twilight  grew  to  night,  and  the 
large  lamp  on  the  table  cast  its  orange 
glow  over  the  room  and  the  long  table 
filled  with  steaming  dishes. 

"You  have  a  large  family,  madame," 
1  remarked,  as  they  gathered  about  the 
table. 

"Out,  monsieur,  we  are  sixteen.  It  is 
a  good  gift  to  le  bon  Dieu,  nest-ce  pas?" 
she  said,  turning  toward  the  cure. 

"  Cest  vrai,  mon  en- 
fant. It  is.  There  is 
no  better  giftthan  that 
of  another  child  to 
His  kingdom." 

I  could  not  but  re- 
member that  the  law 
also  had  encouraged 
large  families  by  pass- 
ing a  bill  at  Quebec 
giving  ten  acres  of 
land  to  any  family 
having,  from  that  time 
forth,  twelve  or  more 
children,  and  how  in 
two  years  the  law  was 
repealed  because  the 
demand  on  those  ten- 
acre  lots  was  in  excess 
of  the  supply. 

"How  do  you  have 
partridge  at  this  sea- 
son?" I  asked  Pierre, 
as  I  tasted  some  game 
he  had  passed  to  me. 
"I  thought—" 

"Those  are  prairie- 
chickens,"  interrupted 
the  priest,  smiling.  "  I 
know  the  law  forbids 
shooting  partridge 
now,  but  you  see  the 
bird  is  very  accommo- 
dating; he  has  two 
name  s — one  for  the 
open  season  and  the 
other  for  the  closed. 
Pierre  has  much  of  the 
coureur  de  bois  about 
him.   He  spends  much 


time  in  the  bush  for  meat  for  the  table, 
and  when  one  hunts  and  fishes  for  part 
of  one's  livelihood,  game  laws  are  seldom 
thought  of.  Perhaps  we  can  forgive 
Pierre,  nest-ce  pas  ?" 

Madame  patiently  fed  the  upturned 
mouths  with  countless  bowls  of  pea  soup 
and  portions  of  bread  till  their  hunger 
was  appeased  and  little  heads  began 
sinking  in  slumber  upon  the  table. 

The  meal  was  over,  and  we  were  mov- 
ing the  chairs  from  the  table  when  there 
was  a  loud  stamping  on  the  piazza.  The 
door  opened  and  a  youth  stepped  into 
the  light  of  the  room.  He  was  much 
excited,  and  his  eyes  were  red  and 
swollen  from  crying. 


A  DOMESTIC  INDUSTRY 


834 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Monsieur,  le  cure"  he  gasped,  re- 
moving his  dogskin  cap  at  the  same  time, 
"  mother  is  dying.  You  will  come  tout 
de  suite?  Father  sent  me.  I  have  the 
carriole  to  fetch  you.    Will  you  come?" 

"Certainly,  my  son,"  he  answered, 
rising;  "but  you  will  drive  me  first  to 
the  church." 

"Bon  soir,  monsieur  "  he  said,  extend- 
ing his  hand  to  me;  "I  must  go  now,  but 
I  hope  to  see  you  at  mass  to-morrow." 

"Will  he  have  to  go  far?"  I  inquired  of 
madame  when  they  had  gone. 

"Only  four  miles,  but  the  cold  is  very 
terrible.  It  makes  even  a  strong  man 
wince.  It  is  Madame  Gagnon  who  is 
going  to  die,"  she  explained,  making  the 
sign  of  the  cross.  "Poor  woman,  she 
was  always  working,  always  knitting  or 
making  something  for  others.  It  is 
always  of  consumption  that  one  dies. 
One  wastes  away  like  the  snow  of  spring 
till  it  is  no  more.  And  it  is  in  the  spring- 
time when  all  the  birds  come  back  and 


the  wind  of  the  south  plays  on  the  eaves 
that  many  die  of  it.    C  est  bien  triste." 

"Had  she  many  children,  madame?" 

"She  was  blessed  with  twenty,  mon- 
sieur." 

Suddenly  I  heard  the  sound  of  a  dis- 
tant bell.    "What  is  that?"  I  inquired. 

"Eet  ees  the  leetle  bell  of  the  cure," 
Pierre  replied  in  a  reverent  whisper,  and 
fell  to  his  knees  beside  his  chair. 

He  drew  a  rosary  from  his  pocket  and 
mumbled  a  prayer.  Madame  went  to  a 
shelf  where  a  dim  red  light  burned 
before  a  cheap  image  of  St.  Antoine 
and  got  her  rosary.  Tears  were  on  her 
worn  face.  The  sound  of  the  little  bell 
grew  distant,  and  only  the  moaning  of 
the  wind  and  the  muttering  of  prayers 
broke  the  strange  stillness.  I  looked 
from  the  kneeling  figures  to  two  little 
girls  fallen  asleep  with  their  heads  on 
the  table,  then  back  to  the  kneeling 
figures.  A  strange  feeling  of  lonesOme- 
ness  came  over  me. 


HERE  AND  THERE  A  HABITANT  WAS  BUSY  AT  THE  ALL-IMPORTANT  WOOD-PILE 


TO  THE  HOME  OF  PIERRE 


835 


"The  cure,"  Pierre  continued,  rising 
from  his  knees,  "he  always  carry  that 
bell  when  he  goes  to  give  the  last  sacra- 
ment to  the  dying.  He  ees  now  gone 
to  that  boy's  house  who  was  just  een 
here.  Always  when  we  hear  that  bell 
we  know  that  somebody  goes  to  die. 
We  pray  for  his  soul 
and  we  pray  for  le  cure. 
If  we  are  on  the  road 
we  make  way  for  heem, 
because  he  goes  fast 
sometame  to  reach  the 
house  before  the  per- 
son make  the  last 
portage.  Sometame  I 
am  all  warm  on  the 
bed  and  I  hear  that 
1  e  e  1 1  e  bell.  Outside 
there  ees  beeg  hurri- 
cane of  wind  and  snow 
like  now,  and  the  cold 
eet  ees  terrible  on  the 
face.  Never  min',  I 
get  out  on  my  knees 
by  my  bed  and  pray 
le  bon  Dieu  for  to  help 
le  cure  out  there  on 
hees  carriole.  Eet  ees 
all  right  on  the  som- 
mertame  when  the 
stars  all  shine  en  haul 
and  the  balsams  smell 
sweet  on  the  air;  mats 
sapre,  when  the  snow 
is  high  comme  cd  on 
top  of  the  road  and  the 
eclairon  dance  on  the 
north  —  that  is,  well, 
different. " 

My  chamber  that 
night  quite  satisfied 
any  desire  for  quaint- 
ness  I  had.  The  large 
bed  was  coeval  with 
Cartier,  I  fancy.  At  its  head  hung  a 
wooden  cross  and  a  green  bottle  with  a 
spruce  spray  in  it. 

"What  is  this,  madame?"  I  asked,  lift- 
ing it  from  its  peg. 

"That  is  holy  water  for  your  safe- 
keeping through  the  night."  Where- 
upon she  sprinkled  me  and  invoked  the 
protection  of  the  Trinity  on  me. 

The  bed  occupied  most  of  one  side  of 
the  room.  A  stove  stood  in  an  aperture 
in  the  opposite  wall,  heating  two  rooms 


at  once.  A  fretful  child  in  the  adjacent 
room  made  the  aperture  a  thing  not  to  be 
desired.  But  the  crooning  voice  of  its 
mother  soon  hushed  the  child  with  an  old 
lullaby  that  awoke  pleasant  memories. 
I  must  have  felt  its  soporific  effect,  too, 
for  I  soon  was  oblivious  of  my  surround- 


SHE  WAS  ALWAYS  KNITTING  FOR  OTHERS 


ings  in  a  dream  of  Normandy,  while  the 
madame  continued  singing: 

"Do,  do,  I' enfant,  do, 
V  enfant  dormira  tantot, 
Fais  do,  do,  Colas  mon  petit  frere, 
Fais  do,  do,  tu  auras  du  gateau. 
Maman  est  en  haul  qui  fait  le  gateau; 
Papa  est  en  has  qui  casse  le  bois." 

When  1  awoke  it  was  Sunday.  The 
sun  was  up.  The  wind  had  abated  and 
the  air  was  so  clear  that  the  distant 


836 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Laurentides  looked  close  at  hand.  There 
was  a  bustle  through  the  house.  When 
I  descended  to  the  kitchen,  a  general 
scrubbing  was  in  process — the  washing 
of  faces   and   the  greasing  of  boots. 
Pierre's  father  was  laboring  with  an 
ancient  razor  before  a  small  mirror  he 
had  balanced  on  a  window-sill.  Marie's 
hair  was  in  little 
knots  all  over  her 
head — to  make  it 
look  curly  when 
she  did  it  up,  she 
informed  me. 
The  old  mother 
was  the  only  one 
on  whom  Sunday 
had  as  yet  made 
no  effect,  save  in 
accelerating  her 
movements  and 
in  increasing  the 
labor  of  her  will- 
ing hands.  The 
task  of  preparing 
the  children  for 
mass   was  no 
small  one,  and 
began  long  be- 
fore she  was  en- 
dimanchee  herself. 

When  our  lit- 
tle procession 
started  for  mass 
the  bell  was  ring- 
ing.   The  village 

street  was  alive  pierre 
with  neighbors 
from  far  and 

near,  all  going  toward  the  church. 
Sleds  loaded  with  families  creaked  past 
us.  The  women's  white  faces  contrasted 
strongly  with  the  rough,  colorful  skin  of 
the  men.  All  conversation  was  subdued, 
and  nearly  all  were  dressed  in  black  or 
gray,  relieved  only  by  bright  sashes. 

But  after  mass  the  scene  was  very 
different.  All  was  lively.  Little  knots 
of  habitants  lingered  in  the  road,  ges- 
ticulating in  good  French  fashion.  The 
snow  was  blinding  under  the  strong  sun. 
Gossips  here  were  just  as  busy  as  in  any 
part  of  the  world.  Neighbors  raced  one 
another  down  the  road  at  a  speed  that 
caused  the  pedestrians  to  jump  to  the 
roadside.  In  short,  Sunday  after  mass 
was  a  holiday. 


The  cure  greeted  me  on  the  steps. 
"You  had  a  cold  ride  last  night,"  I 
said. 

"Yes,  but  I  like  that  sort  of  thing.  That 
is  real  life.     The  combating  of  nature 
for  the  service  of  le  bon  Dieu  is  not  only 
my  duty,  but  my  great  pleasure.    It  is 
a  task,  often,  but  it  is  a  small  cross  com- 
pared to  that  of 
His.     I  greatly 
enjoy  the  open 
country — the  in- 
vigorating air, 
and  all  that.  And 
what  wonderful 
air  we  have  here. 
But,  he  las !  the 
women  will  not 
have  of  it.  The 
men  work  much 
in  the  open  air, 
chopping  and 
tilling  the  soil, 
but  their  'crea- 
tures' pass  their 
lives  in  over- 
heated houses 
where  the  air  is 
vile   and  stag- 
nant. They  even 
bring  the  hens 
and   geese  into 
their  houses 
when  the  cold  is 
too  intense.  Un- 
der such  condi- 
tions there  is 
naturally  much 
consumption.  In 
fact,  the  doctor  has  told  me  that  the 
mortality   from  that  dread  disease  is 
greater  here  than  in  any  other  locality 
in  America.     C'est  bien  triste,  monsieur. 
My  people  willingly  believe  me  in  things 
spiritual,  but  when  I  speak  of  their 
bodily  condition  they  do  not  listen." 

That  evening  the  kitchen  was  full  of 
Pierre's  neighbors  sitting  about  in  their 
Sunday  clothes.  Pierre's  father  took  an 
old  violin  from  a  cupboard  and  began  to 
play.  I  expected  to  see  the  rugs  and 
catalonne  rolled  back  and  a  dance  begin, 
but  nobody  began,  so  I  asked  a  rosy- 
faced  girl  if  they  did  not  dance  in  St. 
Jean. 

"No,  monsieur,"  Pierre  interrupted, 
in  his  childish  desire  to  exhibit  his  knowl- 


Drawn  by  Howard  E.  Smith  Engraved  by  C.  E.  Hart 

THE    RETURN    FROM    SUNDAY    MORNING  MASS 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  786.— 104 


838 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


edge  of  a  language  the  others  could  not 
understand;  "we  dance  not  much  here, 
though  we  like  much  the  dance.  The 
cure  he  does  not  like  eet.  When  we 
want  dance  we  just  go  to  the  next  parish, 
where  there  is  one  new  cure  who  say 
eet  ees  all  right  if  eet  ees  not  le  dimanche, 
and  there  we  make  dance.  But  we  make 
good  tame  here  the  same.  We  play 
games  and  sing,  and  make  love  some- 
tame,  nest-ce  pas  ?"  he  added,  turning 
to  the  rosy-faced  girl  again. 

But  the  neighbors  of  Pierre  were  too 
fond  of  rhythm  not  to  express  it.  A 
melodious  drone  soon  started  that  aug- 
mented into  song: 

"  Alouette,  gentille  Alouette,  Alouette,  je  te 
plumerai, 

Je  te  plumerai  le  bee,  je  te  plumerai  le  bee, 
Et  le  bee,  et  le  bee,  et  la  tete,  et  la  tete.  ..." 

They  beat  time  with  their  feet  till  the 
house  shook,  and  they  sang  with  an  en- 
thusiasm that  even  surpassed  that  of  the 
fiddler,  and  with  a  noise  that  made  his 
instrument  inaudible  at  times.  There 
was  an  attempt  at  unison,  but  the  pitch 
was  at  variance.  The  songs  were  mostly 
sad  and  melodious,  as  folk-songs  are  the 


world  over;  but,  unlike  most  folk-songs, 
they  contained  little  that  was  indige- 
nous. They  seemed  but  scions  of  an- 
other land,  so  strongly  reminiscent  of 
France  were  they. 

Later,  when  the  visitors  were  gone  and 
the  house  was  still  save  the  cracking  of 
the  kitchen  floor  as  it  cooled,  I  lay 
gazing  out  of  my  window.  There  was  no 
light  in  the  village  save  the  pale  moon- 
light, making  mysterious  shadows  under 
the  balsams.  The  houses  stood  half 
buried  under  the  silent  snows.  Across 
the  bare  white  fields  came  the  song  all 
habitants  love: 

"A  la  claire  fontaine 
M'en  all  ant  promener, 
J'ai  trouve  V eau  si  belle 
Que  je  my  suis  baigne.  ..." 

The  song  seemed  curiously  foreign  to 
the  crisp  sky  and  the  withering  cold. 
It  seemed  to  issue  from  the  night  like  a 
ghost  of  former  times,  replete  with  the 
mysteries  that  compose  the  folk-song. 

I  could  not  help  but  think  of  the 
remark  an  Alsatian  once  made  to  me: 
"Where  the  French  language  has  once 
taken  root,  it  never  is  forgotten." 


The  Return 

BY   ARTHUR    GUI  TERM  AN 

MOTHER!  I  am  your  child! 
Born  of  you — kin  to  your  wilderness.    Take  me  to  rest 
Here,  in  the  balsamy  nave  of  your  mountainous  breast! 


Mother,  long  have  I  played. 
All  your  domain  was  my  playing-ground,  highland  and  vale; 
Treetop  and  stream  were  my  playmates,  and  billow  and  gale. 

Mother!    Sing  me  to  sleep. 
Soft  as  the  voice  of  the  fir  shall  my  slumber-song  be, 
Deep  as  the  organ  that  tones  in  your  thunderous  sea. 

Let  me  lie  down. 


The  One  and  the  Other 


BY   V.   II.  CORNELL 


HERE  were  a  woman 
and  two  small  children 
in  the  light  farm-wag- 
%  on;  the  man  was  walk- 
ing beside  it,  driving 
the  horse.  The  wagon 
was  new  and  painted  a 
bright  green,  with  its  name  in  red  letters 
on  the  side.  It  was  loaded  mainly  with 
farm  and  garden  implements,  also  brand- 
new,  the  long  handles  of  a  hoe  and  rake 
fresh  from  the  hardware-store  strongly 
in  evidence.  The  day  was  a  warm  one 
in  early  spring;  the  horse  drawing  the 
wagon  was  sweating,  and  the  man  walk- 
ing was  continually  wiping  his  face  with 
a  soiled  but  very  fine  linen  handkerchief. 
Something  distinctly  incongruous  was 
conveyed  by  the  turnout  as  a  whole, 
for,  disputing  place  with  the  cultivator 
and  shining-pointed  plow,  were  a  couple 
of  brown  leather  suit-cases  whose  style 
and  quality  suggested  both  fastidious- 
ness and  money;  and  although  it  was  a 


dusty  country  road  over  which  they 
were  traveling,  the  clothes  and  general 
appearance  of  the  woman  and  children 
riding  in  the  high  spring  seat  of  the 
wagon  spoke  eloquently  of  the  town. 

Unmistakably  there  was  in  the  small 
family  that  air  of  breeding  which  goes 
with  the  enjoyment  of  wealth  and  lei- 
sure. The  woman  was  young,  dark- 
haired,  with  a  bright,  imperious  look  in 
her  small-featured  face;  when  her  eyes 
rested  upon  her  husband,  they  softened 
to  tenderness  and  submission — a  sub- 
mission which  brought  a  shade  with  it. 

The  man's  straw  hat  was  pushed  back 
from  a  forehead  that  was  fair,  thin- 
skinned,  and  delicately  veined  like  a 
child's,  with  clustering  rings  of  hair 
hardly  darker  than  a  deep  yellow  show- 
ing above  it.  He  had  a  habit  of  brushing 
back  these  rings  with  an  annoyed  ges- 
ture; they  seemed  to  him  to  impart  a 
trivial  look,  though  they  had  rather  the 
effect  of  a  halo  above  a  face  peculiarly 


840 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


adapted  to  the  wearing  of  one.  A  not- 
too-reverent  college  friend  had  once 
dubbed  Gilliland  the  "Beloved  Disci- 
ple," and  the  name  was  not  without  its 
significance,  both  as  regarded  physical 
attributes  and  because  of  other  things — 
those  ideas  and  actions  which  had  caused 
him  at  last  to  become  a  marked  figure  in 
his  world,  and  given  him  a  notoriety  from 
which  he  instinctively  shrank. 

The  marriage  of  this  pair  had  been  one 
of  which  the  girl's  father,  a  man  of 
financial  standing  and  sound  money 
principles,  had  strongly  disapproved. 
The  appealing  personality  had  not  blind- 
ed him  to  the  erratic  strain — the  "so- 
cialistic" tendencies— in  his  would-be 
son-in-law. 

"In  five  years  he'll  have  given  away 
his  last  dollar!"  had  been  his  quite  un- 
heeded warning  to  his  high-spirited,  de- 
termined daughter — but  it  was  six  be- 
fore he  saw  her  finally  walk  out  from  the 
luxurious  home  which  her  wealthy  young 
husband  had  built  for  her,  to  follow  him 
into  voluntary  poverty  and  exile. 

"Do  come  and  get  in,  Clyde!"  she  said 
now,  as  he  stopped  the  horse  on  a  long 
up-grade,  setting  his  foot  with  a  blithe 
assumption  of  assisting  the  brake  be- 
tween two  spokes  of  a  wheel.  "Don't 
you  know  you're  tired  out?"  There  was 
a  barely  perceptible  note  of  impatience 
in  the  clear  voice,  and  it  showed,  too,  in 
a  slight  frown  which  brought  the  dark, 
finely  penciled  eyebrows  near  together. 

"No;  but  I've  got  to  have  some  dif- 
ferent shoes" — he  looked  down  at  his 
modish  footgear  with  a  whimsical  dis- 
gust— "some  real  farmer  shoes  that  are 
used  to  walking  over  the  good  earth." 

She  knew  that  with  this  he  covered  the 
discomfort,  perhaps  even  the  pain,  that 
he  was  undergoing.  "Please — Clyde!" 
She  put  out  her  hand  entreatingly,  and 
then  lifted  the  smaller  child  into  her  lap 
to  make  room  on  the  seat  beside  her. 
With  a  mock-earnest  air  he  placed  a 
small  stone  behind  the  wheel  he  had  been 
holding,  then  came  and  stood  at  her  side, 
putting  one  arm  around  her.  She 
drooped  a  little  toward  him,  a  gesture 
full  of  pathos.  Because  her  life  had  been 
proud  and  bright  and  gay,  with  very 
little  thought  of  other  lives  entering  it — 
because  she  had  been  little  touched  by  the 
cry  of  human  need — it  was  something 


that  she  had  turned  her  back  upon  it  all, 
and  had  learned  to  listen  to  that  human 
cry  at  his  desire. 

"Let  me  get  down  with  you  a  few 
minutes,  then,"  she  said,  suddenly;  "I 
hate  this  old  high  seat!" — but  her  open 
look  of  yearning  to  be  in  his  arms  re- 
lieved the  words  of  actual  complaint. 

"It's  a  nice  new  seat,"  he  corrected 
her,  gently,  but  lifted  out  the  two  chil- 
dren, depositing  them  on  the  grass  at  the 
roadside,  then  helped  her  over  the  wheel 
and  to  the  ground  beside  him.  She 
immediately  laid  her  head  on  his  shoul- 
der and  made  him  put  both  arms  tightly 
about  her. 

"Now — you  see,"  she  said,  "how  I'm 
hindering  us!  You  didn't  have  me  prop- 
erly converted;  I've  no  light  yet  on  see- 
ing you  trudge  along  beside  the  wagon." 
A  little  of  the  old  imperious  demand 
showed  itself.  "That  horse  can  pull 
you ! 

He  smiled,  and  his  face  was  striking  in 
the  beauty  of  its  smile — an  unusual, 
spiritual  beauty.  His  wife's  heart 
skipped  a  beat;  it  had  never  lost  the 
trick  of  it  when  he  looked  like  that — a 
look  which  in  her  eyes  made  the  halo 
around  his  head  a  plainly  visible  thing. 
There  was  nothing  through  which  she 
would  not  have  followed  him  with  that 
smile  to  command  her,  yet  in  the 
peculiar  selflessness — some  might  indeed 
have  called  it  selfishness — that  was  in 
him,  he  was  not  even  aware  of  this 
dominance  he  had  over  her. 

"As  soon  as  we  get  to  the  top  of  the 
hill,"  he  promised,  and  the  tender  love 
in  his  face  as  he  kissed  her  reconciled  her 
anew,  as  it  had  been  ever  reconciling  her 
— that,  and  her  own  self-abnegating  love, 
which  always  sprang  so  swiftly  to  meet 
it. 

"You're  actually  pale  from  being  so 
tired!"  she  persisted,  even  after  the  em- 
brace, "and  it's  that  I  can't  bear.  I 
don't  mind  letting  the  other  things  go, 
but  I've  got  to  keep  you,  you  know." 
There  was  anxiety  in  her  look;  her  lips 
even  quivered  a  little.  Under  its  warmth 
his  face  did  show  a  noticeable  pallor,  and 
there  was  plainly  more  spirit  than  vigor 
in  a  body  which,  beautifully  formed 
otherwise,  was  a  shade  too  thin. 

Gilliland  had  been  a  very  rich  young 
man  in  the  beginning.    His  father  had 


"  DO  COME  AND  GET  IN,  CLYDE !"  SHE  SAID 


been  Gilliland  the  multimillionaire,  who, 
with  less  foresight  in  dying  than  he  had 
shown  in  living,  had  left  this  son  in 
the  early  twenties  in  possession  of  a  for- 
tune which  in  itself  would  have  made 
him  a  noteworthy  figure,  but  which  in 
its  remarkable  disposition  threw  him 
into  the  lime-light  of  a  hardly  less  than 
nation-wide  interest. 

Sunday  supplements  the  country  over 
told  the  story  of  this  "young  man  who 
had  great  possessions,"  yet  who  gave 
these  to  feed  the  hungry  and  clothe  the 
poor;  who  sought  out  the  homeless  and 
wretched  in  the  great  cities  and  gave 
them  land  to  till  and  a  rooftree  beneath 
which  to  shelter;  and  who,  as  an  exam- 
ple of  brotherhood,  and  to  teach  his 
doctrine  by  deed  as  well  as  word,  him- 
self learned  to  plow  the  soil  and  lived  in  a 
little  house  at  the  side  of  the  road. 

With  Gilliland  the  thing  was  real  and 
vital.  Always  there  had  been  within 
him  that  passionate  sense  of  kinship  with 
humanity;  always  the  cry  of  those  of  his 
brothers  who  were  in  want  and  misery 
had  been  sounding  in  his  ears.  It  had 
ever  been  a  burden  to  him  that  he  had 
more  than  others — a  burden  that  others 
must  toil  for  bread  while  he  did  not  toil. 
That  was  why  he  had  been  walking 
beside   the  wagon   this   warm  spring 


day;  henceforth,  if  another  must  sweat, 
whether  man  or  beast,  so  must  he. 

He  had  had,  not  many  weeks  since, 
his  Vision — that  vision  of  the  great  earth- 
mother,  and  of  all  her  wandering,  sor- 
rowing children  returning  to  lay  down 
their  heads  upon  her  broad,  kindly 
bosom.  It  had  been  one  that  had 
thrilled  and  enthralled  him.  For  he 
might  be  only  the  first — after  him  might 
be  others,  many  others,  upon  whom  it 
might  also  shine.  And  instead  of  cities 
congested  with  the  wretched  and  suffer- 
ing of  humanity,  might  be  millions  of 
little  homes  over  which  the  good  sky 
bent — the  "peaceful  place  at  evening." 

Yet  in  his  own  eager  springing  for- 
ward to  walk  in  the  light  that  had  burst 
upon  him  he  had  not  remembered  that 
to  her  who  must  walk  with  him  it  might 
be  less  illuminating — that  she  might  be 
only  obediently  keeping  beside  him  in 
ways  that  she  did  not  know. 

As  the  two  stood  at  the  roadside  they 
caught  the  sound  of  a  motor,  and  a  big 
roadster  came  easily  up  the  long  hill 
they  had  been  climbing.  Though  they 
were  but  a  few  hours  out  from  the  city, 
and  but  a  little  while  removed  from  the 
time  when  their  garage  had  housed  their 
own  cars,  so  entirely  had  they  accepted 
their  changed  existence  that  the  motor, 


842 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


at  their  first  sight  of  it,  had  an  effect 
upon  them  as  of  something  unfamiliar 
and  novel.  But  in  the  next  instant  Rose 
Gilliland  made  a  startled  exclamation: 

"It's  John  Dering!"  she  said,  and 
turned  with  a  nervous  little  laugh  to 
her  husband.    "Let's  hide!" 

The  sensitive  face  of  Gilliland  changed 
also,  but  he  said:  "No;  I  don't  feel  like 
crawling  under  the  wagon."  Then,  more 
seriously:  "I'm  ashamed  to  have  that 
cowardice,  that  dread  of  people — of  be- 
ing thought  ridiculous.  This  picture" — 
he  made  a  gesture  that  included  the 
heavy-limbed  horse  standing  at  rest  with 
relaxed  muscles,  and  the  nearer  land- 
scape— an  orchard  in  full  bloom,  a  field 
of  green  springing  grass  and  browsing 
cattle — "this  picture  is  not  ridiculous!" 

"I  hate  to  have  it  be  John  Dering," 
murmured  his  wife.  But  if  there  was 
within  her  an  acute  consciousness  of 
how  the  "picture"  would  present  itself 
to  the  man  in  the  car,  she  gave  no  visible 
hint  of  this.  Instead,  moving  forward 
with  her  husband  as  the  car  came  up  and 
stopped,  she  had  all  the  look  of  one 
proudly  and  joyously  content. 

"Why  —  hello!"  greeted  the  man. 
"Gilliland!  And  Mrs.  Gilliland!"  He 
drew  off  his  glove  and  reached  to  shake 
hands  with  the  two.  "And  both  the  lit- 
tle Gillilands!"  There  was  a  suggestion 
of  mockery,  though  look  and  tone  were 
cordial. 

"And  the  horse  and  wagon!"  supple- 
mented she,  brightly  smiling.  Dering, 
who  had  once  asked  her  to  marry  him, 
said  to  himself  that  there  was  "bluff"  in 
words  and  smile.  They  were  not  spon- 
taneous, as,  for  instance,  had  been  the 
light  dismissal  in  her  manner  when  she 
had  upon  that  occasion  told  him:  "I 
don't  think  of  you  in  that  way  at  all.  I 
never  could."  Now,  intercepting  his 
glance  toward  the  green-painted  wagon- 
box  from  which  the  hoe  and  rake  han- 
dles protruded,  she  added,  "And  all  the 
things  to  dig  in  the  ground  with!" 

"So  I  see!"  His  look,  seemingly  light- 
ly amused,  went  from  one  to  the  other  of 
the  pair.  "It's  the  carrying  out  of  the 
'Back  to  Nature'  idea,  isn't  it?" 

Gilliland  seemed  to  shrink  a  little  from 
the  question  in  Dering's  way  of  asking 
it.  On  a  face  whose  expressions  were 
read  as  easily  as  words  on  a  printed  page, 


that  "dread"  of  which  he  had  spoken 
showed  plainly.  With  his  characteristic 
gesture  he  reached  to  brush  the  damp 
rings  from  his  white  forehead,  a  faint 
tinge  of  embarrassment  showing  through 
the  whiteness.  For  Dering  was  not  one 
who  had  a  sense  of  accountability  toward 
the  world — even  if  it  were  a  world  in 
need;  and  here,  in  his  mocking  presence, 
Gilliland,  too  receptively  organized,  had 
to  resist  the  encroachment  of  a  feeling 
that  what  he  had  thought,  what  he  had 
dreamed,  what  he  had  done,  was  childish 
folly. 

But  all  at  once  he  did  resist  it.  For  it 
was  not  folly — not  unless  the  Vision,  the 
Inspiration,  were  naught;  unless  that 
greatest  Teacher,  that  greatest  Inspira- 
tion of  all  time,  had  been  false,  an  im- 
postor. It  was  not  folly,  this  burden  for 
humanity  which  had  been  laid  upon 
himself — not  folly,  his  anxious  seeking 
for  the  best  way  in  which  to  answer  the 
human  cry.  An  inner  assurance  took 
the  place  of  his  doubts,  and  with  it 
there  came  into  his  face  its  look  of 
spiritual  beauty. 

"'Back  to  nature'  is  a  perfectly  good 
phrase,"  he  said,  answering  Dering, 
"and  expresses  a  perfectly  good  idea." 
He  spoke  in  the  slightly  whimsical  tone 
his  wife  so  well  knew,  which  thinly  cov- 
ered his  deeper  feeling.  "At  least  we 
hope  to  demonstrate  such  a  fact."  With 
the  use  of  the  "we,"  he  glanced  toward 
her;  she  accepted  it  by  a  kind  of  in- 
effable look  cast  upon  him.  But  to  the 
observer  in  the  car  it  was  quite  clear 
that  it  was  the  man,  and  not  the  idea, 
she  would  live  or  die  for. 

"Things  are  as  they  seem,  of  course — " 
Dering  spoke  after  something  of  a  pause. 
He  added,  with  a  coldness  which  held  a 
suggestion  of  contempt,  "They  never 
seemed  like  that  to  me,  however." 

Unlike  his  wife,  Gilliland  felt  the  cold- 
ness most,  and  had  an  instant  of  what 
was  almost  self-reproach  for  his  happi- 
ness in  possessing  the  woman  the  other 
man  had  desired.  He  felt  it  a  barrier  to 
brotherhood  standing  between  himself 
and  this  other,  and  just  for  the  moment 
it  came  accusingly  to  him,  that  even  his 
love  hindered  his  emulation  of  that  Life, 
the  greatest  ever  lived  among  men, 
which  had  taught  brotherhood,  and  had 
known  poverty. 


THE  ONE  AND  THE  OTHER 


Dering  drew  on  his  glove  and  laid  his 
hands  on  the  steering-wheel.  "The  best 
luck  I  can  wish  you,"  he  said,  with  at 
least  an  appearance  of  friendliness,  "is 
that  you  will  soon  get  tired  of  your  ex- 
periment and  come  back  to  town  and 
live  like  Christians.  That  is,"  he  added, 
easily,  but  with  a  certain  look  at  Gilli- 
land,  "if  you  have  anything  left  to  live 
on! 

"The  'if  is  pertinent,"  said  Gilliland, 
as  though  something  in  him  demanded 
the  truth — as  though  it  were,  in  a  sense, 
a  confession  of  faith  with  him.  His  wife 
made  a  slight  but  significant  movement 
of  consent,  of  unity,  which  did  not 
escape  the  other. 

"As  bad  as  that!"  The  tone  was  of 
light  indifference,  but  the  glance  which 
rested  a  moment  upon  Rose  Gilliland 
was  not  light — a  keen  glance  out  of  a  face 
that  had  none  of  the  beauties  of  the 
other  man's.  Its  coloring  was  rather  on 
the  negligible  order;  it  had  been  indeed 
wholly  negative  to  Rose  Hallowell  in 


843 

those  days  when  her  heart  had  already 
begun  to  turn  toward  the  golden-haired 
Gilliland.  It  was  a  face  of  force,  none  the 
less,  full  of  a  hard,  material  intelligence 
— the  money-maker's  face  more  than  the 
love-maker's.  He  was  a  few  years  older 
than  Gilliland,  of  better  physique;  to 
the  eyes  of  the  woman  he  had  once  tried 
to  win  he  had,  by  contrast,  a  look  of 
coarseness,  almost  of  repellence. 

On  the  point  of  starting  his  car  he 
turned  back  to  the  pair  at  the  roadside. 
"By  the  way" — he  looked  from  Gilli- 
land to  his  wife  and  children,  then  at  the 
empty,  leather-cushioned  seat  behind 
him — "if  you're  going  on  in  my  direc- 
tion, I'd  be  glad — " 

She  shook  her  head,  giving  him  her 
brilliant  smile.  "Thank  you  just  as 
much — but  I'll  stay  with  the  wagon!" 
The  three  laughed  a  little  constrainedly. 
"Come  and  see  us  demonstrate  the  sim- 
ple life,  though,"  she  added,  with  a  cor- 
diality that  seemed  real.  "Clyde,  tell 
him  just  exactly  where — that  is,  if  he 


844 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


knows  himself!"  she  said  in  a  smiling 
aside  to  Dering,  who  knew  she  would 
have  him  believe  that  her  ignorance  of 
what  lay  before  her  was  the  most  charm- 
ing idea  she  could  have  imagined. 

Gilliland  looked  after  the  car  as  it 
went  out  of  sight  over  the  top  of  the  hill 


"Let's  stop  playing  this  new,  hard 
way,  Clyde — clearest — that  nobody  else 
plays!  Let's  just  go  back  and  play  the 
old  way — like  all  the  rest — the  way  we 
know!  I  don't  know  this  way" — he  felt 
her  shudder  in  his  arms — "I'm  like  a 
child  in  the  dark,  Clyde.   Take  us  home, 


(t  think  I  ought  to  have  put  you  in  with     dear,  please;  take  us  home!" 

"  Darling,"  he  said,  and  held  her 
close,  pleadingly.  And  all  at  once 
penitence  swept  through  her. 

"Oh,  I'm  not  fit  to  belong 
to  you !  I  ought  to  have  belonged  " 
— with  sudden  scorn  for  both— 
"to  John  Dering!  I'm  just  fit 
for  that — just  fit  for  the  life  of 
selfish  ease;  not  fit  for  any- 
thing high  and  fine  like" — he  laid 
his  fingers  over  her  lips,  but  she 
pulled  them  away  and  finished — 
"like  you!  Onlj^  I've  got 
you!"  In  the  broken  laughter 
which  came  with  the  words  was 
a  joy  of  possession  that  superseded 
everything,  compensated  for 
everything.  "I'll  try  to  do  bet- 
ter, dearest,"  she  promised  with 
that  sweet  humility  which  from 
her  he  only  could  command,  and 
raised  her  lips  for  his  kiss  of  for- 
giveness. "I'll  try  to  remember 
better  what  life  is  for;  that  it 
is  only  to  help  and  comfort;  that 
we  must  only  live  for  others. 
But  you  see,  I'll  just  have  to 
backslide  a  few  times — and  repent 
and  be  forgiven!"  She  put  up 
one  slim  hand,  stroking  h  i  s 
cheek  with  infinite  tenderness, 
and  smiling,  with  a  love  that 
was  beautiful  in  its  passion  of 
giving,  into  his  suddenly  clouded  eyes. 

"Just  now  I  feel  like  asking  you  to  for- 
give me,"  he  said,  slowly. 

"Never!"  she  cried,  happily,  and 
called  to  the  two  children  picking  wind- 
flowers  in  the  grass  at  the  roadside. 
"I'm  all  rested  now,  dearest.  Are  you? 
Let's  hurry  and  get  to  our  own  house,  so 
we  can  unpack  our  nice  new  lamps  and 
get  them  all  ready  to  light  when  dark 
comes!" 

And  just  before  dusk  Gilliland  stopped 
the  tired  horse  and  helped  his  wife  and 
children  out  of  the  wagon  before  a  little, 
low  house  with  a  small  front  yard,  and 
by  and  by  lights  shone  from  its  windows. 


THERE  WERE  MANY  HAPPY  HOURS  FOR  THE  CHILDREN 


him,"  he  said,  in  a  troubled,  regretful 
voice.  "He  could  have  set  you  down 
right  at  the  door." 

"Only  I  don't  want  him  to  set  me 
down  at  the  door!"  she  repeated  after 
him;  "I  want  you  to!"  His  face  lighted, 
but  in  the  next  instant  she  was  in  his 
arms,  sobbing.  "Oh,  Clyde!  I'm  tired 
—I'm  bad — I'm — everything!  I  don't 
want  to  be  away  off  out  here  in  this  lone- 
someness — with  this  horse  and  wagon! 
I  want  to  be  in  our  own  car — with  you — 
going  home  to  our  own  house!" 

"We  are  going  home  to  our  own 
house,"  he  gently  reminded  her;  but  she 
cried,  rebelliouslv : 


THE  ONE  AND  THE  OTHER 


845 


There  were  dandelions  in  the  short 
young  grass  in  the  door-yard;  these  the 
Gilliland  children  picked  and  made  into 
chains,  sitting  on  the  low  door-stone  in 
the  plain  gingham  "jumpers"  which 
their  mother's  unaccustomed  hands  had 
washed  and  ironed.  Also  the  two  young 
philanthropists  sat  on  this  door-stone  on 
some  moonlit  and  starlit  nights,  with  the 
short,  white  path  that  cut  the  yard  in 
halves,  running  out  to  the  country  road, 
and  each  had  thoughts  not  shared  by 
the  other. 

There  was  a  large  apple-tree  at  one 
side  of  the  path,  and  here  the  two  chil- 
dren had  a  rope  swing,  and  spent  many 
happy  hours  while  their  mother,  indoors, 
kept  the  new  lamps  bright  and  poured 
oil  into  them,  sometimes  with  tears  run- 
ning in  with  the  oil.  For  it  could  not 
have  been  otherwise  with  one  of  these 
two  demonstrators,  and  there  were  back- 
slidings  and  rebellions,  with  the  sorrows 
of  repentance  and  the  sweetness  of  for- 
giveness to  follow.  And  there  were 
doubts  for  the  other,  moments  when  the 
Inspiration  failed  and  the  Vision  re- 
ceded, moments  when  faith  turned  to 
unfaith,  and  joyous  enthusiasm  to  the 
stone  in  the  breast. 

A  good  deal  of  the  passion  of  living 
was  wrought  out  in  the  little  house  by 
the  roadside — both  while  the  experi- 
ment lasted  and  after.  For  there  was 
the  irony  of  it  all:  that,  as  an  example, 
it  came  neither  to  one  nor  the  other — 
neither  the  doubt  nor  the  Vision  was 
justified.  With  all  that  went  into  it, 
with  all  the  love  and  high  courage,  all 
the  faith  and  all  the  works  without  faith, 
it  proved  nothing,  demonstrated  noth- 
ing. It  merely  ceased — suddenly,  prem- 
aturely, tragically. 

Out  in  his  hay-field,  pitching  forkfuls 
of  the  cut  grass  into  the  green-painted 
wagon  in  the  blistering  sun,  while  his  wife 
in  her  print  gown,  and  with  the  thought 
of  him  in  her  heart,  hurried  the  midday 
meal  and  his  children  played  in  the 
door-yard,  Gilliland  felt  a  sudden  giddi- 
ness seize  him.  He  thought  of  sunstroke, 
and  started  to  stagger  toward  the  house. 
But  half  an  hour  afterward  some  passers 
on  the  country  road  noticed  the  horse 
standing  and  the  half-filled  wagon,  and 
then  saw  that  something  was  lying  be- 
side it. 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  786.— 105 


They  carried  him  into  the  little  house, 
and  his  wife,  with  fierce,  despairing  en- 
ergy, rushed  all  that  the  city  had  of 
science  and  skill  to  his  aid.  She  prayed 
that  he  might  be  spared  to  her;  on 
bended  knee  besought  Heaven  to  forgive 
those  times  when  she  had  thought  it 
hard — when  she  had  been  unwilling  to 
live  the  life  for  others — when  she  had 
wanted  her  own  life,  wanted  its  ease  and 
comfort,  wanted  to  be  happy  and  gay  as 
she  had  once  been,  and  to  forget  a  world 
that  was  calling  to  her  in  its  travail  and 
its  pain.  She  passionately  promised 
never  even  to  wish  to  forget  again,  never 
to  be,  for  the  briefest  space,  unwilling 
again;  but  she  was  not  called  upon  to 
fulfil  these  promises. 

Gilliland  gave  her  a  conscious  mo- 
ment at  the  last — opened  his  eyes  upon 
her  with  the  loved,  familiar  smile.  There 
was  a  beauty  in  it,  and  in  the  transpar- 
ent face  upon  the  pillow  with  the  frame 
of  almost  golden  hair  bordering  it,  that 
was  now,  indeed,  more  of  spirit  than  of 
flesh.  Out  of  the  blackness  of  his  hours 
of  unrecognition  it  pierced  her  heart 
with  a  surpassing  ecstasy — made  the 
moment  heaven.  It  was  all  that  he 
could  give  in  return  for  all  that  he  had 
taken  and  was  taking. 

During  all  the  following  hours  and  all 
that  took  place  in  them,  Rose  Gilliland 
went  on  living  in  that  dying  smile  as 
though  it  were  the  reality  and  all  the  rest 
a  dream.  When  it  finally  passed — when, 
the  night  after  Gilliland's  burial,  she 
woke  from  the  warm  and  happy  sleep 
into  which  it  had  lulled  her,  and  found 
it  gone  and  the  cold  fingers  of  her  desola- 
tion clutching  at  her  heart,  she  sprang 
up  from  her  pillows,  and  her  wild  cry  of 
anguish  and  of  terror  rang  startlingly 
and  fearfully  through  the  little  house. 

It  had  not  been  unexpected,  and  for 
hours,  before  opiates  would  take  effect, 
they  held  her  with  gentle  force  while  she 
thought  they  were  trying  to  keep  her 
from  finding  the  smile  again — while 
their  loving  hands  were  to  her  but  the 
icy  hands  of  that  desolation  from  which 
she  struggled  with  mortal  fear  to  flee. 
Afterward,  when  with  pitiful  resignation 
she  knew  herself  overtaken,  she  only 
moaned  monotonously: 

"You  left  me — you  left  me!"    It  was 


840 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


as  though  she  dumbly  accused.  "You 
took  from  me  the  glad,  unthinking,  joy- 
ous life — you  made  me  bear  with  you 
the  world's  burden — and  then — you  left 
me! 

It  seemed  to  her  that  with  Gilliland's 
death  her  own  life  had  died.  She  saw 
figures  and  faces  about  her,  saw  her  chil- 
dren still  run  in  and  out  of  the  open  door, 
heard  their  voices  in  their  play  under  the 
apple-tree  or  up  and  down  the  white 
path  running  out  to  the  road — but  saw 
and  heard  with  unreality  over  it  all.  All 
the  reality  lay  back  of  that  day  when 
they  had  brought  him  across  the  field 
in  the  burning  sun  to  her  anguished, 
stricken  arms. 

To  a  lingering  presence  of  him  she 
clung  as  weeks  passed,  persistently  re- 
fusing to  leave,  even  for  a  day,  those 
places  which  had  known  him,  lest,  re- 
turning, she  should  find  that  hovering 
ghost  of  him  gone  and  this  one  spot 
empty  of  him  as  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
was  empty.  To  suggestions  made  by  her 
father  and  mother  and  those  others  back 
in  that  world  from  which  Gilliland  had 
taken  her,  that  the  chapter  of  life  per- 
taining to  the  "little  house"  was  closed, 
she  listened  wonderingly,  a  little  anger 
showing  through  the  wonder. 

"Did  you  think,"  she  asked,  her  heart 
hardening  toward  them,  "that  what  he 
taught  me  I  would  so  easily  forget? 
Was  what  he  lived  and  died  for  so  little 
— did  you  think  it  could  mean  so  little — 
to  me?"  Yet  for  all  this  passionate 
loyalty,  when  sometimes  she  heard  those 
voices  telling  of  sin  and  want  and  need 
to  which,  with  Gilliland  at  her  side,  she 
had  learned  to  listen,  she  turned  from 
them  with  a  weak  gesture  of  helplessness. 

"I  cannot — all  alone!"  she  cried,  as 
though  she  reproached  them  for  calling, 
and  gradually  they  spoke  from  farther 
away,  and  more  faintly. 

She  did  not  now  pour  oil  into  the 
lamps,  nor  do  any  other  of  those  tasks 
she  had  taught  herself  to  perform;  and 
sometimes  she  remembered  disquietingly 
how  she  had  let  this  burden,  too,  slip 
from  her  shoulders.  But  to  this  also  she 
cried  weakly,  "I  could  not — all  alone!" 

Summer  and  autumn  wore  into  win- 
ter, and  now  she  could  not  see  Gilliland 
in  the  bare,  brown  fields  which  had  never 
known  his  living  presence.    Nor  inside 


the  little  house,  with  fires  burning  upon 
the  hearth  and  the  cold  rain  driving 
against  the  window-panes,  could  she 
keep  that  lingering  sense  of  him.  And 
still  she  refused  to  say  that  the  chapter 
was  closed — still  cheated  her  heart  with 
denial  of  its  own  emptiness.  And  the 
exorbitant-priced  specialist  who  was 
watching  the  course  of  what,  to  her  fam- 
ily and  friends,  was  her  "unnatural 
grief"  for  Gilliland,  encouraged  the  hope 
that  it  would  now  soon  wear  itself  away. 
Meanwhile,  she  might  be  more  and  more 
surrounded  with  such  things  as  should 
bring  the  old  habit  of  life  insensibly  back 
to  her. 

Still  there  came  faintly  to  her  ears  at 
times  those  calling  voices — the  human 
cry — piercing  the  shut  doors  of  the  little 
house  and  the  shut  doors  of  her  heart; 
but  she  still  weakly  denied  "them.  And 
when  something  seemed  to  whisper  that 
in  closing  her  heart  to  these  she  lost 
what  she  had  possessed  of  him  who  had 
taught  her  to  hear  them,  she  had  only 
the  one  answer,  "I  was  too  desolate,  too 
alone!"  She  clung  now  to  this  desola- 
tion as  she  had  clung  at  first  to  that  lin- 
gering presence,  and  as  often  as  those 
devices  of  watchful  love  constantly 
thrown  about  her  seemed  to  be  having 
an  effect — as  often  as  one  gray  day 
passed  less  grayly,  she  turned  from  them 
back  to  her  grief,  crying,  remorsefully, 
"Oh,  I  am  forgetting  you — I  am  for- 
getting you!"  And  it  was  on  a  day  like 
this,  when  the  pain  of  forgetting  was 
more  bitter  than  that  of  remembering, 
that,  for  the  first  time  since  her  care- 
lessly given  invitation,  John  Dering 
found  his  way  out  to  the  little  house. 

She  could  not  have  dreamed  that  there 
had  been  no  one  hour  of  her  passionate 
grief  for  the  one  man  over  which  the  in- 
tention of  the  other  had  not  rested. 
That  stamp  of  hardness  upon  Dering's 
face  was  not  an  untruthful  index;  he 
had  wasted  few  thoughts  of  pity  or  com- 
punction on  the  man  who  had,  as  he 
viewed  it,  made  a  false  play  and  been 
taken  out  of  the  game.  As  the  rules  de- 
manded, he  had  stood  aside  and  seen 
this  other  preferred,  but  there  was  in 
him  none  of  that  sense  of  "  brotherhood  " 
which  might  have  made  him  even  mo- 
mentarily regretful  that  those  same  rules 
now  worked  for  and  not  against  himself. 


JOHN  DERING  FOUND  HIS  WAY  OUT  TO  THE  LITTLE  HOUSE 


Not  knowing,  Rose  Gilliland  wel- 
comed him  even  eagerly,  for  he  brought 
back  to  her  memories  a  freshness  that 
had  been  fading.  His  face  did  not  seem 
to  her  now  to  wear  its  look  of  derision, 
and  the  clasp  of  his  hand  as  she  gave  him 
hers  seemed  to  have  a  warmth  and  kind- 
liness she  had  never  before  associated 
with  him. 

"It  was  good  of  you  to  come,"  she 
said;  and  a  mistiness  gathered  over  her 
eyes. 

He  carried  away  with  him  two  pic- 
tures: one,  the  face  of  Gilliland 's  wife 
as  it  had  been  on  that  day  whose  mem- 
ory he  had  thus  revived  in  her;  the 
other,  the  face  of  Gilliland's  widow. 
With  the  two  before  him,  he  felt  for  a 
moment  a  dangerous  anger  toward  the 
man,  dead  though  he  was,  who  had 
brought  upon  her  a  grief  which  had  so 
ravaged  and  devoured  her. 

With  her,  for  days  afterward,  the 
thought  of  his  visit  could  cause  that 
warm,  sweet  memory  to  return.  It 
could  bring  back  the  dusty  road  with  its 
long  up-grade,  and  Gilliland  walking  be- 
side the  wagon,  wiping  his  moist  brow 
or  tossing  back  the  damp  rings  of  hair, 
or  smiling  the  loved,  thrilling  smile.  And 
there  would   be  the  orchard   and  the 


patient  horse  standing,  and  the  presence 
of  Dering,  which  was  an  alien  presence. 
And  her  own  rebellion  and  new,  pas- 
sionate surrender,  and  the  tender  com- 
panionship of  the  remainder  of  the 
journey  and  of  the  home-coming  at  dusk. 
She  was  blind  to  one  pregnant  fact — 
that  in  all  of  this  something  of  Dering 
himself  mingled;  that  because  he  had  re- 
vivified for  her  the  memory  of  the  dead 
she  thought  of  him,  the  living,  with  a 
greater  kindness  and  nearness  than  she 
had  ever  thought. 

She  began  now  to  say,  "With  the  com- 
ing of  spring  it  will  all  come  back,''  and 
to  look  forward  to  the  return  of  that 
season  as  though  it  could  indeed  bring 
back  what  was  gone — him  who  was  gone. 

Spring  did  revive  her  memories.  And 
sometimes  it  all  swept  back  upon  her- — 
the  unbearable  longing,  the  pain  that 
was  like  physical  pain  in  the  breast. 
The  children  at  play  under  the  blossom- 
ing apple-tree  or  picking  dandelions  in 
the  door-yard  might  bring  it,  or  the  oil- 
lamp  sending  its  rays  out  into  the  warm, 
soft  dusk;  or  travelers  on  the  dusty  road, 
or  some  spot  in  field  or  garden  which 
bore  a  special  reminder  of  Gilliland.  But 
though  the  memories  came,  that  near- 
ness, that  something  that  was  himself, 


S48 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


for  which  she  had  waited,  did  not  come. 
Sometimes  in  its  stead  was  the  vague 
feeling  that  she  had  stepped  over  some 
line,  and  she  tried  to  take  the  step  back, 
but  found  the  point  to  which  she  would 
have  returned  blurred,  indistinguishable. 

Frequently,  since  that  first  visit — or 
so  he  had  told  her — some  business  inter- 
est of  Dering's  had  brought  him  into  the 
vicinity  of  the  little  house.  The  two 
children,  Hal  and  little  Gilbert — named 
by  his  mother  so  that  she  could  call  him 
"Gillie"  after  his  father — had  begun  to 
anticipate  these  visits,  which  generally 
meant  a  short  motor  ride  when  he  was 
leaving.  Gillie  had  once  momentarily 
startled  his  mother  by  coming  to  stand 
at  her  knee  and  remarking  without  pref- 
ace of  any  sort,  "I  like  Mr.  Dering." 

With  the  two  little  boys  as  allies,  he 
had  one  day  overcome  her  opposition 
and  carried  the  three  of  them  ofF  for  a 
long  ride  across  country.  It  was  a 
glorious,  sapphire-tinted  morning,  and 
brought  a  color  into  Rose  Gilliland's 
now  habitually  colorless  face,  and  a  hint 
of  the  old  vivacity. 

"Look  at  mamma!"  Hal  exclaimed, 
joyously  marveling  at  the  transforma- 
tion; and  Dering,  glancing  back  from  his 
driver's  seat,  had  for  a  moment  in  his 
face  what  was  like  the  pleased  gratifica- 
tion beaming  from  the  child's,  but  in- 
tensified. Without  quite  analyzing  his 
look,  it  angered  her. 

"You  want  me  to  forget!"  she  cried 
out  to  him  in  sudden  stormy  accusation; 
then  remembering  what  import  her 
words  might  have  carried,  smitten  all  at 
once  with  a  commingling  of  alarm,  self- 
reproach,  and  resentment,  "That  is  the 
constant  effort  of  every  one — to  make 
me  forget  instead  of  helping  me  to  re- 
member!" 

Dering  replied  with  a  generality:  "To 
forget  and  be  forgotten  seems  to  have 
been  the  history  of  the  world,"  but  to 
her  inner  sense  it  was  as  though  he  had 
audibly  added,  "Why  should  you  think 
it  could  be  different  with  you?" 

She  wanted  to  cry,  "But  he  was  dif- 
ferent! Oh,  you  must  know  that — even 
you!"  but  some  conviction  that  Dering 
did  not  know — would  never  wish  to  know 
and  never  submit  to  knowing — kept  her 
silent.  Nevertheless,  that  look  she  had 
seen  upon  his  face,  and  that  unspoken 


question,  "Why  should  it  be  different 
with  you?"  performed  some  subtle  office 
for  Dering.  Sitting  with  him  there  be- 
fore her  driving  the  car,  his  broad,  well- 
groomed  back  in  line  with  her  vision, 
there  began  unconsciously  to  pervade 
her  a  more  concrete  sense  of  him  than  she 
had  earlier  had. 

But  the  day's  victory  was  not  wholly 
to  the  living.  Motoring  by  a  changed 
route  homeward,  they  rolled  down  in  the 
late  afternoon,  after  a  climb  over  hills 
that  inclosed  it  like  sentinels,  into  a  wide 
valley  dotted  with  farm-houses  which,  as 
they  had  observed  them  from  the  crest, 
showed  a  curious  likeness  one  to  another. 

"It  looks  like  a  colony  of  some  sort," 
commented  Dering,  and  the  next  mo- 
ment had  a  sudden  conviction  which 
made  him  regret  the  words. 

An  air  of  content,  of  well  -  being, 
seemed  to  brood  over  the  valley.  As 
they  rolled  slowly  along  the  main  road, 
traversing  its  length,  they  seemed  by 
some  form  of  magic  to  have  trundled  out 
of  an  ordinary  world  down  into  a  pas- 
toral of  peace  —  that  same  content 
seemed  to  emanate  from  even  the  barn- 
yard fowls,  from  the  cattle  in  the  pas- 
tures, from  children  playing  by  the  road- 
sides. 

In  a  field  whose  brown  furrows  ran 
straight  down  to  the  grass-bordered 
highway,  the  face  of  a  man  plowing 
brought  to  Gilliland's  widow,  as  he 
stopped  to  watch  the  car  as  it  passed, 
some  sudden  sharp  reminder.  Almost  in 
the  same  breath  she  knew  what  it  was, 
and  where  Dering  had  unwittingly 
brought  her.  This  "Peaceful  Valley" 
had  been  the  first  of  Gilliland's  experi- 
ments in  returning  homeless  wanderers 
to  the  bosom  of  the  waiting  earth-moth- 
er, and  the  man  plowing  was  one  who, 
with  five  others  from  these  farms,  had 
begged  the  privilege  of  bearing  the  body 
of  their  benefactor  to  its  last  resting- 
place. 

Like  a  gushing  forth  of  imprisoned 
torrents  was  her  flood  of  returning  mem- 
ories. "Oh,  you  see" — she  leaned  eager- 
ly forward,  her  face  illuminated — "he 
isn't  dead — he  lives!  He  lives  in  these 
happy  homes — in  the  hearts  of  these 
whom  he  blessed — whom  he  lifted.  Oh, 
he  lives!  he  lives!"  But  Dering  knew 
that  this,  too,  would  pass. 


THE  ONE  AND  THE  OTHER 


849 


To  her  own  heart  she  said,  "  I  have  not 
been  worthy  of  him";  and  remembered 
the  lessons  of  toil  and  sacrifice  he  had 
taught  her,  those  lessons  she  had  said 
could  not  be  unlearned — and  had  then 
forgotten.  If  only  she  had  not  forgot- 
ten! If  only  she  had  gone  on  working 
and  striving  and  helping,  even  though 
he  were  dead  and 
she  worked  and 
helped  alone.  I  f 
only  she  had  choked 
back  her  grief  and 
remembered  the 
griefs  and  burdens 
of  others;  if  she 
had  kept  that 
world ' s  burden 
which  he  had  borne, 
and  so  have  kept 
him  —  his  spiritual 
presence.  She  had 
failed !  She  had  been 
selfish  in  her  grief 
for  him,  and  so  had 
lost  him!  She  had 
let  it  slip  from  her 
shoulders.  Oh,  she 
must  find  it  again, 
that  world's  bur- 
den, and  bear  it; 
and  then  he  would 
come  back  —  his 
nearness  would 
come  back.  But 
now,  without  h  i  s 
guidance,  she  could 
not  again  find  it. 

When  little  Gil- 
bert Gilliland  had 
been  twenty  -  four 
hours  in  his  grand- 
father Hallowell's 
big,  handsome  "i  like  to 

house  in  town,  he 
came  and  stood  at 

his  mother's  knee,  and  looked  up  into 
her  face  with  the  observation,  "I  like 
to  live  here." 

"You,  too,"  she  said  in  the  voice  that 
seemed  at  once  queer  and  sad  to  him; 
"you  too,  Gillie!" 

She  had  tried  at  first  to  view  it  all 
impersonally  and  unrememberingly,  as 
if  she  were  but  a  brief  sojourner  whose 
vision  was  fixed  elsewhere — had  tried, 


indeed,  to  keep  that  vision  fixed  else- 
where. But  as  days  went  by,  and  that 
not  wholly  specious  illness  of  her  moth- 
er's which  had  at  last  lured  her  away 
from  the  little  house  by  the  road  seemed 
to  make  her  continued  presence  in  her 
girlhood's  home  not  less  than  a  daugh- 
terly duty,  gradually  the  old  familiarity 

of  it  all  stole  back 
upon  her.  It  was  a 
home  o  f  polished 
surfaces,  of  the 
shine  of  glass  and 
silver  and  rich  tints 
of  rugs  and  tapes- 
tries. And  as  the 
old  wontedness  of 
these  grew,  imper- 
ceptibly to  herself, 
the  reality  of  the 
"little  house"  —  of 
all  her  years  with 
Gilliland — receded. 

Here  in  the  place 
which  had  seen  the 
beginning  and 
growth  of  her  love 
for  him,  visions  of 
him  in  his  young, 
enhaloed,  spiritual- 
eyed  beauty  passed 
before  her,  and  she 
saw  these,  not  so 
much  with  the 
brooding  eyes  of  the 
woman  who  had 
possessed  and  trag- 
ically lost,  as  with 
the  vague  gaze  of 
youth  wrapped  in 
its  unknowing,  hap- 
py dreams. 

Here,  too,  in  the 
old  surroundings, 
live  here"  with  theold  concep- 

tions of  life  daily 
before  her,  between 
herself  and  that  great  outside  humanity 
she  had  once  learned  to  call  her  own, 
the  old  barrier  began  to  rise.  And  as 
day  by  day  it  rose  higher,  so  day  by  day 
drifted  farther  the  actuality  of  him  for 
whom  there  had  been  no  such  barrier. 

Ordered  to  the  seashore  for  her  con- 
valescence, Mrs.  Hallowell  had  availed 
herself  of  an  invalid's  privilege  and  in- 


850 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


sisted  upon  being  accompanied  by  her 
daughter  and  her  two  grandchildren; 
and  on  one  of  his  first  days  at  the  expen- 
sive watering-place,  little  Gilbert  Gilli- 
land,  dressed  in  the  pink  and  perfection 
of  style  prescribed  for  the  four-year-old 
at  a  fashionable  beach,  detached  himself 
from  a  group  of  other  children  who,  sim- 
ilarly attired  and  watched  by  their  re- 
spective nurses,  were  industriously  dip- 
ping up  sand  in  buckets  and  pouring  it 
out  again,  and  ran  over  to  where  his 
mother  was  idly  watching  the  bathers 
in  the  surf. 

She,  too,  was  appareled  in  the  ap- 
proved manner;  those  soft,  faint  touches 
of  color  allowed  the  smart  young  widow 
in  her  second  year  of  mourning  lightened 
and  lent  artistic  value  to  the  tragedy 
shadowed  forth  by  the  still  young, 
proudly  sad  face,  a  face  whose  look  in 
these  days  registered  scorn  as  well  as 
tragedy — scorn  for  it  all,  scorn  for  her- 
self. 

"I  like  to  do  this,"  Gillie  announced 
without  preamble,  showing  her  his 
bucket  and  spoon  and  indicating  the 
group  he  had  left.  She  let  her  somber 
eyes,  with  the  heavy  lines  of  brows  above 
them,  follow  his  gesturing  arm,  and, 
after  what  he  thought  was  a  long  minute: 

"I'm  glad  you  do,  Gillie,"  she  said, 
"for  it's  what  we're  all  of  us  going  to  do 
all  the  rest  of  our  lives— probably.  Do 
you  remember" — she  caught  him  to  her 
suddenly  and  held  him  in  a  grip  that 
hurt — "do  you  remember  how  we  used 
to  draw  the  water  up  out  of  the  well — 
and  pour  oil  in  the  lamps?  Do  you, 
Gillie?" 

He  wriggled  away  from  the  passionate 
clasp.  "I  like  to  do  this  now,"  he  in- 
sisted, and  she  let  him  trot  off  to  join 
the  others. 

Her  father  and  John  Dering  came 
down  together  for  the  week-ends.  They 
were  engrossed  in  business,  yet  Dering 
found  time  to  keep  Rose  Gilliland  con- 
stantly reminded  of  himself — of  his  ulti- 
mate hope.  He  seemed  to  her  at  times  to 
fill  her  horizon  entirely,  and  there  was  in 
her  breast  now  and  then  a  frightened 
fluttering,  like  the  fluttering  of  some- 
thing trapped — caged. 

They  were  sitting  one  night  at  dinner; 
the  mirrored  walls  of  the  brightly  lighted 
hotel  dining-room  reflected  the  white 


tables  sparkling  with  glass  and  silver,  an 
orchestra  played  softly  behind  a  wall  of 
palms,  and  the  air  was  fragrant  with  hot- 
house flowers.  Here  and  there  were  other 
diners,  some  of  them  elaborately  dressed. 
Dering  was  in  even  ng  dress;  his  vigor- 
ous type  of  face  and  figure  showed  to 
advantage  in  the  high  lights  and  by  con- 
trast with  the  other  faces  and  figures. 
Some  part  of  Rose  Gilliland  was  con- 
scious of  this  even  while  she  saw  the 
harshness,  the  forbidding  look,  coupled 
with  keenness,  which  protected  Dering 
from  the  beggar  on  the  street,  for  in- 
stance; which  gave  no  invitation  to 
"ask  and  receive." 

She  had  been  passively  watching  the 
gay,  careless  diners,  herself  an  aloof, 
somber  figure,  upon  whose  face  to-night 
those  world-shadows  which  had  crept 
over  its  brightness  seemed  to  rest  heav- 
ily; and  had  been  thinking,  as  one 
thinks  in  a  dream,  of  the  human  needs 
which  all  this  waste  and  extravagance 
might  have  relieved.  She  leaned  sud- 
denly across  the  table  toward  Dering. 

"He  could  not  eat,"  she  said  in  a  low 
voice  full  of  memory,  "if  another  was 
without  bread."  Seeing  for  the  moment 
with  other  eyes,  an  army  of  gaunt, 
hungry  faces  seemed  to  her  to  fill  the 
brilliantly  lighted  room,  hovering  over 
the  tables,  peering  from  behind  uncon- 
scious diners.  "Could  you,"  she  asked, 
"could  any  of  these  others,  be  like  that? 
Could  you  feel  as  he  did,  the  want  and 
woe  in  the  world — give  as'  he  gave?" 

Dering  showed  in  his  reply  that  he  had 
not  seen  that  hungry-eyed  army.  "What 
he  gave,"  he  said,  and  used  an  unwont- 
edly  personal  and  direct  manner  toward 
her,  "he  took  from  those  to  whom  it 
rightly  belonged — from  his  wife — from 
his  children.  You  have  been  mistaken," 
he  continued,  with  no  attempt  at  soften- 
ing the  words,  "It  was  you  who  gave — 
he  who  took.  You  gave  him  your  all" — 
his  look  did  not  spare  her — "gave  him 
even  the  guardianship  of  your  soul.  But 
he  gave  himself  to  a  world  with  which 
you  had  nothing  to  do."  Something 
seemed  suddenly  to  stir  behind  the  hard 
mask  of  his  face.  "Had  you  given  in 
half  such  measure  to  me — " 

A  hunted  look  sprang  instantly  to  her 
eyes. 

"Forgive  me!"  he  said,  as  if  in  brief 


THE  ONE  AND  THE  OTHER 


851 


dismissal  of  a  subject  she  herself  had 
opened.  But  she  cried  then,  in  low, 
impetuous  tones: 

"You  are  unfair — he  gave!  Even  his 
life — "  She  seemed  to  dwell  upon  the 
thought  as  something  infinitely  precious. 
"He  gave  even  his  life  for  others." 

"He  gave  it  for  an  idea.     And  he 
gave  you  heaviness 
for   lightnes  s — 
mourning  for  glad- 
ness — 

"Oh,  you  shall 
not!"  she  interrupt- 
ed, and  threw  her 
hands  out  swiftly  as 
if  to  make  them  a 
barrier  against  the 
words.  For  they  ran 
even  as  at  times  some 
of  her  own  thoughts 
had  run.  "You  will 
never  understand — 
you  could  not — but 
he  loved  the  world — 
humanity — " 

"I  could  love  my 
own,"  said  Dering, 
and  some  slight  but 
arresting  emphasis  in 
the  words,  in  his 
manner  of  speaking, 
made  her  turn  and 
gaze  at  him  as  though 
seeing  his  face  new- 
ly; or  as  though  a 
hand,  invisible  but  authoritative,  had 
been  raised  bidding  her  listen.  At  times, 
during  the  remainder  of  their  stay  at  the 
seaside,  when  she  greeted  Dering  or 
looked  into  his  face,  she  received  the 
same  impression. 

Back  in  town,  she  began,  strand  by 
strand,  to  pick  up  the  old  threads  of  life, 
partly  with  reluctance,  but  not  wholly. 
For  days  together  she  lived  in  the  pres- 
ent alone,  a  present,  it  must  be  acknowl- 
edged, superior  to  that  grievously 
mourned  past,  if  one  excepted  what  had 
been  the  mainspring  of  it  all.  But  one 
question  still  at  times  intruded:  What 
if  at  the  first  she  had  been  strong  instead 
of  weak?  If  she  had  kept  that  burden 
Gilliland  had  taught  her  to  bear,  instead 
of  relinquishing  it?  Even  yet,  some- 
rimes,  she  tried  to  call  back  the  old  re- 
gret that  she  had  not  kept  it — tried  to 


call  back  the  old  passion  of  love  and 
longing;  but,  save  for  rare  and  quickly 
passing  moments,  reality  seemed  to  have 
gone — it  seemed  too  late.  And  some- 
times, half  realizing  toward  what  a  new 
current  her  life  had  set,  she  tried  to  cry, 
"Forgive  me!"  as  though  she  cried  it  to 
Gilliland — to  his  living  self;    but  she 


TO-NIGHT  IS  A  KIND  OF  ANNIVERSARY  WITH  ME,     HE  SAID 


could  neither  feel  his  reproach  nor  his 
forgiveness.  It  was  as  if  he  had  utterly 
passed  away  from  it  all. 

When,  for  the  second  time,  the  fields 
around  the  deserted  and  forgotten  "lit- 
tle house  by  the  side  of  the  road"  were 
lying  wintry  and  bare,  Dering  asked  her 
to  marry  him.  He  had  dined  at  the 
Hallowell  home  as  had  become  his  tri- 
weekly habit,  and  during  dinner  had 
talked  over  with  her  father  an  action  of 
a  late  manufacturers'  league  meeting  in 
which  both  were  interested.  Her  mother, 
suffering  from  a  light  recurrence  of  her 
summer's  illness,  had  not  come  down, 
and  soon  after  dinner  her  father  excused 
himself  to  go  up  and  sit  with  her.  At 
the  first  landing  they  heard  him  give 
a  laugh  and  call  out,  encouragingly, 
"Run,  run!   fast   as   you   can!"  obvi- 


852 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


ously  to  one  of  his  grandsons,  for  there 
came  a  moment  later  the  patter  and 
scamper  of  bare  feet  down  the  wide, 
polished  stairs,  and  a  little  pajama-clad 
figure  came  into  view,  casting  bright, 
roguish  glances  backward  at  a  nurse  in 
pursuit. 

"He  likes  to  do  that!"  said  Dering,  in 
an  amused  tone  to  Gillie's  mother  as 
they  hurried  out  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs, 
and  then,  with  a  quick  movement, 
blocked  a  sudden  attempt  at  capture  on 
the  part  of  the  nurse.  "Only  over  my 
dead  body!"  he  warned  her  in  a  voice 
which  made  the  child  who  had  taken 
refuge  behind  him  tingle  with  delicious 
terror  and  anticipation.  "That  is,"  he 
appended,  turning  to  the  mother  with  a 
look  of  inquiry,  "unless  there  are  differ- 
ent orders  from  headquarters." 

"No,"  she  said,  smiling  and  lightly 
amused  also.  Just  for  the  moment 
nothing  awakened  in  her.  She  made  an 
enchanting  picture  as  she  stood  there  in 
her  rich  setting  and  in  the  full  flush  of 
womanhood  and  motherhood — a  picture 
emphasized  by  little  Gillie,  sidling  out 
from  behind  Dering  toward  her.  Both 
children  resembled  her,  having  the  same 
darkly  penciled  brows,  the  same  bright, 
imperious  look  in  their  delicately  fea- 
tured faces.  The  faceof  their  grandfather, 
as  he  went  on  to  the  floor  above  after 
witnessing  the  little  scene  from  the  land- 
ing, expressed  satisfaction;  it  was  all 
as  it  should  be.  But  it  was  not  quite 
the  same  with  his  daughter  when,  after 
the  sleepy  Gillie  had  been  taken  up- 
stairs by  the  nurse,  Dering  came  over 
to  stand  beside  her. 

"To-night  is  a  kind  of  anniversary 
with  me,"  he  said,  looking  down  upon 
her,  "and  I  thought  I  would  keep  it 
by  repeating  what  makes  it  such.  Eight 
years  ago — about  now" — he  glanced 
toward  the  little  musically  ticking  clock 
— "I  first  asked  you  to  marry  me.  You 
have  known  that  I  meant  to  ask  you  this 
again?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  and  looked  at  him 
openly.  It  was  as  though  her  heart  were 
quite  bare  to  him,  as  indeed  it  was. 
Something  reminiscent  came  suddenly 
into  her  face  and  a  little  smile  to  her  lips 
that  was  almost,  but  not  quite,  satirical. 
"I  once  told,"  she  said — "you  can  think 
whom — that  I  ought  to  have  belonged 


to  you.  That  I  was  only  fit  for  your  life; 
only  fit" — she  indicated  the  room,  its 
costly  furnishings  and  beautiful  effects — 
"for  this  life  of  luxury  and  selfish  ease. 
It  was  on  a  day  that  you  will  not,  prob- 
ably, remember,  but  we  were  resting  by 
the  roadside  and  you  had  come  by  in 
your  car  and  offered  to  take  me  in  with 
you.  And  after  you  had  gone  on,  be- 
cause just  for  a  moment  I  had  been 
— regretful — " 

"I  was  very  unhappy  at  leaving  you 
there  that  day.  I  had  a  sense  of  trou- 
ble, or  of  suffering,  waiting  for  you.  Of 
course,  I  thought  of  a  different  kind  of 
trouble  —  hardship,  disillusion  —  things 
like  that  that  might  come.  I  wanted  to 
snatch  you  away  from  it." 

"Are  you  telling  me,"  she  asked — and 
had  a  sudden  recollection  of  him  as  he 
had  seemed  that  day,  half  amused,  half 
hostile,  with  the  mask  of  conventional 
friendship  spread  over  all — "are  you 
telling  me  that  you  were  thinking  of  me 
— unselfishly,  like  that — then?" 

He  ignored  any  quality  of  wondering 
unbelief.  "I  have  always  thought  of 
you  more  or  less  unselfishly,"  he  said; 
"I  always  shall,  I  suppose." 

It  came  to  her  with  the  effect  of  a 
shock  that  with  that  literal,  common- 
place manner  he  was  speaking  the  literal 
truth — that  he  had  thought  of  her  in 
that  way,  carried  her  in  his  heart  in  that 
way,  all  those  eight  years.  And  all  at 
once  she  knew  why  those  other  words  of 
his — "I  could  love  my  own" — had  been 
so  arresting,  had  so  stirred  her.  It  had 
been  from  their  intrinsic,  their  even  sim- 
ple truth.  Whatever  he  was  to  others, 
it  would  be  thus  that  he  would  always  be 
to — his  own. 

Suddenly  she  cried,  brokenly,  "Oh,  I 
don't  know — I  don't  know!"  Yet  even 
with  the  words  she  extended  her  hands 
toward  him  —  slim,  beautiful  hands, 
from  which  every  imprint  of  that  brief 
"life  for  others"  had  been  effaced.  But 
when  she  felt  his  close  clasp  around 
them,  and  knew  that  in  another  mo- 
ment his  arms —  "You  are  unfair — " 
she  just  breathed,  the  breath  in  her 
breast  quickening,  half  with  what  he  had 
hoped  to  awaken.  "He  could  not  defend 
himself— or — or  me!  If  he  could  come 
back — " 

"He  cannot,"  he  said. 


SITTING  ON  HIS  HAUNCHES  IN  A  FIELD  OF  DAISIES 


The  Ways  of  the  Woodchuck 


BY  WALTER   P RICHARD  EATON 


HE  piece  was  entitled, 
if  I  remember  rightly, 
"Webster's  First  Case," 
and  it  was  in  the  Fourth 
Reader — or  maybe  the 
Fifth.  Anyway,  there 
was  a  picture  showing 
the  young  Daniel  making  an  eloquent 
gesture  in  front  of  his  father,  while 
brother  Ezekiel  stood  by  with  a  wood- 
chuck  in  a  trap.  "Zeke,"  it  seems,  had 
caught  the  'chuck  (which  was  a  highly 
commendable  thing  to  do  according  to 
New  England  standards),  and  was  about 
to  put  it  to  death  when  Daniel  took  pity 

Vol.  CXXXI— No.  786.— 106 


upon  its  dumb  helplessness  and  appealed 
for  its  life.  Father  Webster  was  called 
in  as  judge,  and  he  was  so  moved  by  the 
future  senator's  pleading  that  he  finally 
exclaimed,  "Zeke,  Zeke,  you  let  that 
woodchuck  go!" 

I  don't  know  if  this  story  is  included 
in  the  Readers  any  more;  probably  not. 
But  in  my  boyhood  it  made  a  great  im- 
pression. It  was  far  easier,  in  fact,  to 
appreciate  the  eloquence  which  could 
persuade  a  New  England  farmer  to  spare 
a  woodchuck  than  to  appreciate  the 
eloquence  of  the  Bunker  Hill  oration  as 
declaimed  by  Wesley  Sanborn!  There 


854 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


HIS  BURROW  USUALLY  COMMANDS  A  WIDE  PROSPECT 


wasn't  a  youngster  of  us  but  hunted 
woodchucks,  and  those  who  lived  on 
farms  did  it  as  a  regular  part  of  the 
chores — the  only  really  enjoyable  part. 
We  all  were  familiar  with  the  habits  of 
this  rodent;  we  knew  his  powers  for  de- 
struction; we  had  been  brought  up  to 
regard  him  as  an  enemy  of  agriculture 
and  a  proper  subject  for  extermination. 
Not  one  of  us  could  have  persuaded  his 
father  to  spare  a  'chuck.  So  that  story, 
above  all  others,  prepared  our  minds  for 
a  just  appreciation  of  Webster's  genius. 

Times  have  changed  now,  and  Read- 
ers with  them.  The  story  of  Webster's 
first  case  has  no  doubt  gone  the  way  of 
"  Kentucky  Belle  "  and  the  rest  of  the 
Civil  War  ballads.  But  the  woodchuck 
hasn't  changed  a  bit,  neither  has  he  been 
exterminated.  He  still  burrows  in  field 
and  pasture  and  wood,  he  still  suns  him- 
self on  a  stump  in  the  clearing,  he  still 
eats  the  hearts  from  the  farmers'  cab- 
bages, and  he  still  comes  out  of  his  hole 


on  Candlemas  day  to 
look  at  his  shadow  and 
make  an  annual 
"  weather  story"  for 
the  urban  newspapers 
—as  "Mr.  Wood- 
chuck"  in  most 
journals,  as  "Mr. 
Ground-hog"  in  those 
published  in  New 
York,  where  blue- 
berries are  called  huc- 
kleberries, and  dough- 
nuts, crullers.  "Mr. 
Ground-hog  came  out 
of  his  hole  this  morn- 
ing and  saw  his 
shadow,  so  we  are  in 
for  six  weeks  more  of 
winter,-"  says  the 
afternoon  paper  on 
February  2d.  You 
have  an  odd  vision  of 
a  dirty,  black  muzzle 
nosing  up  in  front  of 
the  City  Hall  and  tak- 
ing a  squint  at  the 
Woolworth  Tower. 
And  then  you  smile — 
smile  to  think  how 
this  humble  rodent  of 
our  fields,  and  this 
homely  superstition 
about  him  which  grew  up  in  our  pioneer 
country,  have  power  to  persist  and  get 
talked  about  on  the  front  pages  of  our 
newspapers  in  our  busiest  cities,  and  in 
brazen  defiance  of  our  scientific  weather 
bureau.  Surely,  "Mr.  Ground-hog"  has 
not  been  forgotten.  He  is  our  surest 
reminder  of  those  early  days  when  Amer- 
ica was  a  land  of  agricultural  pioneers. 

Just  as  the  potato-bug  was  a  North 
American  native  which  didn't  originally 
live  on  the  potato-vine,  so  the  wood- 
chuck  was  a  native  mammal  which 
didn't  burrow  in  pastures,  orchards,  and 
gardens,  and  live  on  vegetables,  but  in 
the  glades,  or  even  the  depths  of  the 
forest,  where  he  lived  on  a  less  succulent 
diet.  Here  the  early  settlers  found  him, 
and  named  him  woodchuck,  the  chuck 
being,  it  is  said,  a  Devonshire  term  for 
little  pig.  How  long  it  was  before  the 
woodchuck  found,  in  turn,  the  gardens 
of  the  early  settlers  is  not  recorded,  but 
judging  from  his  present-day  fearlessness 


THE  WAYS  OF  THE  WOODCHUCK 


855 


even  in  the  face  of  the  most  persistent 
persecution,  it  could  not  have  been  long 
before  he  began  to  tunnel  in  the  clear- 
ings and  to  eat  the  vegetables  of  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  taxing  their  patience 
and  putting  to  a  severe  test  their  rigid 
restrictions  on  denunciatory  expletives. 
And  the  woodchuck  has  been  with  us 
ever  since,  and  ever  since  he  has  been 
putting  the  patience  of  men  to  the  trial. 

The  woodchuck  (Arctomys  monax) — 
known  also  as  the  ground-hog,  and  less 
frequently  as  the  Maryland  marmot — 
is  a  heavy,  thickset,  short-legged  ani- 
mal, which  grows  to  a  full  length  of 
about  two  feet.  In  color  it  is  a  grizzly 
yellow,  varied  with  black  and  rust.  It 
has  black  feet,  the  furry  hair  stopping 


short  at  the  wrists  like  the  sleeves  of  a 
jersey,  and  a  rather  short,  bushy  tail. 
It  ranges  from  New  England  to  Georgia, 
and  westward  to  North  Dakota,  and  it 
has  cousins  of  the  marmot  family  in  the 
colder  North  and  in  various  parts  of 
the  West.  Its  best-known  characteris- 
tic, of  course,  is  its  burrowing  propen- 
sity and  its  long,  winter  hibernation. 
If  the  author  of  Alice  in  Wonderland  had 
been  an  American,  the  sleepy  Dormouse 
would  undoubtedly  have  been  a  wood- 
chuck. ''It  stuffs  on  vegetables  all  sum- 
mer, and  sleeps  all  winter" — that  might 
be  a  summary  of  what  a  great  many 
people  know  about  the  woodchuck.  But, 
like  most  summaries,  it  would  do  him  a 
grave  injustice.    As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 


YOU  WILL  SEE  A  SHREWD  FACE  AND  FAT  BODY  UP  ON  THE  WALL 


856 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


is  well  worth  studying  more  closely,  and 
a  closer  study  will  show  that  he  isn't 
half  such  a  fool  as  he  looks  sometimes 
when  you  see  him  sitting  on  his  haunches 
in  a  field  of  daisies  and  clover,  or  curled 
up  in  a  lazy  ball  in  the  sun. 

In  the  first  place,  the  'chuck  is  a  good 
fighter,  considering  his  waddling  'build 
and  his  avoirdupois,  and  while  he  usually 
fights  on  the  defensive,  standing  off  his 
foe  till  he  can  get  back  to  his  burrow, 
he  often  shows  a  generalship  in  retreat 
that  would  do  credit  to  Sir  John  French. 
When  he  cannot  get  back,  he  stands 
right  up  and  makes  a  brave  scrap  of  it, 
like  his  much  smaller  distant  cousin,  the 
muskrat.  Last  winter  a  party  of  us  saw 
a  muskrat  crossing  a  snowy  meadow, 
and  as  we  were  on  snowshoes  we  easily 
surrounded  him.  Put  thus  at  bay,  he 
sat  up  on  his  long  hind-legs  and  snarled. 
He  stood  off  two  young  dogs  by  biting 
their  noses,  and  then,  when  one  of  the 


A  FAVORITE  HAUNT  IS  THE  NETWORK  OF 
ROOTS    AT   THE    BASE   OF    A   HUGE  TREE 


men  in  the  party  poked  him,  he  sprang 
right  over  the  blade  of  the  snowshoe 
and  sank  his  long  teeth  through  mocca- 
sin and  woolen  stocking  into  the  wear- 
er's little  toe.  A  cornered  'chuck  will 
act  in  much  the  same  way,  and  a  green 
dog  usually  has  good  cause  to  remember 
his  first  encounter.  I  have  seen  an 
adult  fox  terrier  corner  a  woodchuck 
against  a  steep  bank  where  there  was  no 
escape,  and  fight  for  a  full  hour  before 
he  killed  it.  The  terrier  looked  as  if  he 
had  fallen  into  a  pot  of  red  paint  when 
the  battle  was  over.  A  larger  dog,  of 
course,  makes  quicker  wTork  of  it;  but 
even  the  larger  dogs,  when  once  they 
are  wary,  respect  this  apparent  ball  of 
waddling  fat,  with  teeth  like  chisels  hid- 
den in  its  black  muzzle,  and  close  in  on 
it  by  a  spring  from  above,  jf  possible. 
Wise  'chuck  dogs  have  been  known  to 
hunt  in  couples — one  in  the  open,  keep- 
ing the  prey's  attention^  fixed,^  while  the 
second  sneaks  in  from 
behind  and  does  the 
actual  killing. 

Against  a  large  dog, 
of  course,  the  poor 
'chuck  has  little  show, 
but  often  with  half  a 
chance  to  get  back  to 
his  hole  he  can  stand 
ofF  a  small  dog  and 
make  good  his  retreat. 
His  method  is  simple, 
and  is  based  on  the 
fact  that  the  dog's  in- 
stinct is  to  circle,  like 
a  boxer  sparring  for 
an  opening.  When 
the  dog  is  between  him 
and  his  hole,  the  'chuck 
bares  his  teeth  with  a 
squeaky  snarl  and 
lunges  at  his  antago- 
nist. When  the  dog  is 
on  the  off  -  side,  he 
backs  away  toward 
his  hole  just  as  far  and 
as  fast  as  he  can,  but 
never  ceasing  to  face 
the  dog.  In  this  way 
the  'chuck  will  pro- 
gress, by  alternate 
rushes  and  backings, 
till  suddenly  the  sur- 
prised terrier  sees  his 


GREEN  MEADOWS,  DAISY-STARRED,  INVITE  THE  WOODCHUCK  FROM  HIS  LAIR 


foe  disappear  into  the  yellow  earth,  and 
any  attempt  on  his  part  to  follow  results 
in  a  sorely  nipped  nose.  Woodchucks  will 
also  go  up  a  tree  to  escape  a  dog,  if  the 
occasion  offers.  A  small  tree,  with  thick, 
low  branches,  is  within  their  capacity 
to  climb,  and  they  will  climb  it  for  ten 
feet  if  sufficiently  hard  pressed. 

It  may  be  that  some  of  their  ability 
to  fight  comes  from  practice  in  mating- 


time,  as  well  as  from  their  rodent  in- 
stincts. The  woodchucks  mate  early  in 
the  spring,  and  battles  between  males 
are  frequent,  if  we  may  judge  from  the 
squeaks  and  angry  sounds  which  come 
across  the  fields  from  the  vicinity  of  their 
burrows.  These  battles  last  until  the 
unsuccessful  rival  is  driven  out  of  the 
immediate  neighborhood.  Following 
such  squeals  once,  we  crested  a  slight 


858 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


ridge  in  the  pasture,  and  saw  one  'chuck 
pursuing  another  down  the  slope  toward 
the  river-bank.  The  victor  stopped, 
apparently  satisfied,  when  his  rival  went 
over  the  edge,  and  started  to  return. 
Then  he  suddenly  spied  us,  and  also  the 
young  collie  with  us.  We  were  by  this 
time  walking  toward  him,  so  he  flattened 


A  DENIZEN  OF  THE  DEEP  WOODS 


out  on  the  ground  and  played  dead. 
The  pup  went  up  to  investigate.  Being 
a  young,  trustful,  innocent  pup,  without 
knowledge  of  evil,  he  put  down  his  muz- 
zle to  smell,  and  lifted  it  again  instantly 
with  a  sharp  yip  of  pain.  But  being  a 
collie,  he  maintained  his  dignity.  He 
immediately  became  absorbed  in  the 
contemplation  of  a  tree  on  the  river- 
bank,  toward  which  he  moved  sedately, 
as  if  that  had  been  his  objective  all  the 
while.  He  paid  no  further  attention  to 
the  woodchuck. 

But  we  did.    We  drew  close,  and  the 


'chuck  rose  on  his  toes,  with  back  slight- 
ly arched  like  a  cat,  and  with  hair  and 
tail  bristling,  too.  He  bared  his  teeth 
and  made  an  angry,  snarling  sound — 
and  then  suddenly  bolted  forward  in  a 
bee-line  for  the  female  in  our  party.  She 
forgot  everything  but  first  principles, 
screamed  and  ran.  The  'chuck  passed 
over  the  exact  spot 
where  she  had  stood, 
went  on  several  rods, 
and  disappeared  down 
a  hole  under  a  stone. 
Evidently  he  knew 
women;  he  expected 
her  to  get  out  of  the 
way! 

We  now  investigated 
the  defeated  rival, 
who  had  disappeared 
over —the  river-bank, 
which  was  at  this  point 
a  sharp  escarpment  of 
clay  loam,  perpendic- 
ular at  the  top  and 
sloping  a  little  six  feet 
below  at  water-line. 
Sure  enough,  beneath 
the  overhang  of  grass, 
squatted  cowering  on 
the  mud,  wastheother 
woodchuck,  looking 
up  at  us  with  bright, 
terrified  eyes  as  we 
lowered  a  stick  to  poke 
him  into  the  water. 
He  was  evidently  ex- 
tremely loath  to  take 
to  the  stream,  but  the 
stick  was  insistent, 
and  after  futilelysnap- 
ping  at  it  several 
times,  once  getting 
such  a  grip  that  he  almost  pulled  it  out 
of  our  hands,  he  finally  fell  into  the 
water,  where  he  turned  tail  to  the  shore 
and  swam  rapidly  to  the  other  side, 
climbed  out,  shook  himself,  scrambled  up 
the  bank,  and  ran  clumsily,  but  swiftly, 
away  in  the  grass. 

The  woodchuck  shows  strategy,  too, 
not  only  in  his  fighting,  but  in  the  con- 
struction of  his  defensive  works,  his 
burrow.  If  you  will  take  careful  note 
next  summer,  on  your  walks,  of  all  the 
woodchuck  holes  you  come  across,  you 
will  probably  be  surprised  to  find  in 


THE  WAYS  OF  THE  WOODCHUCK 


859 


how  many  cases  the  animal  can  secure 
an  outlook  of  considerable  radius  either 
from  the  mouth  of  the  hole  or  a  point 
conveniently  near  it.  It  may  be  in  the 
open  pasture,  when  it  is  more  likely  to  be 
on  a  slope  than  in  a  hollow,  thus  securing 
both  outlook  and  better  drainage.  It 
may  be  among  rocks,  but  within  easy 
distance  of  some  peak 
which  commands  a 
prospect.  It  may  be 
in  the  woods,  in  or 
under  a  fallen  log,  but 
the  'chuck  can  climb 
the  log  to  look  about. 
It  may  be  among  the 
scrub  growth  b  y  an 
old  stone  wall,  and 
you  will  say,  "Ha,  here 
is  an  exception !"  But 
do  not  be  too  hasty. 
Some  day,  passing  the 
spot,  you  will  see  a 
shrewd  face  and  a  fat 
body  up  on  the  wall. 
The  woodchuck  "digs 
in"  like  a  modern 
army.  But,  like  an 
army,  he  also  puts  his 
trenches  where  they 
can  command  the  ap- 
proaches. 

There  is  a  good  deal 
of  dispute,  and  con- 
siderable conflict  of 
evidence,  regarding 
the  attitude  of  the 
mother  "woodchuck 
toward  her  young.  It 
is  generally  stated 
that  she  turns  them 
out  at  a  very  early  age 
into  a  cruel  world,  to 
forage  for  themselves;  there  are  even 
stories  recorded  of  mother  'chucks  who 
pushed  up  their  young,  one  by  one,  to  the 
mouth  of  a  burrow  to  appease  the  dogs 
who  were  trying  to  dig  a  way  in.  This  is 
certainly  a  reprehensible  line  of  conduct, 
but,  fortunately,  there  are  compensating 
records  of  maternal  devotion.  My  most 
recent  record  is  the  testimony  of  a  Yan- 
kee farm  boy  who  is  a  mighty  hunter 
before  the  Lord  (and  behind  His  back  as 
well,  for  he  hunts  on  Sunday).  Using 
nothing  but  rusty  traps  which  he  never 
touches  with  his  bare  hands,  he  has 


covered  the  outer  wall  of  his  father's 
barn  with  skins  nailed  up  to  dry,  the 
biggest  always  eliciting  from  visitors  the 
comment,  "That  must  'a'  bin  a  hefty 
one!"  Fred  says  that  the  other  day  he 
caught  a  baby  'chuck  in  one  of  his  traps, 
and  when  he  came  up  to  the  hole,  on  his 
regular  tour  of  inspection,  the  mother 


A  TROPHY  OF  THE  CHASE 

was  trying  to  get  the  little  fellow  out, 
and  she  refused  to  desist  even  when  he 
was  within  striking  distance.  He  could 
have  killed  her  with  a  stick,  he  says, 
from  which  I  infer  that  he  had  no  stick, 
for  it  would  require  the  combined  elo- 
quence of  Daniel  Webster,  Demosthenes, 
and  William  Jennings  Bryan  to  persuade 
Fred  to  spare  a  woodchuck! 

When  the  baby  'chucks  are  no  bigger 
than  rats  they  go  out  from  the  burrow, 
and  will  often  scatter  to  a  considerable 
distance,  either  feeding  or  sunning 
themselves  in  little  balls.    That  is  the 


SUNNING  HIMSELF  IN  LAZY  CONTEMPLATION  OF  THE  LANDSCAPE 


time  to  catch  them.  The  mother,  on 
the  approach  of  danger,  rushes  to  the 
hole  and  emits  a  shrill  squeal  like  a 
whistle — a  sound  closely  resembling  that 
of  the  whistling  marmot.  Then  the  little 
balls  unwind  and  come  scurrying  home. 
Your  object  is  to  get  to  the  hole  first  and 
bag  them  as  they  rush  by.  In  my  wood- 
chuck  hunting  days  there  was  sometimes 
a  boy  who  could  imitate  the  mother's 
whistle,  just  as  there  was  sometimes  a 
boy  or  man  who  could  call  the  quail  up 
to  him.  This  boy  invariably  had  a  box 
in  his  back  yard  in  spring,  full  of  young 
'chucks,  for  the  superstition  never  died 
that  the  "Bird  and  Pet  Store"  would 
buy  them  for  twenty-five  cents  apiece, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  never  did.  To 
catch  them  he  would  crawl  stealthily  to 
a  spot  behind  and  over  the  entrance  to 
the  burrow,  and  wait  patiently  till  the 
entire  family  were  off  feeding.  Then  he 
would  whistle,  and  as  the  young  came 
scampering  for  the  hole  (regardless  of  the 
fact  that  the  mother  had,  perhaps,  been 
feeding  beside  them),  he  would  capture 
one  or  two  with  his  bare  hands  before 
they  could  escape  into  the  ground.  Once 


two  boys  I  knew  collected  thirty  young 
'chucks,  mostly  in  this  fashion,  and 
were  hopeful  of  making  their  fortune. 
But  as  the  animals  grew,  and  no  ofFer 
of  purchase  came,  and  the  neighborhood 
learned  of  the  menace,  parental  pressure, 
reinforced  by  community  sentiment, 
brought  about  a  wholesale  slaughter. 

There  used  to  be  more  excitement 
than  you  might  suppose  in  our  wood- 
chuck  hunts,  for  a  shotgun  is  of  little 
use  against  their  thick  hides  and  thicker 
skulls,  so  we  had  to  use  rifles.  In  those 
da)^s  high-power  twenty-two's  with  soft- 
nosed  expanding  bullets  were  unknown. 
We  used  to  read  of  magazine  rifles,  to 
be  sure,  but  they  were  only  things  to 
dream  about.  We  hunted  with  ancient 
smooth-bores  fitted  for  percussion  caps 
and  loaded  from  the  muzzle.  I  can  well 
remember  the  old  bullet-mold,  a  Revo- 
lutionary relic,  in  which  I  used  to  make 
ammunition.  It  was  much  like  a  pair 
of  pincers  in  shape.  Scrap  lead,  secured 
from  all  legitimate  and  some  illegitimate 
sources,  was  melted  down  in  an  iron  pot 
on  the  kitchen  stove,  and  poured  into 
it,  one  bullet  at  a  time.    Powder  was 


THE  WAYS  OF  THE  WOODCHUCK 


861 


carried  in  a  genuine  powder  -  horn, 
stopped  with  a  whittled  wooden  plug 
worn  dark  and  smooth.  We  estimated 
the  charge  by  fingers,  measured  on  the 
ramrod.  And  how  those  heavy  old  guns 
kicked  against  our  youthful  shoulders! 

To  get  a  proper  shot  at  a  woodchuck 
required  some  manceuvering.  He  had, 
if  possible,  to  be  outwitted.  I  remember 
particularly  one  place  where  the  holes 
were  thickest,  forming  almost  a  wood- 
chuck  settlement,  like  a  prairie-dog 
town.  It  was  on  the  banks  of  a  swale 
which  curved  like  a  long,  thin  sickle- 
blade  through  a  fertile  meadow.  This 
meadow  was  always  under  cultivation, 
and  accordingly  the  'chucks  burrowed 
into  the  banks  of  the  bordering  swale, 
often  between  the  roots  of  the  sycamore 
and  sassafras  trees  in  such  a  way  that 
the  hole  could  not  be  made  larger  by  a 
dog.  Sallying  forth  from  these  holes, 
one  family  could  easily  eat  all  the  tur- 
nips or  cabbages  for  a  space  of  two  or 
three  rods.  When  twoscore  families 
were  at  work,  it  is  easy  to  see  the  extent 
of  their  destruction.  But  it  wasn't  easy 
to  shoot  them  while  they  were  feeding, 
because  at  the  approach  of  danger  they 
would  scamper  into  their  holes.  Conse- 
quently we  resorted  to  strategy. 

Our  method  was  as  follows:  Carrying 
our  guns  nonchalantly,  we  would  stamp 
along  directly  over  a  hole  where  we  had 
seen  a  'chuck  enter,  whistling  or  talking 
as  if  we  had  no  idea  of  hunting.  Then, 
when  we  had  passed  the  hole  a  good 
thirty  feet,  we  would  suddenly  stop  and 
noiselessly  and  cautiously  face  about. 
Very  frequently  a  muzzle  would  be  pok- 
ing up  out  of  the  hole,  for  as  soon  as  the 
danger  is  past  the  'chuck  has  a  habit 
of  sticking  his  head  out  to  take  a  sniff 
of  his  enemy.  Then  we  would  blaze 
away.  Often  we  would  fire  anyhow, 
aiming  into  the  sand  or  grass  at  the  hole 
mouth,  on  a  chance.  The  boy  who  had 
the  most  skins  tacked  up  on  the  barn 
door  at  the  end  of  a  season,  or  at  least 
the  most  tails,  if  he  was  too  lazy  to  skin 
his  prey,  was  something  of  a  hero.  I 
cannot  now  remember  what  we  ever  did 
with  the  skins  after  they  were  cured.  I 
fancy  that  there  was  a  superstition  that 
the  "fur  man"  would  buy  them,  just  as 
the  "Bird  and  Pet  Store"  was  going  to 
buy  the  baby  'chucks. 

Vol.  CXXXI  —  No.  786.— 107 


On  the  upland  farms,  and  especially  in 
the  pastures  bordering  the  woods,  an- 
other method  was  to  stalk  up  to  the 
feeding-ground  behind  trees,  and  wait 
patiently  for  a  shot  at  some  fat  fellow 
sitting  on  his  haunches  in  the  sun  eating 
a  juicy  clover  tuft  or  peeping  over  a 
stone  which  commanded  the  view  but 
threw  his  body  sharply  against  the  sky. 
The  boy  with  a  wise  dog,  as  well  as  a 
gun,  of  course  had  an  advantage  always. 
The  dog  could  start  up  the  game  in  the 
grass,  and  sometimes  head  him  off  from 
his  burrow,  though  the  'chucks  do  not, 
as  a  rule,  go  far  afield  after  food.  They 
make  their  holes  close  to  where  the  feed- 
ing is  good.  It  was  possible,  too,  to  kill 
a  woodchuck  without  a  gun  or  a  trap. 
You  accomplished  this  by  "playing 
statue" — if  you  saw  the  'chuck  out  of 
his  hole  and  also  knew  where  the  hole 
was  or  could  see  it.  You  began  by  walk- 
ing stealthily  toward  the  burrow,  being 
careful  each  time  the  animal  looked  at 
you  or  showed  any  alarm  to  stop  stock- 
still  and  remain  so  till  he  lowered  his 
head  and  resumed  his  feeding.  Then 
you  sneaked  forward  again.  If  you 
finally  succeeded  in  reaching  a  point  be- 
tween him  and  his  hole,  you  sprang  at 
him  with  a  club,  and  then  ensued  an 
exciting  five  minutes  which  combined 
all  the  athletic  excellences  of  field 
hockey,  golf,  baseball,  sprinting,  carpet- 
beating,  and  sometimes  football. 

I  cannot  refrain  here  from  telling 
again  my  grandfather's  story  of  his 
woodchuck,  a  foxy  old  fellow  who  lived 
down  back  of  the  house  near  the  bank 
of  the  Ipswich  River,  and  ate  cabbages 
insatiably  while  defying  all  guns  and 
traps.  My  grandfather  and  his  brother 
Tom  decided  finally  to  drown  him  out, 
so  they  waited  till  they  knew  he  was  in 
his  hole,  and  then  while  one  boy  stood 
guard  with  a  stick  the  other  boy  began 
to  haul  buckets  of  water  from  the  river 
and  dump  them  down  the  burrow. 
Watching  and  hauling  by  turns,  they 
became  weary  at  last,  and  hid  under  a 
near-by  bush  to  rest.  Presently  they 
saw  old  Mr.  'Chuck  poke  his  head  out 
and  look  all  about.  Not  seeing  them, 
he  emerged  from  his  hole,  trotted  down 
to  the  river-bank,  and  took  a  long  drink! 

Grandfather  used  to  assure  me  that 
they  never  did  get  that  woodchuck. 


862 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Although  the  woodchuck  has  so  read- 
ily adapted  himself  to  changed  condi- 
tions, abandoning  his  wild  harvesting 
for  more  succulent  cultivated  vegetables, 
grasses,  and  clover,  by  no  means  all  of 
the  woodchucks  even  to-day  live  on  the 
fat  of  the  land.  A  neighbor  of  mine,  who 
has  a  large  orchard  of  dwarf  apple-trees, 
takes  his  rifle  whenever  he  visits  it,  be- 
cause the  'chucks  are  such  a  pest,  tun- 
neling under  the  very  roots  of  the  little 
trees  and  eating  not  only  the  clover  crop 
sowed  between  the  rows,  but  also  the 
tender  bark  of  the  trees  themselves. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  I  came  upon  an 
abandoned  clearing  in  the  woods  the 
other  day,  where  once,  to  be  sure,  a 
house  had  stood,  but  where  man  had 
reaped  not,  neither  had  he  sown,  for  at 
least  a  generation — and  sitting  on  the 
mossy  door-step  of  the  vine-filled  cellar- 
hole  was  a  big  woodchuck!  He  dove  off 
at  my  approach,  and  disappeared  down 
his  hole,  not  twenty  feet  away.  His  was 
a  considerable  house,  there  being  three 
rear  entrances  instead  of  one,  or  some- 
times two,  as  is  more  common,  and  the 
total  length  of  the  burrow  must  have 
been  at  least  fifteen  feet.  There  were  no 
vegetables  in  this  clearing,  and  only  a 
few  wild  apples — seedlings,  no  doubt, 
from  cultivated  trees  now  long  dead. 
The  grass  was  long,  and  little,  clearly 
marked  paths  radiated  out  from  the 
mouths  of  the  burrow  in  all  directions 
through  it.  Probably  clover,  berries, 
and,  without  doubt,  apples  in  autumn 
constituted  the  bulk  of  this  fellow's  diet. 

There  are  still  woodchucks,  too,  who 
live  in  the  real  forest,  frequently  in  hol- 
low logs,  though  I  have  found  their  holes 
again  and  again  under  a  stone  beneath  a 
big  pine  or  hemlock,  or  under  the  net- 
work of  roots  at  the  base  of  a  huge 
hardwood.  They  are  much  leaner  and 
more  active  than  their  fellows  of  the 
fields  and  pastures,  for  they  get  less  food 
and  more  exercise,  and  usually  they  ap- 
pear rather  grayer  in  color.  Their  natu- 
ral enemies  must  be  far  less  numerous 
than  in  the  old  days.  In  fact,  the  foxes 
and  the  hawks  are  about  the  only  ene- 
mies they  have  left,  except,  of  course, 
man;  and  man  doesn't  trouble  them 
much  in  the  deep  woods.  The  foxes  will 
even  try  to  dig  them  out,  and  the  hawks 
pounce  upon  the  young  when  they  are 


running  about,  both  in  the  woods  and 
even  around  the  farms.  Yet  the  genuine 
forest-dwellers  are  probably  far  less 
numerous  than  of  old. 

I  fear  it  must  be  confessed  that  the 
woodchuck's  god  is  his  belly,  and  he 
thinks  more  highly  of  easy  feeding  than 
he  does  of  woodland  freedom.  He  gravi- 
tates by  instinct  toward  the  mown  clo- 
ver, the  turnip-fields,  the  apple-orchards. 
Pie  considers  man  his  best  friend  as  well 
as  his  worst  enemy.  Like  the  rabbit,  he 
is  strictly  vegetarian,  and  that  has  en- 
abled him  to  survive — not  only  to  sur- 
vive, but  to  survive  in  great  numbers — 
while  one  by  one  his  ancient  and  more 
powerful  enemies  of  the  forest  have  been 
exterminated.  Even  the  foxes  are  few 
now.  He  might  be  almost  safe  in  the 
deep  woods,  but  he  prefers  the  richer 
rewards  of  danger,  and  though  man 
fights  to  exterminate  him,  man  also  pro- 
vides him  with  such  a  vastly  increased 
food-supply  that  extermination  seems 
impossible.  The  story  of  the  wood- 
chuck is  a  paradox. 

Of  course,  too,  another  powerful  factor 
in  his  survival  is  his  hibernating  habit. 
Taking  to  the  cover  of  the  warm  earth 
before  even  the  early  November  snow 
flies  (and  very  often,  I  feel  sure,  the 
'chucks  go  back  to  the  woods  to  dig  in 
for  the  winter,  where  the  ground  does 
not  freeze  so  deep,  for  I  have  more  than 
once  excavated  a  pasture  hole  which  had 
been  inhabited  all  summer,  only  to  find 
it  empty),  the  'chuck  does  not  have  to 
worry  about  the  lean  season.  He  goes  to 
sleep  as  fat  as  a  butter-ball,  wrapped  in 
warm,  thick,  furry  skin,  and  he  isn't  due 
to  wake  up  till  February  2d,  when  he  has 
to  rouse  himself  to  make  a  weather  story. 
After  that  he  is  at  liberty  to  go  to  sleep 
again,  though  he  rather  cat-naps,  as  you 
and  I  do  after  we  have  been  waked  of 
a  morning  by  the  birds.  He  doesn't 
come  up  for  good,  as  a  rule,  till  the  snow 
is  gone  and  the  earth  is  softened,  but 
there  is  plenty  of  evidence  that  he  makes 
occasional  trips  to  the  surface. 

For  instance,  I  find  this  entry  in  my 
diary  for  February  23d: 

On  snow-shoes  this  afternoon,  across  the 
golf-links,  where  a  weasel  had  preceded  me, 
to  the  slope  of  mowing  where  the  toboggan- 
slide  has  been  built.  Here  there  were  innu- 
merable squirrel  tracks  from  tree  to  tree,  and 


THE  WAYS  OF  THE  WOODCHUCK 


863 


a  woodchuck  had  come  out  of  his  hole  since 
yesterday,  boring  up  through  two  feet  of 
snow  by  a  six-inch  tunnel.  He  had  made  a 
dirty  yellowish  track  for  ten  feet,  and  then 
gone  down  into  a  second  bore,  evidently  into 
the  rear  entrance  of  his  house.  He  must  have 
crossed  this  path  several  times  to  track  so 
much  yellow  earth  upon  it,  but  there  was  not 
a  single  sign  that  he  had  taken  a  step  off  the 
path.  It  was  as  if  he  had  come  up  for  exer- 
cise in  his  door-yard,  as  my  father,  in  bad 
weather,  used  to  go  out  and  tramp  back  and 
forth  on  the  veranda. 

You  might  suppose  that  he  would 
have  been  lean  and  hungry,  and  would 
naturally  have  gone  after  some  of  those 
raspberry  shoots  above  the  snow  near 
by  which  the  rabbits  had  been  nibbling. 
But  he  had  not  done  so,  and  if  you  had 
seen  him  the  chances  are  he  would  not 
have  appeared  particularly  emaciated. 
The  truth  is,  he  was  probably  too  fat 
when  he  went  to  sleep! 

The  boys  still  hunt  woodchucks  as 
they  used  to  do,  for  the  'chuck  is  their 
especial  prey.  Not  long  ago  I  came  upon 
a  barn  hung  with  more  than  a  hundred 
tails,  the  proud  trophies  of  the  chase 
for  three  seasons  of  a  boy  not  yet  in 
long  trousers.  Later  I  saw  him  and 
another  boy,  and  a  barking,  joyous, 
alert  collie,  starting  off  over  a  stone  wall 
and  across  a  pasture  after  woodchucks. 
They  were  armed  with  an  ancient  gun 
and  a  perfect  arsenal  of  rusty  old  steel 
traps.    They  were  talking  in  subdued 


but  excited  tones,  laying  their  plans 
deeply.  Scraps  of  their  conversation 
floated  back  for  a  moment — the  begin- 
nings of  sentences,  trailing  off  into  indis- 
tinguishableness:  "Aw,  yes,  le's  go — !" 
"Say,  what  say  if  we — "  and  the  like 
mysteries.  A  boy,  a  gun,  a  dog — and  a 
woodchuck!  What  memories  came  back 
to  me!  I  saw  green  meadows  daisy- 
starred,  and  pasture  slopes  and  the  gleam 
of  birches,  and  caught  again  the  scent 
of  raspberries  in  the  sun,  and  heard 
across  far  fields  the  hot  cicada-whir  of 
a  mowing-machine;  and  in  my  heart  I 
felt  once  more  the  ancient  thrill  as  a 
'chuck  was  sighted.  Here,  to  be  sure, 
before  my  bodily  eye,  were  meadows  and 
pastures,  and  no  doubt  berries  grew  by 
the  garden  wall — but  not  the  same  berries. 
/  was  not  starting  out  on  the  hunt.  I 
was  not  plotting  a  Napoleonic  campaign 
against  a  crafty  enemy.  I  was  neither 
huntsman  nor  adventurer.  A  wood- 
chuck by  a  pasture  stump  a  simple 
woodchuck  was  to  me,  and  it  was  noth- 
ing more.  I  grew  rather  peevishly  pen- 
sive at  the  thought.  I  wanted  to  be  a 
boy  again.  I  resented  "the  light  of 
common  day."  I  always  want  to  be  a 
boy  again  when  I  see  the  youngsters 
after  woodchuck.  It  is  the  keenest  pres- 
ent-day reminder  that  any  of  us  can 
have  of  the  simpler,  more  earthy  and 
artless  delights  of  youth  in  the  America 
of  a  vanishing  generation. 


American  Aphorisms 


BY  BRANDER  MATTHEWS 


Professor  of  Dramatic  Literature,  Columbia  University 


T  the  beginning  of  an 
address  which  John 
Morley  delivered  before 
the  Edinburgh  Philo- 
sophical Institute  near- 
ly thirty  years  ago,  he 
told  his  hearers  that  he 
had  often  been  asked  for  a  list  of  the 
hundred  best  books,  and  that  he  had 
once  been  requested  to  supply  by  return 
of  post  the  names  of  the  three  best  books 
in  the  world.  "Both  the  hundred  and 
the  three  are  a  task  far  too  high  for  me," 
he  confessed;  and  then  he  declared  that 
he  would  prefer  to  indicate  what  is  "one 
of  the  things  best  worth  hunting  for  in 
books" — the  wisdom  which  has  com- 
pacted itself  into  the  proverb,  the  max- 
im, the  aphorism,  the  pregnant  sen- 
tence inspired  by  "common  sense  in  an 
uncommon  degree."  Morley  asserted 
that  the  essence  of  the  aphorism  is  "the 
compression  of  a  mass  of  thought  and 
observation  into  a  single  saying";  and 
he  added  that  it  ought  "to  be  neither 
enigmatical  nor  flat,  neither  a  truism  on 
the  one  hand,  nor  a  riddle  on  the  other." 

The  lecturer  did  not  provide  a  defi- 
nition of  the  lofty,  searching  aphorism 
which  should  serve  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  humbler  proverb;  and  yet  the  dis- 
tinction is  perhaps  contained  in  this  last 
quotation,  since  the  democratic  proverb 
tends  toward  the  truism,  whereas  the 
more  aristocratic  aphorism  inclines  tow- 
ard the  enigma.  Lord  John  Russell  once 
called  a  proverb  "All  men's  wisdom  and 
one  man's  wit";  and  proverbial  wisdom 
appeals  at  once  to  the  mass  of  mankind, 
whereas  the  less  universal  truth,  packed 
into  the  subtler  aphorism,  is  likely  to 
demand  a  little  time  for  consideration 
before  it  can  win  its  welcome.  In  fact, 
the  more  keenly  the  maker  of  an  apho- 
rism has  peered  into  the  inner  recesses 
of  human  nature,  the  less  likely  is  his 
maxim  to  attain  immediate  acceptance 


from  the  multitude,  who  are  optimisti- 
cally content  to  see  only  the  surface  of 
life,  and  who  prefer  not  to  probe  too 
deeply  into  the  fundamental  egotism  of 
man.  So  it  is  that  the  swift  apprehen- 
sion of  some  of  the  shrewdest  of  La 
Rochefoucauld's  sayings  might  almost 
be  made  to  serve  as  a  test  of  intelligence 
and  of  knowledge  of  the  labyrinthian 
intricacies  of  the  human  soul. 

We  may  easily  find  ourselves  quarrel- 
ing over  the  veracity  of  an  aphorism, 
whereas  a  proverb  is  almost  indis- 
putable; it  proves  itself  as  simply  and 
as  instantly  as  the  assertion  that  two  and 
two  make  four.  This  immediate  obvi- 
ousness of  a  proverb  does  not  prevent  it 
from  being  irreconcilable  with  another 
proverb  stating  the  equally  obvious  op- 
posite. "  Penny  wise  and  pound  foolish" 
may  seem  to  contradict  "Take  care  of 
the  pence  and  the  pounds  will  take  care 
of  themselves."  But,  after  all,  the  con- 
tradiction is  only  apparent,  since  it  takes 
both  of  these  sayings  to  contain  the 
whole  truth  that  we  must  be  careful  in 
little  things,  no  doubt,  but  we  must  also 
be  able  to  discern  boldly  the  moment 
when  little  things  must  be  sacrificed  for 
greater  things.  More  than  one  humorist 
has  seen  fit  to  poke  fun  at  this  peculiar- 
ity of  proverbial  wisdom  without  any 
impairment  of  the  authority  of  either  of 
the  contradictory  assertions. 

The  maxim  we  may  trace  to  its  source 
and  tag  with  the  name  of  its  maker,  but 
the  proverb  is  not  individual,  even  if  it 
must  have  been  minted  by  one  man's 
wit.  "Penny  wise  and  pound  foolish" 
might  have  been  uttered  in  any  age,  and 
it  is  only  the  modern  expression  for  a 
rule  of  conduct  inherited  from  the  re- 
motest past.  An  equivalent  phrase  must 
have  been  uttered  soon  after  the  devel- 
opment of  articulate  speech;  and  we 
may  be  assured  that  it  was  almost  as 
familiar  to  the  cave-dwellers  as  it  is  to 


AMERICAN  APHORISMS 


865 


us.  It  did  not  have  to  be  transmitted 
by  inheritance  from  the  dead  languages 
to  the  living;  it  sprang  into  being  by 
spontaneous  generation  in  every  tongue, 
ancient  and  modern.  By  the  Very  fact 
that  it  is  of  universal  validity,  and  there- 
fore of  universal  utility,  it  is  to  be  found 
in  every  land,  in  every  language,  and  in 
every  age. 

The  maxim,  on  the  other  hand,  is  more 
frankly  individual;  it  is  due  not  to  the 
wisdom  of  the  many,  but  only  to  the 
penetrating  wit  of  one;  and  therefore  it 
is  often  racial,  revealing  the  tongue  and 
the  era  of  him  who  first  put  the  piercing 
thought  into  apt  words.  So  it  is  likely 
to  have  local  color,  a  flavor  of  the  soil 
in  which  it  grew.  Some  of  the  aphorisms 
of  Confucius  may  be  universal,  no 
doubt,  but  others — and  not  a  few  of 
them — are  essentially  Chinese;  and  I 
cannot  help  feeling  that  I  discover  a 
Roman  quality  in  the  saying  of  Marcus 
Aurelius,  that  "The  best  way  to  get  re- 
venge is  to  avoid  being  like  the  one  who 
has  injured  you."  This  is  not  only 
Roman;  it  seems  to  have  also  an  indi- 
vidual liberality  disclosing  a  truly  im- 
perial mind. 

Many  of  the  maxims  of  the  caustic  La 
Rochefoucauld  are  marked  with  the  time 
and  place  of  their  making — the  France 
of  the  aged  Richelieu  and  of  the  youthful 
Louis  XIV.  When  the  French  observer 
asserted  that  "You  are  never  so  easily 
cheated  as  when  you  are  trying  to  cheat 
somebody  else,"  he  is  declaring  a  truth 
which  might  have  been  uttered  by 
Aristophanes,  by  Moliere,  or  by  Mark 
Twain,  a  truth  upon  which  are  estab- 
lished the  schemes  of  the  green-goods 
men  and  the  gold-brick  operators  in 
New  York  in  the  twentieth  century;  but 
when  he  tells  us  that  "Virtue  would  not 
go  far  if  vanity  did  not  keep  it  com- 
pany," there  we  can  detect  the  French- 
man of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  is 
true  that  Sainte  -  Beuve  credits  La 
Rochefoucauld  with  large  imagination — 
not  a  frequent  possession  of  the  French 
— finding  evidence  for  this  in  another  of 
these  maxims,  "We  cannot  gaze  fixedly 
at  the  sun,  or  at  death."  But  most  of 
these  searching  and  scorching  sentences 
are  directly  due  to  a  disenchantment 
which  envenoms  La  Rochefoucauld's 
scalpel;  and  this  disenchantment  was  the 


result  of  a  recoil  of  that  social  instinct 
which  is  a  predominant  French  charac- 
teristic. 

Of  course,  among  the  mass  of  French 
aphorisms  there  are  a  host  which  lack 
local  color.  When  Madame  de  BoufHers 
suggested  that  "The  only  perfect  people 
are  those  we  do  not  know,"  she  was 
making  a  remark  that  might  have  been 
uttered  by  an  Italian  or  by  a  Spaniard. 
When  the  Spanish  Gracian  declared  that 
"The  ear  is  the  area-gate  of  truth,  but 
the  front-door  of  lies,"  he  was  saying 
something  that  might  have  been  said 
by  an  Englishman  or  by  a  Roman.  And 
when  Bacon  asserted  that  "Extreme 
self-lovers  will  set  a  house  on  fire  an 
it  were  but  to  roast  their  eggs,"  the 
wording  is  British,  but  the  thought  is 
one  that  might  readily  have  occurred  to 
a  Frenchman,  and  which  might  be  easily 
paralleled  in  the  pages  of  La  Rochefou- 
cauld. 

There  is  little  that  is  significantly 
Oriental  in  this  specimen  of  the  wisdom 
of  the  East:  "If  you  censure  your  friend 
for  every  fault  he  commits,  there  will 
come  a  time  when  you  will  have  no 
friend  to  censure."  A  Frenchman  could 
very  well  have  said  that,  although  he 
might  have  phrased  it  more  felicitously. 
On  the  other  hand,  many  of  the  sayings 
of  Nietzsche  we  could  not  well  credit  to 
an  inquisitor  of  any  other  nationality  or 
of  any  other  century.  "There  are  two 
things  a  true  man  likes — danger  and 
play;  and  he  likes  woman  because  she 
is  the  most  dangerous  of  playthings." 
That  is  one  of  them,  and  there  is  an- 
other: "All  women  behind  their  per- 
sonal vanity  cherish  an  impersonal  con- 
tempt for  Woman."  And  yet  even  in 
Nietzsche  we  may  find  now  and  again  a 
sentence  which  might  have  been  set 
down  on  the  tablets  of  that  lonely  stoic, 
Marcus  Aurelius:  "A  slave  cannot  be  a 
friend,  and  a  tyrant  cannot  have  a 
friend." 

The  perennial  commonplaces  of  obser- 
vation are  reincarnated  in  every  genera- 
tion, born  again,  century  after  century, 
in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  since  man 
himself  changes  only  a  little,  even 
though  mankind  has  ever  the  delusion 
of  progress.  It  was  an  unknown  but  a 
most  modern  American  who  was  once 
moved  to  the  biting  accusation  against 


866 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


certain  of  his  contemporary  countrymen 
that  they  sought  "first,  to  get  on,  then 
to  get  honor,  and  finally  to  get  honest." 
Nevertheless,  this  bitter  gibe  was  antici- 
pated by  the  old  Greek  poet  Phokylides, 
who  expressed  his  wish,  "first  to  acquire 
a  competence,  and  then  to  practise  vir- 
tue." John  Fiske  once  wrote  an  essay 
to  indicate  a  few  of  the  many  points  of 
resemblance  between  the  Athenians  of 
old  and  the  Americans  of  to-day;  and 
we  need  not  despair  of  yet  finding  a 
Greek  wit  who  had  already  dwelt  on  that 
disadvantage  of  "swapping  horses  while 
crossing  a  stream"  which  Lincoln  once 
pointed  out  with  his  customary  shrewd- 
ness. 

It  is  perhaps  because  of  their  superior 
social  instinct  that  the  French  are  the 
modern  masters  of  the  maxim;  and  even 
if  we  who  speak  English  are  more  abun- 
dant and  more  adroit  in  aphorism  than 
those  who  speak  German  or  those  who 
speak  Italian,  we  must  confess  our  con- 
stant inferiority  to  those  who  speak 
French,  a  language  that  lends  itself  to 
epigram  because  it  has  been  suppled  to 
the  needs  of  its  makers,  the  race  most 
distinguished  among  the  moderns  for 
their  intelligence,  as  the  Athenians  were 
among  the  ancients.  And  of  the  two 
peoples  who  have  English  for  their 
mother-tongue,  we  Americans,  despite 
our  superficial  and  superabundant  lo- 
quacity, seem  to  be  able  to  achieve  the 
sententious  at  least  as  often  as  the 
British.  Lincoln  was  a  master  of  the 
compact  and  pregnant  phrase;  so  was 
Emerson  before  him,  and  so  was  Frank- 
lin a  century  earlier. 

In  his  autobiography  Franklin  tells 
how  he  utilized  "the  little  spaces  that 
occurred  between  the  remarkable  days" 
in  the  almanac  (which  he  issued  annually 
for  twenty-five  years,  and  which  was  the 
basis  of  his  own  comfortable  fortune)  to 
contain  "proverbial  sentences,  chiefly 
such  as  inculcated  industry  and  frugal- 
ity as  the  means  of  procuring  wealth, 
and  thereby  securing  virtue — it  being 
more  difficult  for  a  man  in  want  to  act 
always  honestly,  as,  to  use  here  one  of 
these  proverbs,  'it  is  hard  for  an  empty 
sack  to  stand  upright.'"  Most  of  these 
proverbs  were  borrowed  from  "the  wis- 
dom of  many  ages  and  nations,"  as 
Franklin  himself  acknowledges,  but  not 


a  few  of  them  seem  to  be  due  to  his  own 
witty  wisdom;  and  that  just  quoted  ap- 
pears to  be  one  of  these.  Taken  as  a 
whole,  the  sayings  of  Poor  Richard 
range  rather  with  the  lowly  proverb 
than  with  the  more  elevated  and  more 
incisive  aphorism;  and  Morley  chose  to 
dismiss  them  with  curt  contempt  as 
"kitchen  maxims  about  thrift  in  time 
and  money."  Yet  the  saying  about  the 
empty  sack  rises  a  little  above  the  level 
of  the  kitchen  maxim;  and  so  does  that 
other  which  declares  that  "If  you  would 
have  your  business  done,  go;  if  not, 
send."  One  of  Franklin's  biographers 
records  that  when  Paul  Jones,  after  his 
victory  in  the  Ranger,  went  to  Brest  to 
await  the  new  ship  which  had  been 
promised  him,  he  was  tormented  for 
months  by  excuses  and  delays  despite  his 
appeals  to  Franklin,  to  the  royal  family, 
and  to  the  king  himself.  Then  at  last  he 
chanced  to  pick  up  Poor  Richard,  and 
the  saying  just  quoted  hit  home.  He 
took  the  hint,  "hurried  to  Versailles, 
and  there  got  an  order  for  the  ship  which 
he  renamed  in  honor  of  his  teacher, 
Bon  Homme  Richard." 

Emerson  gives  us  "golden  nuggets  of 
thought,"  so  Mr.  Brownell  suggests;  but 
he  does  not  mold  them  into  beads  and 
link  them  into  necklaces.  His  essays 
lack  unity,  except  that  of  theme  and  of 
tone;  and  his  sentences  are,  as  he  himself 
confessed,  "infinitely  repellent  parti- 
cles." No  one  of  his  essays  is  artistically 
composed,  and  every  one  of  his  sentences 
is  sufficient  unto  itself,  with  a  careful 
adroitness  of  composition  of  which  he 
alone  in  his  time  had  the  secret.  He  is 
master  of  the  winged  phrase,  barbed  to 
flesh  itself  in  the  memory.  In  his  sen- 
tence there  is  not  only  meat,  but  meat 
dressed  to  perfection,  cooked  to  a  turn, 
and  not  lacking  sauce.  "No  writer  ever 
possessed  a  more  distinguished  verbal 
instinct,  or  indulged  it  with  more  de- 
light," to  quote  again  from  Mr.  Brow- 
nell; Emerson  "fairly  caresses  his  words 
and  phrases  and  shows  in  his  treatment 
of  them  a  pleasure  nearer  sensuousness, 
perhaps,  than  any  other  he  manifests." 

None  the  less  is  it  difficult  to  detach 
from  his  pages  the  exact  maxim  as  we 
find  it  in  Bacon  and  La  Rochefoucauld 
and  Vauvenargues.  Emerson's  thoughts 
are  elevated  and  often  subtle,  but  they 


AMERICAN 

do  not  often  fall  precisely  into  the  form 
of  the  aphorism.  He  tells  us  that  "the 
man  in  the  street  does  not  know  a  star 
in  the  sky";  but  that  is  not  quite  a 
maxim,  even  if  it  escapes  being  a  truism. 
He  asserts  that  "It  is  as  impossible  for 
a  man  to  be  cheated  by  any  one  but 
himself  as  for  a  thing  to  be  and  not  to 
be  at  the  same  time";  but  that  can 
hardly  be  called  an  aphorism,  wise  as  it 
is  and  incisive.  Perhaps  the  explana- 
tion lies  in  the  fact  that  Emerson  is 
wholly  devoid  of  malice — the  malice  that 
edges  La  Rochefoucauld's  shafts  which 
sting  into  our  consciousness.  Emerson 
has  few  delusions  about  the  ultimate  in- 
firmities of  mankind,  but  he  is  never 
malevolently  pessimistic.  He  is  clear- 
eyed,  beyond  all  question,  and  yet  he 
remains  optimistic.  In  most  maxim- 
makers  there  is  a  spice  of  ill-will,  a  taint 
of  hostile  contempt;  and  Emerson  is 
ever  free  from  ill-will,  from  contempt, 
and  from  hostility. 

In  no  department  of  the  American 
branch  of  English  literature  is  our  benev- 
olent optimism  more  pervadingly  mani- 
fested than  in  our  humor.  American 
humor  is  likely  to  be  good-humored; 
even  our  satires  are  not  cruelly  savage, 
and  our  epigrams  rarely  have  a  poisoned 
dart  at  the  tail  of  them.  Our  friendli- 
ness has  prevented  most  native  fun- 
makers  from  focusing  their  gaze  on  the 
meaner  possibilities  of  that  selfish  ego- 
tism of  which  we  on  the  far  side  of  the 
western  ocean  have  our  full  share.  It  is 
not  a  little  surprising,  therefore,  that 
the  greatest  and  most  liberally  endowed 
of  our  later  humorists,  Mark  Twain, 
should  have  taken  to  the  making  of 
maxims  as  disenchanted  as  those  of  Mar- 
cus Aurelius,  although  not  as  acrid  as 
those  of  La  Rochefoucauld.  It  was 
toward  the  end  of  his  career,  when  he 
stood  pleasantly  conspicuous  on  the  pin- 
nacle of  his  fame,  abundantly  belauded 
and  sincerely  beloved,  that  his  indurated 
sadness,  his  total  dissatisfaction  with 
life,  found  relief  in  chiseled  sentences  to 
be  set  beside  the  sayings  of  Epictetus. 

Consider  this:  "Whoever  has  lived 
long  enough  to  find  out  what  life  is, 
knows  how  deep  a  debt  of  gratitude  we 
owe  to  Adam,  the  first  benefactor  of  our 
race:  he  brought  death  into  the  world." 
Note  how  the  same  thought  is  brought 


APHORISMS  867 

forward  again  in  this:  "Why  is  it  that 
we  rejoice  at  a  birth  and  grieve  at  a 
funeral?  It  is  because  we  are  not  the 
person  involved."  And  yet  another 
twist  is  given  to  this  thought  in  a  third 
saying:  "All  say,  'How  hard  it  is  that 
we  have  to  die' — a  strange  complaint  to 
come  from  the  mouths  of  people  who 
have  had  to  live." 

Those  who  knew  Mark  Twain  inti- 
mately were  well  aware  of  the  despairing 
sadness  that  darkened  his  last  years. 
He  was  wont  to  don  the  cap  and  bells  to 
appear  before  the  public;  but  in  private, 
or  at  least  when  he  was  alone  and  lonely, 
he  sat  down  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  He 
had  always  had  the  melancholy  which  is 
likely  to  underlie  and  to  sustain  robust 
humor,  and  his  melancholy  was  even 
more  intense  and  more  astringent  than 
that  of  Cervantes  or  Moliere,  although 
either  of  these  might  well  have  antici- 
pated this  saying  of  their  belated  brother 
in  fun-making:  "The  man  who  is  a 
pessimist  before  he  is  forty-eight  knows 
too  much;  the  man  who  is  an  optimist 
after  he  is  forty-eight  knows  too  little." 
But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  either 
the  Spaniard  or  the  Frenchman  would 
have  penned  the  assertion  that  "If  you 
pick  up  a  starving  dog  and  make  him 
prosperous,  he  will  not  bite  you:  this  is 
the  principal  difference  between  a  dog 
and  a  man."  Here  we  discover  not 
mere  pessimism,  but  stark  misanthropy. 
There  is  a  sounder  philosophy  in  another 
of  his  sayings:  "Grief  can  take  care  of 
itself,  but  to  get  the  full  value  of  a  joy 
you  must  have  some  one  to  share  it 
with/; 

Quite  possibly  a  majority  of  casual 
readers,  finding  these  dark  sayings  scat- 
tered through  the  bright  pages  of  a  pro- 
fessional funny-man,  did  not  feel  called 
upon  to  take  them  seriously,  and  might 
even  have  accepted  them  as  merely 
humorous  overstatements  intended  to 
provoke  laughter  by  their  evident  exag- 
geration. Those  casual  readers  may 
have  discovered  no  essential  difference 
between  the  annihilating  blankness  of 
the  opinions  just  quoted  and  utterances 
avowedly  caustic — such  as  the  assertion 
that  "One  of  the  most  striking  differ- 
ences between  a  cat  and  a  lie  is  that  a 
cat  has  only  nine  lives."  Yet  even  in 
this  saying  the  playful  twist  serves  only 


868 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


to  hide  from  the  hasty  the  solemn  warn- 
ing it  disguises. 

It  is  the  mark  of  the  superior  humor- 
ist that  he  arouses  thought  as  well  as 
laughter;  and  George  Meredith  held 
this  to  be  the  test  of  true  comedy  of  the 
loftier  type.  Many  a  wise  man  has 
worn  motley  that  he  might  win  a  smiling 
welcome  for  his  message.  When  "Josh 
Billings"  was  amusing  us  with  his  acro- 
batic orthography,  a  critic  in  one  of  the 
literary  reviews  of  London  was  sharp 
enough  to  see  that  the  misfit  spelling 
was  only  an  eccentric  costume  put  on 
to  compel  attention,  like  the  towering 
plumes  of  the  quack  doctor's  hat;  and 
this  critic,  by  stripping  off  this  incon- 
gruous cloak  borrowed  by  "Josh  Bil- 
lings" from  "Artemus  Ward,"  removed 
him  from  the  company  of  the  mere  news- 
paper jest-manufacturers  and  promoted 
him  to  the  upper  class  of  more  pene- 
trating maxim-makers.  Professor  Bliss 
Perry  recently  remarked  that  the  tone 
of  many  of  the  apothegms  of  "Josh 
Billings"  is  really  grave,  and  that  often 
the  moralizing  might  be  by  La  Bruyere. 

To  the  "Josh  Billings"  who  frankly 
fellowships  with  "Artemus  Ward"  we 
may  credit  this  paragraph:  "There  iz 
two  things  in  this  life  for  which  we  are 
never  fully  prepared,  and  that  iz  twins" 
— a  bold,  whimsical  absurdity,  which  has 
served  its  purpose  when  it  provokes  the 
guffaw  it  aims  to  excite.  But  it  is  to 
the  shrewd  observer  who  is  to  be  com- 
panied  with  La  Bruyere  that  we  must 
ascribe  the  statement — here  deprived  of 
its  undignified  disguise  of  queer  or- 
thography—  that  "When  a  fellow  gets 
going  down-hill,  it  does  seem  as  though 
everything  had  been  greased  for  the 
occasion."  That  is  an  echo  from  Greek 
philosophy;  and  here  is  another  saying, 
in  which  Professor  Perry  finds  the  per- 
fect tone  of  the  great  French  moralists: 
"It  is  a  very  delicate  job  to  forgive  a 
man  without  lowering  him  in  his  own 
estimation,  and  in  yours,  too."  Per- 
haps it  may  be  well  to  cite  a  third 
equally  felicitous  in  its  phrasing  and 
equally  acute  in  its  content:  "Life  is 
short,  but  it  is  long  enough  to  ruin  any 
man  who  wants  to  be  ruined."  These 
are  all  assertions  of  universal  veracity, 


even  though  they  lack  any  specific 
American  tang. 

Local  color  is  lacking  also  in  the  motto 
Washington  Allston  had  painted  on  the 
wall  of  his  studio:  "Selfishness  in  art,  as 
in  other  things,  is  sensibility  kept  at 
home."  It  is  absent  also  from  Thomas 
Bailey  Aldrich's  declaration  that  "A 
man  is  known  by  the  company  his  mind 
keeps."  And  it  is  wanting  again  in 
John  Hay's  distich: 

There  are  three  species  of  creatures  who 
when  they  seem  to  be  coming  are  going, 

When  they  seem  to  be  going  they  come: 
diplomats,  women,  and  crabs. 

By  the  side  of  these  may  be  set  two  of 
Mr.  E.  W.  Howe's  "Country  Town 
Sayings":  "When  a  man  tries  himself, 
the  verdict  is  usually  in  his  favor";  and 
"Every  one  hates  a  martyr;  it's  no 
wonder  martyrs  were  burned  at  the 
stake."  Yet  even  in  these  remarks  from 
the  rural  West  there  is  but  little  flavor 
of  the  soil.  Perhaps  this  American  savor 
can  be  detected  a  little  more  plainly  in 
three  of  the  sayings  which  Mr.  Kin  Hub- 
bard credits  to  his  creature,  "Abe  Mar- 
tin," and  which  he  tries  to  endow  with 
the  unpremeditated  ease  of  the  spoken 
word.  One  of  them  is  to  the  effect  that 
"Nobuddy  works  as  hard  for  his  money 
as  the  feller  that  marries  it."  Another 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  "No- 
buddy  ever  listened  t'  reason  on  an 
empty  stomach."  And  a  third  asserts 
that  "Folks  that  blurt  out  jist  what 
they  think  wouldn't  be  so  bad  if  they 
thought." 

There  is  a  homely  directness  about 
these  rustic  apothegms  which  makes 
them  far  more  palatable  than  the 
strained  and  sophisticated  epigrams  of 
the  characters  of  Oscar  Wilde's  plays, 
who  are  ever  striving  strenuously  to  daz- 
zle us  with  verbal  pyrotechnics.  The 
labored  contortions  of  the  London  Irish- 
man seem  to  have  a  thin  crackle  when 
we  compare  them  with  these  examples 
of  rustic  shrewdness  sprouting  spontane- 
ously on  the  prairies.  And  in  the  apho- 
rism, as  in  every  other  kind  of  literature, 
the  fact  is  more  important  than  the 
form,  the  content  is  more  significant 
than  the  container. 


Mr.  Swift's  Romance 


BY  MARIE  MANNING 


WIFT  took  his  place  at 
the  driving-wheel  of  the 
big  limousine,  pulled  a 
chauffeur's  cap  well 
about  his  ears,  and 
drew  on  his  gauntlets 
with  a  feeling  of  satis- 
faction. Doing  something  for  himself 
again  restored  a  balance  which  had  not 
been  proof  against  a  fortnight's  intru- 
sive servility.  Since  his  return  to  New 
York,  two  weeks  before,  he  had  been 
waited  upon,  fetched  and  carried  for,  by 
a  race  that  seemed  to  have  sprung  into 
existence  during  the  years  of  his  exile. 
Their  national  costume  was  livery,  their 
native  language  founded  on  some  varia- 
tion of  the  verb  "to  thank,"  and  their 
catlike  tread  and  general  aspect  seemed 
to  Swift  the  result  of  an  evolution  of 
obsequiousness. 

As  a  South  American  capitalist  whose 
much-heralded  advent  to  New  York  had 
been  duly  chronicled  in  the  daily  papers, 
Swift  had  had  more  than  his  share  of 
attention  from  these  gentry  and  would 
gladly  have  paid  them  liberally  to  escape 
their  intrusive  fawning.  The  hotel  with 
its  spectacular  splendors,  its  liveried 
dolls,  the  desultory  air  of  patrons  drift- 
ing through  suites  and  lobbies,  spoiled 
his  vision  of  New  York — the  old  New 
York  he  had  been  dreaming  of  getting 
back  to  for  twenty  years. 

His  spirits  rose  like  a  school-boy's  as 
he  turned  the  big  car  into  a  side-street 
that  led  to  Fifth  Avenue.  He  was  still 
young  enough  at  thirty-eight  to  enjoy 
the  acclamation  of  his  return  to  the  city 
that  had  cast  him  off  penniless  in  his 
youth.  Like  another  Rastignac,  he  had 
shaken  his  fist  at  the  inhospitable  Baby- 
lon, and  vowed  to  make  her  acknowledge 
him.  Then  he  had  gone  below-decks  and 
wheeled  an  iron  barrow,  heaped  with 
coal,  back  and  forth  to  the  raging  maw 
of  the  ship's  furnace.  A  humble  begin- 
ning, but  he  had  come  back  spectacu- 
larly rich.    He  had  kept  his  promise. 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  7C6.— 108 


Even  now,  with  everything  that 
money  and  success  could  give,  he  could 
not  bear  to  think  of  his  wretched, 
thwarted  youth.  After  his  father's  fail- 
ure and  death,  the  family  attorney — per- 
haps as  a  sort  of  conscience  fund — had 
agreed  to  educate  him  with  his  own  son, 
Stuart  Rokeby.  Swift's  dominant  per- 
sonality had  easily  made  him  a  leader 
among  his  school-fellows,  when  it  devel- 
oped that  young  Rokeby  had  been  enter- 
taining the  school  with  tales  of  the  older 
Swift's  rascally  bankruptcy,  and  that 
the  captain  of  their  football  team  might 
be  selling  papers  on  street  corners  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  generosity  of  his 
father. 

Men  beginning  to  be  middle-aged 
still  tell  of  the  great  fight  they  saw  as 
"prep"  boys  that  Saturday  afternoon, 
on  the  ball-field  in  Westchester,  when 
there  had  been  no  meddling  masters 
present  to  interfere  with  the  rude  justice 
of  a  boy's  code.  They  still  remember 
Rokeby's  shivering  denial  followed  by 
admission;  then  the  challenge,  their 
close  crowding  to  see  that  the  thing  was 
well  done,  and  the  quick,  bloody  tri- 
umph of  the  fight  that  had  all  gone  the 
poor  boy's  way.  Swift  had  slept  on  a 
park  bench  that  night,  and  in  the  morn- 
ing offered  his  services  as  a  stoker  on  a 
steamer  bound  for  a  South  American 
port. 

His  first  youth  was  gone,  but  his  zest 
for  life  was  unabated.  In  those  bitter 
years  when  the  struggle  to  live  had  been 
crudest  he  had  not  noticed  that  youth 
was  passing  while  he  struggled  with 
hands,  muscles,  and  brute  strength  for 
the  little  and  the  little  more  that  had 
made  the  small  beginning  of  his  great 
fortune. 

He  wondered  what  had  become  of  his 
old  enemy  Rokeby.  How  had  the  world 
treated  him?  No — how  had  Rokeby 
treated  himself?  The  world  was  not  a 
green-grocer,  with  a  pair  of  scales,  weigh- 
ing, weighing  different  -  sized  portions 


870 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


and  different  qualities  for  a  long  line  of 
waiting  customers.  Man  was  still  a 
forager,  and  he  got  pretty  much  what 
he  was  entitled  to.  Rokeby  would,  of 
course,  be  rich,  very  rich — confound 
Rokeby! — it  was  curious  how  the  feeling 
of  antipathy  had  survived  after  all  these 
years,  the  feeling  that  Rokeby  had 
robbed  him  of  his  youth. 

He  had  a  bitter  feeling  of  being  greatly 
in  arrears  with  living;  the  balance  of  his 
ledger  showed  a  debit  on  the  flesh-and 
blood  side;  there  had  been  in  his  life 
no  gentle,  mothering  comradeship  such 
as  he  had  dreamed  of.  Life  in  the 
Argentine  had  not  been  favorable  to 
romance. 

To-night  he  was  as  keen  about  the 
dinner  to  which  he  was  going  and  its 
sentimental  possibilities  as  a  girl  in  her 
first  season.  It  was  all  part  of  the  de- 
layed great  adventure — the  adventure 
he  had  dreamed  of,  which  had  never 
come.  He  was  dining  with  the  Ham- 
mertons  on  the  north  side  of  Washington 
Square,  people  he  had  met  two  years  ago 
when  business  had  called  him  to  London, 
and  he  remembered  with  pleasure  their 
easy,  comfortable  hospitality. 

The  fog  that  had  hung  over  New  York 
since  the  late  afternoon  had  thickened, 
and  made  the  driving  of  the  big  car  a 
problem  of  nice  calculation.  Swift  re- 
gretted having  given  his  chauffeur  a 
holiday — there  was  little  fun  in  this  slow, 
tedious  crawling.  He  turned  off  Fifth 
Avenue  to  avoid  a  block  ahead,  and  was 
uncertain  of  the  identity  of  the  street, 
but  it  appeared  through  the  fog  to  be 
the  usual  brown-stone,  high-stooped  af- 
fair of  which  middle  New  York  is  com- 
posed. Objects  became  misshapen  and 
exaggerated  through  the  misty  pall  that 
seemed  to  be  settling  down  more  heavily 
every  minute.  Swift  slackened  speed 
and  crawled  toward  Madison  Avenue; 
he  had  no  desire  to  begin  his  New  York 
experiences  with  an  accident  and  a  ses- 
sion in  a  police  court. 

He  was  not  more  than  a  few  doors 
from  the  end  of  the  street  when  he  made 
out  a  ghostly  object  in  front  of  him.  It 
seemed  to  float  ahead  in  the  fog,  pause, 
then  turn  and  come  toward  him.  It 
appeared  too  diaphanous  and  unsub- 
stantial for  a  flesh-and-blood  creature, 
and  the  way  it  seemed  to  move  without 


effort  up  one  of  the  high  stone  stoops, 
then  float  down  again,  was  positively 
uncanny.  Swift  had  always  cherished 
a  forlorn  hope  of  encountering  some  day 
a  genuine  spirit;  and  the  apparition 
floating,  and  pausing,  then  again  taking 
up  its  course — not  unlike  a  wounded  sea- 
bird  trying  to  fly — interested  him  to  the 
point  of  investigation. 

He  shoved  his  car  a  little  and  took  up 
his  station  directly  under  the  street  lamp, 
by  which  his  phantom  would  have  to  pass 
if  it  held  to  its  course  eastward.  On  it 
came,  and  to  Swift,  watching  breath- 
lessly, it  seemed  to  have  developed  a 
more  definite  purpose;  at  least  there 
was  no  further  pausing  and  wavering, 
no  more  fluttering  returns  to  the  high- 
stooped  house  in  front  of  which  he  had 
first  noticed  the  apparition.  .Opposite 
his  car  the  figure  paused  and  emerged 
from  the  nebulous  state  in  which  Swift 
had  first  observed  it.  The  direct  rays 
of  the  street  lamp  seemed  to  print  it, 
like  a  photographic  plate  exposed  to  the 
sun.  And  it  proved  to  be  not  a  phan- 
tom, but  a  woman  dressed  entirely  in 
white — gown,  wrap,  shoes,  even  the 
gauzy  scarf  that  fluttered  from  her  head 
and  entirely  concealed  her  face  was 
white. 

Swift's  feeling  was  one  of  distinct  dis- 
appointment; his  ghosts  always  acted 
this  way;  they  never  did  pan  out,  were 
never  worth  writing  about  to  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research.  The  figure 
came  close  to  the  machine  and  addressed 
him:  "Chauffeur,  would  you  have  time 
to  take  me  about  a  mile  from  here?  I 
shall  be  very  late  for  an  engagement  if  I 
walk.  I  haven't  any  money  with  me 
to  pay  you,  but  you  may  have  this  fan 
It's  worth  a  good  deal — " 

Her  voice  was  all  that  troubadours 
and  poets  have  sung  of  women's  voices 
from  the  beginning;  it  was  rather  deep, 
beautifully  modulated,  and  there  was  a 
little  catch  in  it  somewhere,  as  if  she 
might  have  been  crying. 

"I  shall  be  very  pleased."  Swift  got 
down  from  the  driver's  seat  and  swung 
open  the  door  of  the  car.  The  address 
she  gave  him  was  the  Hammertons',  the 
house  where  he  was  going  to  dine,  on 
the  north  side  of  Washington  Square. 

Twenty  years  of  knocking  about  queer 
quarters  of  the  globe  had  not  robbed 


I  THOUGHT  A  SHEPHERD  WAS  SOME  ONE  WHO  WENT  ABOUT  WITH  SHEEP 


Swift  of  a  certain  old-fashioned  conven- 
tionality, especially  where  women  were 
concerned;  and  the  adventure  in  which 
he  found  himself  involved — from  sheer 
amazement  at  the  woman's  request, 
rather  than  from  inclination — had  pro- 
vided him  with  an  emotion  equally  com- 
pounded of  distaste  and  frank  curiosity. 
She  was  apparently,  like  himself,  a 


dinner  guest  of  the  Hammertons',  which, 
according  to  his  criterion,  ought  to  have 
been  a  key  to  her  social  standing.  And 
yet,  he  had  discovered  her  wandering 
about  the  wet  streets  alone,  frankly  con- 
fessing she  had  not  the  price  of  her  cab 
fare,  and  asking  a  strange  man  to  take 
her  to  her  destination.  Was  it  a  wager 
— one  of  those  curious  manifestations  of 


872 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


hardihood  that  women  of  position  some- 
times undertake  for  "a  lark"?  Or  had 
the  Hammertons  been  deceived,  and 
were  they  entertaining  anything  but  an 
angel  unawares?  In  all  probability, 
when  she  discovered  that  she  and  Swift 
were  dining  at  the  same  house,  she  would 
attempt  to  carry  off  the  situation  with  a 
high  hand.  She'd  spar  and  make  hard, 
varnished  epigrams,  and  perhaps  wind 
up  by  taking  the  entire  table  into  her 
confidence,  confessing  it  was  a  wager  or 
that  she  had  lost  her  last  cent  at  bridge. 
Then  some  one  would  tell  him  that  this 
was  Miss  So-and-so,  who  was  very  ad- 
vanced and  amusing;  he  had  met  the 
type  often  on  business  trips  to  Europe. 
He  thought  it  neither  advanced  nor 
amusing. 

His  reflections  were  cut  short  by  a 
glimpse  of  the  Washington  Arch  loom- 
ing white  and  substantial  out  of  the  fog; 
he  swung  the  car  west  and  drew  up  at 
the  Hammertons'  door.  As  he  helped 
her  out  he  noticed  by  the  side -lamps 
on  his  machine  that  she  had  drawn  the 
gauze  scarf  entirely  over  her  face;  she 
was  as  secure  from  recognition  as  a 
woman  of  the  Orient. 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  she  said, 
and  made  a  dash  up  the  Hammertons' 
steps.  Swift  followed.  At  the  sound  of 
his  footsteps  she  turned  and  withdrew 
her  hand  from  the  bell.  She  faced  him, 
a  veiled  figure  of  protest.  Then,  as  if 
in  acknowledgment  of  the  big,  deter- 
mined bulk  of  the  man,  she  cowered 
away  from  him  as  far  as  the  limits  of  the 
vestibule  would  permit. 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  come  here!"  she 
panted.  "You  don't  understand.  I'm 
not — "  She  broke  off  with  a  nervous 
laugh.  "Yes — I  forgot  to  give  you  my 
fan.  Do  take  it,  please.  It  will  more 
than  pay  you,"  and  then,  as  Swift  made 
no  attempt  to  move:  "Take  it,  please. 
Some  one  will  be  here  in  a  minute." 

"Thank  you,"  his  voice  was  rather 
chilling  in  its  deliberation,  "but  I  so 
seldom  use  a  fan,  and  my  taking  yours 
to-night  might  embarrass  you.  You  see, 
I  happen  to  be  dining  with  the  Hammer- 
tons myself." 

The  door  opened,  and  a  moment  later 
he  was  wondering  what  it  had  cost  her 
to  relinquish  the  head-scarf  to  which  she 
had  clung  so  tenaciously.   They  entered 


the  drawing  -  room  almost  together. 
Swift's  eager  concern  regarding  her  was 
so  great  that  he  almost  overdid  his  lack 
of  interest;  his  eyes  were  everywhere 
but  in  her  direction,  while  she,  now  that 
further  concealment  of  identity  was  no 
longer  possible,  seemed  to  await  from 
him  some  special  look  or  word.  He  went 
through  his  social  ritual  without  a  glance 
at  his  late  companion.  He  and  his 
hostess  had  their  usual  little  thrust  and 
parry,  which  terminated,  as  usual,  with 
victory  in  the  lady's  favor.  Mrs.  H am- 
ine rt  on  had  lived  so  long  abroad  that 
she  had  rather  forgotten  the  American 
habit  of  thorough  and  conscientious  in- 
troduction; her  roof,  she  felt,  was  a 
sufficient  introduction  to  those  dining 
beneath  it,  and  with  a  word  here  and 
there  she  let  her  people  find  themselves. 

It  was  several  minutes  before  Swift 
got  his  eagerly  sought  opportunity. 
Then,  in  one  quick,  devouring  look,  he 
snatched  his  inventory.  His  first  im- 
pression was  of  a  certain  dryad  quality, 
as  she  stood  with  one  arm  resting  on  the 
mantelpiece;  a  length  of  line  and  an 
adolescent  suppleness  of  body  helped  the 
impression  even  more  than  her  amazing 
youthfulness,  for  this  hardened  exponent 
of  the  unconventional  could  hardly  have 
been  twenty  years  of  age.  At  close  range 
she  was  really  lovely — a  creature  all  big 
gray  eyes  and  black  lashes.  What  Swift 
could  not  understand  was  the  droop  of 
the  red  mouth:  why  hadn't  it  taken  the 
lines  of  happy  contentment  that  ought 
to  have  been  its  birthright?  The  gown 
that  had  appeared  so  ghostly  in  the  fog 
now  proved  in  the  lamp-light  to  be  some 
diaphanous,  creamy  material,  veiling 
green;  this  and  the  chaplet  of  myrtle- 
leaves  in  the  loosely  blown  undulations 
of  her  light  hair  reinforced  the  wood- 
nymph  semblance. 

His  hostess  led  him  over  to  the  girl 
and  said  something  in  her  quick  staccato, 
which  presently  he  discovered  to  be  one 
of  Mrs.  Hammerton's  social  foot-notes; 
she  was  summing  him  up  to  the  dryad 
as  "a  shepherd,  though  apparently  he's 
left  his  pipe  in  South  America."  This 
pleasantry  had  reference  to  a  paltry  few 
hundred  miles  of  sheep-range  in  the 
Argentine,  where  Swift  grazed  his  flocks 
of  merinos.  He  waited  eagerly  for  some 
counter   biographical    annotations  re- 


"  I  BELIEVE  YOU  ARE  A  PRINCESS  IN  THE  TOILS  OF  AN  OGRE  " 


garding  the  girl,  but  in  a  moment  Mrs. 
Hammerton  had  glided  away,  leaving 
him  ignorant  of  her  very  name. 

The  dryad  stared  frankly,  Swift 
thought,  as  she  might  have  stared  at 
a  strange  uncle,  or  a  friend  of  her  fath- 
er's who  specialized  in  something  she 
thought  "queer/' 

"Are  you  really  a  shepherd,  or  is  that 
just  another  of  the  strange  things  people 
say  to  each  other  at  dinner-parties?  I'm 
rather  hopeless  at  that  sort  of  thing." 

Did  this  confessed  naivete  mask  some 
covert  subtlety  of  purpose?  A  girl  capa- 
ble of  asking  for  a  "lift"  in  his  car  might 
be  supposed  to  be  quite  equal  to  the 
dinner  game.  She  was  young;  of  that 
there  could  be  no  doubt.  But  youth  and 
age  seemed  to  have  changed  places  dur- 
ing Swift's  absence;  the  debutantes  had 
become  sophisticated,  the  middle-aged 
women  ingenues.  On  the  surface  she 
was  still  the  bewildered  dryad,  with 
wind-blown  hair,  and  eyes  that  seemed 
to  reflect  the  cool  depths  of  some  shaded 
forest  pool — eyes  unseared  by  electric 
light,  late  hours,  and  tense  living. 


It  was  with  the  intention  of  entrap- 
ping her  into  some  word  of  identification 
that  he  said,  with  mock  resignation, 
"Yes,  I  am  only  a  shepherd,  but  you 
flattered  me  by  taking  me  for  a  chauf- 
feur." 

She  smiled  with  a  delightful  air  of 
being  convicted,  "But  I  thought  a  shep- 
herd was  some  one  who  went  about  with 
sheep." 

"And  haven't  I  qualified  to-night  by 
gathering  up  a  ewe-lamb  strayed  from 
the  fold  ?"  He  looked  at  her  searchingly, 
expecting  the  dryad  look  to  fade  into 
the  answering  gleam  of  a  woman  who 
knew  the  seamy  side  of  things  generally; 
but  a  moment  later  he  was  absurdly  glad 
at  the  persistence  of  the  dryad,  who  still 
maintained  her  baffling  air  of  having 
just  wandered  from  Arcady. 

"So  you  did,  but  so  much  happened 
to-night  I'm  afraid  I'm  rather  vague 
about  everything." 

Dinner  was  announced,  and  she 
floated  in  ahead  of  him  in  her  green-and- 
white  draperies,  as  much  an  object  of 
interest  and  mystery  as  when  he  first 


874 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


saw  her  wandering  about  the  foggy 
streets  alone.  A  moment  later  they  were 
sitting  in  adjoining  chairs  at  the  table 
and  he  was  considering  some  facile  ex- 
pression of  gratitude  at  this  latest  dis- 
pensation of  fate,  when,  with  appalling 
literalness,  she  anticipated  him  with, 
"What  did  you  think  of  my  asking  you 
to  bring  me  here?" 

Swift  evaded  her  question  by  saying: 
"When  I  first  saw  you  wandering  about 
in  the  fog,  I  thought  you  were  a  ghost. 
I  was  delighted.  'Now/  I  said,  ' I  shall 
have  my  chance  to  write  to  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research.'  People  always 
appear  to  have  such  a  bully  time  with 
their  ghosts,  in  those  reminiscences,  so 
when  I  found  you  were  a  girl  I  was  a 
little  disappointed — just  at  first." 

"Disappointed  in  a  girl  who  would 
ask  such  a  favor?" 

"You  wrong  me.  I — er — may  have 
wondered  where  was  mamma,  or  the 
chaperon,  or  Aunt  Jane,  and  why  they 
had  all  taken  a  simultaneous  holiday." 

She  did  not  answer  this,  and  Swift, 
to  hide  the  awkwardness  of  the  pause, 
continued:  "I've  told  you  I  am  a  shep- 
herd, but  you  haven't  told  me  anything 
about  yourself.  I  believe  you  are  a  prin- 
cess in  the  toils  of  an  ogre — "  He  didn't 
finish;  the  dryad  was  fading  literally 
before  his  eyes.  The  woman  who  re- 
mained in  her  place  was  white — she  had 
the  expression  of  one  who  has  looked  on 
the  Medusa. 

To  Swift,  full  of  concern  at  the  pain  he 
had  thoughtlessly  inflicted,  it  seemed 
ages  before  she  pulled  herself  together 
and,  in  a  voice  struggling  with  the  dry 
wrench  of  a  sob,  said:  "I  came  here  to- 
night to  try  and  forget  about  myself. 
Your  curiosity  is,  I  suppose,  perfectly 
legitimate —  Well,  after  dinner  I'm 
adrift.    I  haven't  any  home  to  go  to." 

"You  don't  know  what  you're  say- 
ing— "  He  turned,  and  in  consterna- 
tion saw  that  the  cheek  nearest  to  him 
was  wet;  more  tears  had  gathered  on  the 
lower  lashes,  brimmed,  and  fell.  Appar- 
ently no  one  else  had  noticed.  Some  of 
the  diners,  especially  those  who  were  re- 
signed to  putting  on  weight,  were  lost  in 
a  keen,  if  elegantly  restrained,  apprecia- 
tion of  gastronomies;  some  were  playing 
at  temporary  fate  with  the  occupants  of 
adjoining  chairs.   Swift  dared  not  speak 


for  fear  she  would  lose  what  control  she 
had,  and  yet  never  had  he  been  swayed 
so  absolutely  by  sympathy.  He  remem- 
bered, as  if  it  were  yesterday,  the  despair 
of  his  own  desolate  youth,  and  the  black 
thoughts  he  had  brought  to  the  park 
bench  after  his  pitiful  triumph  over  the 
younger  Rokeby. 

He  was  conscious  of  a  curiously  pain- 
ful sense  of  spectatorship.  Was  it  going  to 
be  one  of  those  modern  tragedies  where 
every  hand  is  paralyzed  by  the  decorous 
sense  of  not  intruding?  His  brain  was 
like  a  brightly  lighted  building,  full  of 
messengers  running  back  and  forth  with 
futile  suggestions.  He  ought  to  be  able 
to  evolve  something.  .  .  .  And  then  he 
became  aware  that  the  woman  on  his 
right  was  repeating  something,  that  she 
had  said  the  same  thing  to  him  twice. 
He  struggled  like  one  in  a  nightmare  to 
hear.  The  lady,  it  would  seem,  aiming 
casually  over  the  world  of  dinner  talk, 
had  picked  her  bull's-eye  and  fired 
twice:  Did  he  like  Tschaikowsky ? 

At  that  moment  he  could  not  have 
told  whether  Tschaikowsky  was  a  new 
type  of  motor,  a  comic  opera,  or  a  brand 
of  cigarette.  His  wits  were  whirling  in 
a  sort  of  dervish  dance,  in  which  he  was 
conscious  of  but  one  thing — that  the 
girl  next  him  was  in  some  terrible  dis- 
tress to  which  he  had  unintentionally 
added. 

But  the  Tschaikowsky  lady  would 
have  her  pound  of  attention;  she  had 
been  marooned  by  the  man  on  her  other 
side,  and  she  simply  declined  to  abandon 
Russian  music  as  a  plank  to  Swift. 
Slowly  his  wits  came  back  to  him;  he 
burned  his  bridges:  Yes,  he  liked  Tschai- 
kowsky. 

The  lady  knew  her  subject  so  glibly 
that  he  strongly  suspected  her  of  having 
written  a  paper  on  it  for  a  woman's  club. 
She  took  the  long  combinations  of  Rus- 
sian consonants  as  an  Irish  hunter  takes 
stone  fences.  Swift,  regarding  the  girl, 
considered  and  dismissed  plan  after  plan. 
Should  he  speak  to  Mrs.  Hammerton? 
No;  the  girl  was  the  one  to  speak  to 
their  hostess,  if  she  felt  it  was  the  thing 
to  do.  He  remembered  now  that  he 
hadn't  caught  her  name  when  Mrs. 
Hammerton  had  brought  them  together 
with  her  own  particular  casualness.  It 
might  help,  perhaps,  if  he  knew  some  of 


MR.  SWIFTS  ROMANCE 


875 


her  people.  His  eyes  searched  among 
the  silver  about  her  plate  for  the  identi- 
fying place-card;  yes,  there  it  was — 
Sylvia  Conrad. 

He  ought  to  be  capable  of  devising 
something,  and  yet  ingenuity  failed  him 
at  every  turn.  "This  is  sheer  madness !" 
He  could  not  remember  whether  he  had 
thought  it,  or  if  in  his  abstraction  he  had 
spoken  aloud.  The  Tschaikowsky  lady 
settled  the  question:  Yes,  she  often  felt 
that  way  herself  about  the  uncompre- 
hending way  Russian  music  was  received 
in  the  United  States. 

"Ah,  Russian  music!"  Swift  muttered 
in  despair.  What  did  he  care  about 
Russian  music,  or  anything  in  the  heav- 
ens above  or  the  earth  beneath,  or  the 
waters  under  the  earth — but  for  the 
tears  he  had  cost  this  girl!  His  exultant 
return  to  the  city  that  had  cast  him  ofF 
penniless  twenty  years  before  now 
seemed  a  tinsel  sort  of  triumph,  a  bit  of 
spectacular  luck  that  might  have  hap- 
pened to  any  one.  He  had  so  confidently 
expected  the  worst,  as  far  as  the  girl  was 
concerned;  he  had  brought  all  the  dis- 
mal sophistication  of  his  world  buffeting 
to  bear  on  what  he  called  "her  case," 
and  she  was  just  a  poor,  bewildered 
child  trying  to  stand  up  against  the 
thing  he  had  tried  to  stand  up  against  in 
his  own  youth. 

She  was  young  and  she  was  unhappy, 
even  as  he  had  been.  The  picture  of  his 
own  youth  again  confronted  him — the 
loneliness,  the  ache  of  the  young  body 
too  weary  to  find  refreshment  in  sleep, 
the  bitterness  of  the  untried  soul  that 
feels  every  hand  against  it.  The  girl 
was  passing  through  the  ordeal  he  had 
survived.  What  had  been  her  wander- 
ing, forlorn  thoughts  to-night  when  he 
had  first  seen  her,  flitting  ghostly  and 
undetermined,  like  a  sea-bird  trying  to 
fly  with  a  broken  wing. 

And  this  was  the  quarry  he  had  tried 
to  corner,  trap  into  admissions.  He  had 
been  the  usual  male,  with  a  fowler's  eye 
for  a  pretty  woman,  and  a  cave-man's 
simple  psychology.  He  stole  a  glance 
at  the  girl  and  decided  that  the  man  on 
her  right  was  an  irritating  ass:  that 
fatuous  manner  of  having  come  into  his 
own  was  insufferable.  His  efforts  to  in- 
terest her  were  too  eager,  too  lacking  in 
poise,  to  be  in  good  taste.   And  why  the 


deuce,  Swift  asked  himself,  was  he  taking 
it  like  that,  with  the  unreasoning  fury 
of  the  outraged  male? 

And  then,  in  one  apocalyptic  flash  of 
perception,  he  was  overwhelmed  with 
the  discovery  that  she  had  again  created 
the  magic  that  he  had  thought  dead  with 
the  illusions  of  adolescence.  And  he 
knew  his  interest  in  her  was  the  wonder- 
ful impulse  that  people  call  love.  If 
she'd  only  marry  him  then  and  there, 
cut  the  Gordian  knot  that  way.  Let  him 
take  her  back  with  him  to  South  Amer- 
ica— to  "a  peak  in  Darien."  The  cause 
of  her  plight,  whatever  it  was,  counted 
not  a  feather's  weight  with  the  miracle 
of  his  love.  He  waited  with  patience, 
for  the  man  next  her  to  stop  his  everlast- 
ing story,  even  as  the  amazing  con- 
sonantal flights  of  his  own  Tschaikowsky 
person  seemed  for  the  moment  to  have 
flagged.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  as 
to  what  he  would  say  when  he  could 
again  claim  her  attention.  There  was 
nothing  eloquent  about  it,  none  of  the 
well-turned  things  people  say  to  each 
other  on  the  stage  and  in  books,  but  in 
his  own  blunt  fashion  he  was  prepared 
to  tell  her  that  he  was  absolutely  to  be 
counted  on  in  the  emergency,  whatever 
it  was. 

His  belief  in  his  destiny,  even  in  the 
days  when  he  had  fed  a  furnace  in  the 
bowels  of  a  ship,  was  supreme.  It 
amounted  to  a  superstition;  and  never 
had  his  faith  in  his  own  star  been  greater 
than  when  he  awaited  his  opportunity 
to  again  claim  the  girl's  attention  and 
suggest  his  daring  solution  of  her  diffi- 
culties. But  a  woman  opposite,  with  a 
fixed,  silly  smile,  forestalled  him  with  a 
question  to  the  girl  that  for  a  second 
seemed  to  throw  the  table  into  a  sort  of 
dumb  panic.  Leaning  forward,  the  smil- 
ing woman  said: 

"I  have  been  hearing  such  interesting 
things.   May  I  offer  my  felicitations?" 

For  the  fraction  of  a  second  every  eye 
at  the  table  flew  involuntarily  to  the  girl 
and  was  as  quickly  averted,  as  the  social 
sense  working  automatically  applied  the 
brakes  in  a  perilous  situation.  Then 
every  one  talked  with  well-simulated 
zest. 

Swift  was  too  astounded  to  rush  into 
the  general  babble  with  which  the  table 
came  to  the  rescue,  and  the  hand  that 


WAS  THIS  THE  THING  HE  HAD  BURDENED  HIMSELF  WITH  HATING  ALL  THESE  YEARS 


groped  for  his  wine-glass  was  none  too 
steady.  "A  peak  in  Darien"  seemed 
to  have  settled  itself,  he  reflected,  and 
relaxed  limply  in  his  chair.  It  was  un- 
believable that  it  could  have  affected 
him  so  deeply — a  girl  he  had  been  un- 
aware of  twenty-four  hours  ago. 

A  moment  later,  when  her  eyes  met 
his,  he  was  immensely  relieved  to  recog- 
nize in  them  a  return  to  the  dryad 
aspect.  There  was  no  trace  of  the  emo- 
tion with  which  she  had  received  his 
unfortunate  pleasantries,  or  of  the  hope- 
less shriveling  that  the  tactless  woman's 
inquiries  had  produced. 

The  higher  pitch  of  talk  which  the  ill- 
timed  question  had  evoked  had  not  yet 
subsided,  and  under  cover  of  it  Swift 
took  occasion  to  say  to  the  girl:  "For- 
give me  if  I  seem  intrusive,  but  my 
only  thought  is  to  serve  you.    Let  me 


beg  you  to  reconsider  your  decision. 
You  must  go  back  to  your  home." 

She  spoke  as  if  from  behind  a  mask, 
not  once  catching  his  eye,  "The  only 
conditions  on  which  I  can  return  make 
it  impossible." 

At  that  moment  Mrs.  Hammerton 
gave  the  signal  to  the  women  and  they 
filed  out  of  the  dining-room.  The  men 
drew  their  chairs  closer  together,  and 
Swift  listened  to  their  talk  in  an  agony 
of  impatience  that  neither  tobacco  nor 
wine  could  mitigate.  He  awaited  his 
opportunity,  and  pounced  squarely  on 
his  host  with  the  question,  "Who  is 
Sylvia  Conrad?" 

"  She'd  be  a  case  for  the  society  for  the 
prevention  of  cruelty  to  ingenues  if 
there  was  such  a  thing.  We  protect 
cats,  dogs,  horses,  children,  sailors,  and 
the  grass  in  public  parks,  but  poor  mar- 


MR.  SWIFT'S  ROMANCE 


877 


riageable  girls  must  fend  for  themselves. 
Her  father,  in  his  dotage,  married  some 
spectacular  impossibility — might  have 
been  a  snake-charmer,  lion-tamer,  or  a 
Quakeress  that  had  grown  tired  of  wear- 
ing drab.  No  one  knew  her,  so  no  one 
could  say.  Old  Ned  died,  and  his  poly- 
chrome widow  bolted  through  his  very 
considerable  fortune  and  every  penny  of 
the  girl's.  Now  she — the  variegated 
widow — is  hunting  a  chimney-corner  for 
herself  by  trying  to  make  the  girl  marry 
an  awful  rotter;  the  fellow's  positively 
nutty.  You  ought  to  run  away  with  her, 
Swift — " 

"I  made  up  my  mind  to  do  that  some 
time  ago." 

When  they  rejoined  the  women  in  the 
drawing-room,  Swift  found  the  dryad 
a  little  apart  from  the  rest,  toying  with 
the  fan  which  she  had  offered  him  as  the 
price  of  her  journey  down-town.  It  was 
not  until  he  noticed  that  some  of  the 
others  were  preparing  to  go  that  he 
found  courage  to  say: 

"You  did  not  tell  any  of  these  people 
that  you  had  thought  of  not  going  back 
to  your  home  to-night?" 

"No." 

"Good;  that'll  save  explanations. 
I'll  tell  Mrs.  Hammerton  that  I'll  take 
you  home  on  my  way  up-town.  Some  of 
them  are  going  now;  we'd  better  fol- 
low." 

His  kindly  peremptoriness  had  the 
effect  of  crystallizing  her  wandering,  un- 
happy thoughts  into  a  semblance  of 
form.  For  weeks  they  had  been  drifting, 
shaping  and  unshaping  themselves  at  the 
approach  of  each  fresh  calamity,  like  sea- 
weed drifting  with  the  tide. 

At  the  curb  he  held  the  door  of  his  car 
open  for  her.  She  hesitated  a  moment, 
then  begged:  "Please  let  me  sit  with 
you  in  front.  I  love  the  air,  and  we  can 
talk.  You  see,"  she  said,  as  they  turned 
into  Fifth  Avenue,  "I  did  not  burn  my 
bridge;  I  still  have  my  latch-key." 

"Suppose  you  tell  me  about  the  Blue- 
beard chamber  that  latch-key  opens. 
You  dislike  this  man  your  stepmother 
wants  you  to  marry?" 

"Why,  how  did  you  know?" 

"The  inevitable  little  bird." 

"  Dislike  is  too  mild  a  word.  Can  you 
imagine  a  man  so  weak,  so  repulsive  as  to 
seem  utterly  unworthy  of  the  great  big 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  786.— 109 


splendid  hate  he  inspires.  He  is  so  smil- 
ing, so  fatuous;  he  just  waits  with  that 
horrid,  silly  grin.  Sometimes  I  feel  it's 
no  use  contending  against  them  any 
longer. 

"You  want  to  get  over  that  feeling 
immediately." 

"Oh,  but  you  don't  know,  you  don't 
know — and  there  is  the  wish-bone  of 
that  chicken!" 

"Where,  in  Heaven's  name,  is  the 
wish-bone  of  a  chicken,  and  what's  it 
got  to  do  with  the  case?" 

"I  pulled  the  wish-bone  of  a  chicken 
to-day  at  lunch,  and  coming  up-stairs — 
there  he  stood." 

"Well,  did  you  expect  him  to  sit  when 
he  saw  you  ?" 

"You  don't  understand.  When  you're 
a  girl  and  pull  the  wish-bone  of  a  chicken 
and  get  the  long  end,  you  marry  the  first 
man  you  meet." 

"Cheat  your  horoscope,  fool  your  for- 
tune, make  it  the  second  man.  I'm  the 
second  man,  am  I  not?" 

"Yes;  but  don't  you  know  how  they 
always  say  on  the  stage  and  in  stories, 
when  they  mean  to  be  funny,  'This  is 
so  sudden'?  I'd  hate  it  to  be  funny. 
Wouldn't  you?" 

"Well,  'This  is  so  sudden'  stopped 
being  funny  to  me  years  and  years  ago. 
I  venerate  the  ancient  saw  as  I  would 
my  grandmother,  but  neither  of  them 
can  prevent  me  from  marrying  you." 

"This  is  the  house,"  she  answered, 
abruptly. 

It  was  one  of  those  high-stooped, 
brown-stone  affairs,  the  typical  New 
York  house  of  better  days,  ending  in- 
gloriously  as  a  boarding-house.  The 
girl  opened  the  front  door,  and  two 
figures  darted  toward  her  from  the  dingy 
splendors  of  the  drawing-room,  as  if  the 
business  of  awaiting  her  return  had 
snapped  the  last  shred  of  patience  be- 
tween them.  But  when  the  looming 
bulk  of  Swift  directly  behind  her  was 
disclosed,  they  fell  back  again  on  their 
fastness  of  tarnished  gilt  and  opulent 
upholstery. 

As  Swift  entered  the  room  his  facul- 
ties for  the  moment  were  wholly  occu- 
pied with  the  figure  of  Miss  Conrad's 
stepmother.  Her  complexion,  done  in 
shades  of  American  Beauty,  was  too 
good  to  be  true;  so  were  the  pearls  in 


878 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


her  ears  and  the  rings  thick  on  her 
fingers.  Her  gown  was  both  vivid  and 
daring;  a  strange  selection  for  a  duenna, 
reflected  the  man  from  South  America. 
His  glancing  impression  supplied  all  that 
the  girl  had  left  unsaid;  it  completed  the 
sordid  picture  that  might  have  been 
fresh  from  the  cynicism  of  Hogarth's 
pencil. 

How  had  the  girl  managed  to  keep 
that  wood-nymph  quality  in  such  an 
atmosphere?  How  had  she  kept  her 
dewy  freshness,  her  faith,  and  her  sense 
of  humor,  that  flashed  out  bravely,  be 
tween  the  buffeting  of  such  a  fate? 

"Mamma,  this  is  Mr.  Swift.  He 
brought  me  home  from  the  Hammer- 
tons'.  I've  told  him  all  about — every- 
thing." 

"I'm  afraid  it's  rather  late  to  bring 
a  stranger  into  a  family  discussion.  Mr. 
Rokeby  and  I  have  quite  made  up  our 
minds  that  everything  is  settled." 

"Rokeby!  Rokeby!"  Swift  boomed 
in  his  big  voice.    "What  Rokeby?" 

He  strode  to  the  window,  and  the  limp 
fat  man  standing  there  found  himself, 
a  second,  later,  beneath  the  light  of  the 
chandelier.  Swift  looked  fixedly  at  the 
weak,  flaccid  contours  of  the  other  man's 
face.  Dissipation,  ineptitude,  mental 
infirmity,  all  flew  their  signals.  Was 
this  the  thing  he  had  burdened  himself 
with  hating  all  these  years?  It  was  as 
absurd  as  hating  a  rag  doll  or  the  wax 
figure  that  bore  a  wig  in  a  hair-dresser's 
window.    Somehow  he  felt  defrauded; 


the  object  of  his  fine  emotion  was  such  a 
poor  wretch. 

Rokeby  stood  leering  at  them  all,  the 
grin  indicative  of  amiable  purpose  mak- 
ing him  even  more  unattractive.  Evi- 
dently he  cherished  no  animosity  over 
the  "prep "-school  chastisement.  He 
had  even  recalled  it  with  a  certain  pride 
when  he  read  in  the  papers  of  the  trium- 
phant return  of  Swift,  the  Argentine 
capitalist,  who  had  run  away  from  school 
and  shipped  as  a  stoker. 

"Haven't  seen  you,  Swift,  since  the 
historical  thrashing.  Fear  it  didn't 
make  the  usual  nobler  and  better  man 
of  me.  Ask  Miss  Conrad.  She's  not 
partial  to  me." 

Swift  would  have  given  a  good  deal 
to  repeat  the  thrashing,  but  he  compro- 
mised by  walking  the  floor.  Was  he 
dreaming,  or  was  he  seeing  a  revival  of 
a  Sardou  play?  His  meeting  with  the 
girl,  their  going  to  the  same  house  to 
dinner,  this  shambling  wreck  confront- 
ing him  out  of  the  past — had  all  these 
things  happened,  or  was  he  just  a  little 
mad?  And  then  he  felt  a  furtive  little 
tug  at  his  sleeve;  the  dryad  was  beside 
him.  She  had  followed  him  in  his  floor- 
pacing,  and,  now  that  they  were  the 
room's  length  away  from  the  other  two, 
she  said,  softly,  under  her  breath: 

"Is  it  true?  Did  you  really  thrash 
him  ?" 

"I  did." 

"Good!  That  changes  everything. 
Sudden  or  not,  I'll  marry  you." 


The  Side  of  the  Angels 


A  NOVEL 


BY  BASIL  KING 


CHAPTER  XV 


AVING  slept  soundly 
till  after  eight  in  the 
morning,  Thor  woke 
with  an  odd  sense  of 
pleasure.  On  regaining 
his  faculties  he  was 
able  to  analyze  it  as 
the  pleasure  he  had  experienced  in 
having  Claude  tugging  at  his  arm.  It 
meant  that  Claude  was  happy,  and, 
Claude  being  happy,  Rosie  would  be 
happy.  Claude  and  Rosie  were  taken 
care  of. 

Consequently  Lois  would  be  taken 
care  of.  Thor  turned  the  idiom  over 
with  a  vast  content.  It  was  the  tune 
to  which  he  bathed  and  dressed.  They 
would  all  three  be  taken  care  of.  Those 
who  were  taken  .care  of  were  as  folded 
sheep.  His  mind  could  be  at  rest  con- 
cerning them.  It  was  something  to 
have  the  mind  at  rest  even  at  the  cost 
of  heartache. 

There  was,  of  course,  one  intention 
that  before  all  others  must  be  carried 
out.  He  would  have  to  clinch  the  state- 
ment he  had  made,  for  the  sake  of 
appeasing  and  convincing  Claude,  con- 
cerning Lois  Willoughby.  It  was  some- 
thing to  be  signed  and  sealed  before 
Claude  could  see  her  or  betray  the  daring 
assertion  to  his  parents.  Fortunately, 
the  younger  brother's  duties  at  the  bank 
would  deprive  him  of  any  such  op- 
portunity earlier  than  nightfall,  so  that 
Thor  himself  was  free  for  the  regular 
tasks  of  the  day.  He  kept,  therefore,  his 
office  hours  during  the  forenoon,  and 
visited  his  few  patients  after  a  hasty 
luncheon.  There  was  one  patient  whom 
he  omitted  —  whom  he  would  leave 
henceforth  to  Dr.  Hilary. 

It  was  but  little  after  four  when  he 
arrived  at  the  house  at  the  corner  of 
Willoughby's  Lane  and  County  Street. 


Mrs.  Willoughby  met  him  in  the  hall, 
across  which  she  happened  to  be  bus- 
tling. She  wore  an  apron,  and  struck  him 
as  curiously  business-like.  As  he  had 
never  before  seen  her  share  in  house- 
hold tasks,  her  present  aspect  seemed 
to  denote  a  change  of  heart. 

"Oh,  come  in,  Thor,"  she  said, 
briskly.  "I'm  glad  you've  come.  Go 
up  and  see  poorLen.  He's  so  depressed. 
You'll  cheer  him." 

If  there  was  a  forced  note  in  her 
bravery  he  did  not  perceive  it.  "I'm 
glad  to  see  you're  not  depressed,"  he 
observed  as  he  took  off  his  overcoat. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "I'm 
going  to  die  game." 

"Which  means — " 

"That  there's  fight  in  me  yet." 

"Fight?"  His  brows  went  up  anx- 
iously. 

"Oh,  not  with  your  father.  You 
needn't  be  afraid  of  that.  Besides,  I 
see  well  enough  it  would  be  no  use.  If 
he  says  we've  spent  our  money  he's  got 
everything  fixed  to  make  it  look  so, 
whether  we've  spent  it  or  not.  No, 
I'm  not  going  to  spare  him  because  he's 
your  father.  I'm  going  to  say  what  I 
think,  and  if  you  don't  like  it  you  can 
lump  it.  I  sha'n't  go  to  law.  I'd  get 
the  worst  of  it  if  I  did.  But  neither 
shall  I  be  bottled  up.    So  there!" 

"It  doesn't  matter  what  you  say  to 
me — "  Thor  began,  with  significant 
stress  on  the  ultimate  word. 

"  It  may  not  matter  what  I  say  to  you, 
but  I  can  tell  you  it  will  matter  what  I 
say  to  other  people." 

Thor  took  no  notice  of  that.  "And  if 
you're  not  going  to  law,  would  it  be 
indiscreet  to  ask  what  you  are  going  to 
do?" 

Bessie  forced  the  note  of  bravery 
again,  with  a  flash  in  her  little  eyes. 
"I'm  going  to  live  on  my  income;  that's 
what  I'm  going  to  do.   Thank  the  Lord 


880 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


I've  some  money  left.  I  didn't  let  Archie 
Masterman  get  his  hands  on  all  of  it — 
not  me.  I've  got  some  money  left,  and 
we've  got  this  house.  I'm  going  to  let 
it.  I'm  going  to  let  it  to-morrow  if  I  get 
the  chance.  I'm  getting  it  ready  now. 
And  then  we're  going  abroad.  Oh,  I 
know  lots  of  places  where  we  can 
live — petits  trous  pas  chers;  dear  little 
places,  too — where  Len  '11  have  a  chance 
to — to  get  better." 

Thor  made  a  big  resolution.  "If 
you're  going  to  let  the  house,  why  not 
let  it  to  me?" 

She  knew  what  was  coming,  but  it 
made  her  feel  faint.  Backing  to  one  of 
the  Regency  chairs,  she  sank  into  it. 
It  was  in  mere  pretense  that  she  said, 
"What  do  you  want  it  for?" 

"I  want  it  because  I  want  to  marry 
Lois."  He  added,  with  an  anxiety  that 
sprang  of  his  declaration  to  Claude, 
"Do  you  think  she'll  take  me?" 

Bessie  spoke  with  conviction.  "She'll 
take  you  unless  she's  more  of  a  fool 
than  I  think.  Of  course  she'll  take  you. 
Any  woman  in  her  senses  would  jump 
at  you.  I  know  I  would."  She  dashed 
away  a  tear.  "But  look  here,  Thor," 
she  hurried  on,  "if  you  marry  Lois 
you  won't  have  the  whole  family  on  your 
back,  you  know.  You  won't  be  marry- 
ing Len  and  me.  I  tell  you  right  now 
because  you're  the  sort  that  '11  think  he 
ought  to  do  it.  Well,  you  won't  have 
to.  I  mean  what  I  say  when  I  tell  you 
we're  going  to  live  on  our  income — 
what's  left  of  it.  We  can,  and  we  will, 
and  we're  going  to." 

"Couldn't  we  talk  about  all  that 
when — ?" 

"  When  you're  married  to  Lois  and 
have  more  of  a  right  to  speak?  No. 
We'll  talk  about  it  now — and  never  any 
more.  Len  and  I  are  going  to  have 
plenty — plenty.  If  you  think  I  can't 
manage— well,  you'll  see." 

"Oh,  I  know  you've  got  lots  of  pluck, 
Mrs.  Willoughby— " 

She  sprang  to  her  feet.  With  her 
hands  thrust  jauntily  into  the  pockets 
of  her  apron  she  looked  like  some  poor 
little  soubrette,  grown  middle-aged, 
stout,  and  rather  grotesque,  in  a  Mari- 
vaux  play.  She  acted  her  part  well. 
"Pluck?  Oh,  I've  got  more  than  that. 
I've  got  some  ability.   If  you  never  knew 


it  before,  you'll  see  it  now.  I've  spent 
a  lot;  but  then  I've  had  a  lot — or 
thought  I  had;  and  now  that  I'm  going 
to  have  little  —  well,  I'll  show  you  I 
can  cut  my  coat  according  to  my  cloth 
as  well  as  the  next  one." 

"I  don't  doubt  that  in  the  least,  and 
yet-" 

"And  yet  you  want  us  to  have  all 
our  money  back.  Oh,  I  know  what 
you  meant  yesterday  afternoon.  I 
didn't  see  it  at  the  time — I  had  so  many 
things  to  think  of;  but  I  caught  on  to 
it  as  soon  as  I  got  home.  We  should  get 
it  back,  because  you'd  give  it  to  us. 
Well,  you  won't.  You  can  marry  Lois, 
if  she'll  marry  you — and  I  hope  to  the 
Lord  she  won't  be  such  a  goose  as  to 
refuse  you! — and  you  can  take  the  house 
off  our  hands;  but  more  than  that  you 
won't  be  able  to  do,  not  if  you  were 
Thor  Masterman  ten  times  over." 

He  smiled.  "I  shouldn't  like  to  be 
that.    Once  is  bad  enough." 

Her  little  eyes  shone  tearily.  "All 
the  same,  I  like  you  for  it.  I  do  believe 
that  if  you  hadn't  said  it  I  should  have 
gone  to  law.  I  certainly  meant  to;  but 
when  I  saw  how  nice  you  were — " 
Dashing  away  another  tear,  she  changed 
her  tone  suddenly.  "Tell  me.  What 
did  your  mother  say  after  I  left  yester- 
day?" 

Thor  informed  her  that  to  the  best 
of  his  knowledge  she  hadn't  said  any- 
thing. 

Bessie  chuckled.  "I  didn't  leave  her 
much  to  say,  did  I  ?  WTell,  I'm  glad  to 
have  had  the  opportunity  of  talking  it 
out  with  her." 

"You  certainly  talked  it  out — if  that's 
the  word." 

"Yes,  didn't  I?  And  now,  I  suppose, 
she's  mad." 

Thor  was  unable  to  affirm  as  much  as 
this.  In  fact,  the  conversation,  since 
Mrs.  Willoughby  liked  to  apply  that 
term  to  the  encounter,  had  induced  in 
his  stepmother,  as  far  as  he  could  see, 
a  somewhat  superior  frame  of  mind. 

"Well,  I  hope  it  '11  do  her  as  much 
good  as  it  did  me,"  Bessie  sighed,  de- 
voutly; "and  now  that  I've  let  off 
steam  I'll  go  round  and  make  it  up. 
Now  go  and  see  Len.  He'll  want  to 
talk  to  you." 

Thor  intimated  that  he  would  be  glad 


THE  SIDE  OF 

of  a  minute  with  Lois,  to  which  Mrs. 
Willoughby  replied  that  Lois  was  having 
one  of  her  fits  of  bird-craze.  She  was 
in  the  kitchen  at  that  minute  getting 
suet  with  which  to  go  up  into  the  woods 
and  fee.d  the  chickadees.  Good  Lord! 
there  had  been  chickadees  since  the 
world  began,  and  they  had  lived  through 
the  winter  somehow.  Bessie  had  no 
patience  with  what  she  called  "nature- 
fads,''  but  it  was  as  easy  to  talk  sense 
into  a  chickadee  itself  as  to  keep  Lois 
from  going  into  the  woods  with  two  or 
three  pounds  of  suet  after  every  snow- 
storm. She  undertook,  however,  to  de- 
lay her  daughter's  departure  on  this 
errand  till  warning  had  been  given  to 
Thor. 

Up-stairs  Thor  found  Len  sitting  in 
his  big  arm-chair,  clad  in  a  gorgeous 
dressing-gown.  He  was  idle,  stupefied, 
and  woebegone.  With  his  bushy,  snow- 
white  hair  and  beard,  his  puffy  cheeks, 
his  sagging  mouth,  and  his  clumsy  bulk 
he  produced  an  effect  half  spectral  and 
half  fleshly,  but  quite  pathetically  ludi- 
crous. His  hand  trembled  violently  as 
he  held  it  toward  his  visitor. 

"Not  well  to-day,  Thor,"  he  com- 
plained. "Ought  to  be  back  in  bed. 
Any  other  man  wouldn't  have  got  up. 
Always  had  too  much  energy.  Awful 
blow,  Thor,  awful  blow.  Never  could 
have  believed  it  of  your  father.  But 
I'm  not  downed  yet.  Go  to  work  and 
make  another  fortune.  That's  what  I'll 
do." 

Thor  sympathized  with  his  friend's 
intentions,  and,  having  slipped  down- 
stairs again,  found  Lois  in  the  hall,  a 
basket  containing  a  varied  assortment 
of  bird-foods  on  her  arm. 

When  she  had  given  him  permission 
to  accompany  her,  they  took  their  way 
up  Willoughby's  Lane,  whence  it  was 
possible  to  pass  into  the  woodland 
stretches  of  the  hillside.  The  day  was 
clear  and  cold,  with  just  enough  wind 
to  wake  the  aeolian  harp  of  the  forest 
into  sound.  Once  in  the  woods,  they 
advanced  warily.  "Listen  to  the  red- 
polls," Lois  whispered. 

She  paused,  leaning  forward,  her  face 
alight.  There  was  nothing  visible;  but 
a  low,  continuous  warble,  interspersed 
with  a  sort  of  liquid  rattle,  struck  the 
ear.    Taking  a  bunch  of  millet  stalks 


THE  ANGELS  881 

from  her  basket,  she  directed  Thor  while 
he  tied  them  to  the  bough  of  a  birch 
that  trailed  its  lower  branches  to  the 
snow.  When  they  had  gone  forward 
they  perceived,  on  looking  round,  that 
some  dozen  or  twenty  of  the  crimson- 
headed  birds  had  found  their  food. 

So  they  went  on,  scattering  seeds  or 
crumbs  in  sheltered  spots,  and  fixing 
masses  of  suet  in  conspicuous  places,  to 
an  approving  chirrup  of  dee-dee,  chick-a- 
dee-dee-dee,  from  friendly  little  throats. 
The  basket  was  almost  emptied  by  the 
time  they  reached  the  outskirts  of  the 
wood  and  neared  the  top  of  the  hill. 

Lois  was  fastening  the  last  bunch  of 
millet  stalks  to  a  branch  hanging  just 
above  her  head.  Thor  stood  behind  her, 
holding  the  basket,  and  noticing,  as  he 
had  often  noticed  before,  the  slim  shape- 
liness of  her  hands.  In  spite  of  the  cold, 
they  were  bare,  the  fur  of  the  cuffs  fall- 
ing back  sufficiently  to  display  the  ex- 
quisitely formed  wrists. 

"Lois,  when  can  we  be  married?" 

She  gave  no  sign  of  having  heard  him, 
unless  it  was  that  her  hands  stopped 
for  an  instant  in  the  deft  rapidity  of 
their  task.  Within  a  few  seconds  they 
had  resumed  their  work,  though,  it 
seemed  to  him,  with  less  sureness  in  the 
supple  movement  of  the  fingers.  Beyond 
the  upturned  collar  of  her  coat  he  saw 
the  stealing  of  a  warm,  slow  flush. 

He  was  moved,  he  hardly  knew  how. 
Lie  hardly  knew  how,  except  that  it  was 
with  an  emotion  different  from  that 
which  Rosie  Fay  had  always  roused  in 
him.  In  that  case  the  impulse  was  pri- 
marily physical.  He  couldn't  have  said 
what  it  was  primarily  in  this.  It  was 
perhaps  mental,  or  spiritual,  or  ^pnly 
sympathetic.  But  it  was  an  emotion. 
He  was  sure  of  that,  though  he  was  less 
sure  that  it  had  the  nature  of  love.  As 
for  love,  since  yesterday  the  word  sick- 
ened him.  Its  association  had  become, 
for  the  present,  at  any  rate,  both  sacred 
and  appalling.  He  couldn't  have  used 
it,  even  if  he  had  been  more  positive 
concerning  the  blends  that  made  up  his 
present  sentiment. 

It  was  to  postpone  as  long  as  possible 
the  moment  for  turning  round  that  Lois 
worked  unnecessarily  at  the  fastening  of 
her  millet  stalks.  They  were  not  yet 
secured  to  her  satisfaction  when,  urged 


882 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


by  a  sudden  impulse,  he  bent  forward 
and  kissed  her  wrist.  She  allowed  him 
to  do  this  without  protest,  while  she 
knotted  the  ends  of  her  string;  but  she 
was  obliged  to  turn  at  last. 

"I  didn't  know  you  wanted  to  be 
married,"  she  said,  with  shy  frankness. 

He  responded  as  simply  as  she.  "But 
now  that  you  do  know  it — how  soon  can 
it  be?" 

"Why  are  you  asking  me?"  Before 
he  had  time  to  reply  she  went  on,  "Is 
it  because  papa  has  got  into  trouble?" 

He  was  ready  with  his  answer.  "It's 
because  he's  got  into  trouble  that  I'm 
asking  you  to-day;  but  I've  been  mean- 
ing to  ask  you  for  years  and  years." 

She  uttered  something  like  a  little  cry. 
"Oh,  Thor,  is  that  true?" 

The  fact  that  he  must  make  so  many 
reservations  impelled  him  to  be  the 
more  ardent  in  what  he  could  affirm 
without  putting  a  strain  on  his  con- 
science. "I  can  swear  it  to  you,  Lois, 
if  you  want  me  to.  It  began  as  long  ago 
as  when  I  was  a  youngster  and  you  were 
a  little  girl." 

She  clasped  her  hands  tightly.  "Oh, 

Th(?v:" 

"Since  that  time  there  hasn't  been 
a — "  He  was  going  to  say  a  day,  but 
he  made  a  rapid  correction — "there 
hasn't  been  a  year  when  I  haven't 
looked  forward  to  your  being  my  wife." 
He  allowed  a  few  seconds  to  pass  before 
adding,  "I  should  think  you'd  have 
seen  it." 

She  answered  as  well  as  a  joyous  dis- 
tress would  let  her.  "I  did  see  it,  Thor 
— or  thought  I  did — for  a  while.  Only 
latterly — " 

"You  mustn't  judge  by — latterly,"  he 
broke  in,  hastily.  "Latterly  I've  had  a 
good  deal  to  go  through." 

"Oh,  you  poor  Thor!   Tell  me  about 

it. 

Nothing  would  have  eased  his  heart 
more  effectively  than  to  have  poured 
out  to  her  the  whole  flood  of  his  confi- 
dence. It  was  what  he  was  accustomed 
to  doing  when  in  her  company.  He 
could  talk  to  her  with  more  open  heart 
than  he  had  ever  been  able  to  talk  to 
any  one.  It  would  have  been  a  relief  to 
tell  her  the  whole  story  of  Rosie  Fay; 
and  if  he  refrained  from  taking  this 
course,  it  was  only  because  he  reminded 


himself  that  it  wouldn't  "do."  It  obvi- 
ously wouldn't  "do."  He  was  unable 
to  say  why  it  wouldn't  "do"  except  on 
the  general  ground  that  there  were 
things  a  man  had  better  keep  to  himself. 
He  curbed,  therefore,  his  impulse  tow- 
ard frankness  to  say: 

"I  can't — because  there  are  things  I 
shall  never  be  able  to  talk  about.  If 
I  could  speak  of  them  to  any  one  it 
would  be  to  you." 

She  looked  at  him  anxiously.  "It's 
nothing  that  I  have  to  do  with,  is  it?" 

"Only  in  as  far  as  you  have  to  do  with 
everything  that  concerns  me." 

Tears  in  her  eyes  could  not  keep  her 
face  from  growing  radiant.  "Oh,  Thor, 
how  can  I  believe  it?" 

"It's  true,  Lois.  I  can  hardly  go  back 
to  the  time  when,  in  my  own  mind,  it 
hasn't  been  true." 

"But  I'm  not  worthy  of  it,"  she 
said,  half  tearfully. 

"I  hope  it  isn't  a  question  of  worthi- 
ness on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  It's 
just  a  matter  of — of  our  belonging  to- 
gether." 

It  was  not  in  doubt,  but  with  implor- 
ing looks  of  happiness  that  she  said, 
"Oh,  are  you  sure  we  do?" 

He  was  glad  she  could  accept  his 
formula.  It  not  only  simplified  matters, 
but  enabled  him  to  be  sincere.  The  fact 
that  in  his  own  way  he  was  quite  sin- 
cere rendered  him  the  more  grateful  to 
her  for  not  forcing  him,  or  trying  to 
force  him,  to  express  himself  insincerely. 
It  was  almost  as  if  she  divined  his  state 
of  mind. 

"Words  aren't  of  much  use  between 
us,"  he  declared,  in  his  appreciation  of 
this  attitude  on  her  part.  "We're  more 
or  less  independent  of  them,  don't  you 
think?" 

She  nodded  her  approval  of  this  senti- 
ment as  her  eyes  followed  the  action  of 
her  fingers  in  buttoning  her  gloves. 

"  But  I'll  tell  you  what  I  feel  as  exactly 
as  I  can  put  it,"  he  went  on.  "It's  that 
you're  essential  to  me,  and  I'm  essential 
to  you.  At  least,"  he  subjoined,  humbly, 
"I  hope  I'm  essential  to  you." 

She  nodded  again,  her  face  averted, 
her  eyes  still  following  the  movements 
of  her  fingers  at  her  wrist. 

"I  can't  express  it  in  language  very 
different   from   that,"   he  stammered, 


Drawn  by  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green 

"LOIS,   WHEN    CAN    WE    BE  MARRIED?" 


THE  SIDE  OF 

"because — well,  because  I'm  not — not 
very  happy;  and  the  chief  thing  I  feel 
about  you  is  that  you're  a  kind  of — of 
shelter." 

He  had  found  the  word  that  explained 
his  state  of  mind.  It  was  as  a  shelter 
that  he  was  seeking  her.  If  there  were 
points  of  view  from  which  his  object 
was  to  protect  her,  there  were  others 
from  which  he  needed  protection  for 
himself.  In  desiring  her  as  his  wife  he 
was,  as  it  were,  fleeing  to  a  refuge.  He 
did  desire  her  as  his  wife,  even  though 
but  yesterday  he  had  more  violently 
desired  Rosie  Fay.  The  violence  was 
perhaps  the  secret  of  his  reaction — not 
that  it  was  reaction  so  much  as  the 
turning  of  his  footsteps  toward  home. 
He  was  homing  to  her.  He  was  homing 
to  her  by  an  instinct  beyond  his  skill  to 
analyze,  though  he  knew  it  to  be  as 
straight  and  sure  as  that  of  the  pigeon 
to  the  cote. 

There  was  a  silence  following  his  use 
of  the  word  shelter — a  silence  in  which 
she  seemed  to  envelop  him  with  her 
deep,  luminous  regard.  The  still,  re- 
mote beauty  of  the  winter  woods,  the 
notes  of  friendly  birds,  the  sweet,  wild 
music  of  the  wind  in  the  treetops,  accom- 
panied that  look,  as  mystery  and  incense 
and  organ  harmonies  go  with  benedic- 
tions. 

"Oh,  Thor,  you're  wonderful!"  was 
all  she  could  say,  when  words  came  to 
her.  "You  make  me  feel  as  if  I  could 
be  of  some  use  in  the  world.  What's 
more  wonderful  still,  you  make  me  feel 
as  if  I  had  been  of  use  all  these  years 
when  I've  felt  so  useless." 

It  was  in  the  stress  of  the  sensation  of 
having  wandered  into  far,  exotic  regions 
in  which  his  feet  could  only  stray  that 
he  said,  simply,  "You're  home  to  me." 

She  was  so  near  to  bursting  into  tears 
that  she  turned  from  him  sharply  and 
walked  up  the  hill.  He  followed  slowly, 
swinging  the  empty  basket.  Her  buoy- 
ant step  on  the  snow,  over  which  the 
frost  had  drawn  the  thinnest  of  shining 
crusts,  gave  a  nymphlike  smoothness  to 
her  motion. 

Having  reached  the  treeless  ridge,  she 
emerged  on  that  high  altar  on  which, 
not  twenty-four  hours  earlier,  he  had 
sunk  face  downward  in  the  snow.  The 
snow  had  drifted  again  over  his  foot- 


THE  ANGELS  883 

prints  and  the  mark  of  his  form.  It  was 
drifting  still,  in  little  powdery  whirls, 
across  a  surface  that  caught  tints  of 
crimson  and  glints  of  fire  from  an  angry 
sunset.  It  was  windy  here.  As  she 
stood  above  him,  facing  the  north,  her 
figure  poised  against  a  glowering  sky,  her 
garments  blew  backward.  Even  when 
he  reached  her  and  was  standing  by  her 
side,  she  continued  to  gaze  outward 
across  the  undulating,  snow-covered 
country,  in  the  folds  of  which  an  occa- 
sional farm-house  lamp  shone  like  a  pale 
twilight  star. 

"You  see,  it's  this  way,"  he  pursued, 
as  though  there  had  been  no  interrup- 
tion. "When  I'm  with  you  I  seem  to 
get  back  to  my  natural  conditions — the 
conditions  in  which  I  can  live  and  work. 
That's  what  I  mean  by  your  being  home 
to  me.  Other  places " — he  ventured 
this  much  of  the  confession  he  had  at 
heart — "other  places  have  their  tempta- 
tions; but  it's  only  at  home  that  one 
lives. 

He  took  courage  to  go  on  from  the 
way  in  which  her  gloved  hand  stole  into 
his.  "I  dare  say  you  think  I  talk  too 
much  about  work;  but,  after  all,  we  can't 
forget  that  we  live  in  a  country  in  the 
making,  can  we?  In  a  way,  it's  a  world 
in  the  making.  There's  everything  to 
do — and  I  want  to  be  doing  some  of  it, 
Lois,"  he  declared,  with  a  little  outburst. 
"I  can't  help  it.  I  know  some  people 
think  I'm  an  enthusiast,  and  others  put 
me  down  as  a  prig — but  I  can't  help  it." 

"I  know  you  can't,  Thor,  and  I  can't 
tell  you  how  much  I — I  " — she  felt  for 
the  right  word — "I  admire  it." 

He  turned  to  her  eagerly.  "You're 
the  only  one,  Lois,  who  knows  what  I 
mean — who  can  speak  my  language. 
You  want  to  be  useful,  too." 

"And  I  never  have  been." 

"Nor  I.  I've  known  that  things  were 
to  be  done;  but  I  haven't  known  how 
to  set  about  them,  or  where  to  begin. 
Don't  you  think  we  may  be  able  to  find 
the  way  together?" 

She  seemed  suddenly  to  cling  to  him. 
"Oh,  Thor,  if  you'd  only  make  me  half 
as  good  as  you  are!" 

Perhaps  the  ardor  with  which  he 
seized  her  was  the  unspent  force  of  the 
longing  roused  in  him  by  Rosie.  Per- 
haps it  blazed  up  in  him  merely  because 


884 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


she  was  a  woman.  For  two  or  three  days 
now  his  need  of  the  feminine  had  been 
acute.  Did  she  minister  to  that?  or 
did  she  bring  him  something  that  could 
be  offered  by  but  one  woman  in  the 
world  ?  He  couldn't  tell.  He  only  knew 
that  he  had  her  in  his  arms,  with  his  lips 
on  hers,  and  that  he  was  content.  He 
was  content,  with  a  sense  of  fulfilment 
and  appeasement.  It  was  as  if  he  had 
been  straining  for  a  great  prize  and  won 
the  second — but  at  a  moment  when  he 
had  expected  none  at  all.  There  was 
happiness  in  it,  even  if  it  was  a  quieter, 
staider  happiness  than  that  of  which  he 
now  knew  himself  to  be  capable. 

"You're  home  to  me,  Lois,"  he  mur- 
mured as  he  held  her.  "You're  home 
to  me. 

He  meant  that  though  there  were 
strange,  entrancing  Edens  on  which  he 
had  not  been  allowed  to  enter,  there  was, 
nevertheless,  a  vast  peace  of  mind  to  be 
found  at  the  restful,  friendly  fireside. 

"And  you're  the  whole  wide  world  to 
me,  Thor,"  she  whispered,  clasping  her 
arms  about  his  neck  and  drawing  his 
face  nearer. 

CHAPTER  XVI 

ON  leaving  Lois  and  returning 
homeward,  Thor  met  his  brother 
at  the  entrance  to  the  avenue. 
They  had  not  spoken  since  the  preceding 
night.  On  purpose  to  avoid  a  meeting, 
Claude  had  breakfasted  early  and  es- 
caped to  town  before  Thor  had  come 
down-stairs.  In  the  glimpse  Thor  had 
caught  of  his  younger  brother  as  the 
latter  left  the  house  he  saw  that  he 
looked  white  and  worried. 

He  looked  white  and  worried  still  un- 
der the  glare  of  street  electricity.  As 
they  walked  up  the  driveway  together 
Thor  took  the  opportunity  to  put  him- 
self right  in  the  matter  that  lay  most 
urgently  on  his  mind.  "Lois  and  I  are 
to  be  married  on  one  of  the  last  days  of 
February,"  he  said,  with  his  best  at- 
tempt to  speak  casually.  "She  wants 
to  work  it  in  before  Lent,  which  begins 
on  the  first  day  of  March.  Have  scru- 
ples about  marrying  in  Lent  in  their 
church.  Quiet  affair.  No  one  but  the 
two  families." 

Claude  asked  the  question  as  to  which 


he  felt  most  curiosity.  "Going  to  tell 
father?" 

"To-night.  No  use  shilly-shallying 
about  things  of  that  sort.  Father 
mayn't  like  it;  but  he  can't  kick." 

Claude  spoke  moodily:  "He  can't 
kick  in  your  case." 

"We're  grown  men,  Claude.  We're 
the  only  judges  of  what's  right  for  us. 
I  don't  mean  any  disrespect  to  father; 
but  we've  got  to  be  free.  Best  way,  as 
far  as  I  see,  is  to  be  open  and  above- 
board  and  firm.  Then  everybody  knows 
where  you  are." 

Claude  made  no  response  till  they 
reached  the  door-step,  where  he  lingered. 
"Look  here,  Thor,"  he  said  then,  "I've 
got  to  put  this  thing  through  in  my  own 
wTay,  you  know." 

Thor  didn't  need  to  be  told  what  this 
thing  was.  "That's  all  right,  Claude. 
I've  got  nothing  to  do  with  it." 

"You've  got  something  to  do  with  it 
when  you  put  up  the  money.  And  what 
I  feel,"  he  added,  complainingly,  "is 
that  my  taking  it  makes  me  look  as  if  I 
was  bought." 

"Oh,  rot,  Claude!"  Thor  made  a 
great  effort.  "Hang  it  all!  when  a  fel- 
low's in — in  love,  and  going  to  be  mar- 
ried himself,  you  don't  suppose  he  can 
ignore  his  own  brother  who's  in  the  same 
sort  of  box,  and  can't  be  married  for  the 
sake  of  a  few  hundred  dollars?  That 
wouldn't  be  human." 

It  was  not  difficult  for  Claude  to  take 
this  point  of  view,  but  he  repeated, 
tenaciously,  "I've  got  to  do  it  in  my  own 
way. 

"Good  Lord!  old  chap,  I  don't  care 
how  you  do  it,"  Thor  declared,  airily, 
"so  long  as  it's  done.  Just  buck  up  and 
be  a  man,  and  you'll  pull  it  off  magnifi- 
cently. It's  the  sort  of  thing  you've  got 
to  pull  off  magnificently — or  slump." 

"That's  what  I  think,"  Claude  agreed, 
"and  so  I'm"  —  he  hesitated  before 
announcing  so  bold  a  programme — "and 
so  I'm  going  to  take  her  abroad." 

"Oh!"  Thor  gave  a  little  gasp.  He 
had  not  expected  to  have  Rosie  pass  out 
of  his  ken.  He  had  supposed  that  he 
should  remain  near  her,  watch  over  her, 
know  what  she  was  doing  and  what  was 
being  done  to  her.  He  was  busy  trying 
to  readjust  his  mind  while  Claude  stam- 
mered out  suggestions  for  the  payment 


THE  SIDE  OF 

of  Rosie's  proposed  dowry.  It  was  clear 
without  his  saying  so  that  he  hated  do- 
ing it;  but  he  did  say  so,  adding  that  it 
made  him  feel  as  if  he  was  bought. 

Thor  was  irritated  by  the  repetition. 
" Let's  drop  that,  Claude,  if  you  don't 
mind.  Be  satisfied  once  for  all  that  if 
you  and  Rosie  accept  the  money  it  will 
be  as  a  favor  to  me.  I'm  so  built  that 
I  can't  be  happy  in  my  own  marriage 
without  knowing  that  you  and — and  she 
have  the  chance  to  be  happy  in  yours. 
With  all  the  money  that's  coming  to  me, 
and  that  I've  never  done  any  more  to 
deserve  than  you  have,  what  I'm  setting 
aside  will  be  a  trifle.  As  to  the  pay- 
ments, I'll  do  just  as  you  say.  The  first 
quarter  will  be  paid  to  Rosie  on  the 
day  you're  married — when  there'll  be 
a  little  check  for  you,  for  good  luck. 
So  go  ahead  and  make  your  plans.  Go 
abroad,  if  you  want  to.  Dare  say  it's 
the  best  thing  you  can  do." 

To  escape  his  brother's  shamefaced 
thanks  Thor  passed  into  the  porch. 
"I'm  not  going  to  tell  any  one  about  it 
till  I'm  ready,"  Claude  warned  as  he 
followed. 

Thor  turned.  "Of  course  you  know 
that  father's  on  to  the  whole  business." 

"The  deuce  he  is!" 

"Father  told  me.  How  did  you  sup- 
pose I  knew  anything  about  it?" 

"So  that's  it!  Been  wondering  all 
day  who  could  have  given  me  away. 
That's  Uncle  Sim's  tricks.  Knew  the 
old  fool  had  his  eye — " 

"It  was  bound  to  come  out  somehow, 
you  know,  in  a  little  village  like  this. 
Natural  enough  that  Uncle  Sim  should 
want  to  put  father  wise  to  a  matter  that 
concerns  the  whole  family.  I  thought 
I'd  tell  you  so  that  you  can  take  your 
line. 

"Take  what  line?" 

"How  do  I  know?  That's  up  to  you. 
The  line  that  will  best  protect  Rosie, 
I  suppose.  Remember  that  that's  your 
first  consideration  now.  I  only  want 
you  to  understand  that  you  can't  keep 
father  in  the  dark.  I  should  say  it  was 
more  dignified,  and  perhaps  better  pol- 
icy, not  to  try." 

An  hour  later  Mrs.  Masterman  was 
commenting  at  the  dinner-table  on  the 
pleasing  circumstance  that  invitations 

Vol.  CXXXI—  No.  786.— 110 


THE  ANGELS  885 

to  Miss  Elsie  Darling's  party  had  come 
for  the  entire  family.  There  were  cards 
not  only  for  the  two  young  men,  but 
for  the  father  and  mother  also.  Since 
both  the  older  and  the  younger  members 
of  society  were  included,  it  was  clear  that 
the  function  was  to  pass  the  limitations 
of  a  dance  and  become  a  ball. 

Neither  Mr.  nor  Mrs.  Masterman 
was  superior  to  this  form  of  entertain- 
ment. It  was  the  one  above  all  others 
that  reminded  them  that  they  belonged 
to  society  in  the  higher  sense.  They 
dined  out  with  tolerable  frequency;  with 
tolerable  frequency  their  friends  dined 
with  them.  As  for  the  afternoon  teas 
to  which  they  were  bidden  in  the  course 
of  a  season,  Mrs.  Masterman  could 
scarcely  keep  count  of  them.  But  balls 
came  only  once  or  twice  in  a  winter,  and 
not  always  so  often  as  that.  A  ball  was 
a  community  event.  It  was  an  occa- 
sion on  which  to  display  the  fact  that 
the  neighborhood  could  unite  in  a  gather- 
ing more  socially  significant  than  the 
mere  frolicking  of  boys  and  girls.  More- 
over, it  was  an  opportunity  for  proving 
that  the  higher  circles  of  the  village 
stood  on  equal  terms  with  those  of  the 
city,  with  the  solidarity  of  true  aristoc- 
racies all  over  the  world. 

On  Mrs.  Masterman's  murmuring 
something  to  the  effect  that  Claude 
would  go  to  the  ball,  of  course,  the 
young  man  mumbled  words  that  sounded 
like,  "Not  for  mine."  The  mother  un- 
derstood the  response  to  be  a  negative, 
and  replied  with  a  protest. 

"Oh,  but  you  must,  Claudie  dear. 
It  '11  be  so  nice  for  you  to  meet  Elsie. 
She's  a  charming  girl,  they  say,  after 
her  years  abroad."  She  concluded,  with 
a  wrinkling  of  her  pretty  brow,  "It 
seems  to  me  you  don't  know  many  really 
nice  girls." 

She  had  been  moved  by  no  more  than 
a  mother's  solicitude,  but  Claude  kept 
his  eyes  on  his  plate.  He  knew  that  his 
father  was  probably  looking  at  him,  and 
that  Thor  was  saying,  "Now's  your 
chance  to  speak  up  and  declare  that  you 
know  the  nicest  girl  in  the  world." 
Poor  Claude  was  sensible  of  the  oppor- 
tunity, and  yet  felt  himself  paralyzed 
with  regard  to  making  use  of  it.  In  reply 
he  could  only  say,  vaguely,  that  if 
he  had  to  go  he  would  have  to  go, 


886 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


and  not  long  afterward  Mrs.  Master- 
man  rose. 

The  sons  followed  their  parents  into 
the  library,  pausing  to  light  their  ciga- 
rettes on  the  way.  By  the  time  they 
had  crossed  the  hall  the  head  of  the 
house  had  settled  himself  with  the  eve- 
ning paper  in  his  favorite  arm-chair  be- 
fore the  slumbering  wood  fire.  Mrs. 
Masterman  stooped  over  the  long  table 
strewn  with  periodicals,  turning  the 
pages  of  a  new  magazine.  Thor  ad- 
vanced to  a  discreet  distance  behind  his 
father's  chair,  where  he  paused  and  said, 
quietly: 

"Father,  I  want  to  tell  you  and 
mother  that  I'm  engaged  to  Lois  Wil- 
loughby.  We're  to  be  married  almost  at 
once — toward  the  end  of  next  month." 

There  was  dead  silence.  As  far  as 
could  be  observed,  Masterman  continued 
to  study  his  paper,  while  his  wife  still 
stooped  over  the  pages  of  her  magazine. 
It  was  long  before  the  father  said,  with 
the  seeming  indifference  meant  to  be 
more  bitter  than  gall: 

"That,  I  presume,  is  your  answer  to 
my  move  with  regard  to  the  father. 
Very  well,  Thor.  You're  your  own 
master.    I've  nothing  to  say." 

Before  Thor  could  explain  that  it  was 
only  the  carrying  out  of  a  long-planned 
intention,  his  stepmother  looked  up  and 
spoke.  "I  have  something  to  say,  Thor 
dear.  I  hope  you're  going  to  be  very 
happy.  I'm  sure  you  will  be.  She's  a 
noble  girl." 

Her  newly  germinating  vitality  hav- 
ing asserted  itself  to  this  extent,  she 
stood  aghast  till  Thor  strode  up  and 
kissed  her,  saying:  "Thank  you,  mum- 
phy.  She  is  a  noble  girl — one  of  the 
best." 

The  example  had  its  effect  on  Claude, 
who  had  stood  hesitating  in  the  door- 
way, and  now  came  toward  his  father's 
chair,  though  timidly.  "Father,  I'm 
going  to  be  married,  too." 

His  mother  uttered  a  smothered  cry. 
Masterman  turned  sharply. 

"Who?  You?" 

The  implied  scorn  in  the  tone  put 
Claude  on  his  mettle.  "Yes,  father,"  he 
tried  to  say  with  dignity.  It  was  in 
search  of  further  support  for  this  dignity 
that  he  added,  in  a  manner  that  he  tried 
to  make  formal,  but  which  became  only 


faltering,  "To — to — to  Miss  Rosanna 
Fay." 

Masterman  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  returned  to  his  newspaper.  There 
were  full  three  minutes  in  which  each 
of  the  spectators  waited  for  another 
word.  "Have  you  nothing  to  say  to 
me,  father?"  Claude  pleaded,  in  a  tone 
curiously  piteous. 

The  father  barely  glanced  round  over 
his  shoulder.  "What  do  you  expect  me 
to  say? — to  call  you  a  damn  fool?  The 
words  would  be  wasted." 

"I'm  a  grown  man,  father — "  Claude 
began  to  protest. 

"Are  you?  It's  the  first  intimation 
I've  had  of  it.  But  I'm  willing  to  take 
your  word.  If  so,  you  must  assume  a 
grown  man's  responsibilities — from  now 
on."' 

Claude's  throat  was  dry  and  husky. 
"  What  do  you  mean  by — from  now 
on?" 

"I  mean  from  the  minute  when  you've 
irrevocably  chosen  between  this  woman 
and  us.  You  haven't  irrevocably  cho- 
sen as  yet.  You've  still  time — to  re- 
consider." 

"But  if  I  don't  reconsider,  father? — 
if  I  can't?" 

"The  choice  is  between  her  and — us." 

He  returned  to  his  paper;  but  again 
his  wife's  nascent  will  to  live  asserted  it- 
self, to  no  one's  astonishment  more  than 
to  her  own.  "It's  not  between  her  and 
me,  Claude,"  she  cried,  casting  as  she 
did  so  a  frightened  glance  at  the  back 
of  her  husband's  head.  "I'm  your 
mother.  I  shall  stand  by  you,  whoever 
fails."  Her  words  terrified  her  so  utter- 
ly that  before  she  dared  to  cross  the 
floor  to  her  son  she  looked  again  be- 
seechingly at  the  iron-gray  top  of  her 
husband's  head  as  it  appeared  above  the 
back  of  the  arm-chair.  Nevertheless, 
she  stole  swiftly  to  her  boy  and  put  her 
hands  on  his  shoulders.  "I'm  your 
mother,  dear,"  she  sobbed,  tremblingly; 
"and  if  she's  a  good  girl,  and  loves  you, 
I'll— I'll  accept  her." 

Masterman  turned  his  newspaper  in- 
side out,  as  though  pretending  not  to 
hear. 

Thor  waited  till  Claude  and  Ms  moth- 
er, clinging  to  each  other,  had  crept 
out  of  the  room,  before  saying,  "I'm 
responsible  for  this,  father." 


THE  SIDE  OF 

There  was  no  change  in  the  father's 
attitude.    "So  I  supposed." 

"  The  girl  is  a  good  girl,  and  I  couldn't 
let  Claude  break  her  heart." 

"You  found  it  easier  to  break  mine." 

"I  don't  mean  that,  father — " 

"Then  I  can  only  say  that  you're  as 
successful  in  what  you  don't  mean  as  in 
what  you  do." 

"I  don't  understand." 

"No,  perhaps  not.  But  it  would  be 
futile  for  me  to  try  to  explain  to  you. 
Good  night." 

Thor  remained  where  he  was.  "It 
isn't  futile  for  me  to  try  to  explain  to 
you,  father.  I  know  Rosie  Fay,  and  you 
don't.  She's  a  beautiful  girl,  with  that 
strong  character  which  Claude  needs  to 
give  him  backbone.  He  is  in  love  with 
her,  and  he's  made  her  fall  in  love  with 
him.  It  wouldn't  be  decent  on  his  part 
or  honorable  on  ours — " 

The  father  interrupted  wearily. 
"You'll  spare  me  the  sentimentalities. 
The  facts  are  bad  enough.  When  I 
want  instructions  in  decency  and  honor 
I'll  come  to  you  and  get  them.  In  the 
mean  time  I've  said — good  night." 

"  But,  father,  we  must  talk  about  it — " 

Masterman  raised  himself  in  his  chair 
and  turned.  "Thor,"  he  said,  sternly, 
his  words  getting  increased  effect  from 
his  childlike  lisp,  "if  you  knew  how 
painful  your  presence  is  to  me — you'd 

Thor  flushed.  There  was  nothing  left 
for  him  but  to  turn.  And  yet  he  had 
not  gone  many  steps  beyond  the  library 
door  before  he  heard  his  father  fling  the 
paper  to  the  floor,  uttering  a  low  groan. 

The  young  man  stood  still,  shifting 
between  two  minds.  Should  he  go 
away  and  leave  his  father  to  the  morti- 
fying sense  that  his  sons  were  setting 
him  at  defiance?  or  should  he  return  and 
insist  on  full  explanations?  He  would 
have  done  the  latter  had  it  not  been  for 
the  words,  "If  you  knew  how  painful 
your  presence  is  to  me!"  He  still  heard 
them.  They  cut  him  across  the  face — 
across  the  heart.    He  went  on  up-stairs. 

As  he  passed  the  open  door  of  Mrs. 
Masterman's  room  he  heard  Claude  say- 
ing: "Oh,  mother  darling,  if  you  knew  her, 
you'd  feel  about  her  just  as  I  do.  When 
she's  dressed  up  as  a  lady  she'll  put  every 
other  girl  in  the  shade.    You'll  see  she 


THE  ANGELS  887 

will.  After  she's  had  a  year  or  two  in 
Paris — " 

Thor  entered  the  room  while  the 
mother  was  crying  out:  "Paris!  Why, 
Claudie  dear,  what  are  you  talking 
about?  How  are  you  going  to  live? — 
let  alone  Paris!" 

"That's  all  right,  mother.  Don't  fret. 
I  can  get  money.  I'm  not  a  fool.  Look 
here,"  he  added,  in  a  confidential  tone, 
winking  at  Thor  over  her  shoulder,  "I'll 
tell  you  something.  It's  a  secret,  mind 
you.  Not  a  word  to  father!  I'm  all 
right  for  money  noiv." 

She  could  only  repeat,  in  a  tone  of 
mystification,  "All  right  for  money 
now: 

Claude  made  an  inarticulate  sound  of 
assent.    "Got  it  all  fixed." 
"Oh,  but  how?" 

"I  said  it  was  a  secret."  He  winked 
at  his  brother  again.  "I  shouldn't  tell 
even  you,  only  you've  been  such  a  spank- 
ing good  mother  to  back  me  up  that  I 
want  to  ease  your  mind." 

She  threw  an  imploring  look  at  her 
stepson,  though  she  addressed  her  son. 
"Oh,  Claude,  you  haven't  done  any- 
thing wrong,  have  you  ? — forged  ? — or 
embezzled  ? — or  whatever  it  is  they  do 
in  banks." 

"No,  mother;  it's  all  on  the  square." 
Because  of  Thor's  presence  he  added: 
"If  it  will  make  you  any  the  more  cheer- 
ful I'll  tell  you  this,  too.  It's  not  going 
to  be  my  money;  it  '11  be  Rosie's. 
Strictly  speaking,  I  sha'n't  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  it.  She'll  have — about 
jive  thousand  dollars  a  year!  When  it's 
all  over — and  we're  married — you  can 
put  father  wise  to  that;  but  not  before, 
mind  you." 

"But,  Claudie  darling,  I  don't  under- 
stand a  bit.  How  can  she  have  five 
thousand  dollars  a  year,  when  they're 
as  poor  as  poor?  And  she  hasn't  a  re- 
lation who  could  possibly — " 

He,  too,  threw  a  glance  at  Thor.  "She 
may  not  have  a  relation,  but  she  might 
have  a — a  friend.  Now,  mother,  this  is 
just  between  you  and  me.  If  you  hadn't 
been  such  a  spanking  good  mother  I 
shouldn't  have  told  you  a  word  of  it." 

"Yes,  but,  Claude!  Think!  What 
sort  of  a  friend  could  it  possibly  be  who'd 
give  a  girl  all  that  money?  Why,  it's 
ridiculous!" 


888 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"It  isn't  ridiculous.  Is  it,  Thor? 
You  leave  it  to  me,  mumphy." 

"But  it  is  ridiculous,  Claudie  dear. 
You'll  see  if  it  isn't.  No  man  in  the 
world  would  settle  five  thousand  dollars 
a  year  on  a  girl  like  that — without  a 
penny — unless  he  had  a  reason,  and  a 
very  good  reason,  too.  Would  he, 
Thor?"  she  demanded  of  her  stepson, 
whom  she  had  not  hitherto  included. 
She  continued  to  address  him:  "I  don't 
care  who  he  is  or  what  he  is.  Don't  you 
agree  with  me?  Wouldn't  anybody 
agree  with  me  who  had  his  senses?" 

Thor's  heart  jumped.  This  was  a 
view  of  his  intentions  that  he  had  not 
foreseen.  Fortunately  he  could  disarm 
his  stepmother  by  revealing  himself  as 
the  god  from  the  machine,  for  she  would 
consider  it  no  more  than  just  that  he 
should  use  part  of  his  inheritance  for 
Claude's  benefit.  He  might  have  made 
the  attempt  there  and  then  had  not 
Claude  done  it  for  himself. 

"Now  you  leave  it  to  me,  mumphy 
dear.  I  know  exactly  what  I'm  about. 
I  can't  explain.  But  I'll  tell  you  this 
much  more — it  '11  make  your  mind 
quite  easy — that  it's  all  on  my  account 
that  Rosie's  to  have  the  money."  He 
gave  his  brother  another  look.  "If  she 
didn't  marry  me  she  wouldn't  get  it. 
At  least,"  he  added,  more  doubtfully, 
"I  don't  think  she  would.  See?" 

Mrs.  Masterman  confessed  that  she 
didn't  see — quite;  but  her  tone  made 
it  clear  that  she  was  influenced  by 
Claude's  assurances,  while  Thor  felt  it 
prudent  to  go  on  his  way  up  the  second 
stairway. 

CHAPTER  XVII 

THERE  was  both  amazement  and 
terror  in  Rosie's  face  when,  at  dusk 
next  day,  Claude  strolled  down 
the  flowery  path  of  the  hothouse.  Since 
Thor  had  turned  from  her,  on  almost 
the  same  spot,  forty-eight  hours  pre- 
viously, no  hint  from  either  of  the 
brothers  had  come  her  way.  Through 
the  intervening  time  she  had  lived  in  an 
anguish  of  wonder.  What  was  happen- 
ing? What  was  to  happen  still?  Would 
anything  happen  at  all?  Had  Claude 
discovered  the  astounding  fact  that  the 
elder  brother  was  in  love  with  her? 


If  he  had,  what  would  he  do?  Would  he 
go  wild  with  jealousy?  Or  would  he 
never  have  anything  to  do  with  her 
again?  Either  case  was  possible,  and 
the  latter  more  than  possible  if  he  had 
received  a  hint  of  the  degree  in  which 
she  had  betrayed  herself  to  Thor. 

As  to  that,  she  didn't  know  whether 
she  was  glad  or  sorry.  She  knew  how 
crude  had  been  her  self-revelation,  and 
how  shocking;  but  the  memory  of  it 
gave  her  a  measure  of  relief.  It  was  like 
a  general  confession,  like  the  open 
declaration  of  what  had  been  too  long 
kept  buried  in  the  heart.  It  had  been 
a  shameful  thing  to  own  that,  loving 
one  man,  she  would  have  married  an- 
other man  for  money;  but  a  worse 
shame  lay  in  being  driven  to  that  pass. 
For  this  she  felt  herself  but  partly  re- 
sponsible, if  responsible  at  'all.  What 
did  she,  Rosie  Fay,  care  for  money  in 
itself?  Put  succinctly,  her  first  need  was 
of  bread,  of  bread  for  herself  and  for 
those  who  were  virtually  dependent  on 
her.  After  bread  she  wanted  love  and 
pleasure  and  action  and  admiration  and 
whatever  else  made  up  life — but  only 
after  it.  She  was  craving  for  them,  she 
was  stifling  for  lack  of  them,  but  they 
were  all  secondary.  The  very  best  of 
them  was  secondary.  Only  one  thing 
stood  first — and  that  was  bread. 

Undoubtedly  her  frankness  had  re- 
volted Thor  Masterman.  But  what  did 
he  know  of  an  existence  which  left  the 
barest  possible  margin  for  absolute 
necessity?  What  would  life  have  meant 
to  him  had  he  never  had  a  day  since  he 
first  began  to  think  when  he  had  been 
entirely  free  from  anxiety  as  to  the  prime 
essentials?  Rosie  couldn't  remember  a 
time  when  the  mere  getting  of  their 
pinched  daily  food  hadn't  been  a  matter 
of  contrivance,  with  some  doubt  as  to 
its  success.  She  couldn't  remember  a 
time  when  she  had  ever  been  able  to 
have  a  new  dress  or  a  pair  of  boots 
without  long  calculation  beforehand. 
On  the  other  hand,  she  remembered 
many  a  time  when  the  pinched  food 
couldn't  be  paid  for,  and  the  new  dress  or 
the  pair  of  boots  had  come  almost 
within  reach,  only  to  be  whisked  aside 
that  the  money  might  be  used  for  some- 
thing still  more  needful.  In  a  world  of 
freedom  and  light  and  flowers  and  abun- 


THE  SIDE  OF 

dance  her  little  soul  had  been  kept  in  a 
prison  where  the  very  dole  of  bread  and 
water  were  stinted. 

She  had  never  been  young.  Even  in 
childhood  she  had  known  that.  She 
had  known  it,  and  been  patient  with  the 
fact,  hoping  for  a  chance  to  be  young 
when  she  was  older.  If  money  came  in 
then,  money  for  boots  and  bread,  for 
warm  clothes  in  winter  and  thin  clothes 
in  summer,  for  fuel  and  rent  and  taxes 
and  light,  and  the  pay  of  the  men,  and 
the  innumerable  details  which,  owing  to 
her  father's  dreaminess,  she  was  obliged 
to  keep  on  her  mind — if  money  were 
ever  to  come  in  for  these  things,  she 
could  be  young  with  the  best.  She  could 
be  young  with  the  intenser  happiness 
that  would  come  from  spirits  long 
thwarted.  It  might  never  now  be  a 
light-hearted  happiness,  but  it  would  be 
happiness  for  all  that.  It  would  be  the 
deeper,  and  the  more  satisfying,  and  the 
more  aware  of  itself,  for  its  years  of 
suppression. 

To  her  long  experience  in  denial 
Rosie  could  only  oppose  a  heart  more 
imperiously  exacting  in  its  demands. 
Her  tense  little  spirit  didn't  know 
how  to  do  otherwise.  From  lines  of 
ancestry  that  had  never  done  any- 
thing but  toil  with  patient  relentless- 
ness  to  wring  from  the  soil  what- 
ever it  was  capable  of  yielding,  she 
had  inherited  no  habit  of  compro- 
mise. In  them  it  had  been  called  grit; 
but  a  softer  generation  having  let  that 
word  fall  into  disuse,  Rosie  could  only 
account  for  herself  by  saying  she  "wasn't 
a  quitter."  She  meant  that  she  could 
neither  forego  what  she  asked  for,  nor 
be  content  with  anything  short  of  what 
she  conceived  to  be  the  best.  Could 
she  have  done  that,  she  might  have  en- 
joyed the  meager  "good  time"  of  other 
girls  in  the  village;  she  might  have  lis- 
tened to  the  advances  of  young  Breen 
the  gardener,  or  of  Matt's  colleague  in 
the  grocery-store.  But  she  had  never 
presented  such  possibilities  for  her  own 
consideration.  She  was  like  an  ant,  that 
sees  but  one  object  to  the  errand  on 
which  it  has  set  out,  disdaining  diver- 
sion. 

And  if  it  had  all  summed  itself  up 
into  what  looked  like  a  hard,  unlove- 
ly avariciousness,  it  was  because  poor 


THE  ANGELS  889 

Rosie  had  nothing  to  tell  her  the  values 
and  co-relations  of  the  different  ingredi- 
ents in  life.  For  the  element  that  suf- 
fuses good-fortune  and  ill-fortune  alike 
with  corrective  significance  she  had  im- 
bibed from  her  mother  one  kind  of 
scorn,  and  from  her  father  another. 
She  knew  no  more  of  it  than  did  Thor 
Masterman.  Like  him,  she  could  only 
work  for  a  material  blessing  with  mate- 
rial hands,  though  without  his  advan- 
tages for  molding  things  to  his  will.  He 
had  his  advantages  through  money. 
Since  all  things  material  are  measured 
by  that,  by  that  Rosie  measured  them. 
The  matter  and  the  measure  were  all 
she  knew.  They  meant  safety  for  her- 
self and  for  her  parents,  and  protection 
for  Matt  when  he  came  out  of  jail.  How 
could  she  do  other  than  spend  her  heart 
upon  them?  What  choice  had  she  when 
the  alternative  lay  between  Claude  and 
love  on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other 
Thor,  with  his  hands  full  of  daily  bread 
for  them  all?  With  Claude  and  his  love 
there  went  nothing  besides,  while  with 
Thor  and  his  daily  bread  there  would  be 
peace  and  security  for  life.  She  asked 
it  of  herself;  she  asked  it,  in  imagina- 
tion, of  him.  What  else  could  she  do 
but  sell  herself  when  the  price  on  her 
poor  little  body  had  been  set  so  high? 

She  had  spent  two  burning,  rebellious 
days.  All  the  while  she  was  cooking 
meals,  or  setting  tables,  or  washing 
dishes,  or  making  beds,  or  selling  flow- 
ers, or  pruning,  or  watering,  or  address- 
ing envelopes  for  the  monthly  bills,  her 
soul  had  been  raging  against  the  unjust 
code  by  which  she  would  have  to  be 
judged.  Thor  would  judge  her;  Claude 
would  judge  her,  if  he  knew;  any  one 
who  knew  would  judge  her,  and  women 
most  fiercely  of  all.  But  what  did  they 
know  about  it?  What  did  they  know 
of  twenty-odd  years  of  going  round  in 
a  cage?  What  did  they  know  of  the 
terror  of  seeing  the  cage  itself  demol- 
ished, and  being  without  a  protection  ? 
Did  they  suppose  she  wouldn't  suffer  in 
giving  up  her  love?  Of  course  she  would 
suffer!  The  very  extremity  of  her  suf- 
fering would  prove  the  extremity  of  her 
need.  Passionately  Rosie  defended  her- 
self against  her  imaginary  accusers, 
because  unconsciously  she  accused  her- 
self. 


890 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Nevertheless,  Claude's  sudden  ap- 
pearance startled  her,  though  the  set  of 
his  shoulders  towering  through  the  dusk 
transported  her  to  the  enchanted  land. 
Here  were  mountains,  and  lakes,  and 
palaces,  and  plashed  marble  steps,  and 
the  music  of  lutes,  and  banquets  of 
ambrosial  things  to  which  daily  bread 
was  as  nothing.  Claude  brought  them 
with  him.  They  were  the  conditions  of 
that  glorious  life  in  which  he  had  his 
being.  They  were  the  conditions  in 
which  she  had  her  being,  too,  the  minute 
she  came  within  his  sphere. 

She  passed  through  some  poignant 
seconds  as  he  approached.  For  the  first 
time  since  her  idyl  had  begun  to  give 
a  new  meaning  to  existence  she  perceived 
that  if  he  renounced  her  it  would  be  the 
one  thing  she  couldn't  bear.  She  might 
have  the  strength  to  give  him  up;  for  him 
to  give  her  up  would  be  beyond  all  the 
limits  of  endurance.  She  put  it  to  her- 
self tersely  in  saying  it  would  break  her 
heart. 

But  he  dispelled  her  fears  by  smiling. 
He  smiled  from  what  was  really  a  long 
way  off*.  Even  she  could  see  that  he 
smiled  from  pleasure,  though  she 
couldn't  trace  his  pleasure  to  his  deli- 
cious feeling  of  surprise.  If  she  had 
ceased  to  be  a  dryad  in  a  wood,  it  was  to 
become  the  Armida  of  an  enchanted 
garden.  She  could  have  no  idea  of  the 
figure  she  presented  to  a  connoisseur  in 
girls  as  from  a  background  of  palms, 
fern-trees,  and  banked  masses  of  bloom 
she  stared  at  him  with  lips  half  parted 
and  wide,  frightened  eyes. 

Submitting  to  this  new  witchery  in 
the  same  way  as  he  was  yielding  to  the 
heavy,  languorous  perfumes  of  the  place, 
Claude  smiled  continuously.  "The 
fat's  all  in  the  fire,  Rosie,"  he  said,  in  a 
loud  whisper,  as  he  drew  nearer;  "so 
we've  nothing  to  be  afraid  of  any 
longer." 

It  was  some  minutes  before  she  could 
give  concrete  significance  to  these  words. 
In  the  mean  time  she  occupied  herself 
with  assuring  him  that  there  was  no  one 
in  the  hothouse  but  herself,  and  that  in 
this  gloaming  they  could  not  be  seen 
from  outside.  She  even  found  a  spot — 
a  kind  of  low  staging  from  which  foliage 
plants  had  recently  been  moved  away — 
on  which  they  could  sit  down.  They 


did  so,  clinging  to  each  other,  though — 
conscious  of  her  coarse  working-dress — 
she  was  swept  by  a  shameful  sense  of 
incongruity  in  being  on  such  terms  with 
this  faultlessly  attired  man.  She  did 
her  best  to  shrink  from  sight,  to  blot 
herself  out  in  his  embrace,  unaware  that 
to  Claude  the  very  roughness,  and  the 
scent  of  growing  things,  gave  her  a  sav- 
age, earthy  charm. 

He  explained  the  situation  to  her, 
word  by  word.  When  he  told  her  that 
their  meetings  were  known  to  his  father, 
she  hid  her  face  on  his  breast.  When  he 
went  on  to  describe  how  resolute  he 
had  been  in  taking  the  bull  by  the  horns, 
she  put  her  hands  on  his  shoulders  and 
looked  up  into  his  face  with  the  devo- 
tion of  a  dog.  On  hearing  what  a 
good  mother  Mrs.  Masterman  had 
been,  her  utterances,  which  welled  up 
out  of  her  heart  as  if  she  had  been  cry- 
ing, were  like  broken  phrases  of  blessing. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  was  only  half 
listening.  She  was  telling  herself  how 
mad  she  had  been  in  fancying  for  an 
instant  that  she  could  ever  have  married 
Thor — that  she  could  ever  have  married 
any  one,  no  matter  how  great  the  need 
or  how  immense  the  compensation.  Hav- 
ing confronted  the  peril,  she  knew  now, 
as  she  had  not  known  it  hitherto,  that 
her  heart  belonged  to  this  man  who  held 
her  in  his  arms  for  him  to  do  with  it  as 
he  pleased.  He  might  treasure  it,  or  he 
might  play  with  it,  or  he  might  break  it. 
It  was  all  one.  It  was  his.  It  was  his 
and  she  was  his — to  shatter  on  the  wheel 
or  to  trample  in  the  mire,  just  as  he  was 
inclined.  It  was  so  clear  to  her  now  that 
she  wondered  she  hadn't  seen  it  with 
equal  force  in  those  days  when  she  was 
so.  resolute  in  declaring  that  she  "knew 
what  she  was  doing." 

And  yet  within  a  few  minutes  she  saw 
how  difficult  it  was  to  surrender  herself, 
even  mentally,  without  reserves.  She 
was  still  listening  but  partially.  She 
recognized  plainly  enough  that  the 
things  he  was  saying  were  precisely 
those  which  a  month  ago  would  have 
filled  her  soul  with  satisfaction.  He 
loved  her,  loved  her,  loved  her.  More- 
over, he  had  found  the  means  of  sweep- 
ing all  obstacles  aside.  They  were  to 
be  married  as  soon  as  possible — just  as 
soon   as   he   could   "arrange  things." 


THE  SIDE  OF 

Thor  and  his  mother  were  with  them, 
and  his  father's  conversion  would  be 
only  a  matter  of  time.  These  assurances, 
by  which  all  the  calculations  of  her 
youth  were  crowned,  found  her  oddly 
apathetic.  It  was  not  because  she  had 
lost  the  knowledge  of  their  value,  but 
only  that  they  had  become  subsidiary  to 
the  great  central  fact  that  she  was  his — 
without  money  or  price  on  his  side,  and 
no  matter  at  what  cost  on  hers. 

It  was  only  when  he  began  to  murmur 
semi-coherent  plans  for  the  future,  in 
which  she  detected  the  word  Paris,  that 
she  was  frightened. 

"Oh,  but,  Claude  darling,  how  could 
I  go  to  Paris  when  there's  so  much  for 
me  to  do  here?" 

It  could  not  be  said  that  he  took 
offense,  but  he  hinted  at  reproval. 
"Here,  dearest?  Where?" 

"Here  where  we  are.  I  don't  see  how 
I  could  go  away." 

"But  you'd  have  to  go  away — if  we 
were  married." 

"Would  it  be  necessary  to  go  so  far?" 

"Wouldn't  it  be  the  farther  the  bet- 
ter?" 

"For  some  things.  But,  oh,  Claude, 
I  have  so  many  things  to  consider!" 

"But  I  thought  that  when  a  woman 
married  she  left — " 

"Her  father  and  mother  and  every- 
thing. Yes,  I  know.  But  how  can  I 
leave  mine — when  I'm  the  only  one  who 
has  any  head  ?  Mother's  getting  better, 
but  father's  not  much  good  except  for 
mooning  over  books.  And  then" — she 
hesitated,  but  whipped  herself  on — 
"then  there's  Matt.  He'll  be  out  before 
long.  Some  one  must  be  here  to  tell 
them  what  to  do." 

He  withdrew  his  arms  from  about  her. 
"Of  course,  if  you're  going  to  raise  so 
many  difficulties — " 

"I'm  not  raising  difficulties,  Claude 
darling.  I'm  only  telling  you  what  diffi- 
culties there  are.  God  knows  I  wish 
there  weren't  any;  but  what  can  I  do? 
If  it  were  just  going  to  Paris  and  back — " 

"Well,  why  not  go — and  come  back 
when  we're  obliged  to?" 

In  the  end  they  compromised  on  that, 
each  considering  it  enough  for  the  pres- 
ent. Rosie  was  unwilling  to  dampen  his 
ardor  when  for  the  first  time  he  seemed 
able  to  enter  into  her  needs  as  a  human 


THE  ANGELS  891 

being  with  cares  and  ties.  He  discussed 
them  all,  displaying  a  wonderful  disposi- 
tion to  shoulder  and  share  them.  He 
went  so  far  as  to  develop  a  philanthropic 
interest  in  Matt.  Rosie  had  never 
known  anything  so  amazing.  She 
clasped  him  to  her  with  a  kind  of  fear 
lest  the  man  should  disappear  in  the  god. 

"I'll  talk  to  Thor  about  him,"  Claude 
said,  confidently.  "Got  a  bee  in  his 
bonnet,  Thor  has,  about  helping  chaps 
who  come  out  of  jail,  and  all  that." 

Rosie  shuddered.  It  was  curiously 
distasteful  for  her  to  apply  to  Thor. 
She  felt  guilty  toward  him.  If  she  could 
do  as  she  chose,  she  would  never  see  him 
again.  She  said  nothing,  however,  while 
Claude  went  on:  "Thor's  a  top-hole 
brother,  you  know.  You'll  find  that  out 
one  of  these  days.  Lots  of  things  I  shall 
have  to  explain  to  you."  He  added, 
without  leading  up  to  it.  "He's  engaged 
to  Lois  Willoughby." 

Rosie  sprang  from  his  arms.  "What? 
Already?" 

She  was  standing.  He  looked  up  at 
her  curiously.  "Already?  Already — 
how?   What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

She  tried  to  recapture  her  position. 

"Why,  already — right  after  us." 

She  reseated  herself,  getting  possession 
of  one  of  his  hands.  To  this  tenderness 
he  made  no  response.  He  seemed  to 
ruminate.  "Say,  Rosie — "  he  began  at 
last,  but  apparently  thought  better  of 
what  he  had  meant  to  say.  "All  right," 
he  broke  in,  carelessly,  going  on  to  speak 
of  the  wisdom  of  leaving  the  public  out 
of  their  confidence  until  their  plans  were 
more  fully  matured.  "Thor's  to  be 
married  about  the  twentieth  of  next 
month,"  he  continued,  while  Rosie  was 
on  her  guard  against  further  self  -  be- 
trayal. "After  that  we'll  have  Lois  on 
our  side,  and  she'll  do  a  lot  for  us." 

By  the  time  Claude  emerged  from  the 
hothouse  it  was  dark.  Glad  of  the  op- 
portunity of  slipping  away  unobserved, 
he  was  hurrying  toward  the  road  when 
he  found  himself  confronted  by  Jasper 
Fay.  In  the  latter's  voice  there  was  a 
sternness  that  got  its  force  from  the  fact 
that  it  was  so  mild. 

"You  been  in  the  hothouse,  Mr. 
Claude  ?" 

Claude  laughed.  In  his  present  mood 
of  happiness  he  could  easily  have  an- 


892 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


nounced  himself  as  Fay's  future  son-in- 
law.  Nothing  but  motives  of  prudence 
held  him  back.  He  answered,  jestingly, 
"Been  in  to  see  if  you  had  any  American 
beauties." 

"No,  Mr.  Claude;  we  don't  grow 
them;  no  kind  of  American  beauties." 

Claude  laughed  again.  "Oh,  I  don't 
know  about  that.  Good-night,  Mr. 
Fay.    Glad  to  have  seen  you." 

He  passed  on  with  spirits  slightly 
dashed  because  his  condescension  met 
with  no  response.  He  was  so  quick  to 
feel  that  Fay's  silence  struck  him  as 
hostile.  It  struck  him  as  hostile  with 
a  touch  of  uncanniness.  On  glancing 
back  over  his  shoulder  he  saw  that  Fay 
was  following  him  watchfully,  like  a  dog 
that  sneaks  after  an  intruder  till  he  has 
left  the  premises.  Being  sensitive  to  the 
creepy  and  the  sinister,  Claude  was  glad 
when  he  had  reached  the  road. 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  provision  that  for  the  moment 
he  was  to  lead  his  customary  life 
and  Rosie  hers  made  it  possible 
for  Claude  to  attend  the  ball  by  which 
Mrs.  Darling  drew  the  notice  of  the 
world  to  her  daughter.  He  did  so  with 
hesitations,  compunctions,  reluctances, 
and  repugnances  which  in  no  wise  dimin- 
ished his  desire  to  be  present  at  the 
event. 

It  took  place  in  the  great  circular  ball- 
room of  the  city's  newest  and  most 
splendid  hotel.  The  ball-room  itself  was 
white  -  and  -  gold  and  Louis  Quinze. 
Against  this  background  a  tasteful  deco- 
rator had  constructed  a  colonnade  that 
reproduced  in  flowers  the  exquisite  mar- 
ble circle  of  the  Bosquet  at  Versailles. 
An  imitation  of  Girardon's  fountain 
splashed  in  the  center  of  the  room  and 
cooled  the  air. 

Claude  arrived  late.  He  did  so  partly 
to  compromise  with  his  compunctions 
and  partly  to  accentuate  his  value.  In 
gatherings  at  which  young  men  were 
sometimes  at  a  premium  none  knew  bet- 
ter than  he  the  heightened  worth  of  one 
who  sauntered  in  when  no  more  were 
to  be  looked  for,  and  who  carried  himself 
with  distinction.  Handsome  at  any 
time,  Claude  rose  above  his  own  levels 
when  he  was  in  evening  dress.    His  fig- 


ure was  made  for  a  white  waistcoat,  his 
feet  for  dancing-pumps.  Moreover,  he 
knew  how  to  enter  a  room  with  that 
modesty  which  prompts  a  hostess  to  be 
encouraging.  As  he  stood  rather  timidly 
in  the  doorway,  long  after  the  little  re- 
ceiving group  had  broken  up,  Mrs. 
Darling  said  to  herself  that  she  had 
never  seen  a  more  attractive  young  man 
— whoever  he  was ! 

She  was  glad  afterward  that  she  had 
made  this  reservation,  for  without  it  she 
might  have  been  prejudiced  against  him 
on  learning  that  he  was  Archie  Master- 
man's  son.  As  it  was,  she  could  feel  that 
the  sins  of  the  fathers  were  not  to  be 
visited  on  the  children,  especially  in  the 
case  of  so  delightful  a  lad.  Mrs.  Darling 
had  an  eye  for  masculine  good  looks, 
particularly  when  they  were  accompa- 
nied by  a  suggestion  of  the  thoroughbred. 
Claude's  very  shyness — the  gentleman- 
ly hesitation  which  on  the  threshold 
of  a  ball-room  has  no  dandified  airs 
of  seeming  too  much  at  ease — had  this 
suggestion  of  the  thoroughbred.  Mrs. 
Darling,  dragging  a  long,  pink  train  and 
waving  slowly  a  bespangled  pink  fan, 
moved  toward  him  at  once. 

"How  d'w  do?  So  glad  to  see  you! 
I'm  afraid  my  daughter  is  dancing." 

There  was  something  in  her  manner 
that  told  him  she  had  no  idea  who  he 
was — something  that  could  be  combined 
with  polite  welcome  only  by  one  born  to 
be  a  hostess. 

Claude  had  that  ready  perception  of 
his  role  which  makes  for  social  success. 
He  bowed  with  the  right  inclination,  and 
spoke  with  a  gravity  dictated  by  respect. 
"I'm  afraid  I  must  introduce  myself, 
Mrs.  Darling.  I'm  so  late.  I'm  Claude 
Masterman.    My  father  is — " 

"Oh,  they're  here!  So  lovely  your 
mother  looks!  Really  there's  not  a 
young  girl  in  the  room  can  touch  her. 
Won't  you  find  some  one  and  dance? 
I'm  sorry  my  daughter —  But  later  on 
I'll  find  her  and  intro —  Why,  Maidie, 
there  you  are!  I  thought  you'd  never 
come.    How  d'w  do,  dear?" 

A  more  important  guest  than  himself 
being  greeted,  Claude  felt  at  liberty  to 
move  on  a  pace  or  two  and  look  over  the 
scene.  It  was  easy  to  do  this,  for  the 
outer  rim  of  the  circle,  that  which  came 
beneath  the  colonnade,  was  raised  by 


Shawn  by  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green 

SHE    HAD    BECOME    THE    ARMIDA    OF    AN    ENCHANTED  GARDEN 


THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS 


893 


two  steps  above  the  space  reserved  for 
dancing.  The  coup  d'ceil  was  therefore 
extensive. 

A  mass  of  color,  pleasing  and  con- 
fused, revolved  languorously  to  those 
strains  of  the  Viennese  operetta  in  which 
the  waltz  might  be  said  to  have  fin- 
ished the  autocracy  of  its  long  reign. 
The  rhythm  of  the  dancers  was  as  regu- 
lar and  gentle  as  the  breathing  of  a 
child.  In  glide  and  turn,  in  balance  and 
smoothness,  in  that  lift  which  was 
scarcely  motion,  there  was  the  sugges- 
tion of  frenzy  restrained,  of  passion 
lulled,  which  emanates  from  the  barely 
perceptible  heave  of  a  slumbering  sum- 
mer sea.  It  was  dreamy  to  a  charm;  it 
was  graceful  to  the  point  at  which  the 
eye  begins  to  sicken  of  gracefulness;  it 
was  monotonous  with  the  force  of  a 
necromantic  spell.  It  was  soothing; 
it  also  threw  a  hint  of  melancholy 
into  a  gathering  intended  to  be  gay.  It 
was  as  though  all  that  was  most  senti- 
mentally lovely  in  the  essence  of  the 
nineteenth  century  had  concentrated  its 
strength  to  subdue  the  daring  spirit  of 
the  twentieth,  winning  a  decade  of  suc- 
cess. Now,  however,  that  the  decade 
was  past,  there  were  indications  of  re- 
volt. On  the  arc  of  the  circle  most  re- 
mote from  the  eye  of  the  hostess  auda- 
cious couples  were  giving  way  to  bizarre 
little  dips  and  kicks  and  attitudes, 
named  by  outlandish  names,  inaugurat- 
ing a  new  freedom. 

Claude  stood  alone  beneath  one  of  the 
wide,  delicate  floral  arches — a  spectator 
who  was  not  afraid  of  being  observed. 
In  reality  he  was  noting  to  himself  the 
degree  to  which  he  had  passed  beyond 
the  merely  pleasure-seeking  impulse.  In 
Rosie  and  Rosie' s  cares  he  had  come  to 
realities.  He  was  rather  proud  of  it. 
With  regard  to  the  young  men  and 
young  women  swirling  in  this  variegated 
whirlpool,  as  well  as  to  those  who, 
wearied  with  the  dance,  were  sitting  or 
reclining  on  the  steps,  where  rugs  and 
cushions  had  been  thrown  for  their  con- 
venience, he  felt  a  distinct  superiority. 
They  were  still  in  the  childish  stage, 
while  he  was  grown  to  be  a  man.  To 
the  pretty  girls,  with  their  Parisian  frocks 
and  their  relatively  idle  lives,  Rosie, 
with  her  power  of  tackling  actualities, 
was  as  a  human  being  to  a  race  of 

Vol.  CXXXI— No.  786.— Ill 


marionettes.  It  would  be  necessary  for 
him,  in  deference  to  his  hosts,  to  step 
down  among  them  in  a  minute  or  two 
and  twirl  in  their  company;  but  he 
would  do  it  with  a  certain  pity  for  those 
to  whom  this  sort  of  thing  was  really  a 
pastime;  he  would  do  it  as  one  for  whom 
pastimes  had  lost  their  meaning  and 
who  would  be  in  some  sense  taking  a 
farewell. 

The  music  breathed  out  its  last  drowsy 
cadence,  and  the  whirlpool  resolved  itself 
into  a  series  of  shimmering,  subsidiary 
eddies.  There  was  a  decentralizing 
movement  toward  the  rugs  and  cush- 
ions on  the  steps,  or  to  the  seclusion  of 
seats  skilfully  embowered  amid  groups 
of  palms.  Dowagers  sought  the  rose- 
colored  settees  against  the  walls.  Gen- 
tlemen, clasping  their  white  -  gloved 
hands  at  the  base  of  their  spinal  columns, 
bent  in  graceful  conversational  postures. 
A  few  pairs  of  attractive  young  people 
continued  to  pace  the  floor.  Claude  re- 
mained where  he  was.  He  remained 
where  he  was  partly  because  he  hadn't 
decided  what  else  to  do,  and  partly  be- 
cause his  quick  eye  had  singled  out  the 
one  girl  in  the  room  who  embodied  some- 
thing that  was  not  embodied  by  every 
other  girl. 

When  first  he  saw  her  she  was  stand- 
ing beside  the  Girardon  fountain  in  con- 
versation with  a  young  man.  The  fact 
that  the  young  man  was  his  friend  Chee- 
ver  brought  her  directly  within  Claude's 
circle  and  stirred  that  spirit  of  emulation 
which  five  minutes  earlier  he  thought  he 
had  outlived.  The  girl  was  adjusting 
something  in  her  corsage,  her  glance  fly- 
ing upward  from  the  action  of  her  fingers 
toward  Cheever's  face,  not  shyly  or 
coquettishly,  but  with  a  perfectly 
straightforward  nonchalance  which 
might  have  meant  anything  from  indif- 
ference to  defiance. 

Claude  knew  the  precise  moment  at 
which  she  noticed  him  by  the  fact  that 
she  glanced  toward  him  twice  in  rapid 
succession,  after  which  Cheever  glanced 
toward  him,  too.  He  understood  then 
that  she  had  been  sufficiently  struck 
by  him  to  ask  his  name,  and  judged 
that  Billy  would  treat  him  to  some 
such  pardonable  epithet  as  "awful 
ass,"  in  order  to  keep  her  attention  on 
himself.    In  this  apparently  he  didn't 


894 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


succeed,  for  presently  they  began  to 
saunter  in  Claude's  direction.  The  lat- 
ter stood  his  ground. 

In  the  knowledge  that  he  could  endure 
scrutiny,  he  stood  his  ground  with  an 
ease  that  plainly  roused  the  young  lady's 
interest.  With  her  hand  on  the  arm  of 
her  cavalier  she  sauntered  forward,  and, 
swerving  slightly,  sauntered  by.  She 
sauntered  by  with  a  lingering  look  of 
curiosity  that  seemed  to  throw  him  a 
challenge.  Never  in  his  life  had  Claude 
received  such  a  look.  It  was  perhaps 
the  characteristic  look  of  the  girl  of  the 
twentieth  century.  It  was  neither  bold 
nor  rude  nor  self-assertive,  but  it  was 
unconscious,  inquiring,  and  unabashed. 
For  Claude  it  was  a  new  experience, 
calling  out  in  him  a  new  response.  The 
response  was  like  a  sound  hitherto  un- 
recognized among  the  chords  of  his 
aeolian  harp. 

It  was  a  rule  with  Claude  never  to 
take  the  initiative  with  girls  of  his  own 
class,  or  with  those  who — because  they 
lived  in  the  city  while  he  lived  in  the 
village — felt  themselves  geographically 
his  superiors.  He  found  it  wise  policy  to 
wait  to  be  sought,  and  therefore  fell  back 
toward  his  hostess  with  compliments  for 
her  scheme  of  decoration.  He  got  the 
reward  he  hoped  for  when  Mrs.  Darling 
called  to  her  daughter,  saying: 

"Elsie  dear,  come  here.  I  want  to 
introduce  Mr.  Claude  Masterman." 

So  it  happened  that  when  the  nine- 
teenth century  was  putting  forth  a  fur- 
ther effort  with  the  swooning  phrases  of 
the  barcarolle  from  the  Contes  d'Hoff- 
mann,  adapted  to  the  Boston,  Claude 
found  himself  swaying  with  the  twentieth. 

They  had  not  much  to  say.  Whatever 
interest  they  felt  in  each  other  was 
guarded,  taciturn.  When  they  talked  it 
was  in  disjointed  sentences  on  fragmen- 
tary subjects. 

"You've  been  abroad,  haven't  you?" 

"Yes;  for  the  last  five  years." 

"Do  you  like  being  back?" 

The  answer  was  doubtful.  "Rather. 
For  some  things."  Then,  as  though  to 
explain  this  lack  of  enthusiasm,  "Every- 
body looks  alike."  She  qualified  this  by 
adding,  "You  don't." 

"Neither  do  you,"  he  stated,  in  the 
matter-of-fact  tone  which  he  felt  to  be 

[to  b  e  c 


suited  to  the  piquantly  matter-of-fact  in 
her  style. 

It  was  a  minute  or  two  before  either 
of  them  spoke  again.  "You've  got  a 
brother,  haven't  you?  My  father's  his 
guardian  or  something." 

Assenting  to  these  statements,  Claude 
said  further,  "He  couldn't  come  to- 
night because  he's  going  to  be  married 
on  Thursday." 

"To  that  Miss  Willoughby,  isn't  it?" 
A  jerky  pause  was  followed  by  a  jerky 
addition:  "I  think  she's  nice." 

"Yes,  she  is;  top-hole.  So's  my 
brother." 

She  threw  back  her  head  to  fling  him 
up  a  smile  that  struck  him  as  adorably 
straightforward.  "I  like  to  hear  one 
brother  speak  of  another  like  that.  You 
don't  often." 

"Oh,  well,  every  brother  -  couldn't, 
you  know." 

They  had  circled  and  reversed  more 
than  once  before  she  sighed:  "I  wish  I 
had  a  brother — or  a  sister.  It's  an  awful 
bore  being  the  only  one." 

"Better  to  be  the  only  one  than  one 
of  too  many." 

More  minutes  had  gone  by  in  the 
suave  swinging  of  their  steps  to  Offen- 
bach's somnolent  measures  when  she 
asked,  abruptly,  "Do  you  skate?" 

"Sometimes.    Do  you?" 

"I  go  to  the  Coliseum." 

Claude's  next  question  slipped  out 
with  the  daring  simplicity  he  knew  how 
to  employ.  "Do  you  go  on  particular 
days?" 

"I  generally  go  on  Tuesdays."  If 
she  was  moved  by  an  afterthought  it 
was  without  flurry  or  apparent  sense  of 
having  committed  an  indiscretion.  "Not 
every  Tuesday,"  she  said,  quietly,  and 
dropped  the  subject  there. 

When,  a  few  minutes  later,  she  was 
resting  on  a  rug  thrown  down  on  the 
steps,  with  Claude  posed  gracefully  by 
her  side,  Archie  Masterman  found  the 
opportunity  to  stroll  near  enough  to  his 
wife  to  say  in  an  undertone,  "Do  you 
see  Claude?" 

Ena's  answer  was  no  more  than  a 
flutter  of  the  eyelids,  but  a  flutter  of  the 
eyelids  quite  sufficient  to  take  in  the 
summing  up  of  significant,  unutterable 
things  in  her  husband's  face. 

NTINUED.] 


The  Militant  Moment  of  Lou  Grey 


BY  MADGE  J  EN  I  SON 


TAMAR  rose,  advanced 
with  a  flagging  step 
across  the  waxed  floor, 
and,  with  a  stony  ex- 
pression of  countenance 
something  like  a  tomb 
designed  to  endure  for- 
ty centuries,  invited  Lou  Grey  Morton 
to  dance.  Lou  Grey  bowed  with  a  great 
tossing  of  skirts,  and  placed  her  hand 
within  his  arm.  Her  odd  little  serious 
face  was  a  study.  They  joined  the  line 
of  other  children. 

"We  sure  did  have  a  great  time  about 
my  pink  shirt  last  year,  didn't  we?" 
Otamar  offered  his  acquisition,  glancing 
at  it  and  striving  to  make  the  most  of  it. 

Lou  Grey  assented.  The  subject  of 
shirts  died  on  the  air.  Otamar  searched 
himself  for  more  ingratiating  matter  in 
the  way  of  conversation. 

"Say,  once  I  swallowed  a  fly,"  he 
panted. 

If  he  had  been  the  dry  transparency  of 
ether,  Lou  Grey  could  not  have  surveyed 
him  more  impersonally.  Otamar's  heart 
became  ice — an  aching  ice  such  as  it 
turns  into  in  the  anteroom  of  a  den- 
tist's. Oh,  why  is  there  so  little  human- 
ity in  girls?  Why  couldn't  she  inquire 
"How  big?"  like  a  boy?  Fate  took  him 
by  the  hair. 

"Get  out  and  get  under,"  caroled  the 
music.  The  lesson  began.  Monsieur 
Alvar  Boncourt  capered  up  and  down 
the  line  of  his  junior  assembly  with  a 
snap  of  castanets.  Lou  Grey  glided  and 
pirouetted  like  a  little  silken  antelope. 
Malvina  Thompson  kicked  and  whirled, 
her  thick  bronze  braids  floating  on  the 
air,  her  thick  ankles,  encased  in  pink 
silk,  coming  and  going  in  the  scene. 
Denis  Fitzhugh  neatly  advanced  and  re- 
treated. Plum  and  Pink  tittered  at  the 
end  of  the  line,  and  nudged  each  other 
whenever  it  was  possible  to  accomplish 
this  diversion.  Otamar  returned  Lou 
Grey  to  her  seat  without  attempting  to 
resuscitate  the  stricken  conversation. 


"Guess  I'll  go  home,"  he  murmured 
to  Confucius,  his  brother,  who  had  not 
essayed  the  dance  this  time,  and  awaited 
him  under  the  lee  of  the  musician's 
stand. 

"Mother  won't  let  you,"  objected 
Confucius,  never  an  imaginative  person. 

Otamar  admitted  to  himself  that  this 
was  unquestionably  true.  His  eyes  sank 
to  his  feet.  He  did  not  want  to  look  at 
his  feet,  but  his  subconscious  mind  re- 
turned to  them  miserably.  They  were 
clad  in  a  very  handsome  pair  of  those 
shoes  known  among  elderly  gentlemen 
as  Congress  gaiters — a  present  from  his 
uncle  Eli  Random.  Uncle  Eli  was  not 
exactly  a  social  spirit.  He  had  bought 
these  shoes  for  a  wedding  six  years  be- 
fore and  never  worn  them  since.  Six 
years  is  long  enough  for  any  shoe.  At 
the  end  of  that  space  he  had  suggested 
to  his  sister-in-law  that  they  seemed 
about  Otamar's  size.  They  were  in- 
corporated into  Otamar's  wardrobe. 

Mrs.  Carpenter,  sitting  beside  Mrs. 
Morton  in  the  line  of  mothers,  explained 
fluently  as  Otamar  and  Lou  Grey 
marched  by,  her  theories  of  children's 
dress.  She  thought  their  demands  and 
tastes  should  be  kept  very  simple.  She 
thought  they  should  not  be  allowed  to 
grow  self-conscious  about  clothes. 

"I  just  buy  the  best  English  serge  by 
the  bolt  and  have  all  their  clothes  made 
at  home,"  she  informed  her  listener — 
"a  little  seamstress  who  comes  in  by  the 
day.  Yes,  and  in  the  summer  they  all 
wear  overalls.  Angelica  France  is  fitted 
out  with  what  is  handed  down  from 
Otamar  and  Confucius.  If  the  two  eld- 
est had  been  girls  and  the  youngest  a 
boy,  I  should  have  dressed  him  in  girl's 
clothes.  I  am  trying  to  keep  their  out- 
look simple  as  long  as  I  can." 

Nancy  Morton  glanced  at  Mrs.  Lever- 
ing Carpenter,  herself  dressed  to  the 
lines  in  pale-blue  embroidered  with  cut 
steel,  and  a  gray  Velasquez  hat  drawn 
level  with  her  clear,  elegant  brows. 


896 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"  Simple !"  she  commented  to  herself, 
hotly.    "I  think  it's  monstrous." 

Mrs.  Levering  Carpenter  was  one  of 
those  ladies  who  are  dominated  by  that 
bright  turbulence  of  the  blood  which  we 
know  as  temperament.  She  was  beau- 
tiful, witty,  gifted,  volatile,  and  inclined 
to  make  ideas  amuse  her.  She  liked 
modeling  one  year,  doing  Woman's 
Trade  Union  League  and  strikes  the 
next,  and  courses  at  the  university  on 
how  to  write  a  play  the  year  after.  She 
liked  riding  fast  and  late,  and  strolling 
into  her  lovely  drawing-room  half  an 
hour  after  all  her  guests  had  arrived  for 
a  luncheon  or  dinner,  to  toss  her  gloves 
on  the  piano  and  go  out  to  table  without 
taking  offherhat.  Such  antics  she  relieved 
by  the  gaiety  of  her  discourse  and  the 
superiority  of  that  same  modeling,  of 
those  same  hats,  rooms,  dinners,  and 
plays.  The  plays  always  had  a  fawn  in 
them,  vine  leaves,  a  leopard-skin,  and  a 
speech  that  told  you  a  few  things  about 
love.  They  were  innocent  enough;  they 
helped  Ferry  Road  to  amuse  itself  with- 
out going  into  the  divorce  courts,  but 
when  they  dealt  with  life  stufF  they  be- 
came more  questionable.  Otamar  and 
Confucius  had  suffered  torments  of 
shame  from  their  names  alone.  They 


had  had  every  sort  of  experiment  tried 
on  them.  They  had  been  fed  upon  nuts. 
They  had  done  hot  plunge,  cold  plunge, 
dry  rub.  Mrs.  Carpenter  always  said 
that  she  intended  to  bring  them  both  up 
as  plumbers.  She  knew  the  profes- 
sions, she  said,  and  what  they  were. 
Plumbing  for  Otamar  and  Confucius! 
It  was  highly  improbable  that  they 
would  be  plumbers.  But  the  clumsy, 
abashed,  sensitive  boys  had  suffered 
torments  of  shame  from  her  experiments 
on  them. 

They  had  sat  darkly  watching  the 
other  fellows  scud  for  Malvina.  Malvina 
was  a  bouncing  person  in  pink  satin  with 
swansdown  on  the  bottom  of  it.  She 
was  the  belle  of  the  class.  The  world 
belongs  to  the  young  lady  who  is  easy 
socially  whatever  her  outlines  and  taste 
in  dress  may  be.  Denis'  Fitzhugh 
scudded  by  for  Genevieve  Stacey. 

"Come  along,  Chinese,"  he  tossed 
back  to  Otamar  as  he  darted  in  front  of 
Plum. 

"Select  a  young  lady,  Master  Ran- 
dom," chirped  Monsieur  Boncourt  in 
passing.  Otamar  rose  and  selected  Lou 
Grey.  He  selected  Lou  Grey  because 
she  was  clever.  He  knew  that  she  was 
the  cleverest  little  girl  on  Ferry  Road. 


MRS.  CARPENTER  EXPLAINED  FLUENTLY  HER  THEORIES  OF  CHILDREN'S  DRESS 


There  was,  besides,  a  deep  persistence 
in  the  boy  which  was  some  day  to  make 
him  as  good  a  man  as  his  father,  the 
famous  surgeon.  Lou  Grey  was  consid- 
ering the  little  cut  buckles  on  her  slip- 
pers with  gratification.  Otamar  slapped 
his  heels  together  and  jerked  himself 
suddenly  forward  from  the  hips  in  front 
of  her  chair.  Lou  Grey  lifted  her  sweet- 
meat of  a  nose  just  a  hair  and  shook  her 
head.  Otamar  stared  at  her.  He  had 
no  "appreciative  mass"  for  a  rebuff  of 
such  decision.  It  was  not  done  in  the 
junior  assembly  of  Ferry  Road.  He 
rapped  his  heels  together  more  emphat- 
ically. With  a  look  to  chill  steel,  Lou 
Grey  repeated  her  regrets.  Otamar  re- 
treated, gasping,  his  freckles  standing 
out,  his  ears  aflame. 

Nancy  Morton,  across  the  room  in  the 
line  of  mothers,  half  rose  in  her  chair. 
Her  astounded  gaze,  under  which  this 
scene  had  happened  to  enact  itself,  came 


to  her  neighbor.  But  Mrs.  Levering 
Carpenter  was  not  remarking  the  two 
sweet  lambs.  She  was  telling  Eleanor 
Quinn  that  of  course  Matisse  is  always 
experimental — it  is  a  constant  attempt 
to  get  away  from  mere  presentment. 
Nancy  Morton  dropped  back  in  her 
chair.  She  did  not  interview  Lou  Grey 
on  the  question  of  urbanity  in  social 
intercourse  until  the  latter  was  curled  up 
against  her  arm  on  the  way  home. 

"I  didn't  wa-a-ant  to  dance  with  him, 
mother,"  returned  Lou  Grey  uneasily 
when  the  matter  of  Otamar  was 
broached. 

"But  why  not,  dear?"  asked  Nancy 
Morton,  drawing  her  daughter  up  a  little 
closer. 

"Oh,  mo-o-other,  he  is  so-o-o-o  ugly, 
and  he  has  such  awful  sho-o-oes,"  wailed 
Lou  Grey,  succumbing  suddenly  to  the 
nervous  strain  of  her  adventure. 

Nancy  Morton  suppressed  a  human 


898 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


smile  and  remained  a  mother.  She  pre- 
pared to  rear  a  more  catholic  sympathy 
in  her  child. 

"But,  dear,  of  course  you  must  dance 
with  Otamar  even  if  he  has  funny  shoes. 
His  father  and  mother  are  family  friends, 
and  he  will  probably  be  one  of  your 
friends  always.  And,  besides,  dear,  it 
isn't  the  kind  of  shoes  a  little  boy  wears; 
it  is  the  kind  of — of — ah — of  little  boy 
he  is — yes.  It  is  very  kind  of  Otamar  to 
ask  you,  I  am  sure." 

Lou  Grey's  eyelids  hung  at  half-mast. 
But  her  face  assumed  an  expression 
which  Mrs.  Morton  knew  well.  This 
expression  Nancy  Morton  always  char- 
acterized as  "just  like  her  father."  She 
knew  herself  to  be  confronted  by  neither 
defiance  nor  battle,  but  siege.  She  pro- 
duced her  big  guns. 

"Lou  Grey,  do  not  let  me  have  to 
speak  of  this  again,"  she  said,  decisively. 
"You  are  never  again  to  refuse  to  dance 
with  either  Otamar  or  Confucius.  Re- 
member what  mother  says.  Whenever 
either  Otamar  or  Confucius  Carpenter 
ask  you  to  dance  with  them,  you  are  to 
dance  with  them.  Do  you  understand 
mother?  You  are  never  again  to  refuse 
to  dance  with  either  Otamar  or  Confu- 
cius." She  had  the  manner  of  setting 
Lou  Grey  down  upon  eternal  granite 
with  an  emphasis  to  make  that  small 
person's  teeth  rattle. 

The  closing  assembly  of  Mr.  Alvar 
Boncourt's  junior  class  the  following 
week  was,  as  everybody  said,  utterly 
charming.  Lou  Grey,  it  appeared,  was 
more  utterly  charming  than  any  of  the 
rest  of  it.  Her  elders  said  so.  "Extraor- 
dinary "rattled  about  her  like  hail.  Lou 
Grey  had  herself  burst  into  a  howl  of 
dismay  when  she  confronted  in  her  moth- 
er's pier-glass  a  reflection  of  the  latest 
thing  in  children  from  the  Rue  Capucines. 

"Oh,  I  wish  my  aunt  hadn't  never 
gone  to  Paris!"  had  been  her  comment 
on  that  city  of  revolutions.  The  judg- 
ment of  her  peers  was  with  her.  They 
stood  about  the  dressing-room  contem- 
plating her  with  their  fingers  in  their 
mouths. 

Otamar  watched  her  from  afar  across 
the  ball-room.  He  had  never  seen  any 
one  look  so  queer  except  himself  and 
Confucius  and  Angelica  France.   A  com- 


munity of  misery  seemed  established 
between  Lou  Grey  and  himself.  Perhaps 
it  was  an  impulse  of  gallantry,  or  per- 
haps he  saw  a  weakness  in  the  enemy's 
wall.  Mrs.  Morton,  following  him 
vaguely,  cleaving  space  across  the  ball- 
room, saw  him  obeisant  before  Lou 
Grey.  Lou  Grey's  nerves  were  undoubt- 
edly shaken.  She  appeared  to  speak. 
Mrs.  Morton  saw  him  recoil  as  from  the 
shock  of  an  exploding  shell.  He  literally 
bounded  into  the  void  of  the  gleaming 
floor,  purple  to  the  gills.  Mrs.  Morton 
skirted  the  ball-room,  took  the  hope  of 
the  Mortons  by  the  arm  and  led  her  to 
the  dressing-room. 

"Lou  Grey,  what  did  I  tell  you?"  she 
inquired,  decisively.  "I  told  you — 
You  understood  me  perfectly — " 

Lou  Grey  fastened  upon  her  mother 
the  glance  which  precedes  tears.  "I 
didn't  refuse  to  dance  with  him,  moth- 
er," she  faltered.  "I  didn't  re-e-fuse. 
I  just  looked  at  him  and  I  said,  'You 
skunk!'" 

While  Otamar  was  drowning  his  mor- 
tification in  the  frappe-cup,  and  hesita- 
tion waltzes  were  floating  out  on  the 
select  twilight  of  Ferry  Road,  Fate  was 
already  throwing  the  shuttle  toward  the 
former  in  one  of  those  extraordinary 
chances  which  make  character  and  des- 
tiny so  unauthoritative.  The  property- 
owners'  association  of  Ferry  Road  had 
opposed  this  preferment  of  Otamar  with 
all  the  thunder  of  its  wealth  and  influ- 
ence. It  had  held  mass-meetings;  it 
had  thrown  its  pressure  upon  campaign 
committees  and  ward  bosses.  It  did  not 
want  a  baseball  park  upon  its  horizon. 
But  property,  though  almost  omnipo- 
tent, sometimes  gets  up  too  late  in  the 
morning  to  keep  everything  in  order. 
When  the  boys  let  fly  the  shades  of  their 
bedroom  the  morning  after  the  closing 
assembly,  they  saw  in  the  drizzle  of  a 
weeping  morning  that  four  gangs  of 
workmen  were  being  distributed  about 
the  open  stretch  of  land  which  lay  be- 
hind their  barn. 

This  open  land  had  been  the  home  of 
Otamar's  soul  for  eight  years,  ever  since 
he  began  to  have  a  soul.  He  stood 
watching  with  feelings  of  irreparable 
loss  "the  cave"  disappear  on  the  shovel 
of  a  damp,  deliberate  Italian.    A  squad 


THE  MILITANT  MOMENT  OF  LOU  GREY  899 


with  axes  appeared  on  the  edge     and  Denis  Fitzhugh  at  the  Road.  "Say, 


of  men 

of  "the  grove. "  Having  reached  that 
stage  of  his  toilet  where  one  may  go  out 
in  the  open,  he  pushed  up  a  window 
carefully  to  avoid  reminders  from  Frau- 
lein  in  the  next  room  that  he  would  be 
late  for  school, 
and  stepped  out 
on  the  roof  of 
the  back  gallery. 
He  retur  ned 
almost  pale. 

"Say,  Con, it's 
a  pipe!"  he  ad- 
dressed that  ally 
of  his  fortunes. 
"We  can  see  all 
the  games  from 
off  there  for  noth- 
ing," 

"Fornothingf* 
echoed  Confu- 
cius, considering 
the  incredible. 
"Oh  no,  surely 
not  for  nothing." 
Confucius,  it 
may  be,  was 
not  one  of  those 
who  run  ahead 
of  facts.  The 
two  boys  stood 
at  the  window 
with  chins  thrust 
out. 

"Now,  Master 
Otamar,  you'll 
be  late  for — " 
Otamar  seized 
his  collar  from 
Fraulein's  hand 
and  began  to 
grapple  with  it. 

"Say,  Frau- 
lein,  do  you 
think  the  White 
Sox  '11  get  in  the 
world  series  this 
Fraulein?" 

"  I  do  not  know,  Master  Otamar. 
usually  keep  it  on  the  floor  in  the 
closet,  do  you  not?" 

Otamar  went  off  down-stairs  whistling 
in  a  tone  to  split  tin. 

The  great  moment  was  eight-forty. 
"Hello,  fellows!"  he  observed  as  he 


what  d'ye  think?  Con  and  I  can  see 
all  the  league  games  for  nothing." 

The  entire  company  faced  him  in- 
stantly and  by  a  single  movement. 
"How?"    demanded  One-a-Minute, 

glaring.  "Na-a- 
aw,  you  can't, 
either,"  he  de- 
cided. "Nobody 
can  see  baseball 
games  for  noth- 
ing." 

Otamar  as- 
sumed a  rigid 
jaw.  "I  say  we 
can,"  he  re- 
turned. 

"How  can 


OH,  I  WISH  MY  AUNT  HADN  T 


NEVER 


gone    to  paris!' 


your 


year?    Where's  my  lid, 


You 
hall 


inquired 
Plum  Cornelius, 
in  whose  make- 
up there  was  a 
good  deal  of  civ- 
ilization. 

"Off  our  back 
gallery.  The  top 
of  it.  Where  we 
tried  to  hang 
Pink  that  time." 

Pink  looked 
depressed.  A 
dead  silence  fol- 
lowed. 

"That'sgrand, 
ain't  it,  Ot?"  in- 
quired Plum,  re- 
spectfully, when 
the  idea  had 
struck  the  bot- 
tom of  his  mind. 
"You  going  to 
ask  anybody  for 
the  first  game?" 

That  after- 
noon, when  they 
tramped  up  to 
Otamar's  room  and  lined  up  along  the 
top  of  the  gallery,  "the  grove"  al- 
ready lay  a  leafy,  supine  heap  upon  the 
horizon.  One  end  of  a  diamond  was 
being  rolled  where  it  had  formerly  waved 
and  secreted  Indians.  Bleachers  were 
rising  along  the  opposite  end.  It  was 
unbelievable,  but  it  w  as  true.  The  great 
league  games — Chicago  to  New  York — 


joined  Plum  and  Pink  and  One-a-Minute     belonged  to  Otamar  and  Confucius. 


900 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


It  developed  that  all  the  fellows  had 
always  liked  Otamar  and  Confucius, 
however  they  may  have  appeared  super- 
ficially to  be  the  marks  for  persiflage. 
The  sobriquet  "Chinese"  fell  into  dis- 
use. 

"Ot's  'bout  the  nicest  fellow  on  the 
road,  I  think,  don't  you?"  ruminated 
Denis  Fitzhugh  to  Pink,  as  they  skirted 
the  Morton  barn  the  night  after  Otamar 
had  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  Ferry 
Road  junior  society. 

A  great  deal  of  conjecture  was  passed 
about  anent  the  invitations  to  the  first 
game.  The  mother  of  plumbers  decreed 
that  only  four  could  be  issued  for  each. 

"We're  always  going  to  have  you, 
Plum,"  Otamar  knighted  his  pal  one 
night  when  they  returned  from  overlook- 
ing the  works.  Plum  would  gladly  have 
laid  him  down  and  died  for  Otamar  at 
that  moment. 

Confucius  was  soft.  He  yielded 
promptly  to  the  heaviest  pressure.  One- 
a  -  Minute   and   Junior   Stacey,  seat- 


LOU  GREY  S  NERVES  WERE  UNDOUBTEDLY  SHAKEN 


mates  at  school,  were  his  immediate 
choices.  But  at  one  o'clock  on  the  day 
of  the  game  Otamar's  second  place  was 
still  at  large.  It  had  been  a  good  week 
for  Otamar.  He  had  the  works  out  of 
two  alarm-clocks,  two  boxes  of  rubber 
bands,  five  keys,  and  a  Boy  Scout  knife 
with  five  blades  to  show  for  his  con- 
servatism. A  row  of  candidates  hung 
along  the  front  wall  when  he  came  out 
from  his  luncheon,  ready  for  any  par- 
tiality which  he  might  feel  moved  to 
indicate. 

"You  know  me,  Ot — Ot,  you  know 
me,"  urged  the  flower  of  Ferry  Road, 
seeking  to  stay  his  glance. 

Denis  Fitzhugh  strolled  upon  the  hori- 
zon. "Hello,  Ottie!  Can  I  come  over?" 
he  inquired  blandly,  scrutinizing  the  line 
along  the  wall. 

"Naw,  you  can't,"  retorted  Otamar. 
"'Ud  you  give  me  the  loan  of  that  book 
you  were  reading  in  Nature  study  yes- 
terday?  Naw,  you  wouldn't.   Why  did 
you  call  me  a  one-eyed  pig?    Pink,  I 
wanta  speak  to  you." 
Pink  presented  himself 
with  the  alacrity  of  a 
stone  from  a  sling. 

All  through  those 
enchanting  spring 
afternoons,  the 
favored  of  Otamar  and 
Confucius  walked  up 
and  down  the  edge  of 
the  Carpenters'  back 
gallery,  biting  their 
nails,  waving  their 
caps,  and  shrieking 
their  suggestions  to  the 
heroes  of  the  great 
national  spectacle. 
Sometimes  the  maiden 
moon  came  out  and 
stood  waiting  against 
the  east  before  the 
game  was  over.  Frau- 
lein  would  begin  to 
appear  in  the  window. 

"Now,  Master  Ota- 
mar, it  is  time  for  you 
to  dress  for  dinner." 

"Yes'm,  I'll  be  in 
in  a  minute,  Fraulein 
—Hi!  hi!  Slide  her 
across,  Kelly!  Watch 
him,   Marty!  He's 


THE  MILITANT  MOMENT  OF  LOU  GREY 


901 


stealing  it!  Watch  him!"  Otamar' s 
voice  became  humid  with  tears. 

"Master  Otamar — " 

"Aw,  Fraulein,  can't  you  wait  a  min- 
ute?   Can't  you  see  I'm  coming?" 

"Master  Otamar,  your  father  is  here. 
You  will  be  late." 

"Aw,  Fraulein,  shut  up.  Sting  it! 
It's  the  last  inning." 

"Otamar!" — his  mother's  voice. 

"  Yes'm — yes'm — I'm  coming.  I  don't 
want  any  dinner — yes'm." 

Otamar  cultivated  the  gate-keeper. 
It  developed  that  if  you  found  a  foul 
ball  you  could  go  in  free  and  have  a 
reserved  seat.  One  Friday  afternoon 
late  in  May  when  Otamar  had  finished 
a  reconnaisance  for  such  prizes,  he  hung 
very  thoughtful  astride  the  back  fence 
looking  at  a  black  spot  in  his  future. 

An  hour  before,  the  headmaster  of  the 
Fleetwood  School  for  Boys  had  informed 
him  that  he  was  an  honor  to  said  school, 
that  the  aim  of  the  school  had  always 
been  to  encourage  the  most  thorough 
scholarship,  and  finally  that  he  had  won 
the  medal  for  best  work  in  mathematics 
during  the  preceding  year.  Otamar  did 
not  in  his  own  person  deeply  care  for 
medals.  He  cared  as  yet  deeply  only 
for  dogs,  keys,  chocolate — any  style — 
motors,  baseball,  and  swimming  under 
water.  He  had  experienced  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Reverend  Alexander  Fleet- 
wood a  temporary  elation  reflected  from 
a  retired  clergyman  rooting  for  his 
school.  But  almost  immediately  with 
the  entry  of  his  honors  into  his  ears  it 
had  occurred  to  Otamar  what  he  was 
let  in  for.  He  was  let  in  for  those 
clothes.  He  would  have  to  walk  up  to 
the  platform  and  back  to  his  seat  in  a 
suit  of  blue  serge  made  by  a  squinty 
little  seamstress,  and  a  pair  of  Congress 
gaiters  style  of  1910.  Hanging  on  the 
back  fence  watching  the  Stacey's  cat 
stalk  afternoon  tea,  Otamar's  soul  sick- 
ened and  died  and  rose  again  to  con- 
quest. He  evolved  a  plan  which  proved 
that  he  would  not  be  a  plumber. 

"Mother,  could  we  have  all  the  fel- 
lows for  the  game  a  week  from  Satur- 
day?" he  hazarded  at  dinner,  two  prob- 
able partisans,  his  father  and  Aunt 
France,  being  present.  "I  thought 
maybe  'cause  I  got  that  medal  you'd  let 
me  have  all  the  fellows." 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  786.— 112 


Mrs.  Carpenter  had  been  talking 
"Third  Renaissance  is  to  be  in  America" 
all  afternoon,  and  she  felt  exalted. 

"What  do  you  think,  Levering?"  she 
consulted  her  lord  absently.  "I'm  al- 
ways so  afraid  they  may  push  one  an- 
other off." 

"I  think  Otamar  is  going  to  be  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  you 
would  do  well  to  ingratiate  yourself  with 
him  now,"  replied  Dr.  Carpenter,  his 
deep,  weary  eyes  resting  on  his  boy. 
"Have  Peacock  put  up  chicken  wire 
around  the  gallery  and  make  it  safe,  if 
it  isn't  now.  Another  go  of  mutton, 
France?" 

Aunt  France  was  a  quiet  old  aunt — 
she  was  thirty-eight — who  lived  in 
Philadelphia  and  came  to  visit  twice  a 
year.  She  was  a  good  sort.  She  smiled 
at  Otamar. 

"May  I  present  the  hero  with  enough 
of  his  favorite  ice-cream  to  serve  the 
party  that  afternoon?"  she  inquired. 

Mrs.  Carpenter  roused  herself  and  did 
the  handsome  thing.  "Why,  of  course. 
That  will  be  very  nice.  I  will  have 
Draga  serve  a  little  supper  after  the 
game.  Would  you  like  that,  dear?  Do 
you  want  to  have  girls,  too — a  supper 
and  girls?" 

"I  want  to  have  a  supper,"  piped 
Angelica  France  from  her  folds  of  dam- 
ask, hearing  herself  referred  to. 

Otamar  changed  color  slightly  across 
his  forehead  and  nose  with  surprise. 
But  with  the  flexibility  of  the  gifted 
mind  he  seized  the  unexpected.  "Yes'm; 
girls,  too.  I'd  like  to  have  a  supper  and 
girls."  He  considered  Confucius  with 
speculation  through  the  remainder  of 
the  meal. 

That  night  he  might  have  been  found 
about  ten  o'clock  under  the  bed,  labori- 
ously printing — with  the  help  of  his 
tongue,  a  plumber's  candle,  and  an 
abandoned  fountain-pen — the  following 
sign: 

Big  game — June  4.  See  it  from  Otamar 
Carpenter's  gallery.  Tickets  only  40c. — 
girls  10.  There  will  be  duff.  Anybody  who 
tells  on  this,  I  will  rock  him  out  of  my 
yard,  every  time  he  ever  comes  there  again, 
and  I'll  see  him  dead  before  I  let  him  come 
to  another  game. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Otamar  Carpenter. 


902 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


That  underground  world  where  chil- 
dren live  buzzed  and  hummed  with  the 
acerbity  of  this  document,  but  it  did 
not  betray  him.  Every  one  who  bought 
a  ticket  swore  to  eat  a  cup  of  dirt  if  he 
told.  There  were  several  sessions  in 
Denis  Fitzhugh's  shanty  about  the  in- 
novation of  having  girls.  They  get 
dizzy  on  high  places,  girls  do — and  hurl 
themselves  off  sometimes  to  their  deaths. 
Plum  suggested  that  each  of  them  ought 
to  be  tied  to  somebody. 

"I  won't  have  Angelica  France  tied 
to  me,"  Confucius  put  himself  on  record 
promptly. 

The  day  was  clear,  the  game  very 
fast,  the  ice-cream  very  toothsome. 
Fourteen  boys  and  six  girls  enjoyed  these 
benefits.  The  girls  refused  to  be  tied  to 
anybody.  They  walked  along  the  edge 
in  the  most  terrifying  manner.  Women 
are  the  devil. 

Otamar,  when  the  last  guest  had  gone 
and  he  was  alone  at  last,  regarded  his 
esoteric  gains  with  satisfaction.  As  co- 
holder  of  the  working  plant,  Confucius 
had  to  be  conceded  a  third.  Otamar  ex- 
tracted that  third  from  the  spool-box 
and  placed  it  in  Confucius's  moist,  ex- 
tended hand.  Then  he  went  to  his  room, 
extracted  a  large,  precarious  -  looking 
package  from  his  tool-chest,  stole  out  of 
the  side-door,  and  started  down  the  al- 
ley toward  the  evening  star.  When  he 
had  run  two  blocks,  he  slowed  up.  He 
walked  at  his  leisure  to  the  end  of  the 
Ferry  Road  pier.  A  young  lady  was 
sitting  there  reading  vers  libre  and  look- 
ing out  at  the  moon  coming  up.  Otamar 
waited  until  she  had  gone  off  down  the 
beach.  Then  he  opened  his  package  and 
threw  those  hated  shoes  as  far  out  as  he 
could  into  the  lake.  Having  watched 
them  disappear  upon  the  uncharted  sea, 
he  sent  after  them  a  coat  made  of  the 
best  English  serge — collar  a  failure — 
and  a  pair  of  knickerbockers — same  bolt 
of  serge,  same  little  seamstress — and 
walked  briskly  home  and  went  to  bed. 

It  was  the  middle  of  the  following 
week  before  he  could  project  the  next 
move  of  his  affair. 

"I  can  look  for  linoleums  for  you  this 
afternoon,  Irene,  if  you  like,"  he  heard 
his  aunt  France  say  to  his  mother  one 
morning  at  breakfast.  "I'm  going  in 
after  luncheon." 


Otamar  was  taking  a  bath  in  an 
orange.  He  ceased  to  double-quick  this 
dainty.  "Mother,  can  I  go  in  with 
Aunt  France?"  he  importuned  in  a  muf- 
fled tone. 

"Of  course  not — and  miss  school!" 
returned  his  mother,  with  the  air  of  sup- 
pressing scandal. 

You  could  always  depend  on  Aunt 
France. 

"I  could  go  in  quite  as  well  to-morrow 
if  you  wanted  him  to  go,  Irene,"  she  said 
to  her  sister-in-law. 

"Aw,  please,  mother!  I  want  to  go  in. 
I  won't  do  anything.  I  like  to  ride.  I 
just  want  to  go  in.  I  want  to  buy  a 
Christmas  present." 

Mrs.  Carpenter  dwelt  upon  him.  It 
was  certainly  a  little  premature  for  such 
ardor  over  Christmas  shopping.  But  she 
yielded  that  point.  "Yes,  you  could  go 
in  to-morrow  if  Aunt  France  will  wait," 
she  assented.  "If  you  could  find  any- 
thing brown  and  white,  France — and  the 
pattern  not  absolute  sugar." 

Otamar  assisted  his  companion  in  and 
out  of  the  machine  the  next  morning 
with  a  gallantry  which  would  have  in- 
gratiated a  leopardess.  Aunt  France 
had  a  nose  for  children,  and  she  had 
glanced  at  him  thoughtfully  from  time 
to  time  as  they  went  in. 

"Do  you  want  me  to  help  you,  dear, 
or  did  you  wish  to  do  your  shopping 
alone?"  she  inquired  at  the  door  of  the 
store,  making  marks  on  her  list. 

"I  want  to  go  alone,  please,  Aunt 
France.  I'd  rather  do  it  alone — yes'm, 
I  want  to  go  alone."  Otamar's  manner 
for  Christmas  shopping  in  June  was  a 
study.  Aunt  France  went  on  marking 
off,  with  a  faint  smile  on  her  lips. 

"Very  well,  then,"  she  said.  "Meet 
me  at  the  ribbon  counter  in  an  hour." 

Otamar  waited  until  she  had  disap- 
peared down  the  aisle.  Then  he  strolled 
over  to  the  elevator.  He  got  himself 
past  the  sporting-goods  department,  in- 
cluding a  track  suit  displayed  on  a  figure. 
He  remained  over  half  an  hour  in  the 
shoe  department.  He  came  away  look- 
ing startled.  What  can  one  buy  for 
four  dollars  and  thirteen  cents — the  pro- 
ceeds of  a  league  game  at  reduced  rates? 
One  can  buy  only  shoes.  Otamar  ap- 
peared at  the  ribbon  counter  markedly 
preoccupied.    It  is  impossible  to  receive 


THE  MILITANT  MOMENT  OF  LOU  GREY 


903 


a  mathematical  medal 
in  your  underwear  and 
a  pair  of  pumps,  how- 
ever au  fait  the  latter 
may  be,  but  he  had 
furnished  the  model, 
and  Heaven  would 
have  to  do  the  rest 
or  work  out  some  alter- 
native plan  for  the 
disposition  of  that 
medal.  Aunt  France 
considered  him  specu- 
latively as  they  drove 
out. 

It  took  O  t  a  m  a  r 
three  days  to  pass  the 
frontier  which  stands 
between  duplicity  and 
sin.  But  in  his  slow, 
patient,  scientist's 
brain  rebellion  had  fer- 
mented and  it  would 
not  down.  He  had 
passed  the  point  where 
debate  over  good  and 
evil  goes  on. 

Any  one  who  was 
late  in  boarding  the 
nine-eighteen  train  the 
following  Wednesday 
morning  might  have 
seen  him  getting  in  at 
the  end  of  the  last  car 
at  the  last  moment. 
No  one  did. 

He  selected  an 
irreproachable  blue- 
serge  Norfolk — the  collar  fitting  like 
the  paper  on  the  wall — price,  twenty- 
one  dollars.  He  selected  a  shirt  a 
princeling  would  not  have  questioned. 
He  had  them  both  charged.  The 
clerk  hesitated  and  looked  at  the 
address.  On  the  way  out  down-stairs, 
Otamar  added  a  yellow  plaid  hand- 
kerchief to  his  purchases,  to  be  worn 
in  the  breast  pocket — a  little  fussy, 
perhaps,  but  surely  excusable  in  one 
whose  demands  had  been  so  long  kept 
simple.  That  afternoon  he  helped  Pea- 
cock clean  the  coal-bin.  Then  he  helped 
him  train  the  tomato-vines.  He  had 
never  in  his  life  had  such  a  longing 
to  be  loved  by  all.  He  jumped  off  his 
chair  an  inch  all  evening  when  anybody 
spoke  his  name. 


YOU  KNOW  ME,  OT,     URGED  THE  FLOWER  OF  FERRY  ROAD 


The  next  morning  was  hectic  going. 
When  Fraulein  was  seen  to  be  taking 
out  parade  clothes,  he  retreated  to  the 
bath-room  and  began  to  clean  his  teeth. 
He  cleaned  them  up  and  down  as  the 
dentist  had  always  importuned  him  to 
do,  but  as  he  had  never  before  had  time 
for.  His  mother  and  Aunt  France  could 
be  overheard  talking  about  art  in  the 
front  room.  Presently  Fraulein  began 
to  squeak.  Otamar  took  a  further  al- 
lowance of  tooth-paste.  The  Frau 
Doctor  was  importuned  to  come  and  see 
Master  Otamar' s  clothes!  Master  Ota- 
mar placed  his  brush  carefully  on  the 
window-sill  and  presented  himself  in  the 
door.  His  knees  were  buckling  under 
him,  but  he  intended  to  be  detached 
from  those  clothes  only  by  death.  Mrs. 


904 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Carpenter  was,  by  the  kindness  of  God, 
near-sighted.  She  scanned  Otamar's  far 
from  simple  selections  through  a  lor- 
gnette without  looking  at  Otamar. 

"Why,  how  charming!"  she  said. 
"What  a  delightful  shirt.  And  pumps. 
Who  ordered  these?" 

Aunt  France  glanced  at  Otamar.  He 
was  leaning  against  the  door -jamb, 
white  as  the  moon. 

"I  did,"  said  Aunt  France,  promptly. 
"They  are  a  present  to  Otamar  for  win- 
ning the  Fleetwood  medal,"  and  she 
picked  up  the  coat  and  held  it  out  toward 
him.  His  eyes  met  hers.  It  is  given  to 
few  to  receive  such  a  look  as  Aunt 
France  took  straight  into  her  breast. 
She  put  an  arm  about  the  trembling 
boy  and  drew  him  toward  her  quietly. 

He  was  helped  into  his  new  clothes. 
Somehow  he  conveyed  himself  down  the 
stairs,  out  of  the  front  door,  and  up  to  his 
seat  in  the  assembly  room  of  the  school. 
The  morning  was  a  mild  London  fog  to 
him.  Somewhere  in  the  course  of  it  the 
Reverend  Alexander  Fleetwood  made  a 
speech  which  ended  with  Otamar's 
name.  Otamar  ascended  the  rostrum  in 
an  agony  of  agitation.  He  saw  Lou 
Grey  on  a  front  seat,  her  skirts  in  a 
ruche.  He  allowed  the  medal  to  be 
affixed  to  his  breast.  There  was  that  in 
the  rows  of  eyes  beholding  him  which 
makes  a  god  of  one.  It  was  not  admi- 
ration for  pre-eminence  in  mathematics, 
either. 

Late  that  afternoon,  when  he  had  dis- 
posed himself  comfortably  on  the  library 
floor  to  eat  up  Scottish  Chiefs  for  the 
seventh  time,  Aunt  France  came  in. 


"Now,  what  was  it  about  the  clothes, 
dear?"  she  said,  in  her  smooth,  tendei 
voice. 

Otamar  gazed  at  her.  His  heavy  face 
quivered.  "I  threw  my  others  in  the 
lake,  Aunt  France,"  he  said.  "I  won't 
wear  that  kind  of  clothes  any  more.  All 
the  fellows  made  fun  of  me.  They  called 
us  Chinese."  He  went  on  with  difficulty. 
"The  girls  wouldn't  dance  with  me. 
Lou  Grey  Morton  wouldn't.  She  said — 
she  said  I  was  a  skunk." 

"Sk — "  quavered  Aunt  France.  "And 
so  you  bought  some  others?"  she  con- 
tinued after  a  moment's  spasm. 

"Yes'm;  I  had  them  charged,"  Ota- 
mar blurted  out,  experiencing  the  rap- 
ture of  a  clean  breast.  He  swallowed 
hard.  "And  I  sold  tickets  for  my  party, 
too,  and  bought  my  shoes,"  he  con- 
cluded. 

Aunt  France  looked  at  him,  and  then 
her  eyes  went  up  to  the  tiers  of  books 
behind  his  head  and  the  bust  of  Hip- 
pocrates behind  them.  When  she  looked 
back  at  him  she  made  a  strange  com- 
ment. She  did  not  say  that  such  begin- 
nings are  the  preface  only  too  often  of  an 
unscrupulous  career,  or  that  he  should 
have  consulted  his  elders  before  taking 
steps  so  radical,  or  even  that  he  was 
quite  right,  and  that  such  revolt  was 
healthy  and  a  sign  of  power,  only  never, 
never  must  he  fail  under  any  circum- 
stances to  be  true  to  his  own  soul. 

She  said,  "I  wonder  if  there  is  any- 
body in  the  whole  world  who  knows  how 
to  bring  up  a  child?"  Apparently  she 
decided  in  the  negative,  for  she  shook 
her  head. 


Bagdad,   City  of  the  Kalifs 


BY  WILLIAM  WARFIELD 


HERE  are  certain 
names  of  cities  that  are 
endowed  with  a  rare 
poetic  feeling  that  nev- 
er fails  to  stir  roman- 
tic sensations  in  our 
breasts.  Whether  it  is 
by  reason  of  the  musical  quality  of  their 
syllables,  or  merely  the  associations  that 
have  grouped  around  them  in  nursery 
tales  or  familiar  poems,  I  hesitate  to  say. 
But  it  is  certainly  true  that  however 
tender  the  romance,  however  beautiful 
the  poem,  there  are  certain  names  so  full 
of  glamour  and  music  that  they  cannot 
fail  to  add  their  fascination.  Such  a 
name  is  Mandalay,  which  I  think  would 
live  for  us  with  its  sunshine,  and  its 
palm-trees,  and  its  tinkling  temple  bells, 
even  if  Kipling  had  not  used  it  to  em- 
bellish one  of  his  most  popular  poems. 
One  of  the  most  familiar  of  these  names, 
one  that  is  most  intimately  associated 
with  mystic  legend,  is  that  of  Bagdad. 
Such  a  mass  of  fable  surrounds  this 
name  that  it  seems  almost  impossible 
that  such  a  place  should  exist  in  fact. 
Like  Xanadu,  it  seems  an  enchanted 
place,  situated  upon  the  banks  of  a  fairy 
river  that  appears  on  earth  only  long 
enough  to  lave  the  palace  walls.  We 
think  of  it  as  the  home  of  one  man, 
Harun-al-Rashid.  Its  raison  d'etre  to 
most  of  us  is  in  a  group  of  tales,  in  which 
lamps  and  jars  and  carpets  play  parts 
that  were  never  intended  for  such  arti- 
cles. Such  at  least  was  my  early  impres- 
sion of  the  city  of  the  Kalifs,  and  it  was 
with  visions  of  the  Arabian  Nights  that  I 
set  out  to  wander  in  the  streets  of  Bag- 
dad. 

Of  the  ancient  history  of  the  towns 
that  preceded  Bagdad  upon  the  same 
site  we  know  practically  nothing.  Baby- 
lonian bricks  have  been  discovered  far 
beneath  the  level  of  the  modern  city,  and 
in  the  days  of  Chosroes  there  was  a 
market  town  of  some  local  importance  in 
the  same  place.    But  Bagdad  itself  was 


founded  in  the  eighth  century  of  our  era 
by  Mansur,  who  made  it  his  capital, 
assuming  to  himself  the  dignity  of  Kalif, 
the  successor  of  the  Prophet  and  head 
of  the  religion  of  Islam. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Moham- 
med provided  that  he  should  be  suc- 
ceeded by  a  duly  elected  Kalif  from  the 
tribe  of  the  Koreish,  the  hitherto  unim- 
portant tribe  from  which  the  quondam 
camel-driver  sprang.  The  first  selec- 
tions were  made  from  his  companions,  or 
disciples,  and  they  lived  in  the  holy  city 
of  Mecca  until  two  of  them,  Omar  and 
Ali,  disputed  the  succession.  The  for- 
mer found  his  support  in  Syria,  where, 
at  Damascus,  he  practically  had  made 
his  home.  Thence  he  conducted  mili- 
tary operations  against  his  rival,  whose 
supporters  were  the  people  of  Mesopo- 
tamia. There  Omar  succeeded  in  over- 
throwing him,  and  he  fled  to  Persia, 
where  he  set  up  as  the  lawful  successor 
of  the  Prophet  with  the  title  of  Imam, 
which  he  handed  down  to  his  descend- 
ants by  Fatimah,  daughter  of  Moham- 
med himself.  He  was  succeeded  by 
eleven  Imams,  who  are  the  chief  saints, 
with  Ali,  of  the  Shiah  sect  which  now 
comprises  practically  all  the  Persians. 

Omar  made  Damascus  his  capital, 
founding  there  the  hereditary  Omayyad 
Kalifate.  His  followers  formed  the 
Sunni  sect,  which  is  the  orthodox  sect  of 
Islam,  and  includes  most  of  the  Arabs, 
the  Turks,  and  the  Moslems  of  India 
and  China.  The  Omayyads  were  twelve 
in  number,  and  ruled  most  of  the  Mos- 
lem world  for  a  century,  spreading  their 
empire  across  north  Africa  to  Spain. 
The  last  of  them  was  overthrown  by  the 
Abbasid  Mansur,  who  established  his 
dynasty  in  his  new  city  of  Bagdad.  This 
dynasty  was  essentially  Asiatic,  and  the 
western  conquests  gradually  fell  away. 
First  an  Omayyad  set  up  an  independent 
Kalifate  in  Spain,  with  Cordova  as  his 
capital,  and  a  century  later  Egypt  be- 
came the  center  of  another  dynasty,  the 


906 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Fatimids  of  Cairo,  and  Syria  soon  fell 
to  them.  But  the  Abbasids  retained, 
nevertheless,  a  very  large  empire  stretch- 
ing from  Syria  and  western  Asia  Minor 
to  Central  Asia,  the  Afghan  Mountains, 
and  the  western  frontiers  of  India.  For 
nearly  five  centuries  they  ruled  with 
Bagdad  as  their  capital,  when  the  royal 
residence  was  moved  up  the  Tigris  a 
short  distance  to  Samarra.  During  all 
that  period  of  time  they  had  no  serious 
enemies  except  the  Byzantine  emperors, 
with  whom  they  were  at  constant  war. 
Their  overthrow  was  finally  accom- 
plished by  the  Mongols  under  Hulagu 
Khan,  who  took  Bagdad  in  1258.  In  the 
sack  that  followed,  the  last  of  the  line 
was  killed,  and  the  city  was  reduced  for 
a  time  to  almost  nothing  but  a  heap  of 
ruins. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  Bagdad  was 
taken  by  the  Sultan  Sulieman  the  Mag- 
nificent, ally  of  the  emperor  Charles  V., 
who  marched  eastward  after  his  unsuc- 
cessful siege  of  Vienna  and  had  himself 
proclaimed  Kalif  in  the  city  of  the  Ab- 
basids. From  him  the  Sultan  of  Turkey 
has  claimed  the  lawful  succession  to  the 
Kalifate,  and  is  recognized  to-day  as  the 
successor  of  the  Prophet  by  the  ortho- 
dox, or  Sunni  Moslems.  This  is  in 
direct  opposition  to  the  provision  of  Mo- 
hammed himself  that  none  but  a  mem- 


ber of  the  tribe  of  Koreish  might  succeed 
him,  which  furnishes  the  Shiahs  with 
their  reason  for  denying  his  authority. 
The  Sunnis  overcome  this  difficulty  with 
characteristic  Oriental  sophistry. 

The  model  of  Bagdad  was  the  older 
Persian  capital  of  Ctesiphon,  situated 
only  a  few  miles  away.  Doubtless  also 
most  of  the  builders  employed  by  Man- 
sur  were  Persians,  for  his  desert  Arabs 
were  not  versed  in  that  art.  Persian  in- 
fluence was  conspicuous  from  the  first, 
and  the  chief  advisers  of  the  Abbasids 
were  all  Persians  until  the  time  of  Harun- 
al-Rashid.  They  belonged  to  the  famous 
Barmecid  family  whose  power  began 
with  Khalid,  Mansur's  vizier,  and  ended 
with  JafFar,  who  used  to  accompany  his 
master  Harun  in  his  incognito  excursions 
through  the  streets  of  his  capital  in 
search  of  adventures  that  are  familiar  to 
every  child.  Despite  his  romantic  pic- 
turesqueness,  Harun  was  a  weakling,  and 
like  many  another  Oriental  tyrant  his 
last  days  were  marked  with  shocking 
cruelties,  one  of  the  worst  of  which  was 
the  slaughter  of  the  whole  Barmecid 
family  at  a  feast  that  has  become  a 
proverb  with  us  to-day. 

This  influence  has  made  Bagdad  es- 
sentially Persian  in  appearance.  Espe- 
cially is  this  true  of  the  sacred  edifices,  in 
which  the  domes  and  minarets  are  quite 


THE  BEST  PRESERVED  OF  THE  ANCIENT  GATES  OF  THE  CITY 


A  VIEW  OVER  THE  CITY  OF  BAGDAD 


like  those  of  Ispahan  and  Meshed,  and 
bear  no  resemblance  to  the  more  familiar 
types  of  western  Islam  to  be  seen  at 
Cairo  and  Constantinople.  This  is  true 
despite  the  fact  that  of  Mansur's  orig- 
inal " Round  City"  no  vestige  remains 
above  ground,  and  of  buildings  that  date 
back  to  the  days  of  the  Abbasids  we  have 
but  few. 

The  modern  city  is  situated  below  it 
and  mainly  on  the  east  bank,  while  the 
older  city  was  on  the  west.  The  western 
quarter  is  small  and  almost  entirely 
Shiah,  a  great  stopping-place  for  the 
thousands  of  Persian  pilgrims  that  pass 
through  every  year  on  their  way  to  and 
from  their  sacred  city  of  Kerbela.  There 
are  also  many  permanent  Persian  resi- 
dents, whose  chief  business  is  with  the 
pilgrims,  and  who  look  after  the  graves 
of  their  seventh  and  ninth  Imams,  which 
are  just  outside  the  city  of  Kazimein. 

The  east  bank  is  essentially  Arab,  and 
contains  the  principal  bazaars,  the  great 
mosque,  and  all  the  Sunni  mosques  and 
tombs.  It  originally  grew  up  around  the 
palaces  of  some  of  the  later  Kalifs,  and 
was  surrounded  by  a  semicircular  wall. 
This  is  now  practically  in  ruins,  only  a 
series  of  mounds  remaining  with  a  de- 
pression where  the  moat  was.    A  few 


gates  remain  that  date  from  the  days  of 
the  Kalifate,  but  others  have  been  built 
in  Turkish  times.  Of  interest  to  the  an- 
tiquary are  two  relics  of  the  Kalif  Mus- 
tansir  dating  from  1233  and  1236.  The 
first  of  these  was  originally  a  college,  and 
is  now  used  as  a  custom-house;  the  lat- 
ter is  a  minaret  in  an  outlying  part  of 
the  city  which  is  in  a  most  unfortunate 
state  of  disrepair.  Even  older  is  the 
Khan  Orthma,  which  dates  from  the 
twelfth  century  and  contains  some  beau- 
tiful carvings.  These  buildings  were  all 
built  for  strength,  all  of  brick  laid  in 
mortar  of  the  best  possible  quality,  but 
used  sparingly  because  of  its  scarcity. 
There  are  many  ruined  mosques  and 
tombs  in  and  about  the  city  which  are 
generally  octagonal  in  shape,  roofed  with 
shallow  domes  set  on  squinch  arches. 
The  latter,  however,  are  often  covered 
with  a  dome  resembling  a  pineapple, 
composed  of  a  series  of  alveolate  niches, 
or  squinches,  set  in  converging  courses, 
one  above  the  other.  The  best  example 
of  this  is  the  reputed  tomb  of  Sitt  Zo- 
beida,  wife  of  Harun-al-Rashid,  situated 
near  west  Bagdad. 

But  the  most  interesting  thing  to  the 
casual  visitor  is  the  street  life,  which  is  to 
be  observed  most  easily  in  the  bazaars 


THE  TOMB  OF  SHEIKH  OMAR 


or  market-places.  Like  those  of  Cairo 
and  Constantinople,  these  are  the  main 
streets  of  the  business  section,  covered 
with  a  vaulted  roof,  formed  generally  of 
squinch  arches,  with  shops  bordering  on 
either  side,  arranged  like  the  chapels  on 
either  side  of  the  nave  of  a  Gothic  cathe- 
dral. Light  is  furnished  only  by  occa- 
sional openings  in  the  vaulting,  and  so 
the  scene  is  always  dim,  but  often  ren- 
dered beautiful  by  long  sunbeams  that 
come  in  at  a  sharp  angle  through  the 
little  windows  and  lie  diagonally  across 
the  passage.  The  best  way  to  describe 
these  busy  marts  is  to  ask  the  reader  to 
come  with  me  for  a  stroll  through  the 
city  and  point  them  out  as  we  go  along. 

We  step  out  of  the  door  of  the  Tigris 
Hotel  and  turn  to  the  left  in  the 
crowded  street.  Look  out  for  those  don- 
keys! They  will  run  over  you  rough- 
shod if  you  do  not.  Look  at  them  as 
they  go  by.  Big,  white  fellows  they  are, 
as  strong  as  horses.  Notice  the  blue 
beads  that  they  wear  around  their  necks 
to  avert  the  evil  eye,  and  the  embroi- 
dered halters  hung  with  charms  against 
spavin.  They  are  carrying  bricks  to 
be  used  in  rebuilding  these  dilapidated 
houses,  for  now  you  can  see  that  the 
front  walls  of  all  the  buildings  for  a  hun- 
dred yards  have  been  torn  down.  This 
was  done  by  Nazim  Pasha  when  he  was 


vali,  pursuant  to  a  plan  he  had  formed 
to  build  a  splendid  boulevard  through 
the  heart  of  the  city.  Unfortunately,  he 
chose  a  line  through  the  gardens  of  the 
British  residency,  and  set  his  engineers 
to  undermine  the  wall.  The  resident 
protested  and  offered  to  co-operate  on 
another  route,  but  in  vain.  So  he  re- 
membered how  Wellington  placed  a 
British  sentry  on  the  Pont  de  Jena  in 
Paris  when  Bliicher  wished  to  blow  up 
that  offensively  named  structure,  and 
went  and  did  likewise.  When  the  road- 
builders  saw  the  scarlet-clad  sepoy  on 
the  wall  they  soon  ceased  undermining 
it,  for,  though  the  governor  -  general 
might  have  the  right  to  undermine  a 
wall,  serious  complications  might  follow 
the  knocking  down  of  a  British  sentry. 
So  the  boulevard  was  abandoned. 

But  we  must  be  moving  on.  These 
shops  on  either  side  are  kept  by  Jews, 
that  by  a  firm  of  Parsees  from  Bombay. 
The  shop  with  the  green  uniformed  offi- 
cers standing  before  the  door  is  the  gov- 
ernment dispensary.  Now  we  are  get- 
ting into  the  old  business  section.  See 
that  whitewashed  building  with  a  bal- 
cony all  around  the  second  story;  it  is 
a  typical  coffee-house  where  many  of  the 
prominent  merchants  gather.  Let  us 
pause  here  a  moment  and  notice  some 
of  the  passers-by. 


BAGDAD,  CITY  OF  THE  KALIFS 


909 


This  tall,  sharp-faced  man  is  a  wealthy 
rug  merchant.  Notice  his  flowing  cloak 
made  of  softest  camel's  wool  with  a 
beautiful  silky  luster.  His  vest  and 
belted  robe,  worn  under  the  cloak  reach- 
ing to  the  ankles,  are  of  fine  gray  broad- 
cloth. His  green  turban  proclaims  him  a 
descendant  of  the  Prophet.  The  man 
beside  him  is  a  mollah,  or  priest.  His 
undergarments  are  of  the  same  soft  gray 
as  his  companion's,  but  his  cloak  is 
harsher  in  appearance.  As  he  brushes 
by,  you  can  see  it  is  of  very  tightly 
twisted,  closely  woven  camel's  hair  with- 
out the  gold  embroidery  the  other  shows. 
His  turban  is  pure  white,  the  priestly 
color. 

These  other  men  now  passing  are  of  a 
poorer  class.  Their  cloaks  are  less  hand- 
some, made  of  wool  or  goat's  hair  dyed  in 
various  shades  of  brown  or  striped  brown 
and  white.  Their  undergarments  are  of 
brightly  colored  cotton  cloth.  Instead  of 
the  aristocratic  turban,  they  wear  a  ker- 
chief of  cotton  folded  diagonally  and 
held  in  place  on  the  head  by  a  double 
circlet  of  woolen  yarn. 

See  that  group  of  dirty,  shabby  men  in 
baggy  trousers,  felt  hats,  and  flapping 
vests  of  the  same  material.  They  are 
hamals,  the  burden-bearers  of  the  ba- 
zaars.   They  come  from  the  hills  north 


of  the  desert  or  from  Persia,  and  are  of 
the  Kurdish  race.  They  can  carry  enor- 
mous weights  on  their  backs.  There 
goes  one  now  with  a  load  of  fire-wood. 
Yes,  it  is  a  man!  Look  under  the  load 
and  you  will  find  him. 

Notice  the  man  in  the  tall,  black-felt 
hat  with  a  black  scarf  around  it.  He  is 
a  Persian  merchant  and  wears  under  his 
cloak,  as  you  see,  a  jacket  and  baggy 
trousers.  He  is  a  very  jolly  sort  and 
exchanges  much  banter  with  his  friends 
in  the  balcony. 

Around  the  corner  we  enter  a  bazaar. 
Most  of  the  Bagdad  bazaars  are  of  this 
type.  The  narrow  street  is  covered  by 
a  vaulted  roof.  On  either  side  are  stalls 
in  which  the  vender  sits  cross-legged  be- 
hind his  wares,  which  are  displayed  on 
the  floor  before  him  or  hung  on  the 
hinged  shutters  that  close  his  shop  at 
night.  Each  trade  has  a  bazaar  in  a 
street,  or  group  of  streets,  of  its  own. 

Come  this  way  and  let  us  stroll  down 
the  clothing  market.  Everything  is 
serene  and  quiet.  Neatly  folded  cloaks 
are  displayed  upon  either  side.  Gaily 
colored  kerchiefs  hang  upon  open  shut- 
ters; Manchester  piece-goods  are  tempt- 
ingly unrolled  before  the  unwary  wan- 
derer. Here  a  group  of  men  are  embroi- 
dering the  brilliant  native-silk  cloaks 


ALONG  THE  RIVERSIDE 

Vol.  CXXXL— No.  786.— 113 


910 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


worn  by  the  women  with  gold  and  silver 
patterns;  there  a  man  is  cutting  and 
sewing  lamb-skins  for  the  military  fezzes. 
Sober,  well-dressed  customers  sit,  puff- 
ing at  water-pipe  or  cigarette,  discussing 
bargains  with  most  indifferent-looking 
merchants. 

But  come  into  this  bazaar  around  the 
corner  and  you  will  see  a  very  different 
thing.  Here  are  the  green-grocers  and 
sweetmeat-sellers.  I  have  to  shout  into 
your  ear,  such  a  din  comes  from  every 
side.  Roughly  clad  men,  gesticulating 
wildly,  are  explaining  the  utter  worth- 
lessness  of  the  dates  they  wish  to  buy. 
Old  hags,  neglectful  of  their  veils,  are 
haggling  excitedly  over  bunches  of  garlic 
or  huge  cucumbers.  Yonder  a  pitifully 
inadequate  boy  is  striving  manfully  to 
restrain  a  kicking,  squealing  donkey  who 
has  all  but  got  his  muzzle  into  a  basket 
of  grain.  Every  stall  is  crowded,  and 
every  individual  is  shouting  at  the  top  of 
his  lungs.  The  narrow  street  is  filled 
with  the  surging  mob.  We  try  to  fight 
our  way  through.  We  squeeze  along 
slowly,  but  manage  it  somehow.  Sud- 
denly we  hear  cries  behind.  A  caravan 
is  coming.  Thirty  or  forty  horses  loaded 
with  heavy,  projecting  bales  of  tobacco 
swing  casually  through  the  throng  at  a 
fast  walk,  urged  by  sharp  blows  from 
their  stalwart  drivers.  The  crowd  opens 
up  like  magic.  Dodge  that  bale!  How 
they  do  it  I  do  not  know.  They  pay  no 
attention  to  the  horses,  but  go  on  bar- 
gaining furiously.  It  is  like  a  ship  pass- 
ing through  the  sea.  The  water  opens 
in  front  and  closes  up  behind,  and  only 
a  slight  swirl  marks  the  passing. 

We  next  pass  through  the  shoemak- 
ers' bazaar  between  rows  and  rows  of  red 
slippers  into  the  harness-makers'  bazaar. 
Here  are  brilliant  head-stalls,  uncom- 
fortable-looking saddles  with  brilliantly 
broidered  covers,  stirrups,  ropes,  chains, 
bits,  all  the  paraphernalia  of  the  road. 

Bang!  Bang!  What  a  noise!  Where 
are  we  now?  The  place  is  full  of  acrid 
smoke.  You  cannot  see  for  a  moment. 
It  is  the  coppersmiths'  bazaar.  Sitting 
on  the  ground  beside  smoky  charcoal 
fires,  they  keep  banging  away  all  day 
with  hammers  of  every  conceivable  size 
and  shape.  They  are  swiftly,  deftly 
shaping  pots,  pans,  platters,  trays, 
bowls,  and  narrow-necked  water-jars. 


One  workman  turns  out  the  rough  arti- 
cle and  hands  it  to  another,  who  taps 
away  at  it,  neatly  covering  it  with  rows 
of  dents,  scalloping  the  edge,  or  ham- 
mering out  a  rough  design. 

Now  we  will  go  out  into  the  fresh  air 
and  get  the  smoke  and  dust  out  of  our 
lungs.  We  secure  a  carriage  in  front 
of  the  government  building — a  great, 
shapeless  pile  around  a  big  courtyard 
guarded  by  lazy-looking  sentries.  We 
drive  through  the  north  quarter  of  the 
city,  where  many  of  the  caravanserais  are. 
Here  is  the  arsenal  which  was  once  the 
Kalif's  palace.  Pause  a  moment  and 
consider  that  from  this  very  gateway 
Harun-al-Rashid  used  to  sally  in  dis- 
guise to  try  the  temper  of  his  people; 
and  in  one  of  those  upper  rooms  the  fair 
Zobeida  wove  the  tales  of  the  thousand 
and  one  nights. 

Turn  now  and  notice  the  dome,  pat- 
terned with  gaudy  tiles,  clinging  to  the 
cracks  of  which  are  many  pigeons.  It  is 
the  dome  of  the  oldest  mosque  in  Bag- 
dad. At  its  door  Harun  used  to  stand 
and  mingle  with  the  beggars.  Before  its 
pulpit  the  Sultan  Sulieman  the  Magnifi- 
cent had  himself  made  Kalif,  thus  ending 
the  existence  of  Bagdad  as  the  capital 
of  Islam. 

The  north  gate  through  which  we  pass 
is  unbeautiful  and  unhistoric,  but  we 
drive  on  along  the  outer  edge  of  the  great 
fosse,  the  "  Bagdad  ditch,"  past  newly 
arrived  caravans,  and  stop  to  see  an 
older  gate  on  the  east  side.  Like  the 
ancient  Greek  and  more  recent  medi- 
eval European  fortified  gateways,  it  is 
approached  by  a  causeway  exposing  the 
unprotected  right  side  of  assailants  to 
the  walls.  The  tower  thus  reached  gave 
access  to  a  bridge  across  the  fosse,  and 
another  gateway  admitted  within  the 
walls.  Inside  this  gate  is  a  tomb  which 
I  point  out  because  it  is  typical  of  the 
Bagdad  burial-places.  The  mortuary 
chamber  is  covered  by  a  "pineapple 
dome"  such  as  is  often  seen  hereabout. 
Within  a  walled  garden  is  a  beautiful 
tiled  minaret,  from  which  a  muezzin 
calls  to  prayer  five  times  a  day,  and 
calls  in  vain,  I  fear,  for  the  city  is  not  as 
large  as  it  once  was,  and  there  are  no 
houses  within  hearing  distance.  But 
such  is  the  force  of  tradition  in  the  East. 

A  few  minutes  more  brings  us  to  the 


MOSQUE  OF  SHEIKH  ABDUL  KADIR — ONE  OF  THE  FINEST  DOMES  IN  THE  MOSLEM  WORLD 


mosque  of  Abdul  Kadir.  The  main  part 
of  the  building  is  covered  by  a  huge,  low, 
whitewashed  dome,  beside  which,  in  cu- 
rious contrast,  is  the  most  beautifully 
decorated  dome  in  the  Mohammedan 
world.  It  is  covered  with  tiles  making  a 
design  like  a  beautiful  Persian  rug,  both 
in  tasteful  treatment  and  subdued  col- 
oring. The  cylindrical  wall  below  is 
similarly  decorated.  Below  a  ring  of 
arabesques  is  the  most  exquisite  tile- 
work  in  the  world.  The  minarets  are  of 
almost  equal  beauty,  while  the  gardens 
about  the  mosque  are  among  the  most 
lovely  in  Bagdad. 

This  shrine  is  a  great  resort  for  pil- 
grims, especially  from  India,  where  the 
Kadiriyeh  dervishes — an  order  founded 
by  Abdul  Kadir  himself — are  very 
strong.  It  was  built  soon  after  the  death 
of  the  Sheik  in  1253,  and  so  must  have 
been  quite  new  in  the  year  of  the  Mongol 
invasion  that  witnessed  the  fall  of  the 
Abbasids.  To  this  the  present  successor 
of  Abdul  Kadir,  the  Nakib,  as  he  is 
called,  owes  his  pre-eminence  in  the  re- 
ligious world  of  Bagdad.  The  Kalifs 
had  jealously  protected  their  religious 
hegemony  lest  rivals  rise  against  them, 


but  they  had  not  had  time  to  fear  the 
successors  of  even  so  holy  a  man  as 
Abdul  Kadir,  and  so  the  Nakib  had  no 
great  difficulty  in  stepping  into  their 
shoes  and  establishing  no  little  local 
prestige.  The  present  Nakib  is  a  quiet 
but  progressive  man  whose  influence  is 
generally  considered  to  be  very  good. 

Near  the  mosque  is  a  tekiyeh,  a  place 
for  the  entertainment  of  pilgrims.  Sev- 
eral broad  courts  are  surrounded  by  two- 
storied  arcades  that  provide  lodging  for 
thousands  of  pilgrims.  Men  of  all  the 
Moslem  nations  are  there  to  be  seen, 
washing  at  the  fountain  and  walking  in 
the  shade  of  the  gardens.  This  is  one  of 
the  great  meeting-places  of  Islam,  where 
all  races  and  peoples  that  follow  the 
Prophet  come  together  and  realize  the 
widespread  and  singular  unity  of  their 
religion.  Pilgrimage  is  the  great  bond 
that  unites  all  Moslems,  whether  they 
dwell  by  the  holy  cities  in  Hejaz,  in  the 
confines  of  Europe,  or  in  distant  Hindu- 
stan, or  still  more  remote  China. 

From  this  great  shrine  it  is  only  a 
short  drive  to  the  American  consulate, 
where  we  may  dismiss  our  carriage  and 
pay  our  respects  to  the  consul.  The 


912 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


consulate  is  in  the  southern  part  of  the 
city,  not  far  from  the  river.  Near  by  is 
the  British  residency,  where  we  were 
received  by  the  acting  resident,  to  whom 
we  were  provided  with  letters.  This 
official,  though  called  a  resident,  is  really 
only  a  consul.  He  owes  his  title  to  the 
fact  that  he  is  under  the  India  office,  and 
not  the  foreign  office,  and  so  ranks  as  a 
representative  in  a  native  state  in  which 
the  government  of  India  claims  a  sphere 
of  influence.  He  further  differs  from  a 
consular  officer  in  having  a  guard  of 
thirty  Sikhs  and  a  little  gunboat  on 
the  river.  This  arrangement  dates  from 
1838,  when  a  military  expedition  was 
sent  up  the  river  to  establish  once  for 
all  the  right  of  Britons  to  carry  on  trade 
in  Bagdad.  The  first  big  company  to 
enter  into  trade  there  was  that  of  Messrs. 
Lynch,  for  whom  England  wrested  from 
Turkey  the  right  to  navigate  the  Tigris, 
which  they  still  do.  It  is  largely  in  evi- 
dence of  this  right  that  the  caller  at  the 
residency  is  saluted  by  a  trim,  bearded 
sepoy  as  he  enters  the  gate. 

The  spacious  buildings  and  beautiful 
gardens  of  the  residency  are  the  center 
of  the  European  colony  in  the  city.  A 
short  time  ago  this  comprised  only  a  few 
merchants  and  the  consuls  of  the  great 
Powers.    But  to-day  there  are  several 


engineers  connected  with  the  irrigation 
works  started  under  the  direction  of  Sir 
William  Willcocks,  all  of  whom  are  Eng- 
lish, and  a  considerable  number  of  Ger- 
man and  other  Continental  engineers 
engaged  on  the  Bagdad  railway.  The 
chief  engineer  was  our  fellow-guest  at 
the  Tigris  Hotel,  and  from  him  we 
learned  that  there  were  eighty  kilo- 
meters then  in  process  of  construction. 

The  concession  for  this  railway  was 
considered  a  triumph  of  German  diplo- 
macy. The  line  already  existing,  in 
1909,  from  the  Bosporus  to  Boulgour- 
lou,  and  requiring  only  a  short  addition 
to  bring  it  to  the  Mediterranean  at  Mer- 
sina,  was  the  chief  claim  of  Germany  for 
a  sphere  of  influence  in  Anatolia.  Eng- 
land's weakness  in  permitting  this  Ger- 
man interest  to  be  pushed  forward  to 
Bagdad,  the  very  center  of  the  British 
sphere,  is  attributable  only  to  the  policy 
of  conciliation  followed  by  the  foreign 
office  in  all  the  near  Eastern  questions, 
not  only  in  1910-1911,  when  the  conces- 
sion was  granted,  but  later  also,  when 
Mr.  Shuster  was  driven  out  of  Persia. 
The  port  of  Mersina  was  surrendered  to 
Germany  upon  a  long  lease — a  very  dan- 
gerous precedent.  The  permanent  way 
between  this  port  and  the  important 
Syrian  center  of  Aleppo  will  soon  be 


THE  BRIDGE  ACROSS  THE  TIGRIS 


LOOKING  TOWARD  WEST  BAGDAD  ACROSS  THE  TIGRIS 


completed.  The  railways  south  of  this 
city  are  chiefly  owned  in  France  and 
have  been  built  by  French  companies, 
while  that  nation  also  claims  Syria  as  her 
sphere  of  influence. 

A  short  distance  outside  of  west  Bag- 
dad— the  Shiah  quarter — is  the  suburb 
of  Kazimein.  Here  are  the  tombs  and 
mosques  of  the  seventh  and  ninth 
Imams,  descendants  of  Ali  and  Fatimah, 
daughter  of  the  Prophet.  The  Shiahs  are 
the  most  fanatical  Moslems,  and  will 
permit  no  Christian  to  enter  their 
shrines.  But  visitors  may  go  out  to  the 
mosques  by  the  little  tram-line  that  con- 
nects them  with  the  city,  and  gaze  from 
afar  upon  the  gilded  domes  and  min- 
arets, the  exquisite  tile-work  of  the  gate- 
ways, and  the  doors  of  beaten  silver. 
The  wealth  of  this  shrine  is  nothing  short 
of  marvelous,  and  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  Shiahs  are  devoted  pilgrims  and  are 
wont  to  make  large  gifts  to  their  chief 
shrines.  Kazimein  is  especially  fortu- 
nate in  being  not  only  very  near  Persia, 
but  also  on  the  great  pilgrim  route  to 
Kerbela,  the  old  center  of  the  sect  and 
site  of  some  of  its  most  sacred  tombs,  as 
well  as  the  route  to  Mecca,  the  supreme 
Moslem  pilgrimage.  But  it  is  not  safe 
for  a  Westerner  to  linger  long  before  the 
great  shrines,  lest  he  rouse  the  fanati- 


cism of  the  worshipers  and  suffer  the 
ignominy  of  being  hustled  rudely  away. 
The  best  place  from  which  to  view  the 
shrine  is  from  the  roof  of  one  of  the 
neighboring  tombs,  as  that  of  the  Indian 
prince  Sir  Ikbal  ed  Douleh,  brother  to 
the  late  king  of  Oudh.  The  mullah  in 
charge  is  a  kindly  soul,  and  ever  ready 
to  dispense  hospitality  to  a  stranger, 
especially  if  he  be  a  fellow-subject  of  his 
late  lamented  master. 

Kazimein,  though  a  Shiah  shrine, 
really  owes  its  sanctity  to  having  been 
the  burial-place  of  Ibn  Hanbal,  founder 
of  the  last  four  orthodox  Sunni  sects. 
His  tomb,  however,  has  long  since  dis- 
appeared. Across  the  river  stands  the 
tomb  of  another  of  this  line  of  teachers, 
Abu  Hanifah,  founder  of  the  first  of  the 
four  sects.  Its  beautiful  old  tiled  dome, 
in  the  midst  of  the  picturesque  villages 
of  Muazzam,  is  doubtless  the  oldest  of 
all  the  ruins  about  Bagdad,  for  its  occu- 
pant was  a  Christian  convert  who  aided 
Mansur  in  the  building  of  the  original 
Moslem  city. 

The  whole  region  about  this  tomb  and 
those  of  Kazimein  is  a  vast  cemetery, 
covered  with  graves  and  scattered 
stones,  sad  reminders  of  past  greatness, 
for  here  were  the  palaces  of  the  earliest 
and  greatest  of  the  Abbasid  Kalifs. 


A  Point  of  Honor 


BY  NORMAN  DUNCAN 


@Plfef^,£3^llP  T  was  now  after  dark. 

r  The  worst  was  over, 
j  Day  no  longer  scorched 
I  the  quivering  key.  And 
S  thank  God,  too,  for 
^S^^f^^S  that!  Better  still  —  a 
^S^Silllio5^^  grateful  mitigation  of 
the  August  torture — the  glare  was  gone 
out  of  the  world.  A  hot,  white  light 
had  blistered  the  eyes  and  the  nerves 
of  the  town.  It  had  exasperated  the 
town  to  a  squinting  fury.  The  light 
had  given  place,  now,  at  last,  to  a  dead, 
dry  dark;  and  an  occasional  muffled 
clap  of  thunder,  with  the  doubtful  prom- 
ise of  a  shower,  came  rumbling  out  of  the 
sea  in  the  southwest.  It  was  still  hot; 
there  was  no  refreshment  in  the  stagnant 
air;  a  gasp  of  breath  was  warm  and  dry 
in  a  man's  mouth.  Eyes  were  bloodshot, 
lips  parched,  minds  fevered.  There 
were  quick  quarrels  in  the  waterside  re- 
sorts. Exhibitions  of  passion  could 
arouse  some  limp,  bleared  attention; 
ugly  tales  were  faintly  diverting.  Water- 
side talk,  in  that  suffering  night,  was 
noisome;  and  thoughts  everywhere — 
and  the  deeds  of  obscurity — were  God 
knows  what!  Faugh!  It  was  a  hot 
night! 

Beyond  the  green-shuttered  doors  cf 
the  little  back  room  at  Cochin's  place 
there  was  a  shuffle  and  drone  abroad  in 
the  street,  with  some  soft  negro  merri- 
ment to  enliven  it.  When  Banty  Lafit, 
the  wrecking-master,  entered  with  Car- 
veth  in  tow  (Carveth  was  a  rotund 
little  drummer  from  New  England),  the 
swarthy  circle,  habitually  gathered  with- 
in, was  contemplating  the  arrival  of  late- 
comers with  a  convalescent  interest  in 
life.  Presently  thereafter  there  was 
some  polite  talk  of  the  game  fish  of  those 
waters — of  tarpon  and  tackle,  of  barra- 
cuda and  the  Dry  Tortugas.  Inconse- 
quential stuff,  this.  It  was  designed  to 
engage  Carveth.  It  failed.  Carveth 
was  too  hot  to  be  stimulated  by  the  in- 


sipid exchange.  Later,  however,  there 
was  talk  of  big  winds — of  wreck  and 
salvage,  too,  and  of  smuggling  and  the 
revenue;  and  later  still  —  the  hour 
being  now  agreeably  near  midnight — 
the  tales  ran  rather  to  monstrous  deeds 
accomplished  in  the  blazing  midst  of  the 
Caribbean.  At  last  the  frills  fell  from 
the  conversation:  there  was  talk,  then, 
of  nigger-killing — talk  all  stripped  and 
stark  naked. 

In  the  thick,  dirty  heat  of  the  night, 
with  thunder  growling  at  sea,  and  with 
his  blood  throbbing,  Carveth's  vision,  in 
its  relation  to  the  practice  of  bush- 
hunting  an  erring  negro,  was  discolored 
and  distorted. 

"Damn  these  niggers!"  he  growled. 

A  laugh  went  round. 

"What  you  laughing  at?"  Carveth  de- 
manded.   Carveth  laughed,  too. 

"We're  laughing  at  you,"  said  Lafit. 
"What's  the  matter  with  you  North- 
erners, anyhow?  You  come  down  here 
to  Key  West,  and  you're  not  here 
twenty-four  hours  before  you  begin  to 
damn  the  niggers.  What's  the  matter 
with  the  niggers?" 

Carveth  pondered.  "I  don't  know," 
said  he,  frowning. 

"What  did  you  damn  'em  for?" 

"I  don't  know  that,  either.  I  felt  like 
damnin'  'em." 

"Why?" 

"I  tell  you  I  don't  know.  It  surprises 
me.  I  never  felt  like  that  before.  I 
rather  like  the  niggers." 

"Why  shouldn't  you?" 

"I  should." 

"Why  don't  you?" 

"I  do." 

Lafit  had  been  leaning  eagerly  toward 
Carveth.  It  was  an  expression  of  genu- 
ine interest.    Now  he  withdrew,  and 

Slg"That's  all  right,  Mr.  Carveth,"  said 
he,  reproachfully,  then.  "Of  course  I 
don't  want  to  bother  you.  All  I  wanted 
to  know  is  why  a  Southerner  loves  a 


A  POINT  OF  HONOR 


915 


nigger  and  a  Northerner  hates  him.  I've 
never  been  able  to  find  that  out.  I 
reckoned  maybe  you  could  help  me." 

Carveth  laughed  softly.  "Loves  a 
nigger?"  he  mocked.  "And  old  Jim 
Wylie— " 

"That's  different,  Mr.  Carveth," 
Lafit  protested,  rather  hopelessly,  how- 
ever, it  must  be  said.  "What  you  can't 
grasp  is  that  old  Jim  Wylie  understands 
the  niggers.  Jim  Wylie  is  a  nigger- 
killer.  I  said  so.  I  don't  deny  it  now. 
That's  just  what  old  Jim  is — a  nigger- 
killer.  We  have  our  nigger-killers  down 
here,  Mr.  Carveth.  I'm  perfectly  frank 
about  it.  Old  Jim  Wylie  has  probably 
killed  more  niggers  than  any  three  men 
on  the  Florida  keys.  Jim  Wylie  knows 
how  to  kill  a  nigger.  Jim  Wylie  knows 
when  to  kill  a  nigger.  Jim  Wylie  knows 
why  to  kill  a  nigger.  And  what's  the 
result?" 

"Dead  niggers,"  said  Carveth, 
gravely. 

"Oh,  of  course!"  said  Lafit.  "I  don't 
mean  that,  though.  What's  the  result — 
in  addition  to  a  few  dead  niggers?" 

"More  dead  niggers?" 

Lafit  was  grieved  by  this  levity. 
"That's  all  right,  Mr.  Carveth,"  said  he. 
"Have  all  the  fun  you  want.  I  don't 
mind.  What  you  don't  seem  to  under- 
stand is  that  I'm  trying  to  tell  you  some- 
thing in  such  a  way  that  you  can  grasp 
it.  I'm  not  joking,  Mr.  Carveth.  I'm 
in  earnest." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  Carveth.  "What  is 
the  result?" 

"The  result  is,"  Lafit  replied,  tapping 
the  table  with  his  forefinger  to  empha- 
size the  sagacity  with  which  old  Jim 
Wylie  had  solved  the  race  problem, 
"that  old  Jim  Wylie  isn't  troubled  by 
niggers." 

"Not  by  some  niggers,"  Carveth  ad- 
mitted. 

"Jim  Wylie  doesn't  damn  the  nig- 
gers. 

"Ah,  well,"  said  Carveth,  quickly, 
"that's  properly  a  post  mortem  proceed- 
ing with  which  Jim  Wylie  has  nothing 
to  do." 

"Jim  Wylie  loves  the  niggers." 

Carveth  lifted  his  eyebrows  in  a  bur- 
lesque of  amazed  expostulation. 

"Let  me  tell  you  about  Jim  Wylie," 
said  Lafit.   "We  get  the  old  man  in  town 


about  once  a  quarter.  He  lives  on  a 
lonesome  plantation  over  on  the  main 
shore,  almost  up  in  the  glades,  and  he 
comes  over  to  Key  West  to  bank  his 
cash  and  go  to  the  Presbyterian  church. 
The  minute  you  clapped  eyes  on  the  old 
gentleman,  you'd  know  him  for  old  Jim 
Wylie:  a  tallish  old  fellow,  in  a  black 
coat,  and  as  lean  as  a  sick  cracker — a 
gray  face,  you  understand,  and  a  long, 
clean  white  beard,  too,  and  a  drawling 
way  of  talk,  as  though  he  didn't  care 
very  much  what  he  was  saying,  when 
you  know,  all  the  time,  if  you  know  Jim 
Wylie,  that  every  word  Jim  Wylie  drops 
is  damned  important  conversation.  Jim 
grows  sweet-potatoes,  and  pineapples, 
and  cane,  and  runs  a  still.  Potatoes  and 
pineapples  come  to  the  Key  West  auc- 
tions. Moonshine  goes  to  the  construc- 
tion-camps. It  isn't  much  of  a  place 
over  there,  I  reckon — nothing  but  a 
shack  or  two,  black  water,  mosquitoes, 
fevers,  and  snakes. 

"'Lafit,'  says  Jim,  'I  got  a  nigger 
buried  under  every  tree  on  my  planta- 
tion. 

"Is  it  a  large  plantation?"  Carveth 
inquired. 

"Oh,  some  size  to  it,  I  reckon." 
"Many  trees?" 

"Mr.  Carveth,"  Lafit  protested,  hurt, 
"I  reckon  you  think  I'm  lying  for  sport. 
You've  been  thinking  that  right  along,  I 
reckon.  That's  all  right.  I  don't  mind. 
But  you  forget  that  it's  quite  a  way  from 
Boston — away  over  there  on  the  edge  of 
the  glades.  A  lot  of  things  happen  on 
the  keys  and  in  the  glades  that  nobody 
knows  anything  about  up  in  Boston. 
There  isn't  anything  extraordinary  in 
that,  is  there?  I'm  not  lying  to  you, 
Mr.  Carveth.  What  Jim  Wylie  meant," 
the  wrecking-master  went  on,  "was  only 
that  he  had  a  good  many  niggers  buried 
over  there.  And  he  has,  too.  And  he 
could  bury  a  nigger  under  every  tree  on 
his  plantation  if  he  took  the  notion  and 
the  supply  held  out.  Who's  to  hinder? 
It's  out  of  the  way — off  the  map.  And 
who  could  prove  anything  on  Jim  Wylie? 
And  who  would  if  they  could?  And 
what  would  happen  to  Jim  Wylie  if  they 
did?  Oh,  it's  all  clean  truth,  Mr.  Car- 
veth! I'm  not  lying  to  you.  A  nigger 
just  doesn't  mean  anything  much  to  Jim 
Wylie." 


916 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Carveth  was  graver  now.  "What 
does  he  kill  'em  for?"  he  asked. 

"The  best  answer  to  that,"  Lafit  re- 
plied, "is  that  they  annoy  him." 

"Does  he  like  to  kill  'em?" 

"Like  to  kill  'em?  Is  that  a  joke,  Mr. 
Carveth?  Of  course  he  doesn't  like  to 
kill  'em.  Why  should  he?  Would  you? 
He  kills  'em  because  he  thinks  he  ought 
to.  Old  Jim  Wylie  would  be  the  last 
man  in  the  world  to  shoot  a  nigger  with- 
out cause — I  mean  some  sort  of  cause 
that  we  think  down  here  is  good  enough 
cause.  Jim  Wylie  couldn't  go  out  in  the 
street  and  shoot  up  every  nigger  that 
happened  to  displease  his  fancy.  Why, 
no!  0$  course  not\  Shucks!  It  wouldn't 
be  allowed.  And  Jim  Wylie  wouldn't 
want  to,  anyhow.  I  don't  know  how 
many  niggers  Jim  has  killed  on  his  plan- 
tation. A  good  many,  I  reckon — a  good 
many  more,  anyhow,  than  anybody  up 
in  Boston  would  believe,  if  Jim  counted 
'em  up  and  made  a  clean  breast  of  the 
total.  You  wouldn't  believe  it  yourself, 
Mr.  Carveth — not  even  now,  when 
you're  beginning  to  understand  that 
what  you  were  making  fun  of  a  little 
while  ago  is  true.  But  there's  this  about 
it  to  make  it  a  little  simpler:  in  the  first 
place,  every  nigger  Jim  Wylie  kills  on 
his  plantation  is  a  nigger;  and  in  the 
second  place,  every  nigger  on  Jim 
Wylie's  plantation  has  broken  the  law 
in  one  way  or  another.  That  makes  a 
lot  of  difference.  Perhaps  I  ought  to 
have  told  you  that  before.  You  can 
easily  see  that  it  gives  Jim  Wylie  quite 
a  little  bit  of  latitude." 

a  tt        j ,  •  >j 

Hasn  t  a  nigger — 
"Any  rights?  My  God,  what  do  you 
want  to  ask  such  a  question  as  that  for, 
Mr.  Carveth?  Don't  you  know  any 
better?  Of  course  a  nigger  has  rights! 
What  sort  of  white  people  do  you  think 
we  are  down  here  on  the  Florida  Keys? 
Heathen?  Nobody  wants  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  a  nigger — except  another  nig- 
ger. A  nigger  has  all  the  rights  he 
needs — here  in  Key  West.  Not  aggra- 
vating rights,  you  understand.  When  it 
comes  right  down  to  the  vital  question, 
there's  usually  some  way  for  a  white 
man  to  protect  himself.  That's  neces- 
sary. But  on  Jim  Wylie's  plantation  a 
nigger  hasn't  any  rights.  The  only  nig- 
gers that  Jim  takes  on  his  plantation  are 


refugees — runaways  from  the  jails  and 
phosphate-mines  and  turpentine-camps. 
Jim  takes  'em  in,  feeds  'em  up,  asks  no 
questions,  promises  a  little  pay,  and  puts 
'em  to  work  on  the  plantation.  Jim's 
plantation  has  the  whole  of  the  ever- 
glades for  a  back  yard.  It  isn't  much 
use  for  a  sheriff  to  hunt  a  nigger  in  the 
swamp.  A  nigger  is  safe — perfectly  safe 
— so  long  as  he  doesn't  annoy  Jim.  You 
understand  me  better  now,  don't  you? 
And  it's  queer,  isn't  it? — old  Jim  Wylie's 
camp  for  runaway  niggers  over  there  on 
the  edge  of  the  glades.  They  might  not 
believe  it  up  in  Boston.  But  it's  God's 
truth  I'm  telling  you,  Mr.  Carveth." 

"See  here,"  Carveth  inquired;  "sup- 
pose Jim  Wylie  annoyed  a  nigger  first?" 

"There  isn't  a  nigger  in  his  senses 
would  try  to  kill  Jim  Wylie." 

"But  why — " 

"Why?    Why,  because  Jim  Wylie's 

white!11 

All  this  was  interrupted  by  a  flash,  a 
nearer  rumble  of  thunder,  and  the  lurch- 
ing entrance  of  Bill  Welter,  a  swarthy, 
buccaneerish  fellow  in  the  wrecking  way. 

"I  can  taste  this  weather!"  says  he, 
and  sank  limply  into  a  chair  at  the  table. 
Presently  he  looked  the  circle  round,  the 
light  of  amusement  in  his  eyes,  as  he 
sipped  his  drink,  and  told,  in  a  casual 
way,  his  astounding  news. 

"Boys,"  said  he,  "they  got  Jim 
Wylie!" 

^Got  Jim  Wylie!" 

"Who  got  him?" 

"Nigger  get  him?" 

"Devilish  queer  business,"  Welter  re- 
plied. "You'd  never  think  it  of  Jim 
Wylie.  And  yet — I  don't  know.  It  was 
pretty  much  what  you  might  expect  of  a 
nigger-killer  like  Jim  Wylie.  Oh  yes, 
there  was  a  nigger  in  it!  There  was  two 
niggers  in  it.  It  all  come  out  through 
them.  The  sheriff's  got  'em  both.  And 
they  sure  do  tell  a  devilish  queer  story 
on  old  Jim  Wylie!" 

"Who  do  you  reckon  Wylie  had  over 
there  on  his  plantation?"  says  Welter. 
"Boys,  he  had  Cole  over  there — John 
Cole!  That's  what  the  niggers  say.  And 
I  reckon  it's  true.  They  been  hunting 
that  hound  for  six  months.  I  reckon 
nobody  won't  waste  no  sympathy  on 


A  POINT  OF  HONOR 


917 


Cole.  That  white  man's  flesh  would 
poison  buzzards.  Anyhow,"  the  wrecker 
ran  on,  "when  Cole  landed  in  on  Jim, 
he  called  himself  Thompson,  and  was 
starved  to  the  bones,  and  said  he  had 
broke  away  from  the  phosphate-mines 
in  a  thunder-storm.  The  niggers  reckon 
that  Jim  didn't  know  Cole  when  he  took 
him  in.  That's  all  right.  Jim  didn't 
know  anybody.  That  wasn't  Jim's  busi- 
ness. All  Jim  asked  of  a  man  was  a 
name  to  call  him  by.  Thompson  was  a 
good  enough  name  for  Cole  until  Jim 
found  out  that  he  was  Cole.  After  that 
it  was  different.  Jim  didn't  hesitate,  but 
made  up  his  mind,  right  off,  and  went 
straight  ahead  with  what  he  intended 
to  do,  just  as  he  always  did,  without 
troubling  the  courts. 

"  There  was  a  Key  West  nigger  over 
there  called  Limpy  Jackson.  He's  a 
club-footed  crawl  -  thief — stole  some 
sponges  off  Jump  Key — and  come  down 
to  Jim  from  the  turpentine-camps. 

"'You  Limpy,'  says  Jim;  'you  come 
along  with  me.' 

"Nigger  didn't  like  the  looks  of  Jim. 
That's  what  he  says.  He  suspicioned 
for  a  minute  that  maybe  Jim  was  after 
him. 

'"Yassa,  boss,'  says  he. 

"'I  got  a  little  job  for  you  to  do, 
nigger,'  says  Jim.  'I  reckon  you  got 
heart  enough.' 

'"Yassa,  boss.' 

"'Come  along,'  says  Jim. 

"Nigger  was  scared;  but  he  says, 
'Yassa,  boss.' 

'"That's  all  right,  nigger,'  says  Jim. 
'You've  heard  me  talk.  Come  along.  I 
reckon  we  won't  be  more'n  a  few  busy 
minutes.' 

"Nigger  was  more  scared  than  ever; 
but  he  says,  'Yassa,  boss.' 

"They  come  on  Cole  somewheres  back 
on  the  plantation.  There  wasn't  nobody 
about.  Cole  was  leaning  on  his  hoe,  the 
nigger  says,  with  his  face  on  his  arm,  as 
if  he  was  feeling  out  of  sorts.  His  back 
was  to  Jim  and  the  nigger — he  hadn't 
heard  them  come  near.  I  reckon  some- 
how that  he  was  almighty  tired  of  being 
hunted.  It  looked  that  way  to  the 
nigger.  The  nigger  says  so.  And  maybe 
it  looked  that  way  to  Jim,  too.  The 
nigger  says  that  Jim  stood  there,  watch- 
ing Cole,  for  quite  a  spell,  before  he 

Vol.  CXXXI  —  No.  786.— 114 


pulled  his  gun — as  if  he  was  just  a  mite 
sorry  for  Cole,  after  all. 

"Then  Jim  says,  'Face  this  way, 
Thompson,  and  stand  still.' 

"Cole  done  it.  'Howdy,  Mr.  Wylie!' 
says  he. 

"'Don't  you  reckon,  Thompson,'  says 
Jim,  'that  you've  lived  just  about  long 
enough  ?' 

"'I  'ain't  done  nothing,  Mr.  Wylie,' 
says  Cole. 

'"Cole/  says  Jim,  'I  know  you.' 

'"I  reckon  you  do,  Mr.  Wylie.' 

'"We  don't  want  you  around  here.' 

'"I  reckon  not,  Mr.  Wylie.' 

'"Nobody  wants  you  nowhere.' 

'"No — I  reckon  not.  I  'ain't  got  no 
place  to  go,  Mr.  Wylie.' 

'"There's  been  a  good  many  niggers 
lynched  in  this  state,  Cole,'  says  Jim. 
'There's  going  to  be  one  white  man.  It 
suits  my  notion,  Cole,  to  have  a  club- 
footed  nigger  do  the  lynching.' 

"Cole  says,  'Yes,  Mr.  Wylie.' 

'"Here,  nigger/  says  Jim;  'take  this 
gun  and  kill  him.' 

"Nigger  was  scared.  'Ah  'ain't  nevah 
killed  nobody  befo',  boss/  says  he. 

"'It  ain't  nothing  much  to  do/  says 
Jim.    'Go  close.' 

'"Ah'm  on'y  a  thief ,  boss!' 

'"Take  the  gun  and  kill  him.' 

'"Ah  can't,  boss!' 

'"Don't  be  scared,  nigger,'  says  Jim. 
'What's  the  matter  with  you?  Here — 
take  the  gun.  I  won't  let  nobody  touch 
you  for  it.' 

"'Doan'  make  me  do  it,  boss!'  says 
the  nigger.    'Ah  doan'  want  to!' 

'"Take  the  gun.' 

'"Hurry  up,'  says  Cole. 

"'Oh,  mah  Gawd!'  says  the  nigger, 
'Is  yo'  goin'  ter  make  me  do  it,  boss?' 

"Jim  seen,  then,  I  reckon,  that  he'd 
have  to  force  the  nigger. 

'"Come  here,'  says  he. 

"'Aw,  now,  doan'  hit  me,  boss!'  says 
the  nigger. 

"Jim  knocked  him  down.  'Now,'  says 
he,  'will  you  do  what  you're  told?' 

"The  nigger  got  up,  then,  and  said 
all  right,  he'd  do  what  he  was  told,  and 
took  the  gun;  and  Jim  promised  again 
that  he  wouldn't  let  nobody  do  nothing 
to  him  for  killing  Cole. 

"'Yo'  sho'  won't,  boss?'  says  the 
nigger. 


918 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"'I  never  broke  my  promise  to  a  nig- 
ger yet,'  says  Jim. 

"'You  damned  black  nigger,'  says 
Cole — 'shoot!' 

"Then  the  nigger  went  close  up  to 
Cole — oh,  within  a  couple  of  paces,  I 
reckon — and  maybe  a  mite  closer  to 
make  sure — and  shot  him  three  times. 

"'Thanks,'  says  Jim.  'You  got  him. 
That  '11  do.  Now  you  take  him  out  in 
the  swamp  somewheres  and  sink  him.' 

"And  the  nigger  reckoned  he  would." 

In  the  pause  Carveth  shuddered.  It 
was  a  bald  tale.  But  it  was  true.  It 
was  so  manifestly  true- — truth  signifi- 
cant, truth  fresh  from  the  glades — that 
the  skeptical  little  New  England  drum- 
mer was  not  troubled  by  incredulity. 
Welter  was  not  addressing  Carveth. 
Here  was  no  tale  told  with  fanciful  ex- 
aggerations to  impress  a  stranger.  It  was 
a  narrative  without  background — swift- 
ly imparted  in  privacy  to  inform  men 
whose  experience  called  for  no  detail 
of  why  and  whereabouts.  Carveth  vi- 
sioned  the  scene  for  himself — this  slow, 
cold  slaughter,  irresistibly  commanded 
by  a  white  man,  and  done  remotely  by 
a  quailing  negro,  in  a  pool  of  hot  sun- 
light in  the  midst  of  a  swamp,  with  a 
stagnant  reach  of  black  water  hard  by, 
rank  grasses  round  about,  and  gaunt, 
slimy  roots  beyond,  and  shadows  and 
a  gloomy  tangle  of  vines  and  mosses  and 
branches. 

Once  more  Carveth  fixed  his  attention 
upon  the  recital  of  these  sordid  horrors. 

"I  don't  know  very  much  about  such 
things,"  Welter  went  on,  "but  I  reckon 
Jim  Wylie  didn't  think  he  had  done  any 
harm.  All  the  trouble  come  from  the 
nigger.  He  was  a  nigger,  and  he  had 
killed  a  white  man,  and  I  reckon  he  got 
so  full  of  nigger  vanity,  pretty  soon,  that 
he  just  had  to  boast  of  what  he'd  done. 
He  got  a  yellow  nigger  called  White  Rat 
to  help  him  take  Cole  out  in  the  swamp. 
But  he  didn't  tell  the  yellow  nigger  that 
Thompson  was  Cole.  And  he  didn't  tell 
the  yellow  nigger  that  Jim  Wylie  had 
had  a  hand  in  the  shooting.  Oh  no! 
He  was  a  nigger — and  plumb  full  of 
vanity.  All  he  said  was  that  he  was  a 
bad  nigger  himself,  an  almighty  danger- 
ous nigger  to  trifle  with,  and  that  he'd 
killed  that  white  trash,  Thompson,  of  his 


own  notion;  and  that  he'd  kill  any  other 
white  trash — yes,  he  would — that  done 
crossed  his  path.  And  that  scared  the 
yellow  nigger,  and  drove  him  over  to  the 
magistrate  to  save  his  own  black  hide, 
with  the  story  that  a  club-footed  nigger 
called  Limpy  Jackson  had  killed  a  white 
man  over  on  Jim  Wylie's  plantation. 

'"Ah  didn't  have  no  hand  in  it,'  says 
he.  'Ah  jus'  seen  it,  boss,  an'  acted  as 
a  'pallbearer! 

"George  Wales  was  swore  in  and  sent 
over  with  a  posse  of  three  to  fetch  out 
Limpy.  Something  had  to  be  done.  A 
nigger  can't  kill  a  white  man  anywhere. 
It  was  Sunday  afternoon — last  Sunday 
— when  Wales  got  to  Jim's  landing.  Jim 
wasn't  expecting  nobody,  naturally:  he 
never  expected  nobody;  and  Wales  had 
come  on  him  so  sudden  that  Jim  didn't 
have  no  time  to  get  his  niggers  into  the 
swamp  in  the  usual  way.  Maybe  Jim 
hadn't  been  troubled  for  so  long  that  he 
was  careless.  Anyhow — Wales  had  him. 
And  Jim  knew  it,  and  Wales  knew  it. 
The  cabin  was  close  to  the  landing;  and 
it  happened  that  Limpy  Jackson  was 
trapped  inside,  and  could  hear  every 
word  that  was  said.  But  Limpy  wasn't 
scared.  Oh  no!  Limpy  told  the  sheriff, 
afterward,  that  he  wasn't  scared,  and 
that  he  wasn't  scared  because  Jim  Wylie 
had  told  him  to  kill  that  white  man,  and 
had  forced  him  to  kill  that  white  man, 
and  had  promised  that  he  wouldn't  let 
nobody  touch  him  for  killing  that  white 
man.  And  Limpy  says,  too,  that  when 
he  was  in  the  cabin,  with  Wales  outside, 
he  just  reckoned  that  Jim  Wylie  would 
be  as  good  as  his  word,  because  he  was 
Jim  Wylie's  nigger,  and  he  knew  Jim 
Wylie. 

"Jim  had  sure  got  himself  into  a  nasty 
snarl  with  that  there  nigger. 

'"How  do,  Mr.  Wylie!'  says  Wales. 

"'Howdy!'  says  Jim.  'What  you 
want,  Wales?' 

"'I  want  a  club-footed  nigger,'  says 
Wales.  'You  got  one  over  here,  Mr. 
Wylie?' 

"'Yes,'  says  Jim.  'What  you  want 
him  for?' 

'"You  had  a  white  man  killed  over 
here,  Mr.  Wylie?' 

"'Been  some  talk  about  it,'  says  Jim. 

"'Well,'  says  Wales,  'that's  what  I 
want  the  club-footed  nigger  for.' 


A  POINT  OF  HONOR 


919 


" ' Want  anybody  else?'  says  Jim. 

"'I  reckon  not,'  says  Wales.  'Just 
the  nigger.' 

"'Hum-m,'  says  Jim.  'You  don't 
really  want  him,  do  you  ?' 

"'That's  what  I  come  for/  says 
Wales.    'I  reckon  I  do,  Mr.  Wylie.' 

"'Know  who  he  killed?' 

'"Oh  yes,'  says  Wales;  'he  killed  a 
white  man  named  Thompson.' 

'"He  killed  John  Cole,'  says  Jim. 

"Wales  thought  Jim  was  lying  to  save 
the  nigger.  'Cole!'  says  he.  'Oh,  well, 
if  he  killed  John  Cole  they'll  give  him 
the  county  reward.' 

'"The  nigger  don't  want  no  reward. 

'"Where  is  the  nigger?' 

'"He's  lying  around  somewheres,' 
says  Jim.  'We  don't  do  no  work  here 
Sundays.    I  reckon  he's  asleep.' 

'"Would  you  mind  disturbing  him, 
Mr.  Wylie?' 

"'It  won't  be  necessary  to  disturb 
him,  Wales,'  says  Jim.  'You  can't  have 
that  nigger.' 

'"That's  plumb  foolish,  Mr.  Wylie!' 

'"Oh,  I  don't  know,'  says  Jim. 
'Maybe  not.    I  got  my  own  notions.' 

'"Mr.  Wylie,'  says  Wales,  'you  and 
me  ain't  going  to  have  no  trouble  over 
a  damn  nigger,  are  we?' 

'"I  don't  know.   He's  my  nigger.' 

'"If  you  can  prove  he  killed  Cole,' 
says  Wales,  'the  nigger  won't  come  to 
no  harm.' 

"'Well,'  says  Jim,  'I  don't  want  my 
nigger  frightened.' 

'"Oh,  shucks!'  says  Wales. 

'"You  understand  the  English  lan- 
guage, Wales?' 

";Sure,  I  do,  Mr.  Wylie!; 

'"I  reckon,  then,'  says  Jim,  'that  you 
don't  understand  me.  I  meant  just  what 
I  said :  /  dont  want  my  nigger  frightened.1 

"Wales  was  bothered. 

'"It  looks  to  me,  after  all,  Mr.  Wylie,' 
says  he,  'as  if  you  and  me  might  have 
some  trouble  over  that  nigger.' 

'"I  hope  not,  Wales.' 

'"The  nigger  ain't  worth  it,  Mr. 
Wylie.' 

"'You'  re  right,'  says  Jim.  'The  nig- 
ger ain't  worth  it.  This  ain't  a  personal 
matter,  is  it,  Wales?  You  ain't  looking 
for  trouble  with  me?' 

'"Lord,  no,  Mr.  Wylie!  It's  just  a 
Jittle  matter  of  business.' 


'"Are  you  a  gentleman,  Wales?' 
'"That's  what  I   call  myself,  Mr. 
Wylie.' 

'"Well,  then,  if  you're  a  gentleman, 
Wales,'  says  Jim,  'and  if  you've  got  any 
common  sense  and  manners,  we  can  sure 
pull  through  without  any  trouble.  I  tell 
you  what,  Wales,  you  stay  right  where 
you  are,  and  keep  your  men  there,  and 
I'll  go  fetch  that  nigger,  if  I  can  find 
him.  He's  sleeping  somewheres  not  far 
off.  I'll  fetch  him,  Wales,  or  I'll  kill 
him.' 

'"Now,  that's  more  like  it,  Mr. 
Wylie,'  says  Wales.  'But  don't  you  put 
yourself  to  the  bother  of  killing  the 
nigger.' 

"'That's  all  right,'  says  Jim.  'Any- 
how, don't  you  move.' 

"Jim  went  to  the  cabin,  then,  and  he 
says  to  that  nigger — this  is  the  nigger's 
story,  boys — 

'"If  there's  any  trouble,  nigger,'  says 
he,  'you  break  for  the  swamp.' 

"'Yassa,  boss.' 

"Til  hold  them  boys  right  where  they 
are  until  you  get  to  cover.' 
'"Yassa,  boss.' 

"'I  don't  break  my  word,'  says  Jim, 
'to  no  damn  nigger!' 

"Jim  went  away  back  on  the  planta- 
tion, after  that,  and  fired  off  his  gun,  and 
come  down  to  the  landing  again,  with 
an  old  coat  over  his  arm  and  his  gun 
in  his  hand. 

"He  threw  the  coat  at  Wales's  feet. 

'"He  wouldn't  come,'  says  he,  'and  so 
I  killed  him.    There's  his  coat.' 

"Wales  was  nervous. 

'"If  he  wouldn't  come,  and  you  killed 
him,  Mr.  Wylie,'  says  he,  'that's  all 
right.  But  I  reckon,  if  you  don't  mind, 
that  I'd  better  see  the  nigger.' 

'"Oh  no,'  says  Jim;  'you  don't  need 
to.' 

'"It's  in  the  line  of  my  duty,  Mr. 
Wylie.' 

'"Oh  no,'  says  Jim.  'Not  at  all. 
I've  gone  to  a  lot  of  trouble  to  make  it 
unnecessary  for  you  to  go  any  further 
with  this  thing.  You're  a  gentleman, 
Wales.  You  heard  me  kill  the  nigger. 
Didn't  you  hear  my  gun  go  off?  Well, 
then,  all  you  got  to  do  is  go  back  and 
say  that  the  nigger  wouldn't  come  and 
Mr.  Wylie  kindly  killed  him.  You're  a 
gentleman,  Wales.   They'll  understand.' 


920 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Til  have  to  see  that  nigger,  Mr. 

Wylie.' 

" 'Damn  it!'  says  Jim.  'You  ain't  got 
sense  enough  to  take  my  word  for  it,  eh? 
You  ain't  no  gentleman,  Wales.  Do 
you  think  I'd  come  down  here  and  lie  to 
you  about  killing  that  nigger  if  I  didn't 
have  my  reasons?  Do  you  think  I 
wouldn't  give  up  a  club-footed  nigger  if 
there  wasn't  some  good  reason  why  I 
shouldn't?  There's  considerable  behind 
this  that  you  don't  know  anything 
about,  Wales.  The  nigger's  mine.  He's 
alive.  He's  in  my  cabin.  But  you  can't 
have  him,  Wrales.' 


"Til  have  to  have  that  nigger,  Mr. 
Wylie.' 

"'But  Wales—' 

"'Yes,  Mr.  Wylie?' 

"'You  ain't  man  enough  to  take  him!' 

"Wales  was  as  quick  as  a  flash.  Oh 
yes,  he  got  old  Jim  Wylie,  all  right 
enough!" 

There  was  a  flash — a  clap  of  thunder 
— a  crackling  roll,  redoubling,  rumbling 
— a  swirling  gust  of  dusty  wind — a  slosh 
of  rain.  Outside  the  night  was  moist  and 
cooling.  Carveth  presently  breathed 
deep  of  its  clean  refreshment. 


The  World  Voice 

BY  BLISS  CARMAN 

I HEARD  the  summer  sea 
Murmuring  to  the  shore 
Some  endless  story  of  a  wrong 
The  whole  world  must  deplore. 

I  heard  the  mountain  wind 
Conversing  with  the  trees 

Of  an  old  sorrow  of  the  hills, 
Mysterious  as  the  sea's. 

And  all  that  haunted  day 
It  seemed  that  I  could  hear 

The  echo  of  an  ancient  speech 
Ring  in  my  listening  ear. 

And  then  it  came  to  me, 
That  all  that  I  had  heard 

Was  my  own  heart  in  the  sea's  voice 
And  the  wind's  lonely  word. 


In  Search  of  a  New  Land 


BY  DONALD  B.  M  ACM  ILL  AN 

Leader  and  Ethnologist  of  the  Crocker  Land  Expedition 
PART  TWO 


The  Crocker  Land  Expedition,  under  the  auspices  of  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History  and  the  American  Geographical  Society, 
was  undertaken  to  solve  the  last  great  geographical  problem  of  the  North: 
Is  there  in  the  Polar  Sea  a  large  body  of  land  still  undiscovered?  In- 
vestigations of  the  tides  and  currents  in  the  polar  regions  seemed  to 
favor  this  view;  geologists  were  disposed  to  deny  it.  Finally,  in  iqo6, 
Peary,  scanning  the  northwest  from  the  summit  of  Cape  Thomas  Hub- 
bard, believed  that  he  saw  11  snow-clad  summits  above  the  ice  horizon" 
approximately  120  miles  distant.  He  named  it  Crocker  Land,  and  the 
present  expedition  s  chief  aim  was  to  verify  this  discovery,  which  has 
been  questioned  up  to  this  time. 

The  overland  part  of  the  journey  from  Etah,  Greenland,  to  Cape 
Thomas  Hubbard  was  described  in  the  October  Harper's.  Here  fol- 
lows the  final  dash  across  the  Polar  Sea. 


HE  end  of  the  first  march 
saw  us  encamped  at  the 
base  of  a  small  pressure 
ridge  about  fourteen 
miles  from  land.  With 
Ee-took-ah-shoo  and 
Pee-ah-wah-to,  I  mount- 
ed the  highest  mass  of  ice  to  survey 
the  field  for  the  next  day.  Nothing 
was  said  for  some  minutes.  There 
were  several  pressure  ridges  in  sight  and 
some  rubble  ice  through  which  we 
could  easily  pick  our  way.  The  Eskimos 
were  plainly  thinking,  and  their  thoughts 
were  not  pleasant  ones.  With  eyes  bet- 
ter than  mine  they  were  not  only  seeing 
the  same  things  which  I  saw,  but  were 
seeing  more  of  it — open  water.  When 
finally  their  tongues  began  to  wag  I 
caught  the  familiar  words,  "Much 
water,"  "the  sun  is  high,"  "will  not 
freeze,"  "the  ice  is  moving."  As  soon 
as  I  realized  that  they  were  worried 
over  this,  I  remarked  that  I  was  glad 
to  see  the  ice  so  good  and  that  it  was 
much  better  than  when  we  were  with 
Peary  on  the  last  trip.  I  slapped  Ee- 
took-ah-shoo  on  the  back,  bantered  Pee- 
ah-wah-to  a  bit,  and  ended  by  telling 
them  to  feed  two  cans  of  pemmican  to 
their  dogs  instead  of  one. 

The  dark  lanes  of  open  water  visible 


ahead,  and  those  on  the  horizon,  as  indi- 
cated by  a  water  sky,  were  evidently 
opened  up  by  the  full  moon  of  April 
ioth.  Fortunately  there  would  not  be 
another  full  moon  until  May  9th;  by  that 
time  we  should  be  on  land.  The  two 
great  opposing  forces  which  guard  the 
secrets  of  the  Polar  Sea  are  pressure 
ridges  and  open  water;  the  former 
smashing  sledges,  wearing  out  the  dogs, 
discouraging  the  men,  and  retarding 
progress;  the  latter  decisive  and  con- 
vincing— thus  far  and  no  farther.  Now 
that  the  high  tides  were  over,  with  the 
thermometer  at  200  below  zero,  these 
leads  would  soon  freeze. 

In  the  morning  we  were  through  and 
over  the  pressure  ridges  in  a  very  short 
time,  our  route  leading  us  out  upon  a 
long,  beautiful  stretch  of  smooth  ice. 
We  hopped  upon  our  sledges,  snapped 
the  whips,  and  away  we  went!  When  on 
the  verge  of  believing  that  Old  Torngak, 
the  evil  spirit  of  the  North,  was,  as  old 
Oo-tah  said,  "either  having  trouble  with 
his  wife  or  had  forgotten  us,"  a  lead  was 
thrown  across  our  path  about  one  hun- 
dred yards  wide  and  extending  appar- 
ently around  the  world.  Ice  was  form- 
ing out  from  both  banks,  a  thin  line  of 
black  extending  down  through  the  cen- 
ter.   Although  a  strong  southwest  wind 


922 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


was  blowing,  as  yet  there  seemed  to  be 
no  pressure.  Clear,  cold,  calm  weather 
is  the  daily  prayer  of  a  man  on  the 
Polar  Sea.  We  were  confident  that  we 
could  cross  in  the  morning. 

An  igloo  was  constructed  and  a 
sounding  attempted.  When  two  hun- 
dred fathoms  of  wire  had  been  unreeled, 
Green  remarked  that  we  had  found  a 
deep  hole.  When  five  hundred  had  dis- 
appeared, I  thought  he  was  right.  When 
one  thousand  was  reached,  we  simply 
looked  at  one  another.  A  steady  strain 
was  kept  upon  the  wire,  yet  not  the 
slightest  perceptible  difference  could  be 
detected  from  start  to  finish.  Nearly 
two  thousand  fathoms  were  lowered  into 
that  hole  before  we  gave  it  up.  Being 
only  seventeen  miles  from  land,  there 
was  only  one  conclusion — our  weight, 
which  was  a  five-pound  pick,  was  so  light 
that  it  was  being  carried  off  under  the 
current  probably  flowing  into  Nansen 
Sound.  To  get  that  wire  and  pick  back, 
with  the  thermometer  at  200  below  zero, 
was  a  long  and  tedious  job.  Attaching 
a  handle  to  the  reel,  we  relieved  one  an- 
other every  fifteen  minutes.  At  the  end 
of  five  hours  we  expected  to  hear  Pee- 
ah-wah-to,  who  had  the  last  relay,  call 
out  at  any  moment,  "Ti-mah!"  (Fin- 
ished!). Instead  of  this,  he  stuck  his 
crestfallen  face  in  at  the  door  with  the 


announcement  that  the  wire  had  broken 
and  our  pick  was  gone!  A  series  of 
soundings  was  so  important  that  this  loss 
was  a  serious  one.  What  could  we  use 
for  a  weight?  Mentally  we  ran  through 
every  article  in  the  equipment.  Only 
one  pick  was  left;  it  certainly  would 
never  do  to  use  that.  Our  pemmican 
hatchets  were  too  small.  An  eight- 
pound  can  of  pemmican  would  not  sink. 
One  bottle  of  mercury  for  the  artificial 
horizon — we  must  have  that  for  our 
observations.  No,  there  was  not  a  thing 
that  would  serve.  To  think  that  my 
dogs  had  pulled  that  reel  containing 
two  thousand  fathoms  of  wire  and 
weighing  about  forty  pounds  for  nearly 
five  hundred  miles  only  to  be  thrown 
away  without  a  single  sounding!  I  felt 
as  if  I  were  a  pall-bearer  at  a  funeral  as 
I  carried  the  reel  to  the  top  of  the  highest 
ridge  and  there  left  it. 

The  first  man  who  awoke  in  the  morn- 
ing rushed  for  the  peep-hole  in  the  front 
of  the  igloo.  Yes,  it  was  frozen;  we 
could  cross.  Hitching  up  the  dogs,  we 
ran  along  the  lead  to  a  section  of  the  ice 
which  we  judged  by  its  whitish  appear- 
ance to  be  the  strongest.  Cautiously 
advancing,  Ee-took-ah-shoo  tapped  it 
with  his  whip-stock,  saying,  "Nah- 
muck-to!',  (All  right!).  As  I  watched 
his  little,  short  legs  running  behind  the 


MACMILLAN  MAKING  SOLAR  OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  POLAR  SEA 


mmm  1 


HI  1 


ARKLIO  WITH  CARIBOU  AT  CAPE  THOMAS  HUBBARD 


komatik  I  was  astounded  at  the  flexibil- 
ity of  salt-water  ice.  It  yielded  like  a 
strip  of  rubber,  one  wave  seeming  to 
precede  and  another  to  follow.  I  had 
visions  of  Ee-took-ah-shoo  camping 
alone  if  he  had  weakened  it  in  any  way 
by  passing  over  it.  As  Green  passed 
over  I  said  to  myself,  "He  will  never 
get  there  but  he  did.  Two  dogs  broke 
through;  a  shake  of  their  furry  coats,  a 
wag  of  their  tails,  and  they  were  ready 
to  go  on. 

As  a  reward  for  crossing  this  lead  a 
perfect  picture  presented  itself — a  long, 
level  stretch  of  compact  snow.  We 
easily  covered  twelve  miles  in  four  hours, 
when  we  were  stopped  by  another  lead. 
Sending  Pee-ah-wah-to  west  and  Ee- 
took-ah-shoo  east  to  reconnoiter,  Green 
and  I  impatiently  awaited  their  return. 
Knowing  that  the  former  was  a  little 
discouraged  and  feeling  that  I  could  not 
trust  him  for  an  accurate  report,  I  soon 
followed.  About  one  mile  west  from  the 
sledges  the  lead  ended  in  two  branches. 
Long  before  reaching  this  point  the 
crunching  of  the  ice  could  be  heard. 
The  opposite  sides  of  the  first  branch 
were  now  in  contact,  offering  a  bridge 
scarcely  wide  enough  for  one  sledge  to 
cross;  here  the  edges  were  slowly  rising 
and  crumpling  with  a  peculiar  humming 
sound.   Jumping  over  this  and  hurrying 


across  an  old  floe  some  fifty  yards  wide, 
I  made  a  hasty  examination  of  the 
second  branch.  Spanning  this  was  a 
chaotic  mass  of  rubble  jammed  so  tightly 
together  that  it  might  bear  our  weight. 
There  was  no  time  to  be  lost;  it  might 
open  any  minute.  Running  back  down 
the  lead  I  yelled  to  the  boys  to  come  on. 
The  first  lead  was  easily  taken  by  the 
narrow  bridge,  but  the  second  presented 
the  hardest  ten  minutes'  work  of  the 
whole  trip — "rough''  and  "rubble"  do 
not  half  express  its  character. 

As  before,  excellent  going  followed. 
With  eighteen  miles  to  our  credit,  we 
finished  the  day  on  the  banks  of  another 
narrow  lead  which  froze  over  during  the 
night.  At  the  end  of  the  next  day 
(April  19th)  we  were  in  high  hopes  of 
making  our  distance.  Throughout  the 
day  it  had  been  a  succession  of  long, 
level  stretches  and  newly  frozen  leads 
with  clean-cut  edges — no  pressure  ridges 
whatever.  The  haze  on  the  horizon, 
which  had  been  a  constant  attendant, 
was  slowly  disappearing;  no  water  sky 
could  be  seen;  all  leads  were  evidently 
frozen;  we  were  without  a  doubt  beyond 
the  pressure  area.  By  dead  reckoning 
we  judged  that  we  were  about  fifty-two 
miles  off  shore.  As  this  was  based  upon 
an  estimate  of  only  three  and  one-half 
miles  per  hour,  I  was  quite  sure  that 


A  STRETCH  OF  HARD  TRAVELING 


our  observations  would  add  to  our  dis- 
tance. 

On  the  20th  we  stretched  out  for  a 
record,  crossing  nine  newly  frozen  leads, 
and  estimating  at  the  end  of  the  day 
that  we  had  surely  covered  thirty  miles. 
Two  of  Pee-ah-wah-to's  dogs  dropped 
and  were  left  on  the  trail,  hoping  that 
they  might  come  into  camp  later.  One 
was  found  lying  with  the  team  in  the 
morning,  went  on  for  a  few  days,  then 
dropped  for  good.  Pee-ah-wah-to's  dogs 
were  plainly  showing  the  effect  of  his 
constant  riding,  for  he  was  no  longer 
leading  and  breaking  trail  as  he  had  done 
in  the  past.  Like  all  other  Eskimos,  he 
did  not  believe  in  walking  when  he  could 
ride.  Green,  with  good  judgment  and 
excellent  driving,  still  kept  his  dogs  on 
their  feet,  although  one  was  very  weak; 
the  others  seemed  to  be  getting  stronger. 
He  walked  every  step;  in  fact,  I  think 
he  would  rather  have  dropped  himself 
than  have  his  team  give  out.  Our  total 
distance  at  the  end  of  this  march  was 
estimated  to  be  seventy-eight  miles. 
Looking  back  toward  the  southwest, 
nothing  could  be  seen  but  a  small,  dark 
mass  which  we  judged  might  be  Cape 
Colgate  or  some  higher  point  in  Grant 
Land. 

April  21st  was  a  beautiful  day;  all 


mist  was  gone,  the  clear  blue  of  the  sky 
extending  down  to  the  very  horizon. 
Green  was  no  sooner  out  of  the  igloo 
than  he  came  running  back,  calling  in 
through  the  door,  "We  have  it!"  Fol- 
lowing Green,  we  ran  to  the  top  of  the 
highest  mound.     There  could   be  no 
doubt  about  it.   Great  heavens,  what  a 
land!   Hills,  valleys,  snow-capped  peaks 
extending  through  at  least  120  degrees 
of  the  horizon.    Anxiously  I  turned  to 
Pee-ah-wah-to,  asking  him  toward  which 
point  we  had  better  lay  our  course.  Af- 
ter critically  examining  it  for  a  few 
minutes,  he  astounded  me  by  replying 
that  he  thought  it  was  "poo-jok"  (mist). 
Ee-took-ah-shoo  offered  no  encourage- 
ment, saying,  "Perhaps  it  is."  Green 
was  still  convinced  that  it  must  be  land. 
At  any  rate,  it  was  worth  watching.  As 
we  proceeded  it  gradually  changed  its 
appearance  and  varied  in  extent  with  the 
swinging  around  of  the  sun,  finally  at 
night  disappearing  altogether.    As  we 
drank  our  hot  tea  and  gnawed  the  pem- 
mican  we  did  a  good  deal  of  thinking. 
Could  Peary  with  all  his  experience  have 
been  mistaken?   Was  this  mirage  which 
had  deceived  us  the  very  thing  which 
deceived  him  eight  years  ago?    If  he 
did  see  Crocker  Land,  then  it  was  con- 
siderably more  than  one  hundred  and 


IN  SEARCH  OF  A  NEW  LAND 


925 


twenty  miles  away,  for  we  were  now  at 
least  a  hundred  miles  from  shore,  and 
nothing  in  sight. 

Our  prayer  now  was  for  clear,  cold 
weather  and  good  going.  It  was  an- 
swered. On  the  morning  of  the  22d  the 
thermometer  stood  at  310  below  zero; 
the  air  was  clear  as  crystal.  Green  got  a 
latitude  of  8i°  52'  and  a  longitude  of 
1030  32',  which  agreed  almost  exactly 
with  our  dead  reckoning.  To  increase 
our  latitude  we  set  a  more  northerly 
course  on  the  23d  and  24th  with  a  varia- 
tion of  175  degrees  westerly.  Observations 
on  these  two  days  put  us  ahead  of  ourdead 
reckoning  in  latitude  820  30',  longitude 
1080  22r,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
due  northwest  from  Cape  Thomas  Hub- 
bard. We  had  not  only  reached  the 
brown  spot  on  the  map,  but  were  thirty 
miles  'k  inland"!  You  can  imagine  how 
earnestly  we  scanned  every  foot  of  that 
horizon — not  a  thing  in  sight,  not  even 
our  almost  constant  traveling  compan- 
ion, the  mirage.  We  were  convinced 
that  we  were  in  pursuit  of  a  will-o'-the- 
wisp,  ever  receding,  ever  changing,  ever 
beckoning. 

In  June,  1906,  Peary  stood  on  the 
summit  of  Cape  Colgate.  His  discovery 
of  the  new  land  is  announced  in  Nearest 
the  Pole  as  follows: 

North  stretched  the  well-known  ragged 
surface  of  the  polar  pack,  and  northwest  it 
was  with  a  thrill  that  my  glasses  revealed 


the  faint  white  summits  of  a  distant  land 
which  my  Eskimos  claimed  to  have  seen  as 
we  came  along  from  the  last  camp. 

A  few  days  later  he  stood  on  the  sum- 
mit of  Cape  Columbia.    Quoting  again: 

The  clear  day  greatly  favored  my  work  in 
taking  a  round  of  angles,  and  with  the  glass 
I  could  make  out  apparently  a  little  more 
distinctly  the  snow-clad  summits  of  the  dis- 
tant land  in  the  northwest,  above  the  ice 
horizon.  My  heart  leaped  the  intervening 
miles  of  ice  as  I  looked  longingly  at  this  land, 
and  in  fancy  I  trod  its  snores  and  climbed 
its  summits,  even  though  I  knew  that  that 
pleasure  could  be  only  for  another  in  another 
season. 

He  left  it  for  younger  men  to  prove 
or  disprove;  this  we  had  done.  If 
Admiral  Peary  did  see  land  due  north- 
west from  Cape  Thomas  Hubbard,  then 
we  had  removed  it  at  least  two  hundred 
miles  from  shore.  If  seen  from  the  cape, 
then  its  summits  rise  to  a  height  of  more 
than  eleven  thousand  feet.  To  us,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  land,  these 
same  summits  would  rise  in  the  sky  to  a 
height  of  more  than  nine  thousand  feet! 

Food  for  two  days'  farther  advance 
remained  on  our  sledges.  Should  we  still 
go  on?  From  our  last  camp  onward  the 
character  of  the  ice  seemed  to  have  com- 
pletely changed.  The  leads  and  small 
pressure  ridges  hitherto  had  trended  east 
and  west  diagonally  across  our  course. 
The  fifth,  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth 


TAKING  A  SOUNDING  THROUGH  THE  ICE 
Vol.  CXXXL— No.  786—115 


926 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


marches  were  over  a  rolling  plain  of  old 
ice  covered  with  low  mounds  and  com- 
pacted drift.  From  the  summit  of  a 
pressure  ridge  the  sea-ice  now  presented 
a  perfect  chaos  of  pressure  ridges  cross- 
ing and  crisscrossing  in  all  directions. 
Such  a  condition  must  result  from  one  of 
the  following  causes:  proximity  to  land, 
strong  currents,  or  passage  over  shoal 
ground.  I  am  inclined  to  attrihute  this 
to  the  latter.  That  we  were  not  near 
land  was  evident.  That  there  was  not  a 
strong  current  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
a  pemmican  hatchet  was  lowered  by  a 
strong  thread  to  a  depth  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  fathoms,  remaining  perfectly 
plumb  throughout  the  whole  process. 
Two  days'  work  through  such  ice  would 
net  possibly  eight  or  ten  miles,  breaking 
sledges,  wearing  out  dogs,  and  reducing 
supplies  to  the  limit.  To  really  test  it, 
on  the  ninth  day  we  went  forward  for 
about  six  miles.  The  ice  was  all  that  it 
appeared  to  be  and  worse. 

It  was  late  in  the  year;  we  had  more 
than  thirty  leads  behind  us;  a  full  moon 
was  due  on  May  9th;  we  had  more  than 
covered  our  distance.  To-morrow  we 
would  go  back.  Our  dreams  of  the  last 
four  years  were  merely  dreams;  our 
hopes  had  ended  in  bitter  disappoint- 
ment. 


If  we  were  fortunate  enough  now  to  be 
favored  with  good  weather,  we  could 
double-march  back  on  our  trail,  sleep  in 
the  same  igloos,  and  make  the  land  in 
four  marches.  Anxious  eyes  were  turned 
toward  the  horizon  before  going  in  for 
the  night.  Blowing  from  the  southwest 
and  drifting,  was  the  report  in  the  morn- 
ing. Then  our  day  would  be  a  hard  one. 
Could  the  Eskimos  possibly  pick  up  the 
trail?  As  we  dashed  out  of  camp  headed 
for  home,  now  and  then  I  caught  a 
glimpse  of  the  faint  traces  of  the  out- 
ward-bound sledges.  Arriving  on  the 
banks  of  the  first  lead,  I  inquired  of 
Ee-took-ah-shoo,  who  had  been  leading, 
if  he  had  kept  to  the  trail.  To  my  aston- 
ishment he  replied  that  he  had  lost  it 
a  few  minutes  from  camp  at  least  three 
miles  in  the  rear.  In  their  characteristic, 
happy-go-lucky  way  they  had  headed 
across  country.  Would  they  have  done 
so  had  they  been  alone  or  had  we  been 
without  a  compass,  for  which  they  have 
great  respect?  I  tried  to  conceal  my 
irritation  at  this  unfortunate  occurrence 
at  the  very  start  of  our  retreat.  The 
trail  must  be  found  and  found  at  once, 
as  every  minute  of  drift  was  tending  to 
conceal  it.  Pee-ah-wah-to  went  to  the 
east,  and  Ee-took-ah-shoo  to  the  west, 
closely  examining  the  banks  of  the  lead 


IGLOO  NO.  3 — ONE  OF  THE  CAMPS  ERECTED  DURING  THE  DASH  TO  CROCKER  LAND 


IN  SEARCH  OF  A  NEW  LAND 


927 


for  sledge  tracks;  in  thirty  minutes  they 
were  back,  failing  to  find  any  traces 
whatever.    It  must  be  found;   if  lost 
now  it  was  lost  for  ever.    Now  Pee-ah- 
wah-to  went  west,  Green  and  I  east  on 
opposite  banks;  not  the  faintest  indica- 
tion of  a  trail  anywhere.     Again  we 
met  at  the  sledges  and  talked  it  over. 
Pee  -  ah  -wah-to 
thought  it  must 
be  farto  the  east; 
Ee-took-ah-shoo 
grinned  and  said 
he  didn't  know. 
Upon  my  telling 
them  again  that 
it  must  be  found 
or  we  should  go 
back  to  camp  and 
pick  it  up  there, 
Pee  -  ah  -  wah-to 
started  again 
east  and  Ee- 
took-ah-shoo  to- 
ward home.  As 
the  latter  disap- 
p  e  a  r  e  d  in  the 
flying  snow  I 
thought  to  my- 
self, ''That's  the 
last  we  shall  see 
of  him  for  some 
time."  Green 
and  I  kicked  our 

toes  and  took  refuge  in  a  hole  in  the  ice, 
trying  to  be  cheerful. 

In  about  an  hour  my  dogs  jumped  to 
their  feet  all  attention,  looking  toward 
the  south.  Far  off  in  the  distance  above 
the  sound  of  wind  and  drifting  snow  a 
faint  yell  was  heard.  It  was  some  min- 
utes before  we  could  detect  the  little, 
short  body  of  Ee-took-ah-shoo  dimly 
outlined  through  the  drift,  waving  both 
arms  for  us  to  come  on.  Pee-ah-wah-to 
recalled,  we  were  soon  following  our  old 
trail,  which  reappeared  at  various  inter- 
vals. 

That  day's  work  by  those  Eskimos  in 
keeping  to  the  trail  in  a  blinding  snow- 
storm was  nothing  short  of  marvelous. 
With  a  feeling  of  relief  we  saw  the  black 
hole  in  the  front  of  No.  7  igloo;  we  were 
content  with  a  single  march  under  such 
conditions. 

We  were  up  at  three-fifteen  on  the 
morning  of  the  26th  to  greet  a  glorious 


ON  TOP  OF  A  PRESSURE  RIDGE 


day  for  the  long  march  from  igloo  No.  7 
to  No.  5.  We  stopped  at  No.  6  for 
hot  tea,  biscuit,  and  pemmican,  not  for- 
getting the  dogs,  which  received  one 
pound  of  pemmican  each  and  two  hours' 
rest.  The  27th,  on  which  day  we 
marched  from  igloo  No.  5  to  No.  3,  offered 
the  same  perfect  weather  and  perfect 

going,  a  1 1  leads 
being  frozen. 
Throughout  the 
day  the  mirage 
of  the  sea  ice,  re- 
sembling in  every 
particular  an  im- 
mense  land, 
seemed  to  be 
mocking  us.  It 
seemed  so  near 
and  so  easily  at- 
tainable if  we 
would  only  turn 
back. 

Our  dogs  re- 
ceived  two 
pounds  of  pem- 
mican  a  day 
throughout  the 
retreat,  which  is 
ordinarily  a  dou- 
ble ration.  They 
were  frightfully 
thin,  and  needed 
every  ounce  of  it. 
Thus  far  they  were  doing  remarkably 
well  considering  that  they  were  all  weak 
from  dysentery,  some  staggering  in  the 
traces  and  not  pulling  a  pound.  Twice 
I  slipped  faithful  old  "Sipsoo,"  who  was 
slowly  pulling  his  heart  out,  hoping  that 
he  would  lie  down  and  rest  and  come  on 
later  into  camp.  As  we  started  along 
without  him,  he  lifted  his  head,  gave 
me  an  appealing  look  as  if  to  say,  "Don't 
you  want  me  any  longer?"  In  a  few 
minutes  he  had  trotted  by  and  was  at 
his  old  place  in  the  team  pretending  to 
pull. 

As  No.  1  and  No.  2  igloos  were  prac- 
tically together  because  of  being  held 
up  by  open  water,  we  decided  to  try  for 
the  nearest  point  of  land  from  No.  3,  so 
headed  for  Cape  Thomas  Hubbard. 
When  within  a  mile  of  land  a  cairn  could 
be  seen  on  the  summit  of  a  low,  project- 
ing point  to  the  southward  of  us.  As 
Peary  was  the  only  man  who  had  ever 


928 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


been  here,  we  knew  it  was  his,  described 
by  him  as  being  on  the  ''low  foreshore" 
beneath  the  cape.  Although  we  had 
walked  now  for  about  thirty  miles,  I  felt 
that  we  must  take  advantage  of  the 
good  weather  by  ascending  the  hill  to 
secure  Peary's  record.  No  one  knows 
what  the  morrow  will  bring  in  the  Arctic. 
That  walk  will 
b  e  remembered 
for  some  time  to 
come.  The  Ad- 
miral wanted  the 
man  who  secured 
that  record  to 
work  for  it,  and 
we  did,  every 
step  breaking 
through  a  heavy 
crust  right  to  the 
very  top.  There 
are  three  sum- 
mits to  the  cape, 
situated  at  differ- 
ent heights.  The 
first  we  passed 
expecting  the 
record  to  be  on 
the  second.  To 
our  disappoint- 
ment, there  was 
no  sign  of  a  cairn. 
Could  it  be  pos- 
sible that  Peary 
climbed  that 
next  high  hill 
after  walking 
from  Cape  Sher- 
idan, a  distance  of  four  hundred  miles? 
Wearily  we  pulled  ourselves  together 
and  started  down  into  the  hollow  which 
divided  the  two  hills.  There  was  as 
usual  the  ever- succeeding  crest,  but 
finally  the  last  was  mounted,  revealing 
outlined  against  the  blue  sky  a  large, 
well-built  cairn  enveloped  in  a  blanket  of 
snow.  A  short  stick  was  found  project- 
ing from  the  top,  at  the  base  of  which 
was  a  cocoa-tin  containing  a  piece  of 
the  American  flag  and  a  very  brief 
record,  "Peary,  June  28,  1906."  We 
replaced  this  with  a  small  silk  flag  and  a 
record,  also  a  duplicate  of  the  Peary 
record. 

Eagerly  we  now  turned  to  an  exami- 
nation of  the  Polar  Sea.  At  this  spot 
Peary  stood  in  June,  1906,  and  from  this 


ENSIGN  GREEN  AT  PEARY  S 
CAIRN,  CAPE  THOMAS  HUBBARD 


very  spot  he  saw  what  resembled  land. 
The  day  was  exceptionally  clear,  not 
a  cloud  or  a  trace  of  mist;  if  land  could 
ever  be  seen,  it  could  be  now.  Yes,  there 
it  was!  It  could  even  be  seen  without  a 
glass  extending  from  southwest  true  to 
north-northeast.  Our  powerful  glasses, 
however,  brought  out  more  clearly  the 

dark  background 
in  contrast  with 
the  white,  the 
whole  resembling 
hills,  valleys,  and 
snow  -  capped 
peaks  to  such  a 
degree  that,  had 
we  not  been  out 
there  for  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty 
miles,  we  would 
have  staked  our 
lives  upon  it.  Our 
judgment  then 
as  now  is  that 
this  was  a  mirage 
or  loom  of  the 
sea  ice.  That 
there  is  land 
west  of  Axel 
Heiberg  Land, 
not  northwest,  as 
some  scientists 
would  have  us 
believe,  I  have 
no  doubt.  I 
would  limit  the 
eastern  edge  o  f 
this  land  to  1200 
west  longitude  and  the  northern  edge 
to  820  north  latitude  for  the  follow- 
ing reasons:  Our  nine  days'  travel  out 
from  Cape  Thomas  Hubbard  was  over 
ice  which  had  not  been  subjected  to 
great  pressure,  evidence  that  it  was 
protected  by  some  great  body  of  land  to 
the  west  against  the  tremendous  fields  of 
ice  driven  on  by  the  Arctic  current, 
which  has  its  inception  north  of  Bering 
Strait  and  Wrangel  Land,  across  the 
pole,  and  down  the  eastern  shore  of 
Greenland.  At  our  farthest  north,  820, 
all  was  suddenly  changed.  The  long, 
level  fields  ended  in  a  sharp  line  going 
east  and  west;  beyond  this  line  there 
was  the  roughest  kind  of  ice,  which  had 
evidently  been  pushed  around  the  north- 
ern point  of  this  unknown  land  over 


IN  SEARCH  OF  A  NEW  LAND 


929 


shoal  ground  extending  toward  the 
north.  Therefore  I  would  limit  the 
northern  edge  of  this  land  to  820. 

We  were  so  tired  upon  arriving  at  the 
igloo  that  we  decided  not  to  try  for  the 
second  record  on  the  point  until  morn- 
ing. Three  days'  food  now  remained 
upon  our  sledges.  I  decided  to  send 
Green  and  Pee-ah-wah-to  to  survey  and 
explore  the  unknown  coast-line  of  Axel 
Heiberg  Land,  while  Ee-took-ah-shoo 
and  I  ran  to  Cape  Colgate  to  secure  the 
farthest-north  record  of  Sverdrup. 

The  sky  had  an  ominous  appearance 
in  the  morning;  the  long-delayed  storm 
was  certainly  coming.  It  was  now  blow- 
ing and  drifting.  A  two  or  three  days' 
delay  here,  consuming  what  little  food 
we  did  have,  would  be  fatal  to  our  plans. 
We  must  move  and  move  at  once.  Tell- 
ing Green  to  proceed  down  the  coast  two 
marches  and  back  in  one,  Ee-took-ah- 
shoo  and  I  headed  north  for  the  dugout, 
calling  back,  "Good-by,  Pee-ah-wah- 
to."  Above  the  sound  of  drifting  snow 
I  heard  his  faint  reply  in  broken  English 
and  saw  him  turn  toward  the  south. 

In  an  hour  we  realized  that  there  were 
more  comfortable  places  in  the  world 
than  the  northern  shore  of  Axel  Heiberg 
Land  in  a  blizzard.  Unable  to  see  for 
swirling  snow,  and  at  times  fighting  for 


breath,  we  groped  our  way  along  under 
the  cliffs  toward  a  shelter.  Was  it  pos- 
sible for  Ee-took-ah-shoo  to  find  the  old 
igloo  this  side  of  the  dugout?  Repeat- 
edly the  violence  of  the  wind  was  such 
that  our  dogs  could  not  move  an  inch. 
With  faces  protected  from  the  icy  blast 
by  burying  them  in  our  sleeping-robes 
on  top  of  the  sledges,  we  slowly  pushed 
our  way  from  point  to  point.  Long 
after  I  thought  we  had  passed  the  igloo 
and  were  well  on  our  way  to  the  dugout, 
a  yell  from  the  native  announced  that 
he  had  stumbled  upon  it. 

The  roof  had  fallen  and  it  was  full  of 
snow,  but  it  was  still  a  home,  as  any  hole 
would  have  been  under  such  conditions. 
By  vigorous  use  of  feet  and  hands 
it  was  soon  cleared  out,  our  grass-bags 
were  crammed  into  the  door  opening, 
the  blue-flame  lit,  and  the  storm  was 
over  as  far  as  we  were  concerned. 

By  morning  the  roof  had  fallen  so  low 
that  it  was  almost  resting  upon  our 
bodies  as  we  lay  on  the  bed  platform. 
Frequent  visits  to  the  peep-hole  brought 
forth  the  same  reply  from  Ee-took-ah- 
shoo —  "Impossible."  Our  food  was 
nearly  gone;  our  dogs  had  not  been  fed 
for  two  days;  if  there  was  the  slightest 
chance  of  our  making  the  dugout  ten 
miles  to  the  south,  we  would  try  it.  For 


ERECTING  AN  IGLOO 


930 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


hours  and  hours  we  lay  listening  to  that 
distant  roar  of  wind  and  driving  snow 
until  I  could  stand  it  no  longer.  "Let's 
try  it,"  I  suggested  to  Ee-took-ah-shoo, 
who  grinned  and  replied,  "Yes,  let's 
try  it."  As  we  lashed  down  the  clothes 
komatik-bags  to  the  sledge,  the  dogs, 
like  white  mounds  in  the  drift,  arose, 
shook  off  their  snowy  covering,  blinked 
through  eyes  half  filled  with  snow  as  if 
to  say,  "Where  do  you  think  you  are 
going  now?" 

Out  of  clefts,  gullies,  and  valleys  the 
wind  dropped  down  upon  us  with  the 
force  of  an  avalanche.  The  flying  snow 
eddied  and  whirled  and  wrapped  us  in  a 
white  mantle  until  dogs  and  men  seemed 
as  white  specters.  Within  five  miles  of 
our  dugout  the  wind  suddenly  changed; 
it  was  now  at  our  backs,  blowing  us 
along  at  a  rattling  pace  around  the 
point  and  down  the  straight  shore.  As 
we  stopped  to  untangle  traces  a  white 
wolf  came  bounding  up  to  within  twenty 
yards.  My  king  dog  was  nearly  frantic 
with  excitement.  With  a  leap  he 
snapped  the  trace.  Having  read  of  these 
powerful  wolves  tearing  Eskimo  dogs 
to  pieces,  for  the  moment  I  had  fears  for 
the  safety  of  my  best  dog.  They  were 
groundless.  The  wolf  was  terrified  and 
took  to  his  heels.  Within  a  few  minutes 
the  dog  had  overtaken  him,  took  one 
smell,  dropped  his  tail  between  his 
legs,  and  came  trotting  slowly  back 
wearing  a  most  shamefaced  expression. 
"To  think  that  a  dog  of  my  age  would 
have  mistaken  a  wolf  for  a  bear!"  was 
written  all  over  him. 

The  wolf  at  this  sudden  turn  of  events 
gained  courage  and  followed  the  dog 
back.  Ee-took-ah-shoo's  face  was  a 
study.  His  habitual  smile  had  disap- 
peared. You  would  have  thought  he 
had  lost  his  mother  as  he  sat  there  la- 
menting the  fact  that  we  had  no  rifle. 
His  hope  now  was  to  coax  him  down  to 
the  dugout,  where  we  had  left  a  large 
part  of  our  equipment  previous  to  our 
departure  for  the  sea  ice. 

With  increasing  interest  we  watched 
him  trot  off  the  miles  close  behind  us. 
In  about  an  hour  we  were  in  sight  of  the 
cliff,  and  the  wolf  still  coming.  Ee-took- 
ah-shoo  was  so  nervous  I  was  afraid  he 
would  blow  up.  Arriving  at  the  snow- 
bank, his  little,  short  legs  looked  like  the 


spokes  of  a  revolving  wheel  as  he  jumped 
from  the  sledge  and  ran  for  the  black 
hole.  The  wolf  had  now  stopped  and 
was  lurking  behind  the  rough  ice  of  the 
ice-foot.  In  a  few  minutes  he  had  dis- 
appeared entirely.  Wise  old  owl! 

Here  I  determined  to  wait  until  the 
weather  had  cleared  and  the  dogs  had 
gained  strength,  which  would  only  come 
by  feeding  them  fresh  meat.  To  pound 
them  over  to  Cape  Colgate  in  their  pres- 
ent weakened  condition  simply  to  secure 
a  record  would  be  a  crime.  They  had 
already  covered  seven  hundred  and 
twenty-five  miles  in  fifty  days — good, 
honest  work;  they  should  rest  for  a  few 
days  at  least. 

Ee-took-ah-shoo  realized  the  neces- 
sity for  meat,  and,  although  it  was  still 
blowing  hard,  he  started  back  among  the 
hills  at  once.  In  ten  hours  he- was  back 
with  two  caribou. 

May  2d  and  3d  were  typical  of  the 
cape — strong  winds  and  drifting  snows. 
On  the  morning  of  the  4th  I  began  to 
worry  over  the  continued  absence  of 
Green  and  Pee-ah-wah-to.  Six  days  had 
elapsed,  and  I  had  given  them  only  three 
days'  food.  Where  could  they  be  and 
what  could  have  happened?  So  con- 
stantly did  I  watch  that  point  to  the 
north  throughout  the  day  that  the  pic- 
ture is  still  in  my  mind — the  broken  ice, 
the  sloping  shore,  the  high  bluff,  the 
white  hill.  Late  in  the  afternoon  a  black 
dot  on  the  horizon  was  seen — something 
was  coming.  As  the  dot  approached  and 
the  distance  in  the  rear  widened  I  could 
contain  myself  no  longer;  the  sledge 
coming  must  be  Pee-ah-wah-to's.  Where 
was  Green? 

I  ran  along  the  ice-foot  to  meet  the 
sledge.  Yes,  they  were  Pee-ah-wah-to's 
dogs.  As  the  question  "Where's  Green?" 
was  about  to  burst  from  my  lips  the 
driver,  whose  eyes  were  covered  with 
large  metal  glasses,  seemed  to  turn  sud- 
denly into  a  strange  likeness  of  Green. 
He  looked  as  if  he  had  risen  from  the 
grave.  "This  is  all  there  is  left  of  your 
southern  division,"  he  said. 

"What  do  you  mean — Pee-ah-wah-to 
dead?  Your  dogs  and  sledge  gone?"  I 
inquired. 

"Yes,  Pee-ah-wah-to  is  dead;  his 
dogs  were  buried  alive,  his  sledge  is 
under  the  snow  forty  miles  away." 


Whose  is  this  Image? 


BY  OLIVIA   HOWARD  DUNBAR 


HAT  charming  and 
imperturbable  egoist, 
Carola  Bishop,  did,  in 
spite  of  herself,  betray 
a  few  nerves  as  she  put 
to  me  her  not  entirely 
direct  questions  in  re- 
gard to  the  Clydes  on  the  night  before 
she  went  to  visit  them.  It  wasn't  that 
she  was  stirred  by  the  lightest  intima- 
tion of  that  mysterious  experience  that 
lay  in  wait  for  her;  one  couldn't  credit 
Carola  with  premonitions.  It  was  pos- 
sible impressions  of  my  own  that,  after 
her  long  absence,  she  was  uneasily  trying 
to  elicit. 

"Fanny's  always  been  faithful  about 
writing,"  she  stated,  without  effusion, 
"but,  after  all,  the  things  one  would  like 
to  know  are  those  that  letters  don't 
communicate — or  that  Fanny's  letters 
don't." 

I  affected  not  to  understand.  "Oh, 
well,  you  know  that  they  have  four 
children,  and  an  apple  orchard,  and  a 
lot  of  animals,  and  a  motor-of-all-work 
that  meets  you  at  the  station,  and 
Austin  has  to  take  his  breakfast  at  seven 
o'clock  in  order  to  get  to  town.  Doesn't 
that  tell  you  anything?  It's  an  unmiti- 
gatedly  domestic  atmosphere." 

Carola  contrived  an  air  of  disinter- 
ested consideration.    "I  wond 


er,"  was 


consideration 
all  that  she  said. 

I  believed  I  knew  what  she  wondered. 
But  strong  as  my  affection  was,  I  didn't 
feel  inclined  to  tell  her.  One  can't  bring 
oneself  to  strip  a  garment  from  the 
timid,  shivering  shoulders  of  a  woman 
like  Fanny  Clyde  only  to  add  it  to  an- 
other woman's  serene  opulence.  For 
Carola,  in  spite  of  her  having  declined 
so  many  gifts  from  life,  did  suggest 
opulence,  while  Fanny — well,  everybody 
knew  she  had  received  her  allotment 
from  fortune  merely  in  the  character  of 
a  substitute — Carola's  substitute,  in 
point  of  fact. 

"I  should  like  to  think — "  Carola 


began  again,  then  checked  herself.  I 
should  have  liked  her  to  finish  her  diffi- 
cult sentence.  But  I  forbore  to  ask  her 
what  an  honest  and  high  -  minded 
woman,  in  such  a  situation — and  Carola 
was  honest  and  high-minded — does  "like 
to  think."  Would  she  prefer  to  know 
that  she  is  merely  an  agreeable  and  un- 
disturbing  memory  to  her  friend's  con- 
tented husband,  or  that  her  own  flame, 
after  all  unquenchable,  still  burns  in  the 
lamp  of  the  other  woman's  inadequacy? 
I  knew  that  Carola  wasn't  pressing  me 
to  give  her  the  latter  assurance,  yet  I 
could  not  be  sure  that  in  her  sublimely 
assured  way  she  wasn't  taking  it  for 
granted. 

So  I  said  nothing,  and  for  a  few  mo- 
ments we  were  silent,  the  image  of 
Austin  Clyde  very  present  between  us. 
Then  Carola  gave  me  one  of  those  child- 
like smiles  that  so  misled  her  admirers. 

"Do  you  know  what  I'm  really  in 
search  of,  in  this  excursion,"  she  lightly 
inquired.  "It's  my  alternative  ego,  if 
you  don't  mind  that  sort  of  jargon — 
the  self-I-might-have-been." 

In  Carola  this  wasn't  an  infraction  of 
taste.  It  was  merely  a  healthy  sign  of 
her  egoism.  And  it  was  sincere.  An- 
other woman  might  have  pretended  an 
extravagant  interest  in — well,  in  re- 
encountering  little  Fanny  Atherton. 
Carola  didn't  pretend. 

"Oh,  of  course  there  are  ever  so  many 
selves  I  might  have  been,"  she  went  on, 
hastily.  "But  they've  eluded  me,  most- 
ly. I  can't  even  imagine  them.  Now 
here  is  one  I  can  recapture." 

"Too  paradoxical,"  I  commented. 
"The  kind  of  thing  one  does  at  one's 
peril. 

"I  hope  you  don't  misunderstand  me," 
she  said,  with  an  accent  of  reproach. 
"Shall  we  go  up-stairs?" 

I  didn't,  of  course,  misunderstand  her 
in  the  sense  she  meant.  For  I  knew  well 
enough  that  this  calm,  unharassed  crea- 
ture's curiosities  were  always  intellectual 


932 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


rather  than  emotional.  Indeed,  it  seems 
to  me  now  that  up  to  the  point  of  which 
I  write,  at  which  so  strange  a  thing 
befell  her,  Carola  Bishop  had  always 
enjoyed  a  mysterious,  an  almost  magical 
immunity  to  the  mischances  and  the 
wounds  of  life.  The  wind  of  destiny  had 
never  made  her  its  ignoble  sport.  Her 
mere  possession  of  a  comfortable  income 
is  far  from  sufficiently  accounting  for  the 
extent  to  which  she  was  able  to  control 
the  conditions  of  her  life.  Impartially 
devoted  to  the  arts — and  almost  as  im- 
partially to  the  "causes"  of  her  period — 
it  had  been  her  habit  to  move  in  leisurely 
fashion  about  the  world,  thus  imperson- 
ally beguiling  her  progress.  In  half  a 
dozen  cities  she  had  her  friends,  her 
clubs,  her  agreeable  if  never  really  poig- 
nant interests.  She  had  never  been 
bored  or  disappointed  in  her  life.  Pos- 
sibly it  was  a  vague  fear  of  being  one  or 
the  other  that  had  led  her,  at  a  certain 
critical  period,  to  resist  the  very  great 
attraction  that  Austin  Clyde,  whom  we 
all  regarded  as  so  pre-eminently  desi- 
rable, had  no  doubt  had  for  her.  Her 
true  reason  for  running  away  from  Aus- 
tin when  their  love-affair  was  at  its 
height — for  forcing  him  to  content  him- 
self with  little  Fanny  Atherton — I  had 
never  tried  to  know.  The  episode  had 
left  me  too  utterly  exasperated.  Indeed, 
it  was  years  since  I  had  last  seen  her,  as 
she  had  in  the  mean  time  chosen  to  live 
in  Europe,  always  elaborately  confining 
her  life  within  her  own  personal  atmos- 
phere— a  course  that  she  might  have 
pursued  until  the  end  of  time  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  that  outwardly  simple  incident 
of  crossing  the  Clydes'  threshold. 

She  crossed  it,  as  it  happened,  in  the 
company  of  Austin  himself,  with  whom, 
by  his  own  insistent  arrangement,  she 
had  made  the  afternoon  iailroad  journey 
out  from  town.  I  learned  of  this — 
together  with  all  that  followed — from 
the  profoundly  altered  Carola  who  two 
weeks  later  came  back  to  me.  It  had 
been  curiously  agitating,  she  admitted, 
that  brief  journey.  Strange  Carola,  to 
be  experiencing,  at  this  point  in  her  life, 
her  first  irresistible  agitation !  It  wasn't, 
of  course,  because  of  any  definite  thing 
that  the  irreproachable  Austin  said  to 
her.    But  somehow,  ingenuously,  and 


quite  without  intention,  he  made  her 
aware  that  he  remembered  everything, 
and  intimately.  Nothing  had  grown  in 
the  least  decently  dim  to  him.  This  was 
unmistakably  conveyed  as  he  talked  to 
her  with  his  always  charming  enthusi- 
asm, of  the  Connecticut  landscape,  of 
his  life  in  the  country,  of  his  children. 

The  children,  he  explained  to  her, 
were  all  Clydes — the  oldest  especially. 

"That's  Nicholas,"  Carola  said.  "Is 
he  still  so  astonishingly  like  you?" 

"I'm  afraid  he  is,  poor  little  chap," 
Austin  agreed;  "that  is,  in  the  matter 
of  looks.  But  you  know  he's  never  been 
robust — and  the  Clydes  are  all  iron- 
clads. We're  rather  uneasy  about  him, 
to  tell  the  truth." 

Austin  got  no  nearer  to  speaking  of 
Fanny  than  this  use  of  the  plural  pro- 
noun, and  it  proved  so  stupidly  awkward 
to  introduce  her  name  that  Carola  al- 
most lost  hold  of  the  fact  that  it  was  to 
Fanny's  home  they  were  going.  It  was 
rather  late  on  the  cold,  dark  winter 
afternoon  when  they  arrived,  and,  oddly 
enough,  Fanny  wasn't  there,  after  all. 
At  least  she  neither  met  them  at  the 
door  nor  awaited  them  inside.  So  they 
came  together,  rather  quietly,  perhaps 
not  perfectly  at  their  ease,  she  and 
Austin,  into  the  dimly  lighted  hall;  and 
not  until  they  were  well  inside  did  she 
perceive  at  the  opposite  end  three  young 
children,  the  youngest  almost  a  baby — 
dark,  vivid  little  things,  with  very  bright 
brown  eyes.  Their  flushed  cheeks  and 
parted  lips  told  of  a  suddenly  subdued 
boisterousness,  yet  they  didn't  come 
forward  until  their  father  bade  them. 
They  simply  stood,  a  silent,  intelligent, 
by  no  means  unfriendly  group  of  mid- 
gets, staring  at  the  stranger. 

Carola  wasn't  an  imaginative  woman. 
And  she  had  never  been  able,  living  her 
comfortable,  self-concerned  life  in  an- 
other continent,  to  evoke  this  very 
definite  atmosphere  that  now,  in  the 
first  moment  of  her  entering  Austin's 
house,  so  powerfully  aroused  her  long- 
stagnant  emotions,  so  almost  smothered 
her.  Only  the  night  before  she  had 
been  fantastically  curious  about  the  self 
she  might  have  been.  Well,  here  all 
about  her,  in  Austin's  house,  in  the 
bright,  flushed  faces  of  Austin's  children, 
in  the  distinguished  figure  of  Austin 


Drawn  by  Edward  L.  Chase 

"WE    'BELONG,*    DONT    WE?"    HE    SAID    TO    HER    WITH    AUSTIN'S  SMILE 


ISfiWElUCK 


WHOSE  IS  THIS  IMAGE? 


himself,  stood  written  the  uncompro- 
mising answer  to  her  questionings.  She 
had  an  instant  of  thrilling,  abundant 
realization.  Ah,  this  is  what  it  would 
have  been  like — that  other  life,  that 
other  self!  Radiant,  she  stretched  out 
her  hands  to  the  stubborn  infant  sprites 
who  continued  unresponsive  even  when 
their  father  gently  called  them. 

A  maid  came  down-stairs,  said  some- 
thing in  a  low  voice  to  Austin,  then 
passed  on.   He  turned  to  Carola. 

"  Fanny  won't  be  down  immediately," 
he  explained.  "  She's  with  Nicky — he's 
not  well.  We'll  have  our  tea  without 
waiting  for  her."  And  as  Carola  en- 
tered the  wide,  fire -lighted  room,  he 
added,  almost  fretfully,  "But  she 
oughtn't  to  stay  with  him." 

"Oh,  but  my  coming  mustn't  alter 
things — " 

"That  wasn't  what  I  was  thinking  of. 
Sit  here,  please,  Carola,  if  you  don't 
mind  pouring  tea."  He  hesitated  a  mo- 
ment, then  yielded  to  a  kind  of  raw, 
masculine  candor.  "Nicky's  not  like 
most  children.  Having  his  mother 
about  doesn't  often  happen  to  be  the 
thing  he  wants.  He's  rather  precocious- 
ly emancipated." 

"Emancipated — at  seven!"  Carola 
burst  out  in  amazement. 

Austin  flushed.  "It's  odd,  of  course," 
he  explained,  hurriedly.  "But  he's  al- 
ways been  like  this.  I  told  you  he's  not 
strong.  Come,  Fuzzy,  and  tell  us  about 
your  goats." 

The  three  little  creatures  had  been 
gazing  silently  at  the  new  guest  for  five 
minutes.  Now,  with  a  mysterious  una- 
nimity, almost  as  inexplicable  as  the 
concerted  flights  of  birds,  their  shyness 
suddenly  and  completely  gave  way. 
With  no  graduated  interval,  they  swung 
in  an  instant  from  rigid  reserve  to  tu- 
multuous confidence.  And  when,  half 
an  hour  later,  Fanny  Clyde,  having 
softly  come  down-stairs,  paused  unas- 
suredly  at  the  door  of  the  room,  it  was  a 
group  of  curious  completeness  that  met 
her  eye.  Indeed,  there  was  almost  a 
tinge  of  embarrassment  in  her  "Dear 
Carola!  That  I  shouldn't  have  been 
here  to  welcome  you!" 

"Your  babies  have  attended  to  all 
that,"  laughed  Carola;  and  the  two 
women  embraced  each  other.  "How 

Vol.  CXXXI.-No.  786.— 116 


933 

lovely  they  are!  But  it's  Nicholas  we've 
been  waiting  to  hear  about — " 

"He's  asleep,"  said  Nicholas's  mother. 
"It's  really  not  so  much  Nicky  as  the 
nurse  I've  been  watching — " 

"The  nurse!"  broke  in  Austin. 

"The  doctor  thought  it  better,  for  a 
few  days,"  Fanny  explained.  "I  don't 
believe  Nicky  is  seriously  ill,  but  at 
least  he's  very  much  exhausted  from 
lack  of  sleep.  So  as  he  seemed  on  the 
point  of  falling  into  a  doze  when  you 
came,  I  wanted  to  make  sure  the  nurse 
didn't  disturb  him.  She  came  only  this 
afternoon.  .  .  .  Don't  worry,  Austin, 
really.  It's  just  the  same  old  story." 
And  Fanny  Clyde  turned  an  oddly 
strained  face  to  her  husband. 

"If  he  wakes,  I  suppose  he  might  be 
seen  for  a  moment  before  dinner?" 
Austin  inquired.  "You  see,  Carola  most 
particularly  wants  a  look  at  him." 

"Oh,  by  all  means!   I'll  take  her  up." 

"Why — you  must  be  tired,"  fumbled 
Austin.  He  was  always  an  awkward 
diplomatist.  "And  Eleanor  and  Fuzzy 
have  an  endless  narrative  they've  been 
waiting  to  rehearse  to  you.  Perhaps 
I'd  better  go  with  her." 

His  wife  flushed  with  understanding, 
and  gathered  her  babies  about  her  with 
an  air  almost  of  self-defense.  But  she 
conceded  the  point  with  prompt,  prac- 
tised docility. 

So  it  was,  after  all,  under  Austin's  eager 
escort  that  Carola,  when  the  nurse  re- 
ported that  Nicholas  had  wakened, 
went  up-stairs  to  the  little  boy's  room 
on  the  top  floor.  It  was  at  the  moment 
an  unnaturally  orderly  and  quiet  room, 
and  in  spite  of  themselves  it  was  with 
a  suggestion  of  sick-room  constraint 
that  they  entered.  But  the  straight- 
gazing  brown  eyes  of  the  boy  in  bed — 
Austin's  eyes,  wonderfully,  incredibly 
set  in  the  face  of  another  Austin — 
seemed  to  rebuke  his  elder's  timid  soft- 
footedness. 

"It's  taken  you  a  long  time  to  come," 
he  remarked  in  a  clear  voice. 

Austin  leaped  to  the  bedside,  protest- 
ing. "Why,  Nicky,  you  were  asleep 
when  I  came  home!  I  couldnt  come  up 
before!" 

"I  didn't  mean  you,  dad,"  said  the 
child,  with  great  composure;  and  then, 
looking   toward   the   hesitant  Carola, 


934 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"Come  here,  won't  you?"  It  was  al- 
most like  the  summons  of  an  imperious 
lover  for  a  timid  girl. 

"You  don't  know  who  I  am,"  Carola 
challenged  him. 

The  boy  seemed  suddenly  tortured 
with  the  effort  of  recollection.  "I  can't 
— I  can't —  Oh,  dad,  what  is  her  name  ?" 

"Why — her  name  is  Carola!"  Austin, 
in  his  surprise,  almost  stammered. 

"Carola,"  the  child  repeated,  delight- 
edly. "Carola" — as  if  the  name  had  a 
tremendous  yet  familiar  significance. 
He  stretched  out  a  small  brown  hand, 
fashioned  with  pitiful  delicacy,  yet 
roughened  with  outdoor  play,  and  seized 
hers  caressingly.  "Sit  here,"  he  said, 
indicating  the  bedside.  "And  you'll 
stay  now,  won't  you — always?"  He 
looked  at  her  unsmilingly  as  he  made 
his  earnest  demands.  Or  rather,  it  was 
as  though  Austin  were  looking  at  her 
through  the  child's  eyes.  It  seemed  to 
Carola  that  she  could  not  meet  that  look 
just  then.  She  bent  and  kissed  the 
small,  dark  face  whose  very  outline  was 
so  eloquent. 

"To-morrow,  Nicholas,"  she  said, 
"we'll  have  a  talk,  if  they  let  me  come 
up.  But  I  mustn't  stay  longer  now." 
And  she  almost  fled  from  the  room, 
Austin  following  her. 

Outside,  for  an  instant,  the  two  ex- 
changed looks  of  profound  inquiry, 
dumbly  asking  what  strange  thing  had 
happened,  what  intimate  marvel  had 
been  revealed,  in  the  room  they  had  just 
left.  But  neither  seemed  able  to  frame 
an  explicit  question.  So  they  faltered 
an  unintelligible  word  or  two — and 
parted  hurriedly. 

Half  an  hour  later  they  were  sitting 
at  dinner,  discussing  every-day  concerns 
in  smoothly  conventional  fashion — that 
poignant  and  disturbing  impression  of 
the  child  up-stairs  inescapably  haunting 
them.  Carola  and  Austin,  withheld  by 
an  unformulated  reluctance,  had  not  in 
the  mean  time  exchanged  a  word  about 
Nicholas.  And  Carola  was  probably 
never  less  her  confident  and  radiant  self. 
If  Austin  was  the  least  self-conscious  of 
the  three,  it  was  because  he  did  not  guess 
or  perhaps  care  how  significantly  the 
burden  of  his  speech  was,  "Carola 
thinks"  and  "Carola  says."  Nothing 
had  warned  him  to  disguise  his  ingenu- 


ous satisfaction  in  this  woman's  cher- 
ished presence;  it  suffused  the  atmos- 
phere. 

To  Carola,  who  quite  failed  in  oppos- 
ing the  drift  of  the  talk,  it  was  plainer 
every  moment  that  she  was,  however 
innocently,  a  usurper  in  the  household; 
the  thing  was  even  written,  she  could 
see,  in  Fanny's  face.  So  far,  the  two 
women  had  gotten  only  as  far  as  incon- 
sequent superficialities;  they  had  fal- 
tered ineptly  at  the  edge  of  recovering 
their  old  intimacy.  In  earlier  days 
Fanny  had  been,  if  an  unimportant,  yet 
certainly  a  cheerful  and  reassuring  per- 
son. Now,  in  her  own  home,  secure, 
one  would  have  thought,  in  an  almost 
tangible  happiness,  she  seemed  a  badly 
frightened  woman,  valiantly  trying  to 
control  her  fear.  Carola,  looking  across 
the  exuberant  pink  tulips  at  that  small 
white  face,  found  herself  still  obsessed 
by  her  notion  of  the  night  before,  since 
then  so  startlingly  developed;  and  she 
compassionately  wondered  if  poor  Fan- 
ny, in  the  few  scant,  hurried  hours  that 
had  passed  since  her  own  arrival,  had 
shared  her  revelation — had  perceived 
what  manner  of  woman  she,  Carola,  had 
by  a  mere  chance  failed  of  becoming. 
For  it  was  useless  to  pretend  that  she, 
the  stranger,  had  the  place  of  a  visitor 
in  that  house.  By  no  will  of  her  own, 
but  by  virtue  of  Austin's  profound  hom- 
age, of  Fanny's  intuitive  apprehensions, 
of  her  own  suddenly  established  and 
mysteriously  complete  relation  with  lit- 
tle Nicholas,  she  was  already  its  domi- 
nant figure.  And  poor,  good  Fanny, 
who  had  so  loved  and  spent  and  striven, 
what  was  she  but  the  compliant  creature 
who  had  borne  Carola's  children  for  her? 
For  Carola's  children  would  have  been 
like  these;  her  first  flash  of  vision  had 
told  her  that  much.  What  was  there 
of  Fanny  Atherton  in  them,  those  lusty 
little  Clydes?  Oh,  Fanny  had  their 
affection,  of  course;  and  still,  there  was 
Nicholas,  whom  his  mother  surely  did 
not  love  the  least,  yet  who,  with  inex- 
plicable cruelty,  had  resisted  her. 

They  had  barely  arrived  at  dessert 
when  a  maid  entered  the  room  with  a 
message  for  Fanny,  entirely  audible  to 
the  others.  The  nurse  had  sent  word 
that  Master  Nicholas  insisted  on  seeing 
Miss  Bishop  again  that  night,  and  would 


WHOSE  IS  THIS  IMAGE? 


935 


she  be  kind  enough  to  come  up-stairs 
when  she  had  finished  dinner? 

With  a  wanly  distorted  face  Fanny 
repeated  the  sentences. 

Austin  did  not  wait  for  Carola' s  re- 
sponse. "Say  that  Miss  Bishop  will 
come,"  he  directed  the  girl.  "You  will, 
of  course,  Carola?" 

But  it  proved  this  time  to  be  more 
than  a  matter  of  looking  in  upon  Nicho- 
las, of  repeating  her  good-night  to  him. 
Quite  without  petulance  the  child  con- 
tinued exigent  on  the  one  point  of 
Carola's  remaining  in  the  room.  And 
the  doctor,  who  arrived  shortly,  ex- 
plained to  Austin  that  in  the  boy's  con- 
dition it  would  be  well  for  him  to  have 
any  calming  influence  that  was  avail- 
able. In  fact,  since  Miss  Bishop  was 
doubtless  an  old  friend,  perhaps  she 
wouldn't  object  to  humoring  Nicholas 
and  spending  the  night  on  the  nurse's 
cot  in  his  room.  One  had  to  try  these 
experiments  in  the  case  of  delicately 
constituted  children. 

Nicky  himself  lay  quiet,  saying  almost 
nothing  until  all  the  arrangements  were 
made,  the  others  were  gone,  and  Carola 
had  seated  herself  at  the  opposite  end 
of  the  room  by  a  shaded  candle. 

"Oh,  that  won't  do!"  he  then  ob- 
jected. "Come  here  until  I  go  to  sleep." 
And  as  she  walked  rather  slowly  toward 
him,  "You  don't  mind,  do  you?"  he 
asked.  "Because — isn't  it  me  you  came 
here  to  see?" 

"I  think  it  must  be,  Nicky,"  Carola 
agreed,  mystified.  The  temptation  to 
question  him  was  almost  too  great  to 
resist.  Yet  one  mustn't  harass  a  sick 
child  with  a  high  temperature.  She  sat 
quietly  by  the  bedside,  trying  to  stifle 
her  sense  of  wonder  and  mystery.  After 
a  little  he  gave  her  hand  an  impulsive 
pressure.  "We  belong,'  don't  we?" 
he  said  to  her,  with  Austin's  smile; 
and  half  an  hour  later  he  was  asleep. 
Carola,  however,  remained  vigilant 
throughout  the  night;  she  found  it  sweet 
and  satisfying  that  she  alone  was  guard- 
ing the  sick  child's  safety.  And  she 
believed  that  in  any  case  she  would 
not  have  slept,  teased  and  stimulated  as 
she  was  by  a  blur  of  violent  and  half- 
understood  impressions. 

In  the  morning,  when  the  nurse  had 
resumed  her  post,  breakfast  was  sent  to 


Carola  in  her  own  room.  She  was  ab- 
surdly glad  of  the  solitude,  and  pre- 
tended a  fatigue  she  did  not  feel  in 
order  to  remain  alone  for  a  precious  in- 
terval afterward.  Never  before  in  her 
life  had  she  looked  back  on  so  strange, 
so  disturbing  a  yesterday!  Later,  de- 
ciding that  the  day  had,  after  all,  to  be 
faced,  she  dressed  and  started  down- 
stairs in  order  to  go  out  for  a  walk.  At 
least  Austin  wasn't  to  be  encountered 
until  night;  and  little  Nicholas  had  been 
told  that  she  was  resting.  Passing  by 
Fanny's  room  at  the  head  of  the  stairs, 
she  hesitated  at  the  open  door,  perceiv- 
ing no  one  within,  and  conscious  of  a 
distinct  hope  that  the  room  was  empty. 

"Oh,  Carola — won't  you  come  in?" 
an  uncertain  voice  called.  So  Fanny 
was  there,  after  all.    Carola  entered. 

It  was  not  yet  noon.  The  rather 
chilly,  sparsely  furnished  room,  with 
light-gray  walls  and  no  sunlight,  had  a 
hard,  bleak  morning  quality  discourag- 
ing even  to  casual  intercourse,  and  high- 
ly unfavorable  to  any  intimate  ap- 
proach. Carola,  who  had  the  habit  of 
rose-colored  cushions — she  was  perhaps 
a  bit  of  a  Philistine  in  the  matter  of 
luxury — looked  about  her  uneasily.  Yet 
face  to  face  with  one's  excellent  friend 
of  many  years  one  couldn't  confess  dis- 
comfiture at  the  mere  scene. 

Fanny's  greeting  was  meager.  "I 
want  to  talk  to  you,  Carola.  I've  been 
waiting  for  you." 

If  Carola  was  ill  at  ease,  unprepared 
for  the  serious  talk  that  this  presaged, 
her  hostess  gave  evidence  of  having 
carefully  anticipated  the  encounter. 
Indeed,  her  directness  of  intention  was  so 
plain  that  Carola  felt  for  a  moment  a 
kind  of  terror.  After  all,  this  was  Fan- 
ny's own  ground,  poor  girl.  Suppose 
she  should  be  on  the  point  of  expelling 
the  intruder,  the  usurper? 

The  two  women  seated  themselves, 
facing  each  other  on  straight,  narrow 
chairs.  Carola  noticed  that  the  grate 
fire  was  laid,  but  not  lighted;  and  found 
something  irritating  in  the  extreme 
crispness  of  the  unmitigated  white  mus- 
lin curtains.  Fanny,  intense  and  con- 
centrated, indulged  in  no  preamble. 

"I  want  to  ask  something  of  you," 
she  began,  in  a  fluttering  voice  that  had 
evidently  to  be  controlled  by  determined 


936 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


effort.  "You  came  to  us  for  a  few  days 
only.  Won't  you  stay  longer?  It's  for 
Nicholas  that  I'm  asking  it.  He's  so  ill, 
poor  little  fellow,  and  he's  been  ill  so 
often — and  there's  so  little  that  I  can 
do  for  him — ever.  He  doesn't  ever  need 
me,  you  see — we're  not  like  that.  But 
he  likes  you  so  much — and  wants  you 
so  hard — and  the  doctor  says  it  would 
be  so  good  for  him  to  h  ave  you — and  you 
will  stay,  won't  you?" 

It  hadn't  been  easy  for  Fanny  to  force 
herself  to  ask  a  thing  like  this,  to  sup- 
press her  own  jealous,  thwarted  affec- 
tion, and  for  Nicky's  own  sake  to  beg  the 
outsider  with  her  magic  ways  to  come 
still  closer  to  him — to  enchant  him  fur- 
ther. Even  Carola  could  see  how  far 
from  easy  it  was.  The  look  in  Fanny's 
face  gave  her  a  strange  ache  of  sympa- 
thy, and,  dreading  the  emphasis  of  a 
moment's  silence,  she  gave  a  quick,  un- 
considered assent  to  her  friend's  appeal. 
Then,  as  she  caught  an  expression  of 
relief,  "  But  I  don't  know  why  Nicholas 
should  want  me,"  she  couldn't  help  add- 
ing, with  a  frank  look  of  wonder. 

Then  Fanny's  sharp  glance  made  her 
feel  as  though  she  had  said  something 
rather  unnecessary  and  absurd.  For  if 
she  didn't  know,  it  seemed  that  Fanny 
did  know.  And  if  it  was  a  thing  you 
couldn't  put  in  words,  it  was  also  a  thing 
you  couldn't  with  any  delicacy  refer 
to.  .  .  . 

Indeed,  as  Carola  stumbled  a  bit  with 
this  part  of  her  story,  I  couldn't  help 
wondering  what  shape  it  would  all  have 
taken  if  one  could  have  heard  it  from 
Fanny  herself — sensitive,  self-conscious, 
personally  ineffectual  woman.  But 
there  wasn't  a  human  being  to  whom 
Fanny  could  have  told  it.  To  whom 
could  she  have  confessed  that  she  had 
always  dreaded  this  very  visit  of 
Carola's,  ever  since  her  own  sudden  un- 
expected marriage  to  the  man  she  idol- 
ized— or  that,  shielding  herself  behind 
those  punctilious,  circumstantial  letters 
of  which  Carola  half  indifferently  com- 
plained, she  had  feared  always  a  nearer 
intercourse?  For  years  ago,  at  the  very 
beginning,  she  must  have  learned  that 
she  hadn't  in  the  least  degree  eclipsed 
Carola  with  Austin.  To  him  Carola  was 
supreme,  unique — the  kind  of  being  one 
didn't  compare  with  other  women,  even 


with  the  one  who  happened  to  be  one's 
wife.  No;  it  was  patent,  of  course, 
that  whatever  his  feeling  for  this  para- 
gon had  been,  his  entirely  loyal  and 
loving  marriage  to  her,  Fanny,  hadn't 
in  the  least  altered  it. 

At  all  events,  if  these  were  the 
thoughts  that  passed  through  her  mind 
as  the  two  women  sat  there,  it  was  no 
wonder  that  Fanny,  who  had  once 
adored  Carola,  should  look  now  as  if  she 
were  merely  trying  desperately  hard  not 
to  hate  her. 

But  Carola,  facing  this  look,  made  in 
turn  her  own  proposal.  The  doctor  had 
told  her  that  Nicholas  was  merely  suf- 
fering from  malnutrition.  The  sick- 
room situation  seemed,  therefore,  easily 
within  her  grasp. 

"Since  I'm  to  stay,  then,"  she  said, 
"let  me  feel  I'm  to  be  really  useful. 
Send  your  nurse  away  and  let  me  take 
her  place.  You  know  very  well  that 
I'm  quite  competent — unless,  of  course, 
Nicky  should  be  worse.  I'll  guard  him 
day  and  night,  and  keep  the  babies  out 
of  the  room,  and  tell  him  stories  when 
he's  able  to  listen,  and,  in  short,  take 
all  the  responsibility.  Of  course  that 
will  mean  not  seeing  very  much  of  the 
rest  of  you — not  really  being  a  visitor 
any  longer.  But  I  beg  that  you'll  let 
me  do  it." 

To  Fanny  this  may  well  have  sounded 
like  a  witch's  bargain.  It  was  almost  as 
if  Carola  were  saying,  "Concede  me  the 
single  one  of  your  dear  ones  that  I've 
already  put  under  a  spell,  and  I'll  agree 
to  let  the  rest  of  the  household  go  free." 

But  she  made  no  comment,  no  con- 
ventional protest,  other  than  to  say  that 
the  matter  would  have  to  be  decided 
by  the  doctor,  who  was  due  shortly. 
And  inasmuch  as  this  authority,  who 
had  already  made  his  estimate  of  Carola, 
offered  no  objection,  the  matter  was 
settled  before  Austin  came  home  in  the 
afternoon — offering,  of  course,  his  own 
prompt,  enthusiastic  indorsement., 

In  the  days  that  followed  Carola  kept 
strictly  to  her  own  first  notion  of  an 
extreme  isolation — having  her  meals 
served  in  the  sick-room,  taking  hurried, 
lonely  walks,  firmly  abridging  the  fam- 
ily's visits  to  the  sick  boy.  The  two 
lived  almost  within  the  restrictions  of  a 
quarantine.     Nicholas  declined  to  be- 


WHOSE  IS  THIS  IMAGE? 


937 


lieve  that  this  was  not  contrived  for  his 
pleasure,  and  it  became  his  continual 
pastime  to  exaggerate  their  separate- 
ness,  his  and  Carola's,  and  to  dramatize 
it — pretending  that  the  rest  of  the  world 
was  cut  off  altogether,  and  that  they 
two  must  depend  entirely  on  each  other's 
resources,  material  and  intellectual,  with 
especial  reference  to  a  knowledge  of 
imaginative  literature.  Carola's  real 
motive  was,  I  am  sure,  that  of  playing 
fair — of  tampering  as  little  as  possible 
with  the  possessions  of  Fanny  Clyde. 
This,  too,  although  I  am  sure  she  was 
able  to  foresee  almost  from  the  beginning 
the  danger  that  would  result  to  herself 
from  this  isolation  with  little  Nicholas — 
the  danger,  I  mean,  of  her  becoming  the 
entirely  different  woman  that  I  found 
her  when  she  came  back  to  me. 

That  lifelong  complacent  serenity  of 
Carola  Bishop's  could  resist  a  great  deal. 
No  speculations  or  desires  of  her  own 
had  ever  disturbed  it.  It  had  resisted 
the  casual  encounters  of  life,  in  which 
most  of  us  become  repeatedly  entangled. 
It  had  even  resisted  Austin  Clyde,  and  at 
the  time  when  she  was  most  in  love  with 
him,  however  much,  in  Carola's  case, 
that  may  have  meant.  But  it  didn't 
resist  little  Nicholas,  and  the  positive 
if  indefinable  bond  that  he  had  created 
between  them — and  from  which  neither 
of  them,  in  fact,  has  ever  since  escaped. 
She  was  no  longer  to  be  the  old  com- 
fortable Carola,  yet  the  mystery  of  her 
metamorphosis  intrigued  her  perpetu- 
ally. Often  at  night  when  the  child  was 
safely  asleep  she  would  find  herself 
faintly  whispering:  "Dear  little  Nicho- 
las, what  do  you  want  with  me?  What 
are  we  to  each  other?"  It  was  evident 
that,  since  the  boy  was  ill,  one  must 
allow  him  to  talk  little,  and  in  any  case 
he  was  never  a  child  that  chattered. 
But  even  if  he  had  been  well  she  knew 
that  she  would  never  have  questioned 
him.  One  doesn't  deliberately  force  the 
rational  processes  of  a  being  so  young 
that  it  lives  by  intuitions;  and  Nicky's 
intuitions  were  so  sufficient,  so  conspicu- 
ous and  definite,  that  they  startled  her, 
just  as  she  was  so  often  startled  by  the 
implications  of  his  always  perfectly  calm 
behavior.  When  Austin  appeared  at  the 
door,  she  noticed  the  boy  could  always 
muster  a  gay  little  smile.  When  Fanny's 


footsteps  approached,  even  if  ever  so 
lightly,  his  invariable  action  was  to  pre- 
tend to  go  to  sleep. 

But  for  Carola  herself  he  had  always 
a  quiet  radiance  of  welcome.  With 
amazing  clairvoyance,  he  had  stretched 
out  his  little  brown  hands  and  selected 
her  from  a  world  of  strangers,  and  then, 
in  the  coolest  and  least  sentimental 
fashion,  appropriated  her  for  his  own. 
All  her  physical  ministrations  he  ac- 
cepted in  a  sweet,  unrealizing  way,  as  if 
they  were  due  him,  as  if  he  had  been 
used  to  them  all  his  life.  And  he  even  be- 
gan, after  awhile,  to  bloom  under  them, 
as  though  it  were  some  magically  nutri- 
tive essence  that  this  fostering  woman 
supplied  him — almost  as  though  it  were 
milk  from  her  own  tender  breasts,  the 
mother-milk  that  his  starved  little  body 
seemed  somehow  never  to  have  had. 
The  content  of  sheltered,  cherished  in- 
fancy began  to  shine  for  the  first  time  in 
eyes  that  had  always  been  too  eager  and 
unsatisfied.  And  to  Carola's  practical 
behests  he  was  altogether  docile,  even 
profiting  so  much  either  by  this  adher- 
ence to  routine  or  by  the  beneficent 
shadowy  sustenance  that  she  seemed 
continually  to  furnish  him,  that  the  doc- 
tor shortly  professed  his  amazement. 

"The  boy's  getting  well,"  he  told  her 
at  the  end  of  their  first  long,  anxious 
week.  "He's  beginning  to  assimilate 
his  food.  There's  a  new  look  about  him. 
And  I  suspect  it's  largely  because  of  the 
nursing  he's  had.  Nobody's  ever  known 
how  to  handle  him  before." 

Carola  smiled,  but  she  knew  she 
hadn't  "handled"  Nicholas.  It  was  he 
— the  small,  sick  child  in  bed — who  had 
the  utterly  unobtrusive  upper  hand. 

This  fact  she  was,  of  course,  clear- 
sighted enough  to  realize  perfectly,  with 
amused  indulgence. 

She  had  rather  liked  it  from  the  first, 
her  subservience  to  this  little  creature 
who  had  Austin's  face — Austin's  per- 
ceptions, too,  it  appeared,  and  Austin's 
preferences,  and  more  than  these.  And 
after  only  the  briefest  interval  she  began 
to  find  it  incredibly,  thrillingly  dear. 
But  just  as  a  woman  may  love  her  baby 
with  two  loves — one  for  the  stamp  of  its 
father  that  it  wears,  and  one  for  the 
marvel  of  its  separate  self — so  Carola 
discovered  beneath  this  mask  of  Austin 


938 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


a  Nicholas  that  was  not  Austin — and 
yearned  to  him.  And  it  was  so  new,  this 
yearning,  so  almost  fearsome.  She  had 
never  before  felt  an  especial  tenderness 
for  any  child.  She  had  surely  never 
devoted  an  hour  of  her  healthy  life  to 
summoning  the  images  of  the  children 
she  might  have  had,  an  occupation  ap- 
peasing to  childless  women.  Yet  how 
thrillingly  and  unmistakably  a  single 
glance  had  told  her  that  the  three  chil- 
dren she  had  first  seen  on  entering  the 
house  might  have  been  her  own  off- 
spring. And  as  for  Nicholas,  each  sweet 
hour  that  she  spent  with  him  informed 
her  more  completely  that  not  alone  be- 
cause of  the  lovely  lure  of  childhood  so 
potent  in  him,  nor  because  of  the  flat- 
tery of  his  preference  of  her,  nor  because 
of  a  likeness  to  Austin  that  was  almost 
identity — Nicholas  was  hers.  And  for 
the  seven  hungry,  patient  years  of  his 
little  life  he  had  been  waiting  for  her  to 
manifest  herself.  Yet  she  was  curiously, 
virginally  shy  in  acknowledging  the  fact 
of  her  suddenly  evoked  motherhood. 
And  never,  I  think,  even  in  years  after- 
ward, did  she  translate  into  words  her 
precious  knowledge. 

There  was  a  moment,  of  course,  when 
she  clearly  saw  that  in  yielding  herself 
to  this  new  relation  she  was  sacrificing 
all  further  tranquillity  of  mind  and 
heart.  And  tranquillity  was  dear  to 
Carola;  it  was  almost  indispensable. 
An  impulse  to  abandon  the  Clydes  and 
their  queer  inharmonies,  to  protect  her- 
self and  her  untroubled  ways,  I  know 
beset  her.  But  the  impulse  passed. 
And,  after  all,  her  inmost  wish  was  to 
cling  to  the  new  delight.  Besides,  her 
own  sanity  and  reasonableness  reminded 
her  that  the  boy  was  ill  and  that  she 
was  plainly  of  use  to  him.  It  was  her 
affair  to  see  him  through — whatever  it 
involved. 

It  involved,  as  it  happened,  rather 
more  than  a  sacrifice  of  mere  tranquil- 
lity. For,  whether  from  the  strain  of 
sleeplessness,  or  from  her  constant  puz- 
zled brooding,  or,  as  is  not  impossible, 
because  of  some  mysterious  transfusion 
of  her  own  robust  vitality  into  the 
languid  veins  and  meager  tissues  of  little 
Nicholas,  her  own  bodily  strength  be- 
gan suddenly  to  fail  her.  And  physical 
weakness  in  herself  was  utterly  incred- 


ible. She  ridiculed  and  flouted  it,  her 
arrogant  skepticism  expressing  itself  in 
increased  exertion.  There  followed 
prompt  and  startling  retaliation  on  the 
part  of  her  disability,  as  though  it  in- 
sisted on  being  reckoned  with.  Like  the 
world  of  women  about  her,  poor  Carola 
was  paying  the  cost  of  her  motherhood 
in  pain.  Indeed,  even  when  I  saw  her, 
the  anguish  of  her  travail  had  not  faded 
from  her  sharpened,  shadowed  face. 

But  this,  after  she  had  once  faced  it, 
didn't  count  with  her.  Intershot  as  it 
was  with  rapture,  she  would,  I  know, 
have  prolonged  her  pain  indefinitely. 
But  the  days  were  sliding  by,  each  con- 
firming her  knowledge  that  the  boy's 
physical  need  of  her  had  almost  passed. 
And  when  she  had  once  served  him  she 
must  relinquish  him.  It  was  the  thing 
in  wait  for  all  mothers,  though  surely 
there  was  never  one  who  had  to  face  it 
so  cruelly  soon. 

But  Carola  had  a  fine  courage;  and 
the  day  came  when,  leaving  Nicholas 
asleep,  she  sought  out  Fanny,  and  found 
her,  as  one  most  often  did,  sitting  sewing 
in  a  corner  of  the  extremely  lively  play- 
room of  the  little  Clydes.  During  all 
the  memorable  interval  of  Carola's  visit 
the  two  women  had  but  two  real  meet- 
ings; and  it  was  with  an  ironic  sense  of 
imparting  a  singular  balance  to  their 
situation  that  Carola  forced  the  second 
encounter;  for  if  in  the  first  Fanny  had 
heroically,  for  her  child's  sake,  re- 
nounced her  own  rather  insubstantial 
claim  to  him,  wasn't  Carola  now  re- 
nouncing vastly  more?  But  she  tried 
to  make  her  announcement  in  cool,  clear 
sentences — to  ape  the  disinterested  ser- 
vant making  report  to  the  one  to  whom 
its  substance  really  matters. 

"Of  course  the  doctor  has  told  you," 
she  was  saying,  her  eyes  turned  from 
Fanny's  apprehensive  face  and  resting 
on  the  curly,  brown  heads  of  the  children 
playing  at  their  feet,  "how  enormously 
better  he  thinks  Nicky  is — that  he  seems 
to  have  got  a  new  start  in  some  way, 
a  steadier  one  than  he's  had  before — " 

"You've  been  so  good,  Carola,  so 
wonderful!"  Fanny  interrupted  in  her 
constrained  way. 

"I  may  have  done  something  for  him 
— one  can't  tell.  At  least  I  like  to  think 
so,  now  that  I'm  going  away." 


Drawn  by  Edward  L.  Chase 

"  BUT    HE    IS    YOURS,   CAROLA,   OR    WANTS    TO    BE  ! 


TO  THE  GARDENER 


939 


"But  we  shall  hope  for  you  often," 
Fanny  began,  conventionally,  almost 
automatically. 

"You  don't  understand,  Fanny. 
There's  nothing  more  I  can  do  for 
Nicky,  and  I  shall  not  see  him  any 
more."  And  then,  rather  sternly,  as  she 
met  the  other  woman's  uncomprehend- 
ing look:  "Don't  you  see  there's  no 
alternative?  I  care  too  much.  We  both 
care  too  much.  It  isn't  as  if  I'd  merely 
taken  a  fancy  to  a  pretty  boy,  as  people 
do.  It's — oh,  my  dear,  it's  as  if  he  were 
mine!" 

In  a  powerful  gust  of  emotion  the 
thing  she  had  meant  to  conceal  escaped 
her.  And  for  an  instant  her  profound 
feeling,  her  precious,  secret  motherhood, 
lay  unveiled. 

But  Fanny,  her  voice  full  of  tears, 
burst  out:  "But  he  is  yours,  Carola,  or 
wants  to  be!  You  can  see  that  at  least 
he  isn't  mine!" 


"I  give  him  up,  then,"  Carola  gravely 
said.  "You  know  there  is  no  other 
way." 

It  was  the  day  after  this  that  Carola, 
resolutely  abandoning  Nicholas,  came 
back  to  me.  From  the  look  of  her,  as  I 
have  said,  one  could  almost  have  divined 
the  transforming  experience  through 
which  she  had  just  lived.  Quite  can- 
didly, and  without  the  lightest  pressure, 
she  told  me  her  singular  story — or  as 
much  of  it,  that  is,  as  she  had  herself 
perceived.  For  with  all  her  speculating 
it  seemed  to  me  that  she  never  fully 
understood  the  conditions  that  ac- 
counted for  it;  in  short,  that  she  never 
understood  Austin  Clyde.  But  I  believe 
that  Austin's  son,  the  child  who  was  to 
so  extraordinary  a  degree  his  father's 
spiritual  inheritor  that  he  perceived  in 
Austin's  ideally  beloved  his  own  true 
mother — I  believe  that  Nicholas  Clyde 
will  some  day  understand. 


To  the  Gardener 

BY  RUTH  WRIGHT  KAUFFMAN 

TOVE,  I  would  never  meet  you  but  be  met; 
1— '  I  would  be  timid  like  a  throbbing  flower 

That  gathers  life  from  April's  virile  shower: 
The  dogwood  or  the  virtuous  violet. 

My  lips  would  be  the  tinted  buds  dew-wet; 
My  petal  eyes  would  fold  beneath  your  power 
In  diffidence  at  every  unclaimed  hour; 

My  waiting  arms  would  rustle  and  regret. 

High  in  a  crevice  on  a  parapet 

You  would  replant  me,  fashioning  a  bower; 

And  I  should  drink  the  sunshine  from  your  tower, 
And  bloom — until  that  day  when  you  forget. 


An  Experience 


BY  W.  D.  HOW  ELLS 


l^^^^^^^^POR  a  long  time  after  the 
t. j  event  my  mind  dealt 

ffij  HQ  witn  tne  Poor  man  in 

#fl  1^  IS  helpless  conjecture,  and 
MM     *  it  has  now  begun  to  do 

so  again  for  no  reason 
that  I  can  assign.  All 
that  I  ever  heard  about  him  was  that 
he  was  some  kind  of  insurance  man. 
Whether  life,  fire,  or  marine  insurance 
I  never  found  out,  and  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  tried  to  find  out. 

There  was  something  in  the  event 
which  discharged  him  of  all  obligation  to 
define  himself  of  this  or  that  relation  to 
life.  He  must  have  had  some  relation  to 
it  such  as  we  all  bear,  and  since  the  ques- 
tion of  him  has  come  up  with  me  again 
I  have  tried  him  in  several  of  those  rela- 
tions— father,  son,  brother,  husband — 
without  identifying  him  very  satisfy- 
ingly  in  either. 

As  I  say,  he  seemed  by  what  happened 
to  be  liberated  from  the  debt  we  owe  in 
that  kind  to  one  another's  curiosity, 
sympathy,  or  whatever.  I  cannot  say 
what  errand  it  was  that  brought  him  to 
the  place,  a  strange,  large,  indeterminate 
open  room,  where  several  of  us  sat  occu- 
pied with  different  sorts  of  business,  but, 
as  it  seems  to  me  now,  by  a  provisional 
right  only  to  the  place.  Certainly  the 
corner  allotted  to  my  own  editorial  busi- 
ness was  of  temporary  assignment;  I 
was  there  until  we  could  find  a  more  per- 
manent office.  The  man  had  nothing  to 
do  with  me  or  with  the  publishers;  he 
had  no  manuscript,  or  plan  for  an  article 
which  he  wished  to  propose  and  to  talk 
himself  into  writing,  so  that  he  might 
bring  it  with  a  claim  to  acceptance,  as 
though  he  had  been  asked  to  write  it. 
In  fact,  he  did  not  even  look  of  the  writ- 
ing sort;  and  his  affair  with  some  other 
occupant  of  that  anomalous  place  could 
have  been  in  no  wise  literary.  Probably 
it  was  some  kind  of  insurance  business, 
and  I  have  been  left  with  the  impression 
of  fussiness  in  his  conduct  of  it;  he  had 


to  my  involuntary  attention  an  effect  of 
conscious  unwelcome  with  it. 

After  subjectively  dealing  with  this 
impression,  I  ceased  to  notice  him,  with- 
out being  able  to  give  myself  to  my  own 
work.  The  day  was  choking  hot,  of  a 
damp  that  clung  about  one,  and  forbade 
one  so  much  effort  as  was  needed  to  re- 
lieve one  of  one's  discomfort;  to  pull 
at  one's  wilted  collar  and  loosen  the  linen 
about  one's  reeking  neck  meant  exer- 
tion which  one  willingly  forbore;  it 
was  less  suffering  to  suffer  passively  than 
to  suffer  actively.  The  day  was  of  the 
sort  which  begins  with  a  brisk  heat,  and 
then,  with  a  falling  breeze,  decays  into 
mere  swelter.  To  come  indoors  out  of 
the  sun  was  no  escape  from  the  heat; 
my  window  opened  upon  a  shaded  alley 
where  the  air  was  damper  without  being 
cooler  than  the  air  within. 

At  last  I  lost  myself  in  my  work  with 
a  kind  of  humid  interest  in  the  psycho- 
logical inquiry  of  a  contributor  who  was 
dealing  with  a  matter  rather  beyond  his 
power.  I  did'not  think  that  he  was  for- 
tunate in  having  cast  his  inquiry  in  the 
form  of  a  story;  I  did  not  think  that  his 
contrast  of  love  and  death  as  the  su- 
preme facts  of  life  was  what  a  subtler 
or  stronger  hand  could  have  made  it,  or 
that  the  situation  gained  in  effectiveness 
from  having  the  hero  die  in  the  very  mo- 
ment of  his  acceptance.  In  his  supposi- 
tion that  the  reader  would  care  more  for 
his  hero  simply  because  he  had  under- 
gone that  tremendous  catastrophe,  the 
writer  had  omitted  to  make  him  inter- 
esting otherwise;  perhaps  he  could  not. 

My  mind  began  to  wander  from  the 
story  and  not  very  relevantly  to  employ 
itself  with  the  question  of  how  far  our 
experiences  really  affect  our  charac- 
ters. I  remembered  having  once  classed 
certain  temperaments  as  the  stuff  of 
tragedy,  and  others  as  the  stuff  of  com- 
edy, and  of  having  found  a  greater 
cruelty  in  the  sorrows  which  light  natures 
undergo,  as  unfit  and  disproportionate 


AN  EXPERIENCE 


941 


for  them.  Disaster  I  tacitly  decided  was 
the  fit  lot  of  serious  natures;  when  it  be- 
fell the  frivolous  it  was  more  than  they 
ought  to  have  been  made  to  bear;  it 
was  not  of  their  quality.  Then  by  the 
mental  zigzagging  which  all  thinking  is 
I  thought  of  myself  and  whether  I  was 
of  this  make  or  that.  If  it  was  more 
creditable  to  be  of  serious  stuff  than 
frivolous,  though  I  had  no  agency  in 
choosing,  I  asked  myself  how  I  should  be 
affected  by  the  sight  of  certain  things, 
like  the  common  calamities  reported 
every  day  in  the  papers  which  I  had 
hitherto  escaped  seeing.  By  another  zig- 
zag I  thought  that  I  had  never 
known  a  day  so  close  and  stifling  and 
humid.  I  then  reflected  upon  the  com- 
parative poverty  of  the  French  language, 
which  I  was  told  had  only  that  one  word 
for  the  condition  we  could  call  by  half  a 
dozen  different  names,  as  humid,  moist, 
damp,  sticky,  reeking,  sweltering,  and 
so  on.  I  supposed  that  a  book  of  syno- 
nyms would  give  even  more  English  ad- 
jectives; I  thought  of  looking,  but  my 
book  of  synonyms  was  at  the  back  of  my 
table,  and  I  would  have  to  rise  for  it. 
Then  I  questioned  whether  the  French 
language  was  so  destitute  of  adjectives, 
after  all;  I  preferred  to  doubt  it  rather 
than  rise. 

With  no  more  logic  than  those  other 
vagaries  had,  I  realized  that  the  person 
who  had  started  me  in  them  was  no 
longer  in  the  room.  He  must  have  gone 
outdoors,  and  I  visualized  him  in  the 
street  pushing  about,  crowded  hither 
and  thither,  and  striking  against  other 
people  as  he  went  and  came.  I  was  glad 
I  was  not  in  his  place;  I  believed  I 
should  have  fallen  in  a  faint  from  the 
heat,  as  I  had  once  almost  done  in  New 
York  on  a  day  like  that.  From  this  my 
mind  jumped  to  the  thought  of  sudden 
death  in  general.  Was  it  such  a  happy 
thing  as  people  pretended?  For  the  per- 
son himself,  yes,  perhaps;  but  for  those 
whom  he  had  left  at  home,  say,  in  the 
morning,  and  who  were  expecting  him  at 
home  in  the  evening,  I  granted  that  it 
was  generally  accepted  as  the  happiest 
death,  butnoonethathadtriedit  had  said 
so.  To  be  sure,  one  was  spared  a  long 
sickness,  with  suffering  from  pain  and 
from  the  fear  of  death.  But  one  had  no 
time  for  making  one's  peace  with  God,  as 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  786.— 117 


it  used  to  be  said,  and  after  all  there 
might  be  something  in  death-bed  re- 
pentance, although  cultivated  people  no 
longer  believed  in  it.  Then  I  reverted  to 
the  family  unprepared  for  the  sudden 
death:  the  mother,  the  wife,  the  chil- 
dren. I  struggled  to  get  away  from  the 
question,  but  the  vagaries  which  had 
lightly  dispersed  themselves  before  clung 
persistently  to  the  theme  now.  I  felt 
that  it  was  like  a  bad  dream.  That  was 
a  promising  diversion.  Had  one  any 
sort  of  volition  in  the  quick  changes  of 
dreams?  One  was  aware  of  finding  a 
certain  nightmare  insupportable,  and  of 
breaking  from  it  as  by  main  force,  and 
then  falling  into  a  deep,  sweet  sleep. 
Was  death  something  like  waking 
from  a  dream  such  as  that,  which  this 
life  largely  was,  and  then  sinking  into  a 
long,  restful  slumber,  and  possibly  never 
waking  again? 

Suddenly  I  perceived  that  the  man 
had  come  back.  He  might  have  been 
there  some  time  with  his  effect  of  fussing 
and  his  pathetic  sense  of  unwelcome.  I 
had  not  noticed;  I  only  knew  that  he 
stood  at  the  half-open  door  with  the 
knob  of  it  in  his  hand  looking  into  the 
room  blankly. 

As  he  stood  there  he  lifted  his  hand 
and  rubbed  it  across  his  forehead  as  if 
in  a  sort  of  daze  from  the  heat.  I  recog- 
nized the  gesture  as  one  very  character- 
istic of  myself;  I  had  often  rubbed  my 
hand  across  my  forehead  on  a  close,  hot 
day  like  that.  Then  the  man  suddenly 
vanished  as  if  he  had  sunk  into  the  floor. 

People  who  had  not  noticed  that  he 
was  there  noticed  now  that  he  was  not 
there.  Some  made  a  crooked  rush  tow- 
ard the  place  where  he  had  been,  and  one 
of  those  helpful  fellow-men  who  are 
first  in  all  needs  lifted  his  head  and 
mainly  carried  him  into  the  wide  space 
which  the  street  stairs  mounted  to,  and 
laid  him  on  the  floor.  It  was  darker,  if 
not  cooler  there,  and  we  stood  back  to 
give  him  the  air  which  he  drew  in  with 
long,  deep  sighs.  One  of  us  ran  down  the 
stairs  to  the  street  for  a  doctor,  where- 
ever  he  might  be  found,  and  ran  against 
a  doctor  at  the  last  step. 

The  doctor  came  and  knelt  over  the 
prostrate  figure  and  felt  its  pulse,  and 
put  his  ear  down  to  its  heart.  It,  which 
has  already  in  my  telling  ceased  to  be  he, 


942 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


drew  its  breath  in  those  long  suspirations 
which  seemed  to  search  each  more  pro- 
foundly than  the  last  the  lurking  life, 
drawing  it  from  the  vital  recesses  and 
expelling  it  in  those  vast  sighs. 

They  went  on  and  on,  and  established 
in  our  consciousness  the  expectation  of 
indefinite  continuance.  We  knew  that 
the  figure  there  was  without  such  con- 
sciousness as  ours,  unless  it  was  some- 
thing so  remotely  withdrawn  that  it 
could  not  manifest  itself  in  any  signal 
to  our  senses.  There  was  nothing  trag- 
ical in  the  affair,  but  it  had  a  surpassing 
dignity.  It  was  as  if  the  figure  was  say- 
ing something  to  the  life  in  each  of  us 
which  none  of  us  would  have  words  to  in- 
terpret, speaking  some  last  message 
from  the  hither  side  of  that  bourne  from 
which  there  is  no  returning. 

There  was  a  clutch  upon  my  heart 
which  tightened  with  the  slower  and 
slower  succession  of  those  awful  breaths. 
Then  one  was  drawn  and  expelled  and 


then  another  was  not  drawn.  I  waited 
for  the  breathing  to  begin  again,  and  it 
did  not  begin.  The  doctor  rose  from 
kneeling  over  the  figure  that  had  been  a 
man,  and  uttered,  with  a  kind  of  sound- 
lessness,  "Gone,"  and  mechanically 
dusted  his  fingers  with  the  thumbs  of 
each  hand  from  their  contact  with  what 
had  now  become  all  dust  for  ever. 

That  helpfulest  one  among  us  laid  a 
cloth  over  the  face,  and  the  rest  of  us 
went  away.  It  was  finished.  The  man 
was  done  with  the  sorrow  which,  in  our 
sad  human  order,  must  now  begin  for 
those  he  loved  and  who  loved  him.  I 
tried  vaguely  to  imagine  their  grief  for 
not  having  been  uselessly  with  him  at 
the  last,  and  I  could  not.  The  incident 
remained  with  me  like  an  experience, 
something  I  had  known  rather  than  seen. 
I  could  not  alienate  it  by  my 'pity  and 
make  it  another's.  They  whom,  it  must 
bereave  seemed  for  the  time  immeasu- 
rably removed  from  the  fact. 


46  O  Restless  Leaf!" 

BY  EDITH  M.  THOMAS 

NOON  sleeps  upon  the  hill. — 
O  restless,  restless  leaf, 
Among  a  thousand  still, 

What  ecstasy,  what  grief, 
Makes  you  to  quiver  so 
When  no  least  zephyrs  blow? 

Noon  sleeps  upon  the  hill. — 
From  the  hot,  burning  blue, 

O  leaf  a-quiver  still, 

What  spirit  breathes  on  you 

And  will  not  let  you  rest 

Among  those  others  blest? 

Noon  sleeps  upon  the  hill. — 
O  restless,  restless  Me, 

Among  the  thousands  still, 
What  spirit  can  this  be, 

That  I  should  feel,  alone, 

Its  breath  upon  me  blown? 


One  Hundred  Years  Hence 


BY  ALAN  SULLIVAN 


O  the  student  of  our 
times,  man,  more  espe- 
cially the  North  Amer- 
ican man,  has  obviously 
been  remodeled  in  the 
last  fifty  years.  He  is 
still  kindred  with  his 
grandfather,  but  the  kinship  is  becoming 
rapidly  more  remote.  His  temperament 
— and  by  temperament  I  mean  that  by 
which  he  expresses  and  communicates 
his  point  of  view — has  radically  altered. 
We  speak  now  of  an  old-fashioned  per- 
son, meaning  that  he  is  what  we  were 
fifty  years  ago. 

So,  too,  with  our  attributes.  To  be 
patient  means  now  to  lag  behind  our 
double-jointed  life.  To  be  particular  is 
to  be  finicky  or  fussy.  To  be  deliberate 
is  to  be  slow.  To  live  within  a  moderate 
income  is  to  be  close.  To  be  devout  is 
to  be — well,  a  little  peculiar  and  removed. 
We  dare  not  be  sentimental,  and  we 
are  afraid  not  to  seem  practical.  We 
are,  most  of  us,  pragmatists. 

And  with  our  changing  minds,  other 
things  have  naturally  changed.  Of 
these  the  most  important  is  our  view  of 
religion.  We  have  not,  we  think,  much 
time  to  be  what  we  call  religious.  The 
man  who  reads  at  his  breakfast-table  the 
news  of  yesterday  of  the  whole  world 
does  not  so  easily  contemplate  the  his- 
tory of  Nazareth.  The  fact  that  cotton 
and  wheat  are  down,  while  steel  common 
is  up  three  points,  and  that  these  fluctua- 
tions will  have  a  direct  influence  on  the 
business  of  the  day,  is  apt  to  mean 
more  to  him  than  any  contemplation  of 
his  own  divine  origin.  He  may  possibly 
go  to  church,  but  he  goes  with  palpable 
regret  for  an  abandoned  cigar,  and,  duty 
done,  he  returns  metaphorically  licking 
his  lips  at  the  job  ahead  for  the  rest  of 
the  week.  Broadly  speaking,  he  cares 
nothing  for  what  happened  last  week  or 
last  year  or  ten  centuries  ago.  The  big 
question  is,  what  is  going  to  happen  to- 
morrow.   If  one  could  tell  him  that! 


Literature  has  bent  to  the  same  stand- 
ards. Gone  are  the  Victorians  who 
divided,  subdivided,  analyzed,  and  de- 
fined the  emotions,  and  laid  them,  neatly 
parceled,  on  near-by  and  convenient 
shelves.  Gone  is  the  three-decker  novel 
with  its  domestic  and  sartorial  minutiae. 
Gone  are  odes,  eulogies,  and  anagrams. 
The  essay,  that  most  delightful  variant, 
is  now  depressingly  elusive.  The  novel 
with  a  purpose  is  a  scarecrow  to  most 
publishers.  The  short  story  has  been 
perfected  till  it  suits.  It  is  crisp,  pol- 
ished, and  asks  for  only  half  an  hour. 
The  ghost  of  Jesse  James  survives  in  the 
dime  novel,  but  he  is  outraged  by  such 
modernities  as  Maxim  silencers  and 
pocket  flash-lights.  The  popular  play 
races  to  its  end  at  top  pace;  the  curtain 
comes  down  in  a  rush,  and,  before  you 
know  where  you  are,  the  actors  are  in 
front  of  it,  waiting  for  your  applause. 
They,  too,  want  to  get  away.  The  litera- 
ture of  to-day  is,  in  short,  ruthless  and 
impatient.  It  insistently  demands  the 
core  of  the  thing  and  demands  it  at 
once.  What  conclusions  it  comes  to  are 
suggestive,  and  invite  you  to  work  the 
thing  out  for  yourself.  Poetry  is  con- 
densed, with  here  and  there  an  epic  in  a 
line.  The  character  of  a  nation  is 
crammed  into  a  phrase,  the  war  of  the 
world  into  an  octet.  As  with  litera- 
ture, the  tone  is  suggestive.  The  author 
has  neither  time  nor  disposition  to  do 
all  your  thinking  for  you.  One  is  prone 
to  wonder  whether  couplets  and  fugi- 
tive verse  will  live  like  "Childe  Harold" 
and  the  "Ode  on  the  Intimations  of 
Immortality." 

The  method  and  period  of  courtship 
has  been  abbreviated.  It  is  no  longer  an 
epoch,  but  merely  a  phase.  Our  grand- 
fathers went  about  it  seriously,  thought- 
fully, taking  pauses,  time,  pride,  and 
pleasure.  The  modern  youth  mobilizes 
the  telephone,  telegraph,  motor-car,  and 
florist,  and  in  a  month  gets  as  far  in  his 
lady's  affections  as  his  father's  father 


944 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


got  in  a  year.  Theater,  supper,  and 
dance  all  buttress  his  energy.  The  fox- 
trot and  maxixe  bring  him  nearer  his 
object  than  could  ever  the  minuet  and 
Sir  Roger.  The  young  man  of  small 
means  no  longer  waits  till  a  competence 
is  assured,  but  gaily  hooks  his  arm  into 
the  girl's,  and  together  they  go  forth  to 
face  the  world.  A  vibrant  pulse  is  sing- 
ing in  his  veins.  The  wedding  journey 
is  shortened  to  a  week  or  two.  Time 
enough  to  get  acquainted.  Nothing 
is  impossible  if  he  is  only  quick 
enough. 

The  very  artists  have  changed  their 
mode.  Where  can  one  now  find  the 
meticulous  depiction  lavished  with  mi- 
nute care  in  former  days?  Composition 
and  style  are  merged  in  a  definition  of 
values  that  results  in  a  broad  treatment, 
completely  eliminating  everything  that 
does  not  contribute  to  the  insistent  mes- 
sage of  a  painting.  The  dominant  note 
rings  swift  and  clear,  accelerated  by 
what  has  been  discarded.  The  modern 
picture  is  completed  in  a  fraction  of  the 
time  occupied  in  producing  its  predeces- 
sor. It,  too,  is  suggestive.  All  the  work 
is  not  done  by  the  artist. 

Manners  have  been  mutilated  by  the 
telephone  to  such  an  extent  that  many 
business  houses  have  put  a  premium  on 
civil  speech.  Every-day  language  loses 
its  grace  in  rapid  transit.  The  fare-box, 
thrust  without  a  word  in  one's  face,  is 
symbolical  of  the  attitude  of  a  people 
that  has  been  overworked.  The  unfor- 
getable  contrivance  with  which  the 
conductor  on  a  Fifth  Avenue  'bus  not 
only  takes,  but  snatches,  a  coin  from 
one's  hand,  typifies  better  than  anything 
else  the  elemental  character  of  the  mod- 
ern business  man.  It  gets  the  money 
and  is  quick  about  it.  We  are  abrupt  to 
the  point  of  insult,  as  though  brevity 
were  golden  and  verbal  contractions  a 
personal  asset.  All  because  under  our 
present  system  it  pays  to  be  brief. 

This  is  the  result  of  fifty  years — a 
moment  in  the  life  of  a  nation.  It  is  also 
the  cost  of  invention.  It  seems,  there- 
fore, that  Alexander  Graham  Bell  is  un- 
wittingly responsible  through  his  tele- 
phone for  our  lack  of  manners;  Frank 
Sprague,  through  his  rapid  transit,  for 
our  impatience;  Morse,  through  his 
telegraph,  for  our  brevity;  and  Edison, 


through  his  phonograph,  for  our  restless- 
ness. 

~-  Invention  per  se  is  intensely  imper- 
sonal. It  is  a  furor,  a  driving  force  ex- 
erted by  some  unrecognized  brain  cell. 
This  frenzy,  this  possession,  transmutes 
the  inventor  into  a  strange  mechanism 
which  divorces  itself  from  the  life  of  men. 
It  digs,  it  climbs,  it  tears  open.  Thus 
invention  is  a  sudden  finding  or  uncov- 
ering, and  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a 
building  up  or  putting  together.  The 
idea  is  the  thing,  and  the  idea  comes 
like  a  lightning  flash.  It  is  by  nature 
and  essence  removed  from  subsequent 
experiment — the  conception  is  almost 
superhuman.  And,  curiously  enough, 
the  same  furor  seizes  upon  the  consumer. 
The  theory  being  practically  demon- 
strated, instantly  the  demand  arises. 
The  psychology  of  it  is  that  the  mind  of 
the  people  marches  side  by  side  with  the 
mind  of  its  scientific  prophets,  and  there 
is  thus  induced  a  general  assumption  of 
technical  knowledge.  The  public  has  its 
own  explanations  of  each  new  mechan- 
ical marvel,  an  assured  familiarity  that 
prompts  an  instant  use. 

It  is  then  reasonable  to  assume  that 
our  period  is  but  a  link  in  a  chain — of 
which  one  end  is  still  in  clear  view  and 
the  other  is  on  the  knees  of  the  gods. 
The  deepest  minds  hold  that  a  pro- 
digious advance  is  still  to  be  made, 
that  we  are  only  on  the  threshold  of 
electrical  development.  In  a  recent  let- 
ter to  the  writer,  Dr.  Bell,  the  inventor 
of  the  telephone,  the  electrical  physicist, 
the  interpreter  of  the  dumb,  states:  "I 
may  say  that  we  are  only  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  application  of  electrical  en- 
ergy, and  an  application  of  it  will  soon 
appear  that  has  hitherto  been  un- 
dreamed of  by  the  world." 

The  city  of  the  future  is  already  some- 
thing more  than  a  scientific  mirage.  Let 
us  imagine  ourselves  beholding  it  one 
hundred  years  hence.  A  glance  re- 
veals its  streets,  broad  and  spotless, 
to  which  the  horse  is  a  stranger,  and 
whose  smooth  surface  is  unscarred  by 
the  universal  pneumatic  tire.  Syn- 
thetic rubber  has  arrived.  The  city  traf- 
fic is  entirely  electrical.  Trucks  and 
motors  speed  swiftly  without  odor  or 
noise;  they  are  charged  with  power  at 


ONE  HUNDRED 


YEARS  HENCE 


945 


the  great  central  station  in  off-peak 
hours.  The  air  is  notably  pure  and  stain- 
less. Coal  is  not  used  as  fuel;  there  are 
no  ashes  to  haul  away,  and  only  a  faint 
film  rises  from  the  fireplace  of  old- 
fashioned  folk  who  stick  to  wood. 

Sky-scrapers  are  out  of  fashion. 
Transportation  being  perfected,  they  are 
deemed  a  menace  to  safety,  and  the 
height  of  buildings  is  limited  to  the 
width  of  the  sunlit  street.  It  is  notable, 
too,  that  buildings  are  no  longer  over- 
decorated.  Line,  proportion,  and  form 
are  the  dominating  factors.  These 
structures  are  full  of  light  and  air,  and 
heated  electrically.  It  is  now  many 
years  since  a  new  heating  element  was 
discovered,  many  times  more  efficient 
than  its  predecessor. 

But  the  greatest  changes  have  taken 
place  in  domestic  life.  Menial,  manual 
work  has  disappeared,  and  there  is  no 
longer  any  difficulty  in  securing  trained 
and  skilful  service.  Food  is  kept  in 
motor-cooled  refrigerators,  or  brine  is 
pumped  through  your  larder  from  a 
central  plant.  Cooking  is  done  on  elec- 
tric stoves.  The  meals  of  some  fastidious 
families  are  sent  scorching  hot  from  a 
distributing  restaurant.  The  slavery  of 
dish-washing  has  vanished.  This  drudg- 
ery is  performed  by  automatic  cleansers 
and  driers  without  wetting  the  hands. 
Vacuum  cleaners  remove  the  dust,  ozon- 
izers  revivify  the  air,  windows  are  me- 
chanically scrubbed  and  polished.  In 
short,  the  enfranchised  domestic  uses 
her  fingers  and  brain  instead  of  her  arms 
and  back.  Thus  came  true  a  curious  fore- 
cast made  by  Steinmetz  in  his  labora- 
tory in  Schenectady  a  hundred  years  ago: 

"Let  me  draw  a  parallel.  Civilization 
requires  for  its  existence  and  progress 
the  supply  of  materials  and  of  energy. 
Seventy-five  years  ago  in  the  steam  rail- 
ways a  system  was  developed  which 
serves  as  distributing  agent  for  natural 
and  manufactured  products  throughout 
the  country.  To-day,  in  the  electrical 
transmission  and  distribution  networks, 
we  see  the  development  of  the  system 
of  universal  energy  supply,  thus  com- 
pleting the  requirements  of  modern 
civilization." 

On  the  shining  street  men  may  be  ob- 
served telephoning  by  wireless  through 
minute  portable  instruments.    This  is 


an  old  story,  achieved  by  a  method  of 
tuning  to  aerial  waves  of  a  given  pitch. 
On  the  housetops,  small  antennae  provide 
for  long-distance  work.  This,  too,  had 
been  predicted  by  an  electrical  prophet, 
Elihu  Thomson,  the  father  of  the  art  of 
electric  welding,  whose  lightning  ar- 
resters to-day  dot  the  world.  He  de- 
clared: "I  do  not  look  for  any  startling 
electrical  development  in  the  near  fu- 
ture. But,  after  all,  it  is  the  unexpected 
that  often  happens,  and  new  discoveries 
may  open  new  fields.  It  seems  to  me 
rather  the  question  of  economy  in  the 
production  of  power  and  refinement  in 
the  use  of  it.  Much  progress,  however, 
has  been  made  in  wireless  telephoning. 
It  may  yet  become  practicable  between 
Europe  and  America." 

Electric  trains  have  annihilated  dis- 
tance. Balanced  by  gyroscopes,  they 
speed  at  two  hundred  miles  an  hour  on  a 
single  rail,  while  overhead  the  sky  is 
dotted  with  air-ships.  It  was  some  time 
before  it  was  recognized  that  the  gas- 
turbine,  electric-driven  envelope  was  too 
expensive  a  vehicle  for  heavy  freight, 
and  aerial  navigation  was  confined  to 
express  and  passenger  traffic  at  low  alti- 
tudes not  exceeding  five  thousand  feet. 
It  was  not,  indeed,  till  wireless  telephony 
secured  constant  and  instant  communi- 
cation with  home  that  the  more  con- 
servative citizens  were  satisfied  to  use 
this  method  of  transportation.  In  the 
city,  of  course,  there  are  subways  to 
distribute  freight  from  the  air-ship  land- 
ings. 

Not  all  railways  have  been  electrified; 
only  those  which  had  a  load  factor  justi- 
fying the  heavy  expense.  In  olden  days 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  money  lost  be- 
fore the  thing  was  worked  out.  Sprague, 
who  electrified  the  world  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  ago  when  he  electrified  the 
Richmond  street  railway,  and  who  by 
means  of  electric  elevators  made  the  sky- 
scraper possible,  wrote,  as  long  ago  as 
1914,  that  "What  the  future  holds  no 
one  can  say,  but  with  regard  to  one  sub- 
ject, the  electrification  of  trunk-line  rail- 
ways, befogged  by  so  much  of  idle  ro- 
mance, it  is  purely  an  economic  and 
financial  question,  not  primarily  one  of 
systems,  however  ardent  the  advocates 
of  each. 

"One  thing  is  certain,  present  ad- 


946 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


vance  will  not  be  rapid  compared  with 
that  in  urban  and  interurban  fields,  for, 
aside  from  the  wide  differences  of  opin- 
ion among  engineers,  railroads  will 
undertake  expenditures  of  capital,  now 
and  for  a  long  time  to  come  difficult  to 
raise,  only  when  absolutely  necessary, 
and  where  the  largest  measure  of  in- 
crease of  capacity  can  be  had  for  a 
minimum  of  investment. 

"So  great,  I  may  say  almost  prohibi- 
tive, is  the  capital  cost  involved  in 
trunk-line  electrification  where  roads  are 
considered  as  individual  units  discon- 
nected from  other  enterprises,  that  it  is 
inevitable  that  there  must  be  an  aban- 
donment of  the  idea  of  isolated  interests 
and  its  replacement  by  that  of  co-opera- 
tion. In  short,  power-supply,  which  is 
a  more  important  question  than  that  of 
system,  must  be  ultimately  provided  by 
great  interconnected  commercial  power- 
plants  able  to  take  economic  advantage 
of  diversified  demands. " 

The  modern  farmer  smiles  at  the  tales 
of  his  forerunners.  Now  one  uses  tons  of 
fertilizing  nitrogen,  electrically  extracted 
from  the  air,  and,  to  be  really  up-to-date, 
one's  farm  is  crisscrossed  eight  feet 
above  the  ground  with  wires  carrying 
high-tension  current  to  stimulate  growth. 
Plowing  and  cultivating  are  naturally 
done  by  power.  One  snaps  a  switch, 
and  water  circulates  through  perforated 
irrigating  pipes  underground.  The  whole 
thing  is  too  simple.  And  if  there  arises 
any  new  need  of  transportation,  or  ap- 
pliance, or  machinery,  a  flock  of  invent- 
ors settles  on  the  problem,  secure  in  the 
reward  of  discovery.  It  was  said  that 
formerly  the  individual  inventor  was 
helpless  against  great  corporations.  One 
document  in  the  city  archives  bears  di- 
rectly on  the  subject.  It  was  written  by 
Ward  Leonard,  who  attacked  the  prob- 
lem of  electric  locomotives  and  long- 
distance transmission  and  devised  the 
system  of  control  by  which  the  turrets 
of  American  dreadnaughts  were  gov- 
erned.   This  document  says: 

"In  the  United  States,  to-day,  a  meri- 
torious patent  is,  as  a  rule,  merely  an 
invitation  to  the  powerful  corporations 
to  appropriate  the  patent  invention. 
The  inventor  of  ordinary  means  is  un- 
able to  successfully  fight  such  infringe- 
ment. 


"Under  proper  conditions,  owners  of 
capital  would  compete  for  an  opportu- 
nity to  develop  a  new  and  useful  patented 
invention  because  it  would  bring  to  them 
good  returns.  Multitudes  of  entirely 
new  industries  would  rapidly  grow  up, 
based  upon  the  greatest  of  all  efficiencies, 
the  efficiency  of  invention. 

"The  development  and  utilization  of 
electric  energy  would  be  greatly  accel- 
erated and  the  cost  of  nearly  every  ex- 
isting manufactured  product  would  soon 
be  materially  reduced. 

"The  easiest  and  best  way  to  reduce 
the  cost  of  living  is  to  increase  the  effi- 
ciency of  production,  and  this  means  the 
stimulation  of  invention,  which  depends 
almost  entirely  upon  effectively  securing 
to  the  individual  patentee  and  to  the 
public  their  respective  rights  as  to  pat- 
ents. 

The  heart  of  the  whole  system,  the 
nerve  center  that  animates  and  controls, 
is  the  vast  central  station.  There  sur- 
vive old  prints  of  former  stations  which 
used  coal  in  a  horribly  wasteful  method 
to  produce  electrical  energy.  This  coal 
was  actually  burned  under  boilers,  and 
but  eight  per  cent,  of  its  value  realized. 
In  those  days  a  station  of  a  quarter- 
million  horse-power  was  considered  im- 
mense. The  modern  installation  is 
supplied  with  energy  produced  by  gas- 
driven  turbines,  using  gas  which  has 
been  generated  underground  from  coal 
in  place.  Thus  ninety  per  cent,  value  is 
achieved  instead  of  eight.  The  station 
is  situated  at  the  mouth  of  the  coal 
mine  and  produces  two  million  horse- 
power. It  actuates  railways  and  sub- 
ways in  its  own  area.  It  cooks,  heats, 
lights,  drives  factories,  water-works, 
and  motor-cars;  it  cleans  houses  and 
streets.  It  flashes  death  to  the  electric- 
chair,  and  extracts  oxygen  from  the 
atmosphere  to  save  life.  It  is  so  artic- 
ulated that  it  vibrates  to  the  life  of  the 
city,  save  that  while  the  city  sleeps 
the  station  energizes  long  freight-trains 
that  speed  rapidly  till  dawn.  Now, 
with  its  manifold  and  whirring  intri- 
cacies, drawing  from  the  gloom  of  the 
mine  its  magnificent  strength,  it  realizes 
the  dream  of  a  certain  clear-eyed  man, 
C.  F.  Brush,  whose  arc-light  was  the 
first  to  illuminate  American  cities  and 
the  cities  of  the  world.    His  statement, 


UNCHARTED 


947 


now  a  faded  paper  on  which  the  print- 
ing is  barely  visible,  reads: 

"Now  that  high-tension  power  trans- 
mission has  been  so  successfully  devel- 
oped, I  am  surprised  that  more  rapid 
progress  is  not  being  made  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  great  power-stations  close  to 
the  mouths  of  such  coal-mines  as  com- 
mand reliable  water-supply  suitable 
and  adequate  for  boiler  and  condensa- 
tion or  cooling  purposes.  I  am  looking 
for  great  achievements  in  this  direction, 
and  expect  to  see  the  gas-engine  in  suc- 
cessful competition  with  the  steam-tur- 
bine as  the  prime  mover  in  such  plants. 
The  present  practice  of  transporting 
coal,  with  heavy  freight  and  switching 
costs,  to  our  large  cities  for  power  pur- 
poses where  real  estate  and  other  neces- 
sities are  costly,  seems  to  be  uneconom- 
ical and  illogical. " 

And  the  people  themselves  are  not 
materially  changed  save  that  there  is  a 
droop  in  the  shoulder  and  they  are  less 
athletic.  Legs  and  arms  are  feebler, 
since  there  is  now  practically  no  manual 
work.  Heads  are  larger,  and  there  is  a 
new  and  striking  pallor.  Life  is  more 
colorless,  scientific,  and  mental.  The 
laughter  of  children  is  more  rare.  Emo- 
tion is  popularly  regarded  as  crude  and 
prehistoric,  and  the  thyroid  gland  is  the 
arbiter  of  existence. 

A  new  atomic  chemistry  produces 
what  nature  refuses,  thus  bearing  out 


the  words  of  Thomas  A.  Edison,  who 
foretold  that  "The  future  of  electrical 
development  lies  in  the  chemical  labo- 
ratory plus  trained  observation." 

The  mechanic  glides  to  his  automatic 
machinery  in  a  small  motor.  He  has 
much  that  the  rich  man  has.  To  such 
an  extent  is  life  mechanical  and  without 
individual  effort  that  the  race  is  silent, 
critical,  calculating,  and  without  pas- 
sion. The  elements  are  trained  and  put 
to  work,  but  in  man  there  is  left  little 
that  is  elemental.  Earth  pays  tribute, 
and  man  has  climbed  to  the  top  of  the 
ladder.  But  the  greatest  gulf  of  all  re- 
mains unfathomed,  and  the  stars  are  as 
far  away  as  ever. 

We  have  already  to  our  credit  most  of 
the  technical  achievements  of  the  city 
of  the  future.  What  has  not  been  done 
is  to  co-ordinate  these  varied  functions 
into  a  more  perfect  service.  And  when 
this  has  been  accomplished  and  new 
functions  have  been  added,  there  will 
come  a  moment  potential  in  our  history. 
The  spirit  of  man  will,  for  an  instant  of 
time,  divest  itself  of  outward  things.  It 
will  look  back  on  the  old  life  with  its 
blunders,  its  toil,  its  joys,  revelations,  and 
hopes,  and  forward  to  the  alternative 
with  its  effortless  satisfaction  and 
smooth  perfection,  and  put  the  stu- 
pendous question  whose  answer  will 
govern  him  for  all  time — Is  it  worth 
while  ? 


Uncharted 

BY  VIRGINIA  WATSON 

WHEN  home  from  your  cruise  you  used  to  show 
On  a  sea-washed  chart  the  way 
You  had  sailed  due  south  from  the  north  wind's  snow, 
Through  the  tropic  isles  where  the  soft  trades  blow, 
To  a  port  in  a  quiet  bay. 

The  last  cruise  is  over,  your  ship  at  rest 

Somewhere  in  a  quiet  bay. 
Fain  would  I  follow — but  east  or  west, 
By  palm-fringed  strand  or  battered  crest — 

You  left  no  chart  to  say. 


A  New  England  Pippa 

BY  MARY  ESTHER  MITCHELL 


i^^^^J^^^^^^T  was  just  sunrise  when 
xj^^^^^^^Mz  Miss    Barcy  fastened 

ffij  T  B  tne  ^ast  t*uc^e  °f  Bol- 
IS  W%  ter's  harness   and  led 

MM  ~  |£J|  him  out  of  the  barn  into 
^S^^^M'^S  tne  fresh  morning  air. 
^^^MyJIS^S  The  day  gave  promise 
of  being  one  of  those  consummate  tri- 
umphs of  autumn,  when  October  heav- 
ens take  on  an  azure  more  entrancing 
than  that  of  any  June  sky,  and  when  the 
genial  warmth  of  summer  is  inspired  by 
a  sparkling  dash  of  wine  from  the  vintage 
of  the  year.  The  small  house  stood  on 
the  backbone  of  the  ridge  which  divided 
the  valley;  paintless  and  weather-worn, 
it  seemed  to  grow  out  of  the  gray  rock 
itself.  Behind  it  the  rough  pasture 
dropped  abruptly  into  the  deep,  wooded 
shadows.  In  front  the  descent  was  more 
gradual;  on  the  other  side  of  the  high- 
way the  meadow-land  rolled  downward 
in  a  pleasant  slope,  open  to  the  sun  and 
to  the  full  view  of  the  mountains  be- 
yond. The  pasture,  the  slope,  the  moun- 
tains, were  all  clothed  in  gold  and  crim- 
son, for  this  was  the  season  when  New 
England  throws  off  her  traditional  au- 
sterity and  reveals  her  passion  as  she 
proclaims  the  gospel  of  color.  Even  the 
humble  scrub-growth  forgot  its  low 
estate  in  its  royal  hues,  and  flamed  up 
the  hillside  to  Miss  Barcy's  very  feet  as 
she  lingered  by  the  shafts,  patting 
Bolter's  unkempt  sides  and  feeding  him 
his  morning  lump  of  sugar. 

The  shortness  and  squareness  of  Miss 
Barcy's  figure  were  emphasized  by  the 
shortness  of  her  rough  skirt  and  the 
squareness  of  her  ill-fitting  jacket.  Miss 
Barcy's  large,  serviceable  feet  were  shod 
in  thick  calf-skin  shoes.  A  man's  cheap 
felt  hat  was  pulled  over  her  gray  hair, 
shading  a  homely,  pleasant  face  tanned 
into  a  leathery  background  for  as  steady  a 
pair  of  eyes  as  ever  looked  the  world 
straight  in  the  face.  "Reel  Chiny  blue," 
her  mother  had  been  wont  to  remark. 
"Got  'em  from  her  father;  an'  he  got 


'em — well,  reckon  he  ketched  'em  off 
the  sea-water  as  he  was  sailin'  round." 
The  good  woman  had  been  a  bit  of  a 
poet  in  her  own  way.  Whatever  the 
source  of  the  color  of  Miss  Barcy's  eyes, 
those  steady  orbs  unconsciously  served 
her  well  in  her  passage  through  life,  for 
no  one  could  look  into  them  and  doubt 
the  fundamental  laws  of  simplicity, 
good-will,  and  fair-dealing. 

When  Ca  ptain  Steven  McAllister  came 
to  Turkey  Hill  he  was  already  elderly 
and  a  widower.  His  history  began  in  the 
Provinces,  but  he  had  settled,  as  far  as  a 
seafarer  can  be  said  to  settle,  in  the 
small  Maine-coast  village  where  he  had 
found  his  wife.  Lumbago  and  chronic 
asthma  for  many  years  had  combined 
forces  to  down  the  captain,  but  he  was 
built  of  tenacious  Scotch  stuff,  and  he 
put  up  a  good  fight  until  he  was  fairly 
compelled,  by  lack  of  the  very  breath  of 
life,  to  the  compromise  of  a  high  and 
dry  atmosphere.  Like  many  another  re- 
tired sea-captain,  he  turned  to  the  tilling 
of  the  soil,  about  which  he  knew  so 
little.  Before  he  had  completed  the 
purchase  of  a  meager  farm  in  northern 
New  England,  his  wife,  always  futile 
and  inconvenient  in  action,  took  the 
occasion  to  depart  from  the  perplexities 
of  the  world.  Therefore,  when  the  cap- 
tain stowed  his  entire  worldly  cargo  in 
the  little  house  on  the  ridge,  he  did  so 
without  woman's  aid,  unless  the  efforts 
of  the  seven-year-old  Barcy  could  be 
regarded  in  the  light  of  feminine  help. 

Mrs.  McAllister  had  presented  her 
husband  with  his  one  child  in  an  ap- 
parently unpremeditated  sort  of  fashion. 
With  an  unerring  faculty  for  doing  the 
inconvenient  thing,  she  chose  an  unfor- 
tunate time  for  the  bestowal  of  her  gift. 
The  captain  meekly  relinquished  the 
prospects  of  a  profitable  voyage  and 
stayed  at  home  in  the  capacity  of  cook, 
housemaid,  and  nurse.  He  never  re- 
vealed his  inward  feelings  in  regard  to 
that  time  of  stress;  the  only  allusion  to 


Drawn  by  W.  H.  D.  Koerner  Engraved  by  F.  A.  Pettit 

"WE    MUST    BE    GITTIN'    ALONG,    WITH    A    WHOLE    DAY'S    WORK    BEFORE  US" 


A  NEW  ENGLAND  PIPPA 


949 


it  he  ever  made  was  covertly  hidden  in 
his  reiterated  caution  to  his  daughter 
not  to  "take  up  with  poetry/'  Barcy 
needed  no  such  warning;  she  spelled 
out  her  existence  in  the  most  matter-of- 
fact  prose.  When  she  was  born,  her 
mother  announced  her  decision  of  calling 
the  baby  "Claribel,"  that  being,  in  her 
parlance,  "a  sweet  name."  Here,  how- 
ever, the  captain  interfered  with  one  of 
the  few  bits  of  sentiment  he  ever  dis- 
played. His  nautical  experiences  had 
been  confined  to  the  coasting  trade,  with 
the  exception  of  one  never-to-be-forgot- 
ten voyage  to  Spain.  With  that  first 
epoch  of  his  life  in  mind,  to  his  second 
epoch,  red  and  sleeping  in  its  mother's 
weak  arms,  he  gave  the  name  of  Barce- 
lona. It  was  fortunate;  "Claribel"  and 
the  sturdy,  practical  child  and  woman 
would,  perforce,  have  for  ever  been  at 
variance;  there  was  something  substan- 
tial about  "Barcelona''  which  carried 
the  conviction  of  fitness. 

Captain  McAllister  did  not  find  his 
scanty  acres  productive  of  pence,  nor 
his  knowledge  of  winds  and  tides  useful 
in  the  cultivation  of  produce.  He  sold 
his  farm,  only  retaining  his  buildings  and 
a  small  garden,  bought  a  peddler's  wagon 
and  stock,  put  his  one  horse  between  the 
shafts,  and  cheerfully  set  out  to  sell  tin- 
ware and  small  goods.  He  made  a 
decent  living,  and  at  the  same  time  sat- 
isfied his  inclination  for  the  joys  of  social 
intercourse.  A  chatty  old  man  was  the 
captain,  and  the  daily  exchange  of  ideas 
with  his  clientele  was  a  source  of  infinite 
satisfaction.  The  country  thereabouts 
soon  became  familiar  with  the  three 
figures — the  hearty  captain,  the  wagon 
with  "Rolling  Jenny"  painted  in  white 
letters  on  its  red  surface,  and  Bolter,  so 
called  in  an  abiding  hope  that  the  name 
some  day  might  prove  suitable — a  hope, 
by  the  way,  never  to  be  justified.  For  a 
number  of  years  Captain  McAllister 
steered  his  wheeled  craft  over  the  rough 
roads,  until  at  last  there  came  a  day 
when  he  gasped,  with  labored  breath: 
"You'll  have  to  take  the  tiller,  Barcy. 
I've  took  my  last  vi'ge!"  Not  long 
after  that  the  captain  dropped  anchor  in 
the  Home  Haven,  and  Barcy,  grown 
into  the  Miss  Barcy  of  polite  esteem, 
drove  the  "  Rolling  Jenny"  in  his  place. 

"There,  there!  good  old  fellow!"  said 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  786.— 118 


Miss  Barcy,  giving  Bolter's  nose  a  fin- 
ishing stroke.  "We  must  be  gittin' 
along,  with  a  whole  day's  work  before 
us!"  She  climbed  onto  the  high  seat, 
and  grasped  the  reins  in  her  hard,  capa- 
ble hands.  The  old  white  horse  consid- 
ered for  a  moment,  then  stepped  delib- 
erately forward,  his  manner  distinctly 
stating  that  movement  was  a  voluntary 
concession  on  his  part,  and  had  nothing 
to  do  with  coercion. 

Once  upon  the  highway,  the  long  de- 
scent began  to  the  lowlands,  from  which 
the  morning  mist  had  hardly  lifted.  As 
they  approached  the  valley  a  chill  struck 
the  travelers,  and  Miss  Barcy  buttoned 
her  jacket  up  to  her  throat,  remarking 
as  she  did  so:  "Whatever  possesses  folks 
to  settle  in  the  hollers  of  the  earth  is 
more  'n  I  can  sense.  Pa  alius  uster  say, 
'Stick  to  the  upper  deck;  there  ain't 
any  healin'  in  hold-air  or  bilge-water.'" 
As  the  sun  mounted,  however,  the  air 
grew  mild  and  dry,  and  the  jacket  was 
again  loosened.  "Pretty  sure  to  have 
warm  weather  Fair  week,"  said  Miss 
Barcy  to  Bolter. 

The  two  jogged  on  comfortably,  with 
now  and  then  a  little  conversation,  car- 
ried on  by  an  occasional  remark  from 
the  driver  and  an  evident  response  by 
means  of  twitchings  of  ears  and  tail  on 
the  part  of  the  horse.  About  an  hour 
later  Miss  Barcy  drew  rein  in  front  of  a 
small  white  house,  a  tidy  place  with  a 
gay  little  door-yard  in  front.  The  two 
Farren  girls — "girls"  by  courtesy  of  long 
custom — were  seated  in  the  front  room 
with  the  dressmaker.  They  had  been 
up  for  hours,  getting  the  house  "rid  up" 
for  the  annual  visit  of  Miss  Tole.  Now 
they  were  all  three  busy  in  a  whirl  of 
cutting  and  ripping,  for  this  was  "make- 
over" day. 

"Land!"  exclaimed  Miss  Susan,  jump- 
ing up  and  running  to  the  window, 
leaving  a  trail  of  spools,  scissors,  and 
scraps  on  the  floor  behind  her.  "If 
there  ain't  Miss  Barcy!" 

"Now  you  can  git  them  hooks  and 
eyes,"  mumbled  Miss  Tole,  through  a 
mouthful  of  pins. 

"Goin'  to  the  Fair?"  inquired  Miss 
Susan,  as  the  two  sisters,  aprons  over 
heads,  stood  by  the  cart. 

"If  I  can  git' round  in  time,"  answered 
Miss  Barcy. 


950 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"I  see  Lenny  Tallman  drive  by  jest 
now,  'long  of  Molly  Rogers,"  said  Miss 
Martha.  "If  /  had  a  daughter  I  guess 
she  wouldn't  be  ridin'  round  with  that 
fellow."  For  many  years  the  visionary 
daughter  of  Miss  Martha  had  served  as 
an  exponent  of  disciplinary  ideas. 

"He's  a  real  industrious  young  man," 
remarked  Miss  Barcy,  as  she  counted 
out  the  change. 

"He's  as  contrairy  as  a  crooked 
stick."  Miss  Martha's  thin  lips  straight- 
ened. "He  'ain't  got  a  mite  of  religion, 
an'  I've  heard  he  drinks." 

"I  guess  his  folks  don't  like  it  any 
better  'n  you  do,"  put  in  Miss  Susan. 

"Then  why  don't  they  put  a  stop  to 
it?  It's  said  she  ain't  any  better  than 
she  ought  to  be." 

A  faint  flush  rose  to  Miss  Barcy's 
brown  cheek;  she  had  brought,  even  to 
her  elderly  years,  a  maidenliness  that 
instinctively  shrank  from  the  mention 
of  many  things  spoken  in  her  presence. 
Now  she  fended  off  any  possible  revela- 
tions intended  by  Miss  Martha,  by  re- 
plying to  the  letter  of  the  remark  rather 
than  to  the  spirit. 

"I  guess  none  of  us  are  that,  if  the 
truth  was  told,"  she  said. 

"  Barcelony  McAllister!  What  ever 
do  you  mean?"  cried  Miss  Martha,  in 
virginal  horror.  "I  guess  you  don't 
know  what  you're  talkin'  about!" 

Miss  Barcy  took  up  the  reins.  "I 
s'pose  every  one  of  us  could  be  better  if 
we  tried  hard  enough,"  she  replied.  "Git 
up,  Bolter!" 

"I  declare,  sometimes  I  think  Miss 
Barcy's  simple,  an'  sometimes  I  think 
she's  deep,"  remarked  Miss  Martha  as 
the  two  sisters  turned  back  to  the  house. 
"An'  then,  again,  I  think  her  principles 
ain't  sound." 

Miss  Susan  stooped  to  gather  up  the 
evidences  of  her  rapid  transit  to  the 
window.  "Sometimes  /  think  she's  just 
plain  good,"  she  said,  softly. 

"Bein'  good's  the  least  thing  you  can 
say  of  anybody,"  retorted  Miss  Martha. 
But  later  she  stated,  with  apparent  ir- 
relevance, "Molly  Rogers  is  real  pleas- 
ant spoken,  if  she  is  flighty." 

Miss  Barcy,  Bolter,  and  the  "Rolling 
Jenny"  jogged  comfortably  along  the 
quiet,  sunny  road,  stopping  here  and 


there  to  sell  a  spool  of  cotton,  a  shining 
dish-pan,  or  a  pie-plate.  Business  was 
dull  that  day;  the  County  Fair  at  Hill- 
bury  depopulated  the  region  for  the 
time  being.  The  forenoon  was  well 
established  when  she  turned  the  reluc- 
tant Bolter  on  to  a  little-used  ribbon- 
road  which  wound  its  pretty,  green  way 
up  to  a  solitary  farm-house. 

"I  oughtn't  stop  here  if  I  want  to 
git  to  the  grounds  in  time  for  the  cattle 
parade,"  Miss  Barcy  remarked  aloud, 
Bolter's  ears  being  set  at  an  angle  which 
invited  confidence.  "But  there,  the 
poor  thing  don't  git  a  chance  to  go 
shoppin',  and  she  may  be  needin'.  Ho, 
Mis'  Butts!" 

A  slat-like  figure  in  a  limp  calico 
gown  came  around  the  corner  of  the 
house,  wiping  her  hands  on  her  apron. 
A  small  boy  was  hanging  to  her  skirts. 

"Weil,  there,  Miss  Barcy!"  cried  she. 
"I'm  real  glad  to  see  you.  My  kittle's 
all  holes,  an'  all  the  dough  I  can  stick  on 
don't  do  a  mite  o'  good.  I  was  jest 
wonderin'  what  I'd  do.  I  never  thought 
of  your  bein'  'round  Fair  day.  Will 
you  stop  your  naggin' ! "  this  last  to  the 
child  who  was  whimpering  in  a  dismal 
sort  of  way. 

"What's  the  matter  with  Little  Lu- 
ther?" asked  Miss  Barcy,  looking  down 
on  the  tear-stained,  dirt-streaked  face. 

Mrs.  Butts  laid  a  not  ungentle  hand 
on  the  crop  of  tow  hair.  "There  now," 
she  said,  "ain't  you  ashamed?  An'  Miss 
Barcy  seein'  you!  He'd  set  his  heart  on 
the  Fair,  an'  then  Luther  had  a  call  over 
to  Crow's  Corner  about  some  lumber. 
The  other  children  went  along  with  the 
Hogans,  but  there  wa'n't  room  in  the 
wagon  for  Little  Luther.  He's  been 
yellin'  all  the  mornin',  an'  I'm  most  wore 
out.  There,  for  the  land's  sake,  don't 
begin  again!"  for  Little  Luther,  the 
depth  of  his  grief  impressed  afresh  by 
its  recital,  burst  into  a  splutter  of  sobs. 

"Look  here,  Little  Luther,"  said  Miss 
Barcy;  "how'd  you  like  to  go  to  the 
Fair  'long  o'  me,  settin'  up  here  on  this 
high  seat?  You'll  have  to  stop  that 
noise,  though;  my  cart  won't  hold  noth- 
in'  like  that." 

The  magnitude  of  the  proposition  ar- 
rested Little  Luther's  next  wail  half- 
way, and  the  submerged  blue  eyes  stared 
at  Miss  Barcy  in  wide-open  amazement. 


A  NEW  ENGLAND  PIPPA 


951 


"Well,  now,  did  you  ever!"  exclaimed 
Mrs.  Butts.  "  I  guess  you  never  dreamed 
you'd  ever  have  a  chance  to  ride  up 
there  so  splendid  like.  It's  real  kind  of 
you,  Miss  Barcy,  an'  I  hope  it  won't  put 
you  out  too  much.  You  can  hand  him 
over  to  the  children  soon  as  ever  you 
git  there,  an'  then  you  won't  have  him 
on  your  mind  till  you  come  back.  I'll 
slick  him  up  a  bit  if  you  don't  mind 
waitin',  an'  I  hope  to  goodness  he'll  be- 
have himself!" 

When  Little  Luther's  small  person, 
impelled  by  his  mother's  steadying  hand 
at  the  rear  and  Miss  Barcy's  strong  pull 
at.  the  fore,  compassed  the  distance  from 
the  ground  to  the  driver's  perch,  his 
pink-and-white  face  was  shining  with  a 
hasty  but  vigorous  application  of  soap 
and  water,  while  his  white  hair  still 
dripped,  as  it  lay  forced  into  unnatural 
sleekness  on  his  round  pate.  He  had  a 
sturdy  little  body  which  pushed  out  his 
clean  blue  pinny  until  it  threatened  the 
security  of  the  big  bone  buttons  fasten- 
ing it  behind.  The  wagon-seat  had  been 
built  to  accommodate  the  old  captain's 
breadth  of  beam,  and  when  Little  Lu- 
ther was  seated  way  back  on  the  leather 
cushion,  his  wrinkled,  striped  stockings 
and  small,  copper-toed  shoes  stuck  out 
straight  before  him.  He  thrust  his 
pudgy  fists  down  hard  on  either  side  of 
him;  his  rise  had  been  so  sudden  and  to 
such  an  undreamed-of  altitude  that  his 
sense  of  balance  was  disturbed. 

"It's  mighty  good  of  you,  Miss 
Barcy,"  repeated  Mrs.  Butts.  Then  she 
turned  back  to  the  work  that  was  never 
done. 

Miss  Barcy  and  Little  Luther  drove 
on  for  some  time  in  silence.  An  ecstatic 
sense  of  the  situation  gradually  grew 
within  the  little  boy,  demanding  expres- 
sion. At  first  he  could  think  of  no  re- 
mark worthy  of  the  occasion.  Then, 
with  blue  eyes  staring  fixedly  at  the 
kindly  face  above  him,  he  burst  out  with: 

"Thamth  big  thowth  got  theven  little 
pigth!" 

Miss  Barcy  nearly  dropped  the  reins. 
"What's  that?"  she  said. 

Once  more  Little  Luther  gathered  his 
forces  for  deliverance.  "Thamth  big 
thowth  got  theven  little  pigth !" 

"Bless  me!"  exclaimed  Miss  Barcy, 
uncomprehending. 


Disappointed  in  the  result  of  his  an- 
nouncement, and  thrown  back  upon 
himself,  Little  Luther  suddenly  felt  lone- 
ly. His  little  lip  quivered,  and  the  tears, 
so  recently  dried,  welled  up  once  more. 

"Th  ere,"  said  Miss  Barcy,  "would 
you  mind  drivin'  a  bit,  while  I  reach 
back  for  somethin'?" 

The  row  of  spinal  buttons  straight- 
ened and  the  brown  fists  curled  over  the 
reins  in  unbelieving  joy.  When  Little 
Luther  relinquished  the  proud  distinc- 
tion of  guiding  Bolter,  it  was  to  grasp  a 
stick  of  satisfactory  red  -  and  -  white 
candy.  Miss  Barcy  might  not  under- 
stand what  little  boys  said,  especially 
when  their  natural  lisp  was  complicated 
by  the  loss  of  front  teeth,  but  she  did 
most  certainly  know  what  little  boys 
liked. 

It  was  about  eleven  o'clock  when  Miss 
Barcy  and  Little  Luther  drove  into  the 
Fair  Ground,  a  big,  roughly  boarded  in- 
closure  on  the  outskirts  of  the  county 
town.  It  was  a  warm,  bright  day,  offer- 
ing no  excuse  of  home-staying  even  to 
the  most  wary,  and  the  ground  was  in  a 
pleasing  state  of  activity.  A  mingled 
odor  of  many  cattle  and  hot  popcorn 
assailed  the  nostrils;  ears  were  greeted 
by  the  rattle,  squeak,  and  groan  of  vari- 
ous musical  instruments,  backed  by  the 
steady  din  of  voices  and  pointed  by  the 
occasional  shrieks  of  the  whirling  pa- 
trons of  the  merry-go-round.  Flags  and 
banners  floated  gaily  on  the  breeze,  and 
flaring  advertisements  appealed  to  the 
curiosity  of  the  country  throng.  High 
over  the  ridge-pole  of  the  exhibition 
building  soared  an  air-ship,  manned  by 
a  dummy.  Little  Luther's  eyes  grew 
round,  and  he  gripped  the  edge  of  the 
leather  cushion.  His  stomach  seemed 
to  him  to  respond  with  the  dizzy  rise  and 
fall  of  the  strange  thing  above  him. 

"I  thould  think  he'd  be  thcared!"  he 
gasped. 

"Bless  you,  child!  That  ain't  a  real 
man;  it's  only  a  sort  of  doll,"  reassured 
his  protector. 

Miss  Barcy  guided  Bolter  to  a  quiet 
spot  a  little  apart  from  the  line  of  ven- 
ders' carts.  Here  she  hitched  the  horse, 
while  Little  Luther  clung  to  her  skirt 
as  if  it  were  the  only  safe  anchorage  in 
an  unknown  sea.  Miss  Barcy  gently 
unclasped  the  persistent  little  fingers. 


952 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


"There,  there,  there  ain't  anythin' 
goin'  to  hurt  you,"  she  said.  "You  come 
along  with  me  and  we'll  find  somebody 
you  know." 

The  two  had  been  gone  only  a  few 
moments  when  a  small,  dirty  boy  slipped 
around  to  the  far  side  of  the  "Rolling 
Jenny"  and  began  secret  investigations. 
Tin-ware,  pins,  and  needles  did  not  in- 
terest him,  and  he  cautiously  peered 
into  drawers  and  compartments,  keep- 
ing an  eye  out  for  the  possible  return  of 
the  owner.  At  last  he  found  what  he 
was  after,  and  was  eagerly  eying  the 
candy-boxes  when  a  sudden  noise  caused 
him  to  stuff  the  contents  of  his  hand  into 
his  pocket,  hastily  close  the  door,  and 
assume  an  uncompromising  attitude. 

"Why,  William  Mullins!"  exclaimed 
Miss  Barcy,  as  she  came  around  the  cor- 
ner of  the  cart.  "If  I'd  known  you  was 
here  I  wouldn't  have  been  in  such  a 
pucker  to  git  back.  I  don't  suppose 
there's  a  soul  on  the  grounds  that  would 
be  mean  enough  to  take  a  pin's  worth, 
but  somehow  I  can't  take  any  comfort 
when  the  cart's  on  my  mind.  I  oughter 
be  ashamed  to  be  so  suspicious,  but 
there,  I'd  have  felt  safer  if  I'd  thought 
you  was  'round." 

William  said  nothing. 

"Look  here,  William,"  went  on  Miss 
Barcy;  "s'pose  you  kind  o'  see  to  the 
' Jenny'  while  I  go  an'  take  a  look  at 
the  heifers.  Jest  see  that  none  of  the 
boys  gits  foolin'  'round.  I'll  be  back  in 
a  minute." 

William  straightened  to  the  occasion. 
"I'd  like  to  see  any  feller  git  funny  when 
I'm  round!"  he  declared.  Somehow  the 
"William"  laid  larger  claims  on  him 
than  did  the  "Bill"  of  popular  address. 
With  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  he  pa- 
trolled the  cart,  whistling  loftily.  Sud- 
denly he  paused,  fished  up  his  loot  of  a 
few  moments  before,  and  gazed  at  it 
intently.  The  hastily  won  spoils  con- 
sisted of  a  handful  of  bull's-eyes,  and 
they  were  not  improved  by  their  sojourn 
in  William's  pocket.  The  boy  looked 
longingly  at  the  sticky  mass,  then  he 
returned  it  to  its  lawful  place.  With  an 
air  of  extreme  virtue  he  ordered  an  inno- 
cent mongrel  to  get  out  of  the  way. 
When  Miss  Barcy  returned,  William  was 
holding  Bolter's  halter,  while  that  most 
stationary  of  beasts,  whose  last  thought 


was  of  flight,  was  regarding  him  in  mild 
surprise. 

"Much  obliged  to  you,  William,"  said 
Miss  Barcy.  "Here's  a  bit  of  candy  for 
you." 

William  eyed  Miss  Barcy  furtively  as 
she  handed  him  a  mass  of  bull's-eyes 
stuck  together  in  one  unpleasant  lump, 
but  that  good  woman's  face  was  inno- 
cent and  unrevealing. 

"Come  back  this  afternoon  and  I'll 
give  you  a  dime  if  you'll  look  out  for  the 
cart  again.  I  want  to  see  the  show  when 
I've  done  some  tradin',  and  Bolter  might 
run  away,  you  know." 

It  was  about  three  o'clock  when  Miss 
Barcy  closed  the  "Rolling  Jenny"  and 
strolled  off  to  enjoy  herself.  She  in- 
spected the  cattle  with  practised  eye; 
she  looked  over  the  fruit  and  vegetables, 
the  jams  and  preserves.  Having  an 
eclectic  taste,  she  bestowed  a  due  share 
of  attention  upon  the  fancy  work. 

"They're  real  handsome,"  she  com- 
mented to  herself.  "But  what  anybody 
wants  to  stick  a  needle  in  just  to  pull  it 
out  ag'in,  unless  they  have  to,  is  more  'n 
I  can  sense." 

Then  Miss  Barcy  went  to  the  side- 
shows. Here  she  thoroughly  enjoyed 
herself.  She  was  suddenly  snatched 
from  the  thrills  of  a  moving-picture  hunt 
in  the  African  jungle  to  a  realization  that 
she  was  hungry  and  tired.  She  hunted 
up  a  refreshment-booth,  drank  a  cup  of 
hot  tea,  and,  taking  her  purchases  of 
doughnuts  and  bananas  with  her,  sought 
a  retired  spot  in  which  to  eat  and  rest. 
At  one  end  of  the  grounds  was  a  clump 
of  trees — pines,  cool  and  fragrant — and 
there,  well  screened  by  the  underbrush, 
she  sat  on  the  needle-covered  earth  and 
ate  her  lunch,  leaning  against  a  large 
rock.  Later,  she  dozed,  and  was  only 
roused  by  the  sound  of  voices,  low  and 
near  by. 

When  Leonard  Tallman  drove  Molly 
Rogers  to  the  County  Fair,  he  had  a 
purpose  in  his  heart  beyond  the  pleas- 
ures of  the  exhibition.  He  had  been 
"paying  attention"  to  Molly  for  some 
time,  attention  which  was  approved  of 
only  by  the  girl  herself.  Mrs.  Tallman 
ignored  the  fact  of  her  son's  infatuation. 
She  summed  up  her  condemnation  of 
Molly  in  the  one  word  "skitterin',"  a 


A  NEW  ENGLAND  PIPPA 


953 


term  of  reproach  hard  to  define;  but 
Mrs.  Tallman  was,  etymologically,  an 
authority  unto  herself.  As  to  Molly's 
father,  his  objections  were  more  clearly 
expressed.  A  church  deacon  and  abso- 
lute domestic  master,  he  considered  his 
statements  conclusive.  He  was  very 
angry  when  he  discovered  that  Molly 
had  promised  to  go  to  the  Fair  with 
Leonard,  and  would  have  forbidden  it 
entirely  had  he  not  felt  fear  that  open 
humiliation  might  cause  decisive  rebell- 
ion on  Molly's  part.  He,  therefore,  in 
Chinese  parlance,  "saved  his  face"  by 
laying  commands  on  the  future. 

"You  can  go  this  once,  Molly,"  he 
said.  "But  you've  got  to  break  with 
him.  He's  an  ungodly  young  man,  and 
his  father  was  before  him,  and  I  ain't 
going  to  have  you  yoking  with  an  un- 
believer. I  'ain't  a  mite  of  confidence 
in  them  Tallmans,  root  or  branch. 
You've  got  to  get  rid  of  him,  Molly,  or 
you  ain't  a  daughter  of  mine!" 

"But,  father—" 

Mr.  Rogers  brought  his  fist  down  on 
the  table.  "You  stop  it,  Molly,  or  you 
can  leave  my  house  and  shift  for  your- 
self.   You  understand?" 

The  young  couple  who  drove  over  the 
quiet  roads  that  sunny  October  morning 
was  a  goodly  one  to  look  upon.  Molly 
was  simply  dressed  for  a  country  girl, 
but  her  skirt  and  waist  had  not  been 
fashioned  with  eye  single  to  utility,  nor 
the  jaunty  hat  trimmed  without  a 
thought  of  effect.  Leonard's  dark  eyes 
devoured  her  prettiness. 

"I  like  the  way  you  fix  yourself  up," 
he  said.  "You  ain't  all  flutterings  like 
other  girls."  # 

"You  look  awful  nice  yourself,  Len," 
returned  Molly,  gazing  admiringly  at 
the  straight,  comely  young  figure  which 
made  the  best  of  the  cheap,  gray,  ready- 
made  suit;  she  longed  to  lay  her  hand 
on  the  arm  which  swelled  out  the  coat- 
sleeve  with  its  sturdy  muscles.  But 
Molly,  always  chary  of  caress,  was  actu- 
ally timid  to-day,  in  the  presence  of  the 
man  by  her  side.  There  was  a  certain 
potentiality  about  him  she  had  never 
felt  before,  something  intense  and  sup- 
pressed which  thrilled  the  very  air  and 
marked  the  hour  as  quite  apart  from 
any  experience  she  had  ever  known. 
Hardly  a  word  passed  between  the  two. 


A  strange,  new  embarrassment  envel- 
oped them  like  a  veil,  through  which 
nothing  seemed  real  or  natural. 

It  was  a  day  for  young  lovers,  vigor- 
ous, golden,  and  glowing.  The  mare 
tossed  her  pretty  head  and  threw  out 
her  clean-cut  legs  in  the  sheer  enjoyment 
of  motion.  The  light  buggy  rolled  easily 
along  the  way  which  led,  now  through 
the  open  country,  now  in  the  subdued 
light  which  flickered  through  the  meet- 
ing branches  of  the  autumn  wood.  So 
they  rode  on,  and  still  the  new  embar- 
rassment grew  until  it  dominated  the 
situation.  Even  the  excitement  of  the 
noisy  Fair  Ground  failed  to  break  the 
spell.  They  wandered  about,  making 
surface  talk,  hardly  knowing  at  what 
they  were  looking.  They  lunched  in  one 
of  the  little  booths,  and  Molly  pretended 
to  be  very  gay  over  her  ice-cream.  At 
last  they  could  no  longer  play  at  being 
interested  in  the  outside  world  and  in- 
different to  each  other,  and,  by  a  sort  of 
tacit  consent,  they  wandered  to  a  little 
pine  grove  at  one  end  of  the  inclosure. 
It  was  quiet  there,  and  few  passed  that 
way.  One  party  of  young  people  did 
chance  along,  and  saw  them  sitting  there 
on  the  pine-needles,  in  the  shelter  of  a 
large  rock. 

"Hello,  Len!"  shouted  one.  "Did 
you  pay  admission  to  rubber  at  trees? 
Come  on  and  have  a  sody!" 

Leonard  muttered  some  sort  of  a  re- 
fusal, and  they  passed  on. 

"'Tain't  trees  I'm  looking  at!"  Leon- 
ard's voice  was  low,  hardly  above  a 
whisper,  but  it  made  Molly's  heart  beat 
wildly.    She  said  nothing. 

"Molly!"  cried  Leonard,  "I  ain't  go- 
ing to  stand  this  any  longer!" 

The  girl's  breath  came  short  and  quick. 
"Stand  what?"  she  faltered. 

"You  know  as  well  as  I  do.  We  can't 
go  on  this  way.  Molly,  will  you  marry 
mer 

Molly's  plump  hand  had  been  break- 
ing pine-needles  into  a  little  heap;  now 
she  took  up  a  handful  and  let  them  slow- 
ly sift  through  her  fingers.  "Len,"  she 
said,  "we've  talked  that  all  over.  I 
thought  we'd  settled  it.  I  can't,  Len. 
I'm  afraid." 

"Afraid  of  me,  Molly?" 

Molly's  eyes  were  intent  on  the  slip- 
ping brown  spills.    "You  don't  know 


954 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


what  father  is  when  he's  mad,"  she  said 
at  length.  "And  your  mother  can't 
abide  me." 

"I  guess  we  can  manage  without 
them,"  returned  Leonard. 

Molly  looked  up.  "You  know  your 
mother  said  I  should  never  set  foot  on 
the  farm.  How'd  you  get  your  living, 
Len?" 

The  young  man  stretched  out  a  long 
arm  and  grasped  a  broken  bough  in  his 
strong,  brown  hand.  Then  he  gave  a 
little  laugh.  "I  wouldn't  be  the  first 
Tallman  who  had  struck  out  for  him- 
self." 

Molly  brushed  the  earth  and  broken 
needles  from  her  palms,  clasped  her 
hands  in  her  lap,  and  gazed  steadily  at 
them  as  she  spoke.  "Leonard,  if  you 
think  I'm  going  to  be  a  drudge,  you're 
mistaken.  I  know  what  happens  when 
folks  get  married  without  enough  to 
keep  them  on.  Look  at  Rose  Wiggins, 
or  Sarah  Oliver;  it  wasn't  more  'n  a 
year  before  their  looks  were  all  gone, 
and  now  they  slave  from  morning  to 
night  with  a  parcel  of  children  under- 
foot. I  don't  choose  to  wear  myself  out 
that  way.  If  I  did,  you  wouldn't  care 
for  me  any  longer.  If  I  marry  you, 
father  will  turn  me  out;  he  as  much  as 
said  so.  And  if  you  quarrel  with  your 
mother,  where'll  you  be?  I  thought 
we'd  settled  all  that." 

Molly's  cold  young  tones  fell  hard  on 
Leonard's  ears,  but  they  could  not 
quench  his  passion.  Suddenly  his  dark 
eyes  flashed  hot.  "Do  you  love  me, 
Molly?" 

"You  know  I  do."  Molly's  eyes  had 
dropped. 

Leonard  straightened  up  and  drew  a 
long  breath.  "Then  I'm  going  to  have 
you!  You're  mine,  Molly,  and  that 
means  more  'n  marrying."  Leonard 
flung  out  his  words  defiantly.  "I  don't 
know  as  I  hold  much  by  marrying,  any- 
way. What  do  a  few  words  mean,  said 
over  you  by  a  minister?  That  don't 
have  anything  to  do  with  love.  It's 
nobody's  business  but  just  yours  and 
mine." 

Molly  drew  a  quick  breath. 

"When  I  was  at  the  academy  there 
was  a  teacher  who  didn't  believe  in  mar- 
rying," went  on  Leonard.  "He  said  it 
wasn't  right  to  bind  folks  to  unhappi- 


ness.  He  used  to  talk  to  me  about  it. 
They  fired  him  quick  enough  when  they 
found  out  his  views.  But  he  made  me 
see  things  different,  somehow.  I  guess 
he  was  better  than  lots  of  people  who 
stick  by  the  law.  There's  your  father, 
now;  he's  a  member  and  all  that,  but 
everybody  knows  he  don't  have  a 
pleasant  word  for  his  family." 

Molly  did  not  move.  Leonard  edged 
nearer,  and  his  arm  found  its  way  about 
the  girlish  waist. 

"'Tain't  our  fault,  Molly,  if  our  folks 
keep  us  from  marrying.  We  don't  have 
to  think  of  anybody  but  ourselves. 
There  ain't  anybody  in  the  world  but 
just  you  and  me.  Some  day,  when 
everything's  all  right,  we'll  marry,  but 
now  there  ain't  a  thing  that  matters  so 
long  as  we  love  each  other." 

Leonard's  voice  was  gentle,  but  it  held 
a  masterful  note.  "Molly?" 

"Yes,  Leonard."  It  was  only  a  whis- 
per. 

"Your  folks  think  you're  going  to  stay 
with  your  cousin,  down  here,  for  a  few 
days,  don't  they?" 

"^Yes." 

"There  ain't  a  soul  that  knows  us  in 
Norton,  and  the  mare  can  do  it  easy  in 
a  couple  of  hours.  You  could  fix  it  up 
some  way  with  your  cousin,  and  nobody 
will  ever  suspect." 

Molly  did  not  speak.  She  was  very 
pale,  and  she  kept  her  eyes  on  her  lap. 

"Molly!   Will  you?" 

The  very  air  was  vibrant  with  con- 
sent. The  noises  from  the  Fair  Ground 
were  distant  and  of  another  world.  The 
only  sound  came  from  the  throat  of  a 
little  bird,  twittering  softly  to  its  mate. 

"Molly!"  The  word  was  under 
breath,  hardly  to  be  heard. 

"Bless  my  soul!"  A  sturdy  figure  ap- 
peared around  the  corner  of  the  rock, 
and  smiled  cheerfully  as  it  uttered  the 
exclamation.  Leonard  started  to  his 
feet. 

"Bless  my  soul!"  repeated  Miss  Bar- 
cy.    "I  hope  I  ain't  interruptin'." 

Molly  tried  to  stammer  out.  some- 
thing, but  Leonard's  eyes  were  angry. 

"You  mustn't  mind  an  old  woman 
like  me;  bein'  in  love  ain't  nothin'  to 
be  ashamed  of,  an'  I  take  it  that's  where 
you  two  be.  You  don't  mind  my  settin' 
here  awhile,  do  you?"   She  did  not  wait 


Drawn  by  W.  H.  D.  Koerner  Engraved  by  Frank  E.  Pettit 

"BEIN'    IN    LOVE    AIN'T    NOTHIN'    TO    BE    ASHAMED  OF" 


A  NEW  ENGLAND  PI  PPA 


955 


for  an  answer,  but  slowly  let  herself 
down  on  to  the  rock.  "Good  land!  I'm 
gittin'  pretty  stiff,"  she  said. 

The  two  young  people  did  not  speak. 
Molly  plaited  her  handkerchief  with 
nervous  fingers,  while  Leonard  stood, 
sulkily,  scraping  the  ground  with  the  toe 
of  his  shoe.  Miss  Barcy  looked  from  one 
embarrassed  figure  to  the  other. 

"No,  as  I  said  before,  bein'  in  love 
ain't  nothin'  to  be  ashamed  of,  though 
I  reckon  you've  been  made  to  feel  so, 
you  two  children;  more's  the  pity,  I 
say. 

The  wrath  died  out  of  Leonard's  eyes; 
Molly  drew  an  involuntary  sigh  of  re- 
lief. After  all,  Miss  Barcy  had  not 
heard  anything. 

"You  see,"  went  on  Miss  Barcy,  her 
two  hard  palms  laid  on  her  knees, 
"there  ain't  nothin'  in  the  world  that 
can  hinder  two  young  people  from  lovin' 
each  other,  an'  when  it's  all  above- 
board,  way  it  is  with  you  two,  why  it's 
the  best  thing  in  the  world,  an'  the  pret- 
tiest thing,  too,  I  guess."  Miss  Barcy 
gave  a  pleased  little  laugh.  "Bless  me! 
just  because  I'm  an  old  maid,  you 
needn't  think  I  don't  sense  things.  Why, 
I've  kinder  suspected  what  was  goin' 
on  between  you  two  for  some  time  back. 
I  says  to  myself:  'There's  that  smart 
young  feller  goin'  to  make  a  reel  nice 
girl  happy.  He's  goin'  to  pertect  her 
from  all  that  ain't  good.  It's  splendid 
to  be  as  safe  as  she's  goin'  to  be.  Nobody 
will  ever  dare  to  say  one  word  against 
her,  'cause  his  arm  will  be  'round  her, 
shieldin'  her  from  all  that  ain't  true  and 
straight;  he's  goin'  to  keep  her  from 
even  knowin'  there's  anything  else  in  the 
world.'  I  says  all  that  to  myself,  an'  I 
felt  an  interest  in  you,  right  off." 

Leonard  had  moved  nearer  to  Molly; 
now  he  put  his  hand  on  the  girl's  shoul- 
der. Miss  Barcy,  apparently  oblivious, 
continued: 

"I  ain't  a  great  hand  to  talk  of  my 
own  affairs,  but  I  guess  you'll  under- 
stand if  I  tell  you  somethin'.  Once, 
when  I  was  young  like  Molly  here,  some 
one  asked  me  to  marry  him.  He  was  a 
good  man,  but  I  didn't  take  him.  I 
thought  I  had  reasons  at  the  time,  but 
now  I  see  my  mistake.  If  I'd  married 
him  I  wouldn't  be  drivin'  'round  the 
country,  a  rough  old  woman,  takin'  all 


manners  of  knocks.  When  I  git  home 
at  night,  after  a  long  day  peddlin',  an' 
open  the  door  to  a  lonely  house  an'  a 
cold  hearth,  I  think  how  it  would  seem 
if,  instead  of  bein'  the  one  to  come  home, 
I  was  the  one  to  come  home  to,  an', 
makin'  a  pleasant  welcome  for  him,  how 
glad  I'd  be  to  have  him  come.  I  guess 
if  a  woman  loves  a  man,  there's  nothin' 
too  little  for  her  to  take  happiness  in 
doin',  such  as  havin'  slippers  warm,  an' 
gittin'  tasty  food,  an'  all  that.  An', 
then,  there's  the — children;  little  boys 
an'  girls  to  tend  an'  love,  an',  yes,  mebbe 
to  spank  when  they're  naughty,  so's  to 
save  them  from  makin'  the  mistakes 
we've  made.  An'  so,  when  I  see  you 
keepin'  company,  I  says,  'Now  those 
two  fine  young  folks  are  goin'  to  marry 
an'  settle,  an'  love  each  other,  an'  bring 
up  a  good  family.'  Why,  it  done  my 
heart  good  jest  to  think  of  it!  My 
father  used  to  say:  'Barcy,  girl,  don't 
sail  alone.  You'll  need  another  hand  at 
the  tiller  come  rough  weather,'  an'  I 
guess  he  was  right.  Only  I  missed  it, 
somehow,  an'  it's  been  tough  work  some- 
times. But  you — well,  there  ain't  any 
gale  too  hard  for  you,  'cause  you've  got 
each  other." 

There  was  silence  for  a  moment.  The 
lovers  looked  at  each  other  with  eyes 
wide  with  a  new  understanding.  The 
breeze,  fresh  with  the  late  afternoon 
coolness,  rustled  in  the  pines,  and 
whirled  the  freshly  fallen  needles  from 
the  surface  of  the  rocks.  Miss  Barcy 
sat,  staring  at  the  tree-tops.  Suddenly 
she  spoke  in  a  matter-of-fact  tone: 

"When  you  two  children  goin'  to  git 
married  ?" 

The  question  was  unexpected;  neither 
Molly  nor  Leonard  were  prepared  for  it. 
The  latter  said  nothing.  The  girl,  with 
true  feminine  inability  to  let  alone  what 
cannot  be  met,  stumbled  and  stammered 
over  an  incoherent  reply.  But  Miss 
Barcy  was  direct  in  all  her  dealings. 

"When  you  goin'  to  git  married?"  she 
repeated. 

Suspicion  clouded  Leonard's  eyes  as 
he  replied,  "I  don't  know  as  that's  any- 
body's affair." 

"Well,"  returned  Miss  Barcy,  unper- 
turbed, "I  don't  know  as  it. is,  one  way 
you  look  at  it.  Generally  speaking,  it's 
your  own  business;  but  if  I  could  help 


956 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


you  a  bit  it  seems  as  if  I  kinder  entered 
into  it,  somehow." 

"Oh,  Miss  Barcy!"  exclaimed  Molly; 
"Len  didn't  mean  anything.  You  see 
we  kind  of  feel  as  if  everybody  was 
against  us." 

Miss  Barcy  laughed,  a  good-natured, 
comfortable  little  laugh. 

"Land,  child!  you  needn't  be  afraid 
of  my  gettin'  huffy.  I  know  what  your 
father  is — a  good  man  accordin'  to  his 
lights,  but  a  rock  ain't  no  setter.  As  for 
your  ma,  Leonard,  she  an'  Molly  ain't 
made  to  steer  in  the  same  ship;  that's  a 
fact.  If  you  wait  for  them  to  come  'round 
—  well — -you'll  wait,  that's  all.  Now, 
I  say,  what's  the  use  of  Molly's  pinin' 
away  all  her  prettiness,  an'  both  of  you 
usin'  up  your  young  years,  when  you 
might  be  making  a  nice  home?  I  guess 
you  ain't  a  Tallman  for  nothin',  Leonard. 
Why  don't  you  strike  out  independent? 
Why  don't  you  make  Fair  Day  a 
weddin'-day?  You're  both  of  age,  ain't 
your 

" Wedding-day!  Oh,  Miss  Barcy!" 
cried  Molly;  but  Leonard  stood  up, 
straight  and  tall,  and  faced  Miss  Barcy. 

"Mr.  Roberts  never  would  marry  us, 
knowing  how  Molly's  father  felt." 

Miss  Barcy  took  out  her  watch,  a 
huge,  battered  affair  which  had  timed 
the  captain's  movements  on  land;  its 
heart  still  beat  with  a  semblance  of 
truth. 

"Mr.  Roberts  ain't  the  only  parson  in 
the  world,"  she  remarked.  "You  see 
Baily  and  git  your  license;  then  I'll  go 
round  to  Mr.  Jordan's  with  you.  He's 
the  Baptist  minister  here,  an'  I  know 
him;  he  won't  give  us  trouble.  You'll 
have  to  step  lively,  though,  if  you  want 
to  put  it  through." 

"Of  course,"  continued  Miss  Barcy 
after  a  pause,  "I  won't  intrude  my  com- 
pany if  you  don't  want  to  take  me  along. 
It  '11  give  folks  less  chance  to  talk,  that's 
all.  An'  if  you  ain't  quite  made  up  your 
mind,  why,  we'll  drop  it  an'  say  no  more. 
Only  I've  got  to  git  back  here  in  time 
to  pick  up  what's  left  of  Little  Luther 
Butts." 

"Miss  Barcy,  I'll  never  forget  this  of 
you  as  long  as  I  live!"  said  Leonard  Tall- 
man  when  the  little  bridal  party  came 
out  of  the  minister's  gate. 


"I  hope  you  won't,"  remarked  Miss 
Barcy.  "Molly,  here,  has  give  up  a  good 
deal  for  you,  an'  it  won't  hurt  you  to 
remember  it.  What  you  goin'  to  do 
now?  Put  up  down  here  till  the  storm 
blows  over,  or  go  home  an'  keep  it 
secret  for  a  while?" 

"No,"  said  Leonard.  "I'm  going 
to  tell  Molly's  father  this  very  night. 
There  ain't  going  to  be  anything  secret 
about  my  wife's  wedding.  I  guess  I'll 
leave  her  at  the  hotel  while  I  drive  up; 
she  mustn't  see  him  till  his  first  mad's 
over. 

Molly  slipped  her  little  hand  through 
her  husband's  arm.  "Len,"  she  said, 
"I'm  going  with  you.  I  sha'n't  be 
afraid  with  you  there." 

Little  Luther  did  not  rouse  from  sleep 
when  Miss  Barcy  handed  him  down  to 
his  mother.  One  soiled  and  chubby  fist 
grasped  a  toy  windmill;  the  other, 
sticky  with  past  joys,  clutched  a  bag  of 
candy. 

"He's  tuckered  out,"  said  Miss  Barcy. 

"I'm  obliged  to  you,  Miss  Barcy,"  re- 
turned Mrs.  Butts.  "I  guess  he's  had 
the  time  of  his  life." 

The  dusk  had  deepened  into  dark 
when  Miss  Barcy  drove  up  the  long  hill 
to  the  ridge.  With  the  sun  out  of  the 
way,  autumn  asserted  its  rights  with 
cool  hints  of  coming  frost.  Miss  Barcy 
shivered  a  little  and  turned  up  her  coat- 
collar. 

"I  never  thought  I  should  favor  a 
runaway  match,"  she  confided  to  Bolter. 
"I  ain't  one  to  set  children  agin  their 
parents.  But,  Lord!  it  was  touch  and  go 
with  them.  If  there  hadn't  been  a  wed- 
din'  right  away  there'd  'a'  been  shame — 
and  a  broken  heart.  Better  a  little  fam- 
ily fightin'  than  that.  Them  Tallmans 
— well,  if  they  can't  git  what  they  want 
one  way,  they  take  it  another." 

When  Miss  Barcy  reached  home,  she 
lit  the  stable  lantern  and  put  up  Bolter. 
As  she  stood  on  the  step  of  her  lonely 
little  house  she  paused  for  a  moment  and 
looked  up  at  the  stars. 

"I'm  glad  I  got  my  chance  to  speak 
'fore  Molly  answered,"  she  said  to  her- 
self. "Leonard  Tallman  never '11  know 
what  she  meant  to  say,  an'  that  '11  be  a 
comfort  to  Molly  all  her  life." 

Then  she  went  in  and  shut  the  door. 


W.  D.  HOWELLS 


I SHOULD  say,"  the  sage  began 
smilingly,  but  with  the  unmistak- 
able air  of  a  man  who  is  going  to 
say  something  disagreeable  for  your  best 
good,  "that  if  you  are  expecting  to  offer 
anything  about  the  state  of  polite  learn- 
ing among  us  as  vital  as  your  friend  next 
door  gave  us  in  the  September  number, 
you  had  better  be  doing  it." 

"You  mean  him  of  The  Editor's 
Study?"  we  parleyed,  though  we  knew 
perfectly  well  whom  he  meant.  Then 
we  noted,  "It  is  not  our  habit  to  say 
vital  things;  and  we  wish  our  neighbor 
had  gone  further  and  applied  his  philoso- 
phy to  an  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the 
mediocrity  which  he  divined  so  admira- 
bly as  the  conditioning  of  our  fiction." 
"Meaning — ?"  the  sage  suggested. 
"Meaning  that  we  should  have  liked 
him  to  say  how  far  our  mediocrity  was 
native  or  derivative  from  the  national 
nature,  and  how  far  it  might  be  the  ex- 
pression of  contiguity  or  the  result  of 
the  manifold  alien  influences  of  our 
adoptive  civilizations." 

"Do  you  think  it  is  at  all  that?"  the 
sage  demanded.  "Do  you  think  it 
comes,  our  sovereign  mediocrity,  from 
the  Italian,  Russian,  Polish,  Bohemian, 
Hunnish  immigrations  of  the  last  thirty 


years 


:'No,  but  we  should  have  liked  to  have 
him  say  so,  when  he  was  about  it.  We 
should  have  liked  to  have  him  make  it 
clear  whether  this  measureless  market 
for  the  cheap,  the  tawdry,  the  flimsy 
was  entirely  our  own,  a  demand  from  our 
knowing  so  perfectly  what  we  like  and 
so  imperfectly  what  we  ought  to  like." 
"Well,  why  don't  you  do  it  yourself?" 
"Because  we  could  not  do  it  so  well, 
and  because  if  we  could  we  should  be 
doing  something  vital,  and  the  vital,  as 
we  have  just  declared,  is  not  the  job  of 
the  Easy  Chair." 

"Very  well;  but  what  do  you  believe?" 

Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  786.— 119 


"Now  you  are  trying  to  make  us  com- 
mit ourselves.  But  we  don't  mind  saying 
that  we  think  our  fiction  would  be  more 
solid,  more  admirable,  more  laudable,  if 
our  life  were  not  the  social  ferment 
it  has  become.  We  need  solidification 
for  the  purposes  of  first-class  fiction." 

"Then  you  think  the  fiction  of  the 
Germans,  notoriously  the  most  solidified 
of  modern  peoples,  is  first-class?" 

We  almost  groaned.  "No;  it  is  hor- 
ribly second-class,"  we  said,  with  a  dire- 
ful remembrance  of  the  last  German 
novel  we  had  tried  to  read.  "But  per- 
haps it  is  the  exception  which  proves  the 
rule.  Take  the  instance  of  another 
solidified  nationality,  take  the  Spanish, 
and  you  have  first-class  modern  fiction, 
easily  surpassing  the  fiction  of  any  other 
people  of  our  time,  now  the  Russians 
have  ceased  to  lead." 

"Do  you  call  a  nationality  composed 
of  such  deeply  differentiated  peoples  as 
the  Basques,  the  Galicians,  the  Cata- 
lans, the  Aragonese,  the  Castilians,  and 
the  Andalusians  a  solidified  nationality, 
simply  by  calling  it  Spanish?" 

"As  solidified  as  the  British,  with  its 
ingredient  English,  Scotch,  Irish,  and 
Welsh." 

"Then  why  aren't  we  solidified,  with 
our  constituent  English,  Irish,  German, 
Italian,  Russian-Jewish,  Polish,  Finnish, 
Magyar,  and  Bohemian  elements?" 

We  reflected  a  moment.  "The  fer- 
ment in  those  other  countries  took  place 
centuries  ago,  and  ours  is  still  going  on." 

"Then  you  have  some  hopes  that  in 
four  or  five  hundred  years  we  shall  have 
simmered  down  sufficiently  to  produce 
a  national  novel  of  the  quantity  and 
quality  of  the  great  Russian,  English, 
and  Spanish  novels?" 

"Something  like  that." 

"Then  we  must  have  patience.  In  the 
mean  time,  do  you  think  of  any  recent 
English  or  Russian  novel  as  good  as 


958 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


those  American  novels  which  you  were 
bragging  up  the  other  month — The 
Turmoil  and  The  Harbor?" 

"The  English  and  Russians  at  present 
seem  absorbed  in  beating  and  being 
beaten  in  battle,"  we  replied.  "But  our 
sister-neutral,  Spain,  is  doing  some  won- 
derfully good  work  in  the  fiction  of 
Blasco  Ibanez." 

Our  friend  is  one  of  those  sages  who 
like  to  enjoy  the  praise  of  knowing 
everything,  even  if  they  have  not  the 
facts  to  support  them.  But  we  saw  a 
glimmer  of  helpless  honesty  come  into 
his  eye,  and  he  said,  "Never  heard  of 
him." 

This  was  too  much,  even  for  our  ha- 
bitual hypocrisy,  and  we  laughed  in 
owning,  "Well,  neither  had  we,  a  year  or 
two  ago,  and  a  month  or  two  ago  we  had 
not  read  anything  of  him.  But  he  seems 
to  be  an  author  very  much  known  in 
Spain  and  all  the  countries  of  Europe 
except  England,  and  there  is  now  even 
an  English  version  of  what  is  the  most 
famous  if  not  the  greatest  of  his  novels, 
Sangre  y  Arena,  a  study,  mighty,  dra- 
matic, of  the  Spanish  nature  or  national 
character  as  expressed  in  bull-fighting. 
The  French,  Italians,  Germans,  Rus- 
sians, Portuguese,  and  the  very  Danes 
know  some  of  his  other  ten  or  a  dozen 
novels  in  translation.  Besides,  he  has 
written  travels  and  short  stories." 

"And  is  he  to  be  compared  to  those 
other  Spanish  novelists,  Valdes,  Galdos, 
and  Pardo-Bazan,  whom  you  used  to 
make  such  a  fuss  about  when  you  be- 
longed in  The  Study?" 

"Not  by  us,"  we  quibbled.  "We  do 
not  believe  in  ascertaining  an  artist's 
quality  by  comparing  him  with  other 
artists.  Something  comes  of  that,  but 
not  much;  it  is  not  very  enlightening. 
What  Ibanez  has  in  common  with  others 
is  the  essential  of  an  apparent  devotion 
to  getting  the  likeness  of  the  thing  as  it 
is  rather  than  the  thing  as  it  isn't,  or  as 
it  is  in  that  now  justly  despised  thing 
called  a  plot,  or  the  sort  of  painting  that 
used  to  be  called  a  composition." 

The  sage  nodded  intelligence.  "I 
see,"  he  said,  "but  don't  go  off  on  that. 
How  many  of  his  novels  do  you  speak 
from  the  knowledge  of?" 

We  laughed  again,  but  this  time  guilti- 
ly, as  being  forced  to  the  confession. 


"Well  — two.   But,"  we  hastened  to  add, 
"those  two  are  so  immeasurably  differ- 
ent in  several  dimensions  that  we  feel 
as  if  we  might  have  covered  the  ground 
of  the  author's  whole  performance  in 
knowing  them.    We  have  read  Sangre  y 
Arena,  which  is  as  wide  as  all  Spain  in 
its  portrayal  of  the  national  pastime  of 
bull-fighting  in  every  circumstance  and 
incident,  but  is  not  so  deep  as  La  Cate- 
dral, which  is  the  analysis  and  synthesis  of 
the  soul  of  Spain  as  it  has  lived  from  the 
Middle  Ages  into  ours  in  its  iglesia  pri- 
mada,  the  famous  cathedral  of  Toledo. 
Before  we  had  read  it  we  should  have 
fearlessly  said  that  there  never  could  be 
a  more  comprehensive  survey  of  a  civili- 
zation than  Sangre  y  Arena.  Primarily 
that  is  the  story  of  a  Sevillian  boy,  good 
for  nothing  otherwise,  whose  passionate 
ambition  is  to  be  a  torero,  and  as  a 
torero  to  be  nothing  less  than  an  espada, 
the  sword  that  in  the  climax  of  every 
bull-fight  gives  the  death-thrust  to  the 
bull.    Secondarily  it  is  the  story  of  all 
that  he  touches  in  his  rise  from  vagabond- 
age to  glory,  and  then  his  tragical  lapse 
through  the  decay  of  his  forces  into  final 
defeat  and  death.    It  is  his  portrait  and 
the  portrait  of  the  Spanish  people,  who 
cannot  accuse  the  novelist  of  an  alien's 
injustice  in  his  study  of  their  ruling 
passion    for   the  fiesta    de  toros.  No 
foreigner  of  the  many  who  have  de- 
scribed the  bull-fight  has  portrayed  its 
horror  and  loathsomeness  as  this  native 
novelist  has  done.     But  the  least  of 
his  affair  is  to  portray  the  bull-fight; 
that's  merely  an  incident  of  the  psycho- 
logical drama  of  the  torero's  experience 
and  the  persons  of  it:   his  old  mother, 
whose  despair  of  his  boyish  badness 
turns  to  pride  in  the  brilliancy  of  his  rap- 
idly successive  triumphs  in  the  arena; 
his  simple,  good,  beautiful  wife,  who 
adores  his  prowess  and  condones  his  sins; 
the  "differently  beautiful"  bad  aristo- 
crat, Dona  Sol,  who  does  not  stop  short 
of  possessing  him  body  and  soul,  and 
then  casts  him  off  as  a  wicked  man  of  the 
world  might  cast  off  his  mistress;  the 
great  Sevillian  marquis,  his  first  patron, 
and  all  the  aficionados  who  flock  about 
the  torero  throughout  Spain  (as  if  in  our 
civilization  he  were  a  supreme  prize- 
fighter), from  ranks  far  above  him  as 
well  as  from  the  level  of  his  own  class; 


EDITOR'S  EASY  CHAIR 


959 


the  bull-fighters  who  fight  beside  him 
in  the  arena,  ranging  from  types  of  mere 
stupid  courage  in  the  performance  of 
their  day's  work  to  one  delightful  type 
of  confused  moral  and  social  thinking; 
above  them  all,  the  torero  himself,  who 
is  a  torero  of  genius,  and  no  more  mindful 
of  the  formulas  and  conventions  of  his 
art  than  other  great  artists,  but  acting 
from  the  inspirations  of  the  moment,  and 
from  the  instinct  of  doing  unerringly  the 
right  thing,  and  taking  his  death  in  the 
arena  rather  than  confess  that  years  and 
wounds  have  disabled  him  for  his  last 
fight.  It  is  a  conception  of  epical  di- 
mensions, but  with  dramatic  details  of 
vivid  poignancy  and  a  fearlessness  in 
touching  the  loathsome  physical  facts 
which  passes  the  courage  of  any  other 
novelist  we  know." 

"That  must  have  been  a  great  satis- 
faction to  such  a  thorough-going  realist 
as  yourself,"  the  sage  mocked. 

"Well,"  we  said,  "we  could  have 
spared  some  excesses  of  his  unsparing- 
ness,  but  we  felt  that  it  was  all  very 
Spanish — as  Spanish  as  the  beheadings 
of  the  martyrs  that  the  Spanish  artists 
picture  or  sculpture  in  the  churches. 
After  all,  you  must  say,  that  is  the  way 
the  thing  really  looked." 

"You  think  that  a  sufficient  reason?" 

"We  would  have  said  so,  once." 

"But  you  have  changed  your  mind?" 

"Our  nerves  have  weakened.  But 
why  turn  from  the  author  to  his  reader? 
We  confess  that  we  satisfied  our  admira- 
tion of  this  very  great  novelist  at  less 
cost  to  our  sensibilities  in  La  Catedral 
than  in  San gre  y  Arena.  We  are  not  sure 
that  La  Catedral  is  not  the  more  pro- 
digious feat  of  the  two;  it  is  at  least  the 
more  original  and  daring.  The  action — 
but  there  is  no  action  till  almost  the 
latest  moment — passes  entirely  in  the 
cathedral  and  its  gardens  and  bell- 
towers.  Its  persons  are  the  'personnel  of 
the  cathedral  from  the  cardinal  down  to 
the  perrero,  the  functionary  whose  duty 
is  to  keep  the  building  clear  of  dogs;  and 
from  highest  to  lowest  their  characters 
are  done  with  art  which  lapses  into  emo- 
tion only  a  little  toward  the  close  of  the 
story.  As  for  the  story,  such  as  there  is 
on  the  face,  it  is  that  of  the  consumptive 
anarchist  who  comes  from  his  two- 
years'  prison  in  Barcelona  to  take  refuge 


with  his  brother  who  has  inherited  the 
family  employ  in  the  cathedral  at  To- 
ledo, and  who  tenderly  welcomes  the 
broken  agitator  home  to  his  native  gar- 
dens and  cloisters.  He  remembers  the 
dying  man  as  the  brilliant  student  at  the 
seminary  where  the  boy  surpassed  all  the 
others  in  his  preparation  for  the  priest- 
hood; he  has  not  known  of  his  Carlist 
campaigns,  his  wanderings  in  England 
and  all  over  the  Continent  in  the  renun- 
ciation of  his  vocation,  and  his  arrest 
and  imprisonment  as  a  violent  anar- 
chist. He  is  really  a  philosophical  anar- 
chist of  the  most  peaceful  and  philan- 
thropical  type,  and  after  an  interval  of 
repose,  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  sinecure 
in  the  cathedral,  he  cannot  help  talking 
his  philosophy  to  his  fellow-function- 
aries— the  bell-ringer,  the  dog-beadle, 
the  gardener,  the  shoemaker  suffered  in 
the  sacred  precincts,  and  his  own  de- 
voted friend  and  admirer,  the  chapel- 
master.  His  doctrine  makes  the  baser  of 
his  listeners  realize  their  misery  so  in- 
tensely that  at  last,  against  his  protests 
and  entreaties,  they  attempt  to  right 
themselves  by  robbing  the  richly  jew- 
eled shrine  of  a  favorite  Madonna.  They 
escape,  but  the  anarchist  is  seized  as 
their  accomplice,  and  dies  soon  after  his 
arrest." 

"Not  a  very  cheerful  story.  Nothing 
of  the  musical-comedy,  end-well,  tired- 
business-man's  sweet  restorer  there!" 
the  sage  mocked  with  an  uncomfortable 
laugh.  "I  suppose  you  enjoyed  it  all  the 
more  on  that  account." 

"Well,  no,"  we  said.  "We  have  just 
told  you  that  our  nerves  are  not  what 
they  were.  We  have  to  draw  the  line  in 
the  pleasures  of  realism.  What  satisfied 
us  better  than  the  horrible  logic  of  the 
anarchist's  fate — he  is  made  a  lovable 
character — is  the  wonderful  inquiry  into 
the  nature  of  historical  and  actual  Spain. 
No  one  ought  to  go  to  Spain — and  every- 
body ojLight  to  go  to  Spain — without 
having  first  read  these  chapters  of  his 
discourse,  which  adapts  itself  to  the  un- 
derstanding of  his  simple  listeners  with- 
out losing  depth  and  subtlety.  The 
origins  of  the  people,  the  rise  of  the  mon- 
archy on  the  ruins  of  the  earlier  demo- 
cratic forms,  and  its  consolidation  by 
means  of  the  Inquisition,  are  visioned 
for  these  keen,  childish  minds  as  we  our- 


960 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


selves  have  never  seen  them  before,  and 
the  mysteries  of  Spanish  greatness  and 
weakness  are  made  open  secrets.  We 
should  say  this  part  was  the  heart  of  the 
book.    But  the  master  who  wrote  it  is 
able  to  make  its  pulsations  felt  in  every 
part.   It  abounds  in  characters,  high  and 
low,  which  have  their  being  in  words 
and  acts  springing  from  their  natures 
and  not  from  any  plan  set  for  them; 
they  create  the  story  and  are  not  created 
for  it.    The  whole  scheme,  which  does 
not  seem  ruled  by  the  author,  is  expres- 
sive of  an  understanding  compassion  un- 
known to  fiction  until  it  became  human 
through  truth  to  life.    We  should  say 
that  no  living  novelist,  now  that  the  in- 
comparable Tolstoy  is  dead,  can  be  com- 
pared to  this  author,  whose  triumph  in 
his  art  is  the  more  sensible  through  its 
lapses  at  moments.    But  it  is  at  mo- 
ments only  that  his  overweening  pity 
for  misery  weakens  into  sentimentality. 
The  humanity  of  the  whole  affair  touches 
every  sort  and  condition  with  the  intelli- 
gence that  is  the  only  justice.    From  the 
cardinal  to  the  cobbler,  every  character 
is  given  a  fair  chance  with  the  reader, 
who,  so  far  as  he  has  the  mind  and  heart 
for  so  much  reality,  lives  with  them  in 
the  mighty  cathedral.   Nothing  is  forced 
to  fit  those  dimensions,  and  the  illusion 
(illusion  does  not  seem  the  word)  is  so 
perfect  and  so  constant  that  you  do  not 
miss  the  world  which  you  are  dimly 
aware  of  going  on  outside,  but  which 
penetrates  it  only  in  the  several  types  of 
sight-seeing  tourists  very  sparingly  in- 
truded." 

The  sage  laughed  sardonically,  al- 
most too  sardonically  for  a  man  of  his 
years.  "It  must  be  a  great  privilege  for 
you  to  renew  the  pleasures  of  your 
earlier  maturity  in  such  wholesale  praise. 
It  recalls  the  halcyon  days  when  you 
could  not  say  enough  of  those  Russian 
novelists  whom  you  lauded  to  the  disad- 
vantage of  all  the  others."  # 

"Not  the  Spanish!"  we  protested. 

"Well,  perhaps  not.  But  how  many 
novels  of  this  new  man  did  you  say  you 
had  read?" 

"Have  we  praised  more  than  two?" 

"I  fancied  there  were  twenty  from  the 
number  of  the  praises.  And  it  is  your 
idea  that  no  such  work  is  possible  for  us, 
or  predicable  of  us  in  the  actual  simmer- 


ing, the  bubbling  and  squeaking,  of  our 
social  melting-pot?" 

"We  knew  you  were  going  to  say 
melting-pot.  You  have  kept  away  from 
it  a  good  while." 

"That  was  because  you  were  doing 
the  talking.  And  so  you  think  that  our 
fiction  is  not  going  to  be  life-size  any 
more,  in  the  full-grown  novel,  but  is  to 
shrink  to  the  statuette  expression  of  the 
short  story?" 

"No,  we  didn't  say  that.  He  of  The 
Study  merely  suggested  that,  and  he 
suggested  it  only  of  our  magazine  fiction, 
which  certainly  runs  to  statuettes.  But 
we  think  there  is  a  great  deal  in  what  he 
suggests.  We  don't  understand  that  he 
censures  or  deplores  the  past,  and  prob- 
ably he  reserves  a  preference  for  the  life- 
size  fiction  in  book  form,  rather  than*  in 
the  instalment  plan  of  the  serialized 
magazine  novel.  .  For  example,  Mr. 
Poole's  great  novel,  The  Harbor,  would 
not  have  gained,  and  it  might  have  lost, 
by  chopping  into  month-lengths.  By 
the  way,  the  conception  of  a  novel  topo- 
graphically limited  in  time  and  place  is 
unconsciously  of  the  nature  of  a  novel 
architecturally  limited.  The  likeness  of 
the  conception  is  very  interesting." 

"And  you  would  like  such  a  notion 
acted  upon  as  a  means  of  utilizing  the 
contents  of  our  melting-pot?  Is  it  to 
perform  the  effect  of  a  long  passage  of 
time  in  adapting  our  racial  and  social 
ferment  to  the  purposes  of  art?" 

"We  have  not  said  so,  and,  come  to 
think  of  it,  we  do  not  think  so.  Besides, 
now  we  think  of  it,  the  personnel  of 
The  Harbor  is  almost  as  quite  American 
as  that  of  La  Catedral  is  Spanish." 

"You  do  not  seem  to  abound  in  lu- 
minous ideas  to-day,"  the  sage  thought- 
fully remarked,  as  he  rose  to  take  leave. 

"We  often  have  that  sort  of  com- 
plaint to  make  ourselves,"  we  assented. 
"Still,  we  think  there  is  something  in 
what  we  have  said." 

"Yes.  There  is  what  you  got  from  the 
editor  of  The  Study.  You  don't  suppose 
he  is  in,  do  you?"  the  sage  asked,  with 
an  inclination  of  his  head  in  our  neigh- 
bor's direction." 

"We're  quite  sure  he  is,"  we  re- 
sponded, with  the  eagerness  of  one  who 
is  willing  to  part  with  a  guest  no  matter 
what  happens  to  others. 


HENRY  MILLS  ALDEN 


THE  plea  for  democracy,  in  litera- 
ture or  life,  would  be  a  poor  thing 
if  it  were  a  decrial  of  aristocracy. 
Dealing  with  realities,  we  have  nothing 
to  do  with  labels,  earmarks,  or  tell- 
tale outfits.  These  belong  to  the 
"boards" — as  the  stage  used  to  be 
called,  to  emphasize  its  unreality — to 
"part-playing."  But  we  do  have  to  deal 
with  royalties,  if  not  with  their  toggery, 
since,  literally,  the  royal  is  the  real.  In 
other  words,  "The  king's  the  thing." 
To  realize  is  to  royalize — to  express  the 
kingly  quality,  the  sovereign  excellence, 
that  increase  of  growth  which  is  living 
authority. 

Political  history — that  is,  in  its  strict- 
ly political  aspects — does  not  afford  an 
attractive  field  for  the  study  of  real 
aristocracy.  So  far  as  we  have  any 
information  as  to  the  life  of  the  ruling 
classes  in  western  Europe  before  the 
fifteenth  century,  we  are  impressed  by 
racial  traits  rather  than  by  social  refine- 
ments. The  feudal  lord  was  no  "high- 
brow," nor  was  his  lady  of  the  type  that 
marks  the  caste  of  Vere  de  Vere.  The 
painter  who  wishes  to  reproduce  the 
physiognomy  of  the  nobles  of  this  period 
does  not  find  true  models  in  their  ur- 
banely developed  descendants,  but  in 
the  peasantry  of  centuries  later.  The 
fidelity  of  Edwin  A.  Abbey's  portraits  in 
his  illustrations  of  Shakespeare  is  due  to 
his  observance  of  this  rule.  Individual 
distinction,  such  as  marked  rulers  like 
Alfred  and  Charlemagne,  was  excep- 
tional. We  think  of  such  men,  however 
closely  identified,  as  in  the  case  of  King 
Alfred,  with  the  destiny  of  a  race,  as 
related  to  the  larger  development  of 
humanism.  In  the  Italy  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  such  examples  abound, 
and  the  growth  of  a  world-sense  would 
seem  likely  to  dissipate  racial  traits,  but 
that  just  here  we  see  the  forces  at  work 
which  counteracted  a  premature  cen- 


tralization of  either  political  or  ecclesi- 
astical power  and  created  separate  cen- 
ters of  national  control. 

The  racial  stamp  upon  a  political  and 
social  aristocracy  seems  to  bring  all 
classes  of  a  people  into  close  union  and 
purpose.  Germany  owes  to  this  the  in- 
tegrity of  her  language  at  the  cost  of  its 
impoverishment.  On  the  other  hand, 
England  owes  to  the  Norman  conquest 
the  long-enduring  and  persistent  interval 
between  its  social  classes,  but  also  its 
earlier  access  to  the  influences  of  the 
Renaissance  (as  compared  with  Ger- 
many), its  more  richly  diversified  lan- 
guage, and  its  more  heroic  history. 

The  destiny  of  Europe,  after  the  fall 
of  Rome,  was  committed  to  the  peoples 
of  the  North,  whose  racial  traits  pri- 
marily determined  the  course  of  medi- 
eval and  modern  history.  But  these 
races  received  two  baptisms — one  eccle- 
siastical, the  other  humanistic — the  lat- 
ter inevitably,  owing  to  existing  con- 
ditions, an  endowment  of  the  few.  In 
this  meeting  of  a  developed  past  culture 
with  the  crude  but  conquering  Goths 
and  Franks  we  find  the  beginnings  of  a 
new  type  of  aristocracy  like  that  which 
in  Italy  was  nobly  represented  by  the 
Medici.  Outside  of  Italy  the  transfor- 
mation due  to  the  Renaissance — baffled 
in  its  centralizing  tendencies,  but  trium- 
phant in  its  essentially  expansive  and 
cosmopolitan  humanism — was  the  more 
notable,  though  gradual  in  its  procedure, 
because  of  the  rawness  of  the  materia! 
it  wrought  upon.  It  was  a  change  of 
physiognomy,  of  manners,  and  finally 
of  even  sanitary  conditions,  in  western 
European  courts.  The  virtues  and  vices 
of  this  new  civilization,  in  which  the 
peoples  were  so  inarticulate,  are  duly  re- 
corded in  the  kind  of  history  which  was 
then  written  and  which  consisted  mainly 
of  the  annals  of  courts  and  camps.  In 
the  court  of  Louis  XIV.  we  behold  its 


962 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


maturity  of  power  and  luxury,  and  in 
that  of  Louis  XVI.  its'extreme  artificial 
refinements  and  its  decadence,  when  in 
France  it  became  possible,  as  in  England 
a  century  earlier,  that  a  king  should  lose 
his  head. 

But  in  all  these  centuries,  from  the  fall 
of  the  Roman  Empire  to  the  French 
Revolution,  there  had  been  a  European 
;  aristocracy  that  was  real — as  real  as  it 
could  be  with  so  large  and  so  mute  a 
i  proletariate.  What  more  significant  il- 
i  lustration  of  this  reality  could  there  be 
than  the  event  whose  seventh  centennial 
we  celebrated  this  last  summer — the 
wresting  from  King  John  of  the  Magna 
Charta  by  the  English  barons,  not  for 
themselves  alone,  but  to  secure  the  lib- 
erties of  every  subject  of  the  realm?  The 
renewal  of  the  charter  was  successively 
demanded  until,  in  the  closing  year  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  it  was  confirmed 
as  a  part  of  the  law  of  the  land  by  King 
Edward  I.  and  his  parliament.  The 
persistent  reaction  of  Guelph  against 
Ghibelline — that  is,  of  the  popular  and 
papal  against  the  imperialist  party 
— and  the  consequent  preservation  to  so 
large  an  extent  of  national  integrities  on 
racial  lines,  or  at  least  the  ever-recurrent 
and  passionate  will  to  recover  these 
integrities  when  broken  or  confused,  de- 
pended upon  the  sovereignty  of  intel- 
ligence lodged  in  a  nobility  which  recog- 
nized its  responsibility  and  elicited  from 
the  people  the  response  of  loyalty.  Thus 
the  foundations  were  laid  of  modern 
Europe  before  there  was  any  democratic 
movement  in  Christendom — the  founda- 
tions of  democracy  itself. 

The  political  significance  of  aristoc- 
racy, normal  or  perverse,  vital  or  de- 
cadent, is  no  adequate  expression  of 
either  its  excellence  in  social  evolution 
or  the  defects  of  that  excellence.  The 
state  appears  to  be  the  largest  form  of 
social  activity  because  artificially  it  is 
inclusive  of  all  other  forms.  But,  even 
in  the  present  advanced  stage  of  general 
intelligence  and  humanistic  purpose,  no 
modern  state,  economically  or  ethically, 
in  the  functions  committed  to  it,  ex- 
hibits the  responsible  self-control  which 
it  requires  from  its  citizens.  In  reality 
social  dynamics  includes  politics  as,  in 
its  formal  and  perfunctory  activities, 


something  refractory — an  artificial  ne- 
cessity which  it  hopes  ultimately  to  make 
a  living  organism  and  thus  an  essential 
part  of  its  own  living  harmony.  In  the 
mean  time,  this  dynamics  overleaps  po- 
litical boundaries  and  looks  forward  to 
the  realization  of  humanism  rather  than 
to  that  of  any  limited  patriotism. 

That  internationalism,  the  realization 
of  which  is  the  dream  of  social  dynamics, 
is  sure,  because  it  is  a  dream,  to  come 
true  in  the  fullness  of  time — the  fullness, 
in  the  evolutionary  sense.  As  a  scheme, 
deliberately  planned,  it  might  be  ration- 
ally assented  to  by  all  nations  as  a 
necessary  artificial  convention,  and  yet 
prove  to  be  practically  a  disappoint- 
ment. If  individual  states  fail  to  serve 
the  highest  social  ends,  what  can  be 
expected  of  a  confederation  of  these 
same  states?  Only  a  transformation  of 
the  states  themselves,  through  such  a 
crisis  in  the  world's  affairs  as  would  give 
the  peoples  a  determining  voice,  could 
precipitate  a  realization  of  the  dream  in 
the  near  future.  Even  so,  if  it  is  to  be 
more  than  a  partial  realization,  it  must 
include  not  merely  the  peace  of  the 
world — not,  indeed,  peace  at  all,  if  by 
that  we  mean  the  subsidence  of  militant 
heroism — but  all  the  positive,  creative 
forces  and  values  of  a  virile  Christian 
civilization  in  their  free  and  full  opera- 
tion and  co-operation. 

The  failures  of  political  aristocracy, 
during  the  period  in  which  it  had  a  mis- 
sion of  service  to  humanity  not  other- 
wise to  be  fulfilled,  have  always  been  the 
consequence  of  its  own  dej alliance — of 
its  unreality.  These  perversions,  due  to 
vain  ambitions  and  assumptions,  have 
served  by  indirection  through  the  reac- 
tions they  have  created.  The  direct  ser- 
vice of  a  real  aristocracy  has  been  social 
rather  than  political — an  essential  part 
in  a  continuous  development  of  culture 
based  on  the  principle  of  selection. 

This  principle  is  creative  in  civiliza- 
tion— in  that  of  Christendom  as  former- 
ly in  that  of  the  ancient  world.  Con- 
ventional customs  and  institutions, 
which  in  their  later  aspects  seem  matters 
of  conscious  agreement  and  regulation, 
are  in  their  beginnings  as  creatively 
determined  as  the  birth  and  primitive 
growth  of  speech.  Heredity  is  the  bio- 
logical vehicle  of  tradition,  and,  more 


EDITOR'S  STUDY 


9G3 


deeply  and  mysteriously,  it  is  the  ground 
of  selective  race  specialization.  It  is 
invisibly  beyond  our  tracing;  but  his- 
tory, as  a  philosophic  interpretation,  de- 
fines its  distinctive  strains  and  manifest 
procedure  in  the  successive  stages  of 
civilization.  Freeman  in  England  and 
Riehl  in  Germany,  following  the  early 
chroniclers  from  Bede  to  Froissart,  were 
such  interpreters  of  the  Northern  races, 
doing  for  them  what  Grote,  Niebuhr, 
and  Mommsen  did  for  the  ancient  Indo- 
European  races  on  the  Mediterranean; 
and  the  work  of  these  historians  was 
supplemented  by  Sir  Henry  Maine's  il- 
luminative contributions  to  the  early 
history  of  institutions.  All  together, 
writers  of  the  nineteenth  century  alone, 
of  whom  we  have  mentioned  but  a  few, 
have  furnished  us  with  materials  for  a 
very  comprehensive  Natural  History  of 
aristocracy. 

A  real  aristocracy,  marked  by  the 
stamp  of  racial  distinction,  has  its  be- 
ginnings in  the  natural  selection  of 
heredity.  The  more  complex  operation 
of  the  selective  principle,  so  that  its 
scope  shall  include  mental  and  esthetic 
development  and  the  refinement  of  man- 
ners, is  slow.  For  a  long  period  the  sense 
of  valor  is  predominant  in  the  eminent 
races,  to  the  exclusion  of  every  senti- 
ment not  directly  associated  with  it.  Of 
this  period  "Beowulf,"  the  "  Nibelungen- 
lied,"  and  Sir  Thomas  Malory's  "Morte 
d' Arthur"  were  romantic  epics,  as  the 
"Iliad"  was  of  the  heroic  age  of  ancient 
Hellas. 

The  sense  of  valor  was,  in  the  North- 
ern as  it  had  been  in  the  Southern  races 
of  Europe,  expressed  in  battle.  That,  in 
the  early  history  of  spirited  races,  was 
a  matter  of  course,  war,  like  love,  being 
a  natural  manifestation  of  romance  on 
a  plane  of  activity  so  little  removed  from 
the  physiological.  The  worth  of  valor 
is  so  great  that  no  nation  can  lose  the 
sense  of  it  without  degeneration.  From 
Isaiah's  imagination  of  "a  sword  bathed 
in  heaven"  to  the  late  William  McLen- 
nan's  chivalric  lyric,  "The  Sword  of 
Ferrara,"  the  pulse  of  the  heroic  strain 
has  never  failed. 

The  spirit  of  valor  has  its  own  evolu- 
tion, the  final  stage  of  which  may  be  the 
full  consummation  of  what  has  been 
achieved  in  part  by  every  fight  for  a 


noble  cause — of  the  freedom  and  self- 
control  of  the  human  spirit. 

Christianity,  eagerly  accepted  by  the 
common  people,  not  as  readers  of  the 
Gospel,  but  at  the  hands  of  Holy  Church 
and  as  participants  of  its  impressive 
ritual  and  discipline,  was,  from  the  time 
of  Charlemagne,  intimately  blended  with 
the  pomp  and  pageantry  of  a  feudal 
aristocracy.  Beneath  its  objective  pic- 
turesqueness  and  imposing  symbolism, 
it  profoundly  affected  the  springs  of  ac- 
tion, the  imagination,  and  manners.  It 
transformed  the  spirit  of  valor  and  gave 
it  new  aims,  as  illustrated  in  knight- 
errantry,  pilgrimages,  and  the  Crusades. 
The  quest  of  the  Holy  Grail,  and  the 
supreme  test  searching  the  inmost  hearts 
of  those  engaged  in  it,  suggests  the  con- 
flict of  the  spirit  with  the  senses — the 
main  argument  of  Tennyson's  "Idylls 
of  the  King." 

The  selective  procedure  thus  came  to 
have  a  psychical  background  determin- 
ing its  course,  independently  of  the 
traditions  of  a  purely  racial  and  pre- 
Christian  past.  The  new  faith  had  the 
same  relation  to  the  mystery  plays  that 
Hellenic  mythology  and  religious  ritual 
had  to  the  early  Attic  drama — only 
the  latter  was  more  definitely  prompted 
by  heroic  legend,  which,  among  the 
Northern  races,  stopped  with  the  epic. 
The  cathedral,  the  distinctive  feature  of 
medieval  architecture,  was  an  expression 
both  of  the  Gothic  spirit  and  of  Chris- 
tian aspiration.  European  intellectual 
and  aesthetic  culture,  after  the  Renais- 
sance, looked  to  Hellas  as  its  source,  as 
European  Christianity  looked  to  Judea. 
Aristotle  ruled  in  the  universities,  an 
absolute  authority  in  science  and  criti- 
cism. The  themes  of  plastic  art,  of 
poetry,  and  of  the  drama  in  its  maturity 
were  almost  entirely  classic.  Not  until 
the  revival  of  Romanticism  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  there 
any  reversion  from  this  prevailing  classi- 
cism to  racial  sources  of  inspiration. 

The  Christian  and  humanistic  trend 
away  from  the  purely  racial  note  devel- 
oped not  only  a  finer  strain  of  heroism, 
but  also  the  deeper  psychical  sensibility 
to  which  the  creative  imagination  ap- 
pealed in  art  and  literature.  The  aris- 
tocracy of  genius  found  its  permissive 
conditions  in  an  enlightenment  which  at 


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the  same  time  reinforced  its  leadership. 
This  enlightenment  had  already  pro- 
moted material  progress  in  commercial 
lines,  in  the  growth  of  cities  and  in  the 
establishment  of  merchant  and  craft 
guilds,  and  was  finally  to  give  rise  to  the 
middle  class.  Florence  had  its  growth 
before  it  was  crowned  by  Dante,  Giotto, 
Michael  Angelo,  and  Raphael. 

It  was  the  rise  of  the  middle  class  that 
first  accentuated  class  consciousness. 
Distinction,  in  so  far  as  it  was  real  and 
not  an  assumption,  had  hitherto  had  no 
need  to  assert  itself,  except  in  its  actual 
operation  as  leadership.  The  inexpert 
mass,  for  its  own  sake  as  well  as  from 
natural  disposition,  willingly  and  with 
ardent  loyalty  followed  the  leading.  But 
in  the  competitive  stage  of  industry  and 
commerce  sure  to  follow  the  spread  of 
enlightenment,  occupations  are  diversi- 
fied; the  field  of  opportunity  is  widened; 
new  social  ambitions  are  aroused,  and 
a  considerable  proportion  of  the  people 
embrace  every  available  means  of  edu- 
cation for  competence  in  the  struggle  for 
position  wealth,  and  power.  Thus  the 
middle  class  arises,  interposing  between 
those  distinguished  by  birth,  breeding, 
or  native  genius  and  those  who  must 
now  be  known  as  belonging  to  the  lower 
classes,  less  energetic  or  less  fortunate, 
and  left  behind  in  the  race. 

In  this  more  modern  constitution  of 
society  it  was  inevitable  that  class  an- 
tagonisms should  arise  and  that  no  class 
could  fully  express  its  intrinsic  excel- 
lence until  the  strife  should  find  recon- 
cilement through  an  integral  social  dy- 
namics operating  independently  of  class 
divisions,  ignoring  every  artificial  or  ac- 
cidental circumstance — that  is,  through 
the  recognition  of  the  principle  of  nat- 
ural selection,  working  on  a  psychical 
plane,  and  the  re-emergence  under  new 
conditions  of  a  real  aristocracy,  with  a 
living  authority  and  leadership. 

Therefore  the  democratic  movement 
is  the  necessary  complement  of  such  an 
aristocracy,  an  implication  of  the  ade- 
quate expression  of  its  reality.  The 
movement  itself  has  reality  only  as  the 
people  crave  and  follow  leadership  as  ar- 
dently, now  that  they  know  what  they 
want,  as  when  they  had  to  be  told. 
Statesmanship,  philosophy,  art,  and  lit- 
erature are  in  the  way  to  become  real, 


or  at  least  to  shed  their  unrealities,  be- 
cause the  scope  of  their  appeal  widens, 
overleaping  all  barriers  and  even  na- 
tional boundaries,  as  they  are  seen  to  be 
but  parts  of  the  mastery  of  life,  to  which 
also  they  are  a  ministration. 

"They  know  what  they  want/'  That 
is,  the  immense  literate  mediocrity,  the 
English-speaking  people,  in  this  country, 
as  in  England,  have  become  not  only 
articulate,  politically  and  socially,  but 
intelligently  selective  in  the  field  of  lit- 
erature. When,  less  than  a  century  ago, 
we  began  to  have  a  literature  which  we 
could  call  our  own,  the  American 
people  were  homogeneous.  There  was 
no  suggestion  of  the  "melting  -  pot." 
Hitherto  such  literary  taste  as  had  been 
cultivated  in  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and 
Boston,  seemed  not  essentially  different 
from  that  cultivated  in  London  and 
Edinburgh.  And  this  continued  to  be 
the  case  even  after  we  had  a  more  dis- 
tinctive American  literature. 

The  American  audience  of  to-day  is  not 
thus  homogeneous.  Not  only  have  the 
expansion  of  education  and  the  material 
progress  of  a  century  diversified  its 
tastes  and  interests,  but  its  social  evolu- 
tion has  developed  new  and  surprising 
variations  of  disposition  and  manners. 
The  imposition  of  authority  is  no  longer 
possible.  Criticism  tends  to  become  ex- 
pository rather  than  dogmatic.  Formal 
precepts  cannot  be  applied  to  anything 
that  has  life;  only  through  life  every- 
thing comes  into  judgment. 

Yet  it  remains  true,  or  rather  it  is  com- 
ing to  be  seen  as  true,  that  leadership 
in  literature,  as  in  life,  is  real,  a  natural 
aristocracy. 

Recently  the  English-speaking  world 
has  been  reading  with  impassioned  in- 
terest some  poems  written  by  Rupert 
Brooke,  a  young  Englishman  who  lost 
his  life  in  the  first  year  of  the  war.  Mr. 
Joyce  Kilmer,  in  an  appreciative  review 
of  these  poems,  has  drawn  attention  to 
the  fact  that  earlier  poems  written  by 
Brooke  were  comparatively  unworthy 
in  aim  and  substance.  This  unworthi- 
ness  came  into  judgment  when  the  in- 
spiration of  life  entered.  We  do  not 
find  it  strange  that  it  came  as  the  spirit 
of  valor.  It  is  in  some  such  vital  way 
that  it  must  come  to  all. 


L'Homme  Propose  et  Femme  Dispose 


BY  VAN   TASSEL  SUTPHEN 


Scene 


The  shore  of  a  wooded  mountaiyi- 
lake  island  on  a  pleasant  July 
afternoon.  A  motor-boat  is  tied 
up  to  the  rough  pier.  Under  a 
tall  pine-tree  are  seated  Miss 
Eve  Osmond  and  Mr.  Alan 
Dexter. 
{gloomily).  You    mean  that 


you 


Alan    {gloomily),  iou  mean 
won't. 

Eve  (gently).  You  mustn't  be  unfair,  Alan. 
I  just  can't. 

Alan  (pulling  himself  together).  Oh,  it 
doesn't  matter.  You  see  I'm  not  used  to  this 
sort  of  thing. 

Eve.    What  sort  of  thing? 

Alan.  This  is  the  first  time  I  ever  asked 
a  girl  to  marry  me. 

Eve  (dreamily) .  How  odd! 

Alan.  What  do  you  mean? 

Eve.  This  is  my  very  first  proposal. 


Alan.  Oh,  really! 

[A  long  silence  follows. 
Alan  (meditatively).  Curious!    I  haven't 
got  over  it  yet. 
Eve.  What? 

Alan.  The  surprise.  I  dare  say  it  sounds 
superlatively  conceited,  but  I  did  think  that 
I  was  sure  of  you  .  .  .  dead  sure. 

Eve.  Yes,  I  knew  that. 

Alan.  You  did! 

Eve.  Excuse  me,  Mr.  Dexter,  but  seeing 
that  we  are  not  engaged — 
Alan.  Well? 

Eve.  I  don't  think  that  you  ought  to  keep 
on  holding  my  hand. 

Alan,  (releasing  her).  You're  right,  of 
course  .  .  .  just  as  you  always  are. 

Eve.  And  truly  we  must  be  going. 

Alan.  Yes,  I  know.  (Suddenly  he  seizes 
her  hand  again?)  Eve! 


"  THIS  IS  THE  FIRST  TIME  I  EVER  ASKED  A  GIRL  TO  MARRY  ME  " 
Vol.  CXXXI.— No.  786.-120 


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EVE.      IT  DOESN  T  SEEM  TO  GO 


Eve  (drawing  away  her  hand).  Now  you're 
forgetting  again. 

Alan.  Beg  pardon.  {Recklessly.)  All  the 
same,  I  wonder  why  I  don't  pick  you  up  and 
just  kiss  you  to  death.  {Defiantly .)  For  two 
cents  I  would. 

Eve  {coolly).  Sorry,  but  I've  left  my  purse 
at  home. 

Alan  {hopefully) .  I'd  let  you  open  a  charge 
account. 

[He  advances  toward  her  a  step  or 
two. 

Eve  {gravely).  Please  don't  carry  the  joke 
any  further,  Mr.  Dexter. 

Alan  {abashed).  I  didn't  intend  to. 

Eve  {secretly  disappointed).  Well  .  .  . 
really! 

Alan  {turning  quickly).  What? 
Eve  {frigidly).  I  wish  to  leave  the  island 
immediately. 

Alan  {offended  in  his  turn).  Certainly, 
Miss  Osmond. 

[Alan  steps  into  the  boat  and  be- 
gins to  crank  the  engine;  but 
without  result. 
Eve  {critically) .  It  doesn't  seem  to  go. 
Alan.  Once  in  a  while  something  sticks. 

[He  cranks  again  unsuccessfully. 
Eve.  Why  does  it  stick? 
Alan  {shortly).  Don't  know. 

[He  gives  up  the  hopeless  task, 
climbs    out    of   the    boat,  and 


stands  looking  at  it  in 
silent  disgust. 
Eve  {impatiently)  .  Oh,  please 
do  something!    We  can't  stay 
here  all  night. 

Alan  {without  looking  at 
her).  Well,  we  may  have  to. 

Eve  {startled).  What  do  you 
mean  ? 

Alan  {shortly) .  Motor's  dead. 
Eve.  And  you  didn't  think 
to  bring  any  oars? 
Alan.  No. 

Eve  {turning  away).  Then, 
of  course,  the  boat  is  no  use. 
{Musingly).  Most  unfortunate 
that  the  island  is  uninhabited. 

Alan  {non  -  committally  ) . 
Umph! 

Eve  {uneasily) .  It's  long 
after  five,  and  the  sun  is  sink- 
ing. In  half  an  hour  it  will  be 
dark. 

Alan  {grumpily).  All  my 
fault,  of  course. 

Eve.  Don't  be  cross;  but 
we  must  think  up  something. 
{Reflectively.)  It  can't  be  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to 
the  mainland.  If  you  could 
only  swim  that  far! 
Alan.  I  can  try. 

[He  begins  to  unlace  his  shoes. 
Eve.  Please  don't!  And  put  on  your  coat. 

[Alan  obeys  in  sulky  silence. 
Eve  {severely).  I  know  perfectly  well  that 
you  can't  swim  a  quarter  of  a  yard,  even. 
You'd  be  drowned,  of  course;  and  then 
there'd  be  a  horrid,  damp  body  bumping  up 
against  the  island  all  night  long.  It  would 
be  most  unpleasant. 

Alan  {struck  by  a  new  idea).  I  could  get  in 
the  launch,  and  just  drift  away. 

Eve  {with  asperity).  Yes,  and  be  carried 
over  the  dam  and  drowned  again.    You  do 
have  the  most  absurd  ideas. 
Alan  {angrily).  Sorry. 
Eve  {after  a  long  pause).  I  wonder,  now — 
[She  breaks  off  meditatively. 
Alan.  Wonder  what? 

Eve.  You  know  you  might  have  put  it  out 
of  order  on  purpose. 

Alan  {turning  quickly).  What! 

Eve.  A  flat  tire  in  the  water-jacket,  or 
something  like  that.  And  I  would  never 
know  the  difference. 

Alan  {looking  at  her  fixedly).  No,  you 
wouldn't  know.  {Advancing  a  step  or  two.) 
And  so  you  were  clever  enough  to  guess  it. 

Eve  {retreating  slightly).  Oh,  please,  Alan! 

Alan  {following  her  up).  See  here,  my 
lady,  you've  played  the  game  to  the  limit 
with  me,  and  now  it's  my  turn.    {Eying  her 


EDITOR'S 

savagely.)  I  did  put  the  motor  out  of  com- 
mission, and  there  she  stays  until  I  have  your 
promise.    Understand  ? 

Eve  {calmly).  Then  you  do  admit  it— this 
incredible  thing!   You  brute! 

Alan.  That's  the  word.  And  I'm  going  to 
live  up  to  it.  You  don't  leave  this  island 
until  you  promise  to  marry  me. 

Eve  {mockingly).  A  cave-man  courtship 
.  .  .  how  exciting! 

Alan  {advancing) .  You  think  I  don't  dare. 
Well,  I'm  going  to  kiss  you. 

Eve  {coolly).  Are  you? 

Alan  {seizing  her  rather  roughly).  Scream 
if  you  want  to;  there's  nobody  to  hear. 

Eve.  So  what's  the  use. 

Alan  {triumphantly).  I've  got  you  now! 
Why  don't  you  do  something — scratch,  bite, 
kick,  struggle? 

Eve  {remaining  perfectly  passive).  All 
about  a  kiss!  But  that  would  be  too  silly. 
Why,  I've  got  millions  of  them. 

Alan  {releasing  her  suddenly).  Keep  them, 
then.  {Bitterly).  You're  not  a  woman  at 
all,  .  .  .  just  a  fish,  a  heartless,  cold-blooded 
fish. 

Eve  {smartly).  If  I  were  I  shouldn't  be 
sticking  around  on  this  beast  of  an  island. 
See  here,  Alan,  I'm  ready  to  admit  that  I'm 
beaten.  You  hold  all  the  cards,  and  I  might 
as  well  lay  down  my  hand.  Or,  rather,  I'll 
just  pass  it  over. 

Eve  extends  her  hand;  Alan 
takes  it  a  little  awkwardly,  and 
soon  drops  it. 

Eve  {with  a  gentle  sigh).  So  it's  all  over, 
and  I  capitulate  unconditionally.  Very  well, 
Alan;  I  will  marry  you  wherever  and  when- 
ever you  like. 

Alan  {thickly).  You  sha'n't  regret  it;  I 
promise  you  that. 

Eve.  Don't  expect  to.  {Briskly.)  Well, 
now  that  everything  is  settled  we  might  as 
well  be  going. 

Alan  {startled).  Eh! 

Eve.  I've  given  you  my  word,  and  that's 
the  end  of  it.  It  would  have  been  horribly 
cold  and  uncomfortable  here  all  night  long. 
.  .  .  Don't  you  think  so? 

Alan  {weakly).  Why,  yes,  I  suppose  so.  .  .  . 

Eve.  Oh,  you're  afraid  that  I'll  try  to  back 
out  by  swearing  that  I  gave  my  promise 
under  duress,  or  compulsion,  or  force  majeure, 
or  whatever  the  legal  term  is.  {Scornfully.) 
Alan  Dexter,  I  thought  you  knew  me  better 
than  that. 

Alan.  I  beg  your  pardon,  Eve;  I  never 
thought  anything  of  the  kind. 

Eve.  All  right;  we  won't  quarrel  over 
nothing.  Just  pump  up  your  old  water- 
jacket,  and  take  me  back  to  camp.  (She 
gives  him  a  little  push  toward  the  boat.)  Hurry, 
please. 


DRAWER  967 

Alan  {holding  back).  Sorry,  but  I  —I  don't 
know — 

Eve.  Don't  know! 

Alan  {desperately). — what's  the  matter 
with  the  engine.  I  didn't  make  it  go  bad, 
and  I  can't  put  it  right. 

Eve  {severely).  Then  you're  not  a  cave- 
man, after  all,  ...  so  wicked  and  bold  and 
brutal! 

Alan  {sullenly).  Seems  not. 

Eve.  A  brute  is  one  thing,  but  a  bluffer,  a 
convicted  bluffer — 

Alan  {interrupting).  You  needn't  rub  it  in 
any  longer.  I  was  a  liar  and  a  coward  and  a 
bully;  you're  jolly  well  ;id  of  me. 

Eve  {reflectively).  Nevertheless,  the  fact 
remains  that  there  is  no  way  of  getting  off  the 
island;  we  will  have  to  spend  the  night  here. 
I  suppose  people  will  talk. 

Alan  {savagely).  Confound  them! 

Eve.  Yes,  but  supposing  they  won't  be 
confounded?  And,  anyway,  that  can't  help 
me. 

Alan  {with  a  groan).  It's  horribly  unfair! 
{Turning  to  her  quickly.)  Eve,  if  there  were 
anything  I  could  do  to  make  things  right! 

Eve.  Thank  you,  Alan;  I  do  believe  you. 
But  there  doesn't  seem  to  be  any  way  out. 

[A  long  silence  ensues.  It  has 
grown  quite  dark.  Alan  has 
re-entered  the  boat,  and  stands 
there  looking  at  the  disabled  mo- 
tor. Suddenly,  and  with  a 
smothered  exclamation,  he  bends 
over  the  engine  and  picks  up 
several  small  articles  which  he 
places  in  his  pocket. 
Eve.  What  are  you  going  to  do? 
Alan.  Give  it  one  more  chance. 

[Alan  cranks  the  motor  vigorously r 
and  it  starts  off  immediately, 
spitting  noisily  and  making  a 
tremendous  clatter. 
Eve.  Well,  really! 

Alan.  You  never  can  tell  what  she'll  do. 

Eve.  You  mean  a  woman? 

Alan.  No;  a  gas-engine. 

Eve.  And  you  can  stop  it  and  start  it  .  .  . 
just  as  you  like? 

Alan.  Certainly.  {He  shuts  off  the  motor.) 
There  you  are. 

Eve  {listening  to  some  far-off  sound). 
Thanks  so  much.  {Smiling.)  Yes,  every- 
thing is  all  right  now. 

Alan  {starting  the  motor).  Then  whenever 
you're  ready. — 

\lle  holds  out  his  hand. 
Eve  {stepping  back).  I  don't  know  that 
I'm  in  such  a  raving,  tearing  hurry,  after  all. 

Alan  {stopping  the  motor  and  addressing  it). 
Well,  what  do  you  think  of  that? 

[Alan  climbs  out  of  the  boat,  hunts 
up  his  cigarette-case,  and  begins 


968 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


EVE  (REFLECTIVELY).  NEVERTHELESS,  THE  FACT  REMAINS 
THAT  THERE  IS    NO    WAY  OF  GETTING    OFF    THE  ISLAND" 


to  smoke.  The  sound  of  mas- 
culine and  feminine  voices  sing- 
ing in  chorus  is  heard  coming 
over  the  water. 
Eve  {putting  her  hands  trumpet-wise  to  her 
mouth).    Ulla-loo!  Ulla-loo! 

\An  answering  "  Ulla-loo!"  comes 
back  across  the  water. 
Eve.  It's  our  crowd,  you  know.  They're 
coming  to  Hide-and-Seek  Island  for  supper 
and  a  last  camp-lire. 

Alan  {accusingly).  I  believe  you  knew  it 
all  along  .  .  .  that  they  were  coming. 
Eve  {defiantly).  What  if  I  did? 
Alan.  And  so  you  could  make  of  me  forty- 
eleven  different  kinds  of  a  fool.    {Glowering  at 
her.)  Well,  you  can  just  answer  me  one  sim- 
ple little  question. 
Eve.  Yes? 

Alan.  A  moment  ago  I  found  half  a  dozen 


small  wires  sticking  in  the  mag- 
neto, which,  of  course,  put  it 
out  of  business.  Now  what 
sort  of  wires  were  they? 

Eve  {mutinously).  How 
should  I  know? 

Alan.  How  should  you 
know,  my  lady?  Well,  I'll 
show  you. 

[He  seizes  Eve  and  shakes 
her  so  vigorously  that 
her  hair  comes  tum- 
bling down   over  her 
shoulders;  she  presents 
a  bewitching  spectacle 
of  beauty  in  distress. 
Eve  {distractedly).    Oh,  and 
they'll  be  landing  in  another 
minute!    Please,  Alan,  please! 

Alan.  Answer  my  question. 
What  were  they  .  .  .  those 
wires? 

Eve.  I'll  marry  youj  I  will, 
indeed.  Isn't  that  enough? 

Alan  {with  inflexible  deter- 
mination).   Not  by  a  jugful! 

[Alan  still  has  one  arm 
around  Eve's  waist;  with  his 
free  hand  he  takes  several  small 
objects  from  his  pocket  and  holds 
them  up.    But  she  will  not  look. 
Alan.  Pulled  them  out  of  the  magneto, 
you  know.    More  than  enough  to  make  all 
the  trouble. 

Eve  {in  an  agony).  Never  saw  them  before 
in  my  life.  {Trying  to  snatch  the  small  objects 
out  of  his  hand).  And  you're  just  the  mean- 
est, meanest  thing! 

Alan.  Name  them,  and  you  can  have 
them. 

Eve  {demurely).  Will  you  please  give  me 
.  .  .  my  hairpins. 

[Alan  hands  them  over,  and  as 
Eve  begins  to  put  up  her  hair  he 
kisses  her. 

THE  CURTAIN 


A  Misapprehension 

MR.  COMMON  CITIZEN  stepped  into 
the  butcher  shop  with  a  do-or-die  look 
on  his  face. 

"A  pound  of  steak,"  he  ordered. 

The  steak,  mostly  bone,  was  thrown  on 
the  scales. 

"Looky  here,"  remonstrated  Mr.  Com- 
mon Citizen  in  as  firm  and  determined  a 
voice  as  he  could  command,  "you're  giving 
nvj  a  big  piece  of  bone." 

"Oh  no,  I  ain't,"  returned  the  butcher, 
blandly;  "yer  payin'  fer  it." 


Of  No  Value 

'THAT  she  was  a  nervous  little  old  lady  was 
apparent  to  the  whole  car.  When  a  young- 
woman  with  a  baby  entered  and  sat  down 
next  to  her,  her  quickly  moving  eye  detected 
immediately  that  the  child  was  placidly 
chewing  a  green  transfer. 

"Your  baby — the  transfer — look!"  she  ex- 
claimed. 

The  young  mother  hastily  rummaged  her 
hand-satchel  and  produced  a  yellow  transfer. 
"Oh,  thank  you,"  she  said.  "It's  all  right — 
that's  yesterday's  transfer;  here  is  to-day's." 


EDITOR'S  DRAWER 


969 


Scientific  Management 

MRS.  HARRISON  had  a  new  servant, 
Annie,  an  importation  from  the  Emerald 
Isle,  who  was  wholly  new  to  the  social  cus- 
toms of  this  country.  Mrs.  Harrison  gave 
her  considerable  advice  on  how  to  conduct 
herself  under  different  circumstances,  and 
hoped  for  the  best. 

One  afternoon,  while  the  mistress  was  out, 
two  society  women  motored  to  the  house  to 
make  a  call.  They  rang  the  bell  and  waited, 
but  there  was  no  answer.  They  rang  again, 
and  after  considerable  delay  the  door  was 
opened  by  Annie,  who  greeted  them  with: 

"Phwat  do  yez  want?" 

The  women  explained  that  they  had  come 
to  call  on  Mrs.  Harrison.  The  girl  said  her 
mistress  was  out,  and  added: 

"Well,  jest  stick  yer  cards  between  me 
teeth.    Oi've  been  makin'  bread." 


Thoughtfulness 

[  ITTLE  Jane  was  taken  by  her  father  to 
see  the  fireworks  Fourth  of  July  evening. 
Her  wonder  and  amazement  were  very  great. 
At  last  one  rocket  shot  into  the  sky  far 
higher  than  any  other.  In  an  awed  tone  the 
small  girl  whispered: 

"But,  daddy,  what  will  God  think  of  all 
that?"   

Lightning  Calculation 

^ YOUNG  man  in  a  desperate  hurry  rushed 
up  to  the  man  behind  the  station  lunch- 
counter.   "How  soon  can  I  have  three  three- 
minute  eggs?"  he  questioned,  breathlessly. 
"Nine  minutes!"  was  the  instant  reply. 


An  Earnest  Protest 

A  BOSTON  man  tells  of  a  trip  he  made  on 
a  coastwise  steamer  to  Baltimore  when 
the  vessel  was  wallowing  in  waves  that 
threatened  to  engulf  her  at  any  moment. 

Hastily  the  captain  ordered  a  box  of  rock- 
ets and  flares  brought  to  the  rail,  and  with 
his  own  hands  ignited  a 
number  of  them  in  the  hope 
that  they  would  be  seen  and 
help  sent. 

Amid  the  glare  of  the 
rockets,  a  tall,  thin,  austere 
woman  found  her  way  with 
difficulty  to  the  rail  and 
addressed  the  captain  thus: 

"Captain,  I  must  protest 
against  this  dare-devilish-  — »' 

ness.  We  are  now  facing 
death.  This  is  no  time  for 
a  celebration." 


Good  Reasons 

T  ITTLE  Kath  arine  came  home  from  Sun- 
day-school proudly  announcing  that  she 

had  been  promoted. 

Mother:   "But  why  did  they  promote 

you,  Katharine?" 

Katharine:   "Well,  the  teacher  said  it 

was  because  I  sat  so  still  and  listened  to 

God's  Word  so  carefully,  and  caught  on  so 

quick. 


No  Doubt 

*THE  Hennessy  twins  were 
the  trial  of  the  kinder- 
garten. One  day  when  their 
teacher  was  asking  the  other 
children  what  they  wanted 
to  be  when  they  grew  up, 
her  eye  caught  the  twins,  up 
to  mischief,  as  usual,  and 
paying  no  attention  to  the 
subject  under  discussion. 
She  turned  quickly  and 
said : 

"Mikey  Hennessy,  what 
are  you  boys  going  to  be 
when  you  grow  up?" 

"Irishmen,"  was  the 
prompt  reply. 


"  Hozv  many  dogs  have  you,  little  boy  ?" 

"  Cornelius,  count  the  dog  fer  the  gentleman." 


970 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


u  Now,  children,  say  good  night  to  everybody, 
hour  after  your  bedtime." 

11  I'm  sure  that  clock  exaggerates,  mother." 


The  Darky's  Inferno 

AN  old  negro  minister,  in  a  sermon  on  hell, 
pictured  it  as  a  region  of  ice  and  snow, 
where  the  damned  froze  through  eternity. 

"Why  do  you  tell  your  congregation  that 
hell  is  a  cold  place?"  asked  the  visiting 
bishop. 

"I  don't  dare  to  tell  them  people  nothing 
else,  bishop.  Why,  if  I  was  to  say  that  hell 
was  warm  some  of  them  old  rheumatic  nig- 
gers would  be  wanting  to  start  down  the 
first  frost." 


Presence  of  Mind 

QOURT  had  been  in 
session,  and  there 
were  a  lot  of  visiting 
lawyers  who  proved  to 
be  congenial  souls,  and 
consequently  a  little 
game  of  poker  started 
down  at  the  hotel.  A 
young  local  attorney  had 
stayed  out  several 
nights,  but  finally  the 
breakfast  -  table  argu- 
ments became  of  such  a 
nature  that  he  promised 
to  be  home  early  that 
evening.  But  the  game 
proved  too  alluring,  and 
when  he  arose  for  his  hat 
and  coat  the  clock 
showed  two-fifteen.  He 
mounted  the  front  porch 
with  much  trepidation, 
slipped  off  his  shoes, 
pulled  off  his  clothes  in 
the  hall,  slipped  into  the 
bedroom,  and  began 
crawling  into  bed  with 
the  stealth  of  experience. 

"Our  pet  dog  had  a 
habit  of  i  n  s  i  s  t  i  n  g  on 
jumping  up  on  the  bed 
on  cold  nights,"  he  con- 
fided to  a  friend  later, 
"so  when  I  began  to 
slide  under  the  covers  my 
wife  stirred  in  her  sleep 
and  pushed  me  on  the 
head.  'Get  down,  Bruno, 
get  down!'  she  said.  And  I  want  to  tell 
you,"  he  smiled,  "I  just  did  have  presence  of 
mind  enough  to  lick  her  hand,  and  she 
dozed  off  again!" 


It's  half  an 


A  Sensitive  Soul 


AMERICANS  are,  as  a  rule,' 
Chicago  man, 


In  the  Automobile  Age 

[  ITTLE  Lucile  was  subject  to  severe  colds 
in  the  head;  the  doctor  had  advised  the 
frequent  use  of  an  atomizer,  much  to  the 
little  girl's  disgust.  One  night  her  mother 
asked  her,  persuasively,  if  she  wouldn't  use 
the  unwelcome  atomizer,  to  which  Lucile 
quickly  replied: 

"Yes,  if  you'll  let  me  honk  it." 


observes  a 
sensitive  to  newspaper 
criticism,  and  I  know  of  an  extreme  case  in 
this  relation.  A  friend  of  mine,  while  edit- 
ing a  paper  in  Arizona,  received  a  communi- 
cation from  one  of  his  subscribers  that  read 
as  follows: 

"  '  Dear  Sir, — I  regret  to  inform  that  on  my  way 
home  from  the  saloon  last  evening  I  fell  into  a  po- 
litical altercation  with  Judge  Wishington,  formerly 
of  Kentucky,  in  the  course  of  which  a  slight  mis- 
understanding arose,  and  I  am  very  sorry  to  think 
that  in  the  end  I  shot  him.  I  should  add  also  that, 
carried  away  by  the  excitement,  I  also  knifed  him. 
But  I  earnestly  hope  that  no  exaggerated  account 
of  this  painful  episode  will  appear  in  the  columns 
of  your  paper.' " 


EDITOR'S  DRAWER 


971 


New  York  vs  Boston 

HTHE  Bostonian  had  become  weary  of  the 
superior  manner  in  which  the  New-Yorker 
discussed  everything  pertaining  to  his  home 
city,  so  he  thought  it  about  time  to  "boost" 
his  own  town. 

"Well,"  said  the  man  from  the  bean  city, 
"there  isn't  a  city  in  the  country  can  boast 
of  a  more  efficient  police  department  than 
Boston.  Why,  look  here,"  he  urged,  waxing 
more  enthusiastic,  "there  was  a  murder  com- 
mitted here  last  week,  and  three  hours  after- 
ward the  police  knew  all  about  it!" 

"That's  nothing,"  commented  the  other; 
"  there  was  a  murder  committed  in  New  York 
last  week  and  the  police  knew  all  about  it 
three  hours  before!" 


No  Danger 

Q  HE  was  a  very  recent  bride,  and  endeavor- 
ing to  keep  house  in  the  approved  hygienic 
manner.  Entering  a  strange  bakery  one  day, 
she  saw  a  huge  cat  put  his  paws  on  the  low 
show-window  and  vault  lightly  in  among  the 
cakes. 

"Oh,  look!"  she  exclaimed  to  the  stout 
lady  in  charge.   "Your  cat!" 

"  Dat  is  all  right,"  soothingly  replied  the 
wide  lady  with  a  wider  smile.  "Dat  is 
Henery.  He  will  hot  eat  anything;  he  chust 
schniffs  'em." 


Conservation 

"  A  ND,"  continued  the  lecturer,  "I  warrant 
you  that  there  is  not  a  man  in  this  entire 
audience  who  has  ever  lifted  his  finger  or  in 
any  way  attempted  to  stop  this  awful  waste 
of  our  forests  and  our  lumber  supply.  If 
there  is  I  want  that  man  to  stand  up." 

There  was  a  slight  commotion  in  the  rear 
of  the  room  and  a  nervous  little  man  rose  to 
the  occasion — and  his  feet. 

"And  now,  my  friend, 
will  you  explain  in  just 
what  way  you  have  con- 
served the  forests  of  our 
nation?" 

And  with  the  utmost 
gravity  and  sincerity  the 
little  man  said,  "I  have 
used  the  same  toothpick 
twice." 


Betty's  Thanksgiving  Wish 

QHE  held  the  wishbone  tight  with  me, 

And  pulled,  and  won,  exultingly. 
"Now,  Betty,  wish,"  I  said,  "for  when 
You  get  the  biggest  half,  why  then 
The  wish  you  wish  will  all  come  true. 
Now  wish,  dear,  as  we  told  you  to." 
Then  Betty  looked,  with  longing  eyes, 
At  all  the  dishes,  nuts,  and  pies, 
And,  holding  up  the  bit  of  bone, 
She  said,  with  triumph  in  her  tone, 
"All  right.    I  wish  to-morrow,  then, 
Would  be  Thanksgiving  day,  again!" 

Mary  Carolyn  Davies. 


Hard  To  Please 

VOUNG  Jock  had  just 
returned  from  a  pain- 
ful interview  with  the 
minister,  to  whom  he  had 
said,  in  reply  to  a  question, 
that  there  were  one  hun- 
dred Commandments. 
Upon  meeting  another  lad 
on  his  way  to  the  minister's 
he  asked,  "An'  if  he  asks 
you  how  many  Command- 
ments there  are,  what  will 
ye  sayr 

"Say?"  queried  the  other 
lad.    "Why,  ten,  o' course." 

"Ten!"  reiterated  the 
first  youth  in  scorn.  "Ten? 
Ye  wull  try  him  wi'  ten  ?  I 
tried  him  wi'  a  hundred  and 
he  wasna  satisfied." 


Mistress:  "  Goodness,  there  goes  the  front-door  bell!" 
Jane:  u  If  ye  don't  think  ye' re  tidy  enough,  mum,  I'll  go." 


972 


HARPER'S  MONTHLY  MAGAZINE 


Following  Instructions 

A  CHICAGO  woman  was  giv- 
ing instructions  to  her  new 
butler,  who  seemed  to  have 
but  a  faint  conception  of  the 
duties  of  a  position  for  which  he 
demanded  high  wages. 

"Remember,"  said  the  woman, 
"that,  in  announcing  meals  you 
are  to  say:  'Breakfast  is  ready/ 
'Luncheon  is  ready,"  Dinner  is 

. 

Not  long  after  the  woman 
ventured  to  experiment  on  a 
dinner  to  a  few  intimate  friends. 
Her  dismay  can  b  e  imagined 
when,  on  appearing  at  the  draw- 
ing-room door  to  announce  dinner, 
the  butler  exclaimed  in  clarion 
tones: 

"Breakfast  is  ready,  luncheon 
is  readv,  dinner  is  served." 


"  Ethel,  there's  Tommy  Smith  at  the  gate, 
he  wants  you  to  -play  with  him" 

11 1  don't  want  to  -play  with  him,  mother. 
I've  got  a  sick  headache." 


Inanimate  Objects 

MOTHER  sent  Billy  to  his  aunt's  with  a 
basket  of  peaches  for  a  surprise.  On  his 
return  she  asked: 

"What  did  Auntie 
sav  to  the  peaches, 
Billy?" 

"  Why, nothing! "  said 
the  five-year-old.  "  Peo- 
ple don't  say  things  to 
things  that  can't  talk 
back." 


The  Usual  Way 

"JOHN!"  shouted  the  wife,  in 
/  expect  the  middle  of  the  night. 

John  snored  a  bit  louder  and 
Tell  him        turned  over. 

"John!"  she  said,  with  increased 
emphasis. 

"What  is  it?"  grunted  John. 
"Get  up.    The  gas  is  leaking!" 
"Aw,  put  a  pan  under  it  and  go  back  to 
bed!" 


Unintentional 

A  FEW  days  after  a 
farmer  had  sold  a 
pig  to  a  neighbor  he 
chanced  to  pass  his  place 
and  saw  his  little  boy 
sitting  on  the  edge  of  the 
pig  -  pen,  watching  i  t  s 
new  occupant. 

"How  d'ye  do,  John- 
ny?" said  he.  "How's 
your  pig  to-day?" 

"Oh,  pretty  well, 
thank  you,"  replied  the 
boy.  "How's  all  your 
folks?" 


First  Chauffeur:  "  /  get  rattled  when  I  see  a  woman 
cross  the  street  in  front  of  me" 

Second  Chauffeur:  "  Yes,  so  do  If  they  wear  so  many 
pins  in  their  hats  and  clothes  that  it's  a  sure  puncture  if  you 
hit  one."